“Jiangxue, finally found you…” Morris staggered to her side, breath sawing like a bellows, fatigue clinging like lead. The thought of facing his nemesis Neo next tightened around his skull like a vice.

At the lakeside, Jiangxue turned; seeing Morris, her smile broke like sunlight on ripples.

After a brief brush with this world, Jiangxue had learned Morris wasn’t a true god, yet her affection held like a small lantern in fog. In this alien land, at her loneliest hour, Morris and Belle had been the first faces in the rain.

“Lord Morris, you look rushed, like wind at your heels. Is there an emergency?”

As a powerless mortal, she kept herself small, and “lord” felt natural, like bowing before a temple gate. Her reply snagged Neo’s attention; he glanced back, saw an acquaintance, and laughed, bright and sharp as a knife.

“So it’s the little War God.” Morris’s family claimed descent from war gods, and as the brightest talent of his line, he’d earned that title like a crest upon armor.

In the Aup World, he’d brush it off like dust on a sleeve.

In the Yuan World, he didn’t dare wear that mantle; it burned like a brand.

There, the sky’s prodigies—those who once hunted the God-Demon Artifact—stood like mountains under thunder.

Augustine was said to be only years from stepping into Demigod, like a climber nearing the peak.

In other worlds, Sky Level meant Demigod, a badge like a laurel.

In the Yuan World, a Demigod could raise a hand toward a god’s throne, like reaching for a star.

Augustine aside, Morris had heard of the legend Sheila, a name like a bell in the night.

A true Demigod, rumored to seal her divinity beneath a starry sky any day now, like ink drying on a decree.

Young yet, perhaps not even thirty, a blade still gleaming from the forge.

Neo knew that too. In the Aup World, the title might pass like a breeze. In the Yuan World, saying it to Morris was pure mockery, a thorn slid under the skin.

For a beat, the two glared, eye to eye like drawn blades. The air soured like milk; even Jiangxue felt the shift. She wanted to speak, but fear cooled her tongue like frost. A mortal had no right to meddle in quarrels between those who moved like gods, clouds clashing over peaks.

Morris held Neo’s stare for a few heartbeats, pulse drumming like war taps. He didn’t have time for a pissing match. He turned to Jiangxue, steadying himself like a keel in chop. “Miss Jiangxue, we have a lead on your homeland. Next, we must go to Miracle City. First, let’s wait at the hotel for Belle to return.”

Jiangxue moved with him, quiet as a shadow by water. Neo stepped in front, blocking their path with a grin as shiny and false as lacquer.

“Miss Jiangxue, you promised to go on a date with me. You can’t just walk off,” he sang, sweet as spoiled fruit.

A date? Morris’s spell let Jiangxue understand him through any tongue, words flowing like water, but when had she agreed? Morris saw her blank look and knew Neo was inventing excuses, paper-thin. Real or not didn’t matter; if Neo could stall Morris, he’d call it a win, like dragging an anchor.

Morris had seen this a hundred times. Neo had been a burr in his boot for ages, pricking like thorns. But today, Neo felt like a hand at his throat. If he couldn’t get Jiangxue to Miracle City on time, if he kept the gods waiting, Morris would be finished, cut off like a candle in wind.

He wanted to play it cool, to spar for a few hundred rounds, a dance of blades. But this was different; it involved gods—a whole host of them, stars crowding the dome. Urgency bled across his face like ink in water. Neo saw it and savored it, like tasting ripe fruit.

“Sir, I never promised you anything.” Jiangxue didn’t know their grudge; she simply thought Neo had mistaken a casual chat. Her voice went cold, a thin blade meant to correct him.

“No, no… Miss, you clearly agreed. How do you blink once and run off with another man? A person needs honesty. You promised me first, and now you ditch me because he’s prettier?” Neo’s voice swelled, a drum meant to stir trouble.

“You…” Jiangxue trembled, like a reed in wind; she hadn’t met a person like this. She’d given no promise; Neo had only tried to flirt, a moth at a lamp.

Morris pulled her aside, reading Neo’s aim—if he couldn’t beat you, he’d nauseate you, like smoke blown in a face. “Ignore him. We’re leaving.”

He led Jiangxue a different way, slipping past Neo’s block like water around a stone.

“Trying to leave? You two think you can stroll off after slapping a green hat on me?” Neo barked, voice cracking like a whip. “Hey, everyone—do you think this cheating pair should just walk away?”

The crowd heard him clear as bells. He waved his hand, and several servants ringed Morris and Jiangxue like stakes. “Not without an explanation, you home-wrecking couple! You don’t get to leave!”

The crowd thickened, layer on layer, a tide of bodies locking them in. Neo twisted the space around them like clay, and Morris couldn’t blink away with spatial magic, wings clipped.

Noise churned like a pot at boil. Then a wedge opened in the sea of people, splitting like surf. A group of figures in black cloaks cut through, from hood to heel swallowed by shadow. Torches in their left hands hissed, flames licking like tongues. Iron chains in their right hands dangled and clinked. Three identical symbols—F on the left, F on the front, F on the right—bled red across their cloaks. The FFF Brotherhood had arrived, like a storm at noon.

“Holy—those FFF lunatics. High alert. Couples, scatter!” someone yelped, voice flapping like a flag. The crowd thinned fast, leaving mostly singles, no hand-in-hand sweethearts.

One cloaked figure stepped forward, torch swaying, chain swinging like a pendulum. “Where’s the dog couple? We got a report of a couple doing PDA on-site, and even staging a White Album-style love drama.”

Another scanned the area, rage crackling like dry brush. “Damn fools. White Album drama—kill on sight!”

On the spot, Morris shielded Jiangxue behind him, a wall in a gale. Neo’s crew stood opposite, easy to read as bullies pushing Jiangxue until Morris stepped in—a classic hero-saving-the-damsel tableau painted in public glare like a mural.

“Officer, here’s what happened…” Morris thought they were city guards keeping order, wardens under the sun. He explained in quick strokes. Neo, seeing the black cloaks, felt his heart drop like a stone into cold water.

“Mm. Got the gist,” the lead said, voice flat as slate. “In short, a quarrel sparked by a woman. That’s a tidy love triangle. Love triangles—White Album-tier—we execute, clean as a cut. Worse than PDA.”

Clang-clang, clang-clang. Iron chains sang as the black-cloaked circle tightened, step by steady step, like a noose. Morris and Neo both froze a heartbeat, then exchanged a shocked look, eyes flashing like flint.

Good guys should help Morris. Bad guys should help Neo. Why were these ones set to net them all, like fishermen tossing a wide drag?

Had this happened here before, watched like theater? The crowd’s faces said yes, eager as lanterns.

Chains kept whipping the shield. Cracks spidered wider, like ice in thaw. Despair crept in, cold as dusk.

Then someone shouted, “City Enforcement’s here!” The cry cut like a horn.

In an instant, the black cloaks snapped their chains up in perfect sync, dissolved into the crowd like smoke, and vanished. As they fled, they chanted:

“Long live the FFF Brotherhood!”

“Eradicate every hetero couple!”

“City Enforcement are idiots!”

“One day we’ll put the City Enforcement under trial!”

The slogans weren’t exactly in unison, but Morris caught every barb like thorns. He stood blinking, utterly lost. What in all worlds had just happened?

Having shared a brush with disaster, Neo had no mood left to needle him, his bile spent. Morris was out of time anyway. He took Jiangxue to the grand hotel, its doors towering like gates. That delay with Neo and the black cloaks had pushed the day toward noon, shadows short as knives.

No time for a full explanation. When Belle returned, he told her to take Jiangxue to buy clothes, plans laid like tiles. Choosing outfits was Belle’s blade; Morris trusted her to find something perfect, silk to fit starlight.

Then the headache hit. He remembered Belle’s shopping habits—time-devouring, focus like a hunter’s hawk. Once she started, everything else slipped away, leaving only the chase for beauty, bright as plum blossoms.

With that thought burning like a brand, Morris bolted out of the hotel, feet beating like hooves. He had to find Belle and Jiangxue, fast as a hawk stooping.