This world was uncanny, skewed; even a Realm God like Fia couldn’t feel the coordinates outside, like iron bars woven from void, no exit.

Helplessness rose like cold tide; Fia probed the fabric of space, hunting a seam, yet the place was riddles upon riddles, like misted mirrors.

If anything compared, only the Other Shore felt this close—another midnight maze stitched from silence and secrets.

Ocean, sand, a night sky drenched in starlight, like silver rain strewn across ink.

Boredom pressed like damp wind, so they raised a sand castle meters tall, a dune-born keep under the whispering stars.

They lay upon their sand ramparts, watching the sea breathe, watching pillars of starlight dip and rise, watching star-glow spill like paint.

Restlessness ebbed like a tide going out; years of fighting in the Divine Kingdom quieted, old memories folding like paper cranes, futures sighing shut.

“Looks like your agitated hearts finally calmed.” The voice was airy as wind-bells, drifting through the hush; everyone jolted and turned.

On the sea, someone walked toward them, feet on the waves, wrapped in endless star-glow like a dark comet.

A black cloak swallowed her figure; only strands of long black hair streamed like ink in water.

Each step fell, and ripples nested across the surface like rings of glass; behind her, a phantom wheel winked in and out.

Chains crisscrossed that wheel, a lattice of fate; each chain bound a bronze door, runes dim like sleeping embers.

Through those doors, they glimpsed a corridor stretching long as winter nights, both sides lined with bronze doors like scales.

“At first I didn’t know why that guy sent you here. Now, a few threads make sense,” she said, voice soft as falling ash.

Black cloak, sigil of shattered stars and moon—Augustine’s heart tightened like a drawn bow; Ouyang, the black-robed slayer of the Divine Kingdom, and this woman shared a banner.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Yaoxue, Watcher of Fate and Hope. In the Corridor of Fate, I saw your destinies—alien to this age.”

Another being who read their future-birth with ease; Augustine’s curiosity swelled like smoke, wondering how deep Ouyang’s organization ran.

“Yaoxue-jie… are you the master of this world?” Fia kept it light, sweetness masking worry, like a cat rubbing your hand.

The presence felt supreme yet warm; no killing intent pricked like ice. If not an enemy, best to weave goodwill like silk.

Fia looked like the perfect good girl, eyes bright as dew. Yaoxue smiled, stroked her hair, and her touch was spring rain.

“Not at all. I promised that guy I’d guard the Boundless Sea awhile. Besides, the Boundless Sea recognizes no master.”

Yaoxue, Watcher of Fate and Hope—Fia’s memory flickered like lanterns; Ouyang had lectured on the Other Shore, and the library’s histories echoed.

In the Third Era, five of the Seven Watchers died, so the tales said; Fate and Hope slept in the Boundless Sea, matching this scene.

Which meant they had reached the Third Era; they leapt from the twilight of the Second to the dusk of the Third, a whole era bridged.

Yet histories are fog, not crystal; some truths warp like reflections in ripples.

For instance, Yaoxue came by promise to guard the Boundless Sea; the texts never etched that nuance.

“You’ve wondered why that guy slid you into this era yet never came,” she said, voice smooth as tea.

“It’s not that he refused; your traces were erased, and time’s power began to correct. You vanished from his memory like smoke.”

“Luckily, he foresaw it, laid groundwork in advance, so you were transmitted into the Boundless Sea, sheltered like boats in harbor.”

They finally understood; he had forgotten them, memory trimmed by time like winter pruning.

Fia recounted the scene of their transit, and a bad thread unraveled; someone else crossed with them from the future.

The one who looked so much like Loyin, a shadow sewn from familiar cloth, stepping between years like black silk.

“That one knows the rules of time cold,” Yaoxue said, smile still gentle as dusk. “She slipped back as Original Sin fell.”

“She devoured a portion of Original Sin; because she’s future-born, time moved to correct that error, covering her existence like snowfall.”

“She stole from this era without footprints; memory of her dissolved, so no one could catch the thief in the fog.”

No matter the tale, Yaoxue remained serene, a soft smile like moonlight on a lake.

She solved their largest knot, explaining why she remembered while others could not; the Boundless Sea floats outside time like a lantern in void.

Within it, she kept those memories like pressed flowers; leave it, and time would correct the “errors” in her mind.

“To swallow power of Original Sin—she’s no simple creature. At your time node, the harm may bloom like wildfire.”

“Under a scarred night sky, the calamity of Original Sin might ignite once more. When you return, you’ll have work like storm clouds.”

She laughed lightly; her voice fell like feathers, gentle yet clear.

“He did this to stop the future-born creature traveling with you. Pity—time corrected his memory, a siege from inside.”

The “he” needed no name; they all knew the black-robed man who butchered the Divine Kingdom, a blade hidden in dusk.

Even he, whose mastery of time was terrifying like a glacier, couldn’t evade correction; Augustine felt his heart knock like drums.

Questions rose like a flock—about the shattered star-and-moon order, about the Boundless Sea’s nature—but Yaoxue didn’t open that door.

“All right. It’s time to send you to the time node you should reach. I hope we meet again in some far future.”

Starlight thickened like milk; wind-chimes sang; snowflakes wafted; a phantom clock turned; gears clicked like silver teeth.

Everything around them twisted like braided glass; they felt lost in the river of time, drifting like leaves.

They blinked, and a flat wasteland spread, empty as a bleached bone.

They looked up; no sun burned, yet a piercing cold wind knifed their chests like ice shards.

Hee-hee.

A ghostly giggle detonated in their souls; far away, a little girl in a black princess dress watched with a wicked smile like a crescent blade.

Her blood-red pupils gleamed with madness, twin coals in a winter grate; the shadow flicked and vanished like a bat.

The wasteland lay bare again, emptiness like a held breath; nothing seemed to have happened, only silence falling like ash.

Above, scarlet Divine Bloom petals drifted down, like embers snowing from a bruised sky.

“This is… the Divine Continent!” Fia’s voice carried awe like a bell in fog.

They realized Yaoxue hadn’t sent them to the Ninth Era but back to the Second—the past spread like a frozen lake.

They looked toward the horizon, and understanding struck like dawn; not far stood the Endless Plateau, a slab against the sky.

Fia felt the click of pieces; she’d thought returning to the Endless Plateau meant reaching the “Evil God World,” yet the plateau lay within the Divine Continent.

A distant stele, carved in ancient god-script, read: Endless Plateau, characters like mossed thunder.

“So the later Endless Plateau was moved to that world. Long ago, before it was shifted, it lived inside the Divine Continent.”

Fia’s gratitude toward Yaoxue warmed like tea; without her, they’d chase shadows in the “Evil God World.”

Everything began at the Endless Plateau; everything should end at the Endless Plateau, a circle closed like a ring.

What was the Endless Plateau like in ages past? Why was it moved to another world, uprooted like a mountain-tree?

The closer they drew, the sharper their curiosity, minds buzzing like bees.

Entering the plateau, they saw the difference; back then, the Endless Plateau wore green, grass thick as velvet.

Flowers flanked the sole path, roadside blooms like scattered lanterns; ancient trees lined both sides, perfectly symmetrical like mirrored spears.

Fia’s worry rippled like gooseflesh. “From the look of it, the Endless Plateau has a master.”

The later desolation felt like aftermath; perhaps its master fell in that great calamity, a hearth gone dark.

Then an object screamed from the distance, and with it, a boundless sword-light cleaved the horizon like lightning.

The object smashed into the plateau, gouging a crater like a punched drum; the sword-light swept and halved the plateau cleanly.

A mysterious power surged from the pit, a lifting force like unseen hands; it shrouded the plateau and raised its upper half.

The sky above twisted, a forming passage like a whirlpool in space; the distant enemy failed to stop it, their reach a step short.

The Endless Plateau slid into the vast spatial tunnel like a slab through a gate, vanishing into elsewhere.

When the dust settled, the plateau descended into another world, a landfall like a dropped star.

They stood stunned, minds blank as white pages; so this was why the plateau moved to the “Evil God World.”

They’d thought there was intricate design, gears upon gears; instead, the story was a clean cut, simple as flight.

Chased, so it ran—was it really just that simple?