The Void Castle shed its usual hush; with a dozen new voices, the halls buzzed like a market at dawn.

Bai shrank behind Ouyang like a shy cat retreating to a shrine’s shadow; wherever he moved, she flowed after him like a pale stream. Helplessness pricked Ouyang’s chest like a thorn in rain; no lecture could shift Bai’s fear of strangers, not even with Augustine and the others as old visitors. In Bai’s world, everyone but Ouyang was mist without footprints; no matter how long they stayed, they slipped past like wind on water.

Once Augustine and company reported everything, the crowd ebbed like tide returning to sea. On Original Sin, if the sky fell like slate, someone higher would hold the roof; their under-god weaklings didn’t need to fret.

Fia had meant to stay, then paused like a falcon mid-flight. Her gaze cooled, and she chose to return to her Divine Kingdom, to bring all her people over like a flock crossing winter. The thought cut a chill through the room like a north wind; that harmless-looking girl carried steel under silk, rebellion steeped to the marrow. Find her father, then move a whole Divine Kingdom? That was frost blooming on stone.

When everyone left, the castle sank back into quiet, its corridors long as winter rivers. The Rabbit wandered the rooms like a gardener at dawn, eyes catching weeds like stray whiskers, trimming ill-kept leaves, straightening what sat crooked, setting each thing into calm.

Nabelia and Eika returned to their family seats, banners snapping like cranes on a ridge; they’d risen to godhood, and family burdens perched on their shoulders like snow on pines. Leticia, named by the Demon Monarch as Envoy to the Realm, had a book of duties heavy as iron; she would take root in the embassy like a lantern burning late.

So, among the servants, only the Rabbit remained—and Snow. Snow’s clan had been ground to dust in the calamity of the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts; she’d followed Xi like a moon shadow. When Xi moved into the castle, Snow settled here too, tending rooms like dew washing stone. As for the Black Butterfly—an artifact spirit birthed from one of the Twelve—she broke her chains and took to the worlds like a swallow chasing spring. The Void Castle was her lone nest, yet she returned seldom, wings drawn by far horizons.

She had once said she would see every vista under heaven, branding each scroll of scenery deep into the mind like ink into silk.

Without Nabelia and Eika, without Leticia, without the Black Butterfly, the Void Castle became truly quiet, like a lake under stars.

“Next, there’s only Jue,” Ouyang murmured, closing another book with a breath like dust settling. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes like thunder under cloud. “That curse on him is too ancient; I’ve scoured the library, and it’s all fog.”

If Jue’s curse could be undone, their side would gain a blade of strength, bright and keen. Because of the curse, through endless years, Jue never rose beyond the apex of godhood, a mountain held under a seal. Of all the ages Ouyang knew, only that Ancient Turtle stood older; then came Jue, a stone older than storms.

In history, the Demon Kings had been sealed for long winters. Their power didn’t climb during the lock, yet their understanding took root like old pines gripping cliff. In the first years after they broke seal, it barely showed; but as the ‘Source’ World shifted like dunes, as the World Alliance spread like rivers braiding, rare things flowed in like amber washed ashore. They no longer hunted tools and materials like miners in night; within the ‘Source’ they found them with a hand’s sweep. A hundred years under rich skies, and their strength ‘recovered’ like a forest after fire.

Among the Demon Kings, Devila, Bartley, Eunice, and Valiant were later woven in by Ouyang. The original cadre had long touched Realm God heights; Rex, for one, was already eyeing that summit like a hawk watching sunlit cliffs.

Jue, the Second Demon King, had endured for an era beyond the Other Shore calendar—an age further back than footprints in stone. He had gathered power like a reservoir filling through centuries, from that ancient morning until now. If the curse were cut, what heights would he climb, what bell would he ring?

Jue had once confided to Ouyang: he intended to sound the world’s paean.

An apex god daring to speak of the world’s song? If anyone else said it, Ouyang would have laughed like rain on a drum. Even the God Emperor or the Sovereign, back when they were at apex, would’ve earned a smile and a shake of the head. But the speaker was Jue.

Of the oldest known beings, there were two. One, the Ancient Turtle, a Third Tiered Being, old as moonlight on ruins. The other, Jue. Without that curse, Jue might have stood as the turtle did, aloof above all rivers and laws. Even the Supreme Law, even the Heaven Departing Divine Sword, would yield when no absolute interest cut across their path.

“Curious, isn’t it, that I said that to Jue?” Ouyang turned to Xi with a smile like mist hiding mountains.

Jue’s state stumped even Litian and the others, like an oracle written in waves. Perhaps that Ancient Turtle knew a few lines more, yet even he likely lacked a remedy. “That kind of curse—Supreme Law or the Heaven Departing Divine Sword could glimpse a thread. Not breaking it, but a hope glimmering like dawn.

“And yet a chorus of Tiered Beings can’t see a thing.”

“If I’m right, Jue’s curse was set by an Administrator.” Ouyang’s voice dropped, steady as a river at night. “Across the epochs, this universe shows no marks of an Administrator’s hand. But the curse on Jue reeks of that craft. That means the Administrator doesn’t belong to this universe’s loom.”

He had seen an Administrator once—Mapleleaf.

Back on the First Continent, Mapleleaf had called himself Administrator, and no one understood the title, like hearing thunder under a bright sky. Then Ouyang entered that strange Dream-World. In that world of pale horizons, he felt like null itself, a wind with no body. In that vast space, he met the traitor he’d first seen in the Little Overlord’s treasure vault, a Tiered Being strong as iron. Banished by Li to the Eternal Spacetime, the man crossed paths with Ouyang again in that endless chamber.

Then, like flicking ash, Ouyang snuffed him out; he had no body, no limbs—no, it felt like the vastness itself was his body, a sea of void bearing one thought. One thought, and the traitor fell like a star gone dark. After that, a familiar voice rang, and Mapleleaf kicked him back like a boot to the threshold. He woke like a diver breaking the surface.

On his hand lay a mark, the kind only earned by killing a Tiered Being; it burned faintly like a brand in moonlight. The “dream” had teeth on reality.

Later years saw Ouyang study it, and more than once he slipped back into that Dream state, only to be kicked out again and again like a guest at closing time.

So, Jue’s curse might bear an Administrator’s signature, but the ages had gnawed at its chains like salt at iron. If Ouyang moved just right, a wisp of Administrator power would be enough to unlock it, a needle through a knot.

Because he had touched that shape before, confidence settled on him like a cloak; he carried his own method in his bones.

Xi caught his secretive air and let it pass, tossing him a sideways glance like a willow flicking rain. In recent years, Ouyang still joked at times, yet his aura had settled, deepened, a hidden edge that pricked the heart like cold steel. Xi had been a Third Tiered Being once; to recover that height would take ten thousand, a million years of slow healing, like mountains regrowing forests. But she’d stood there, wind in her hair. She didn’t pry; his change meant strength rising, and she could worry less, like a lamp blown out at dawn.

As Ouyang weighed those deep matters, a prayer flickered in the back of his mind like a candle behind paper. In the past, he could only sense a rough direction, a fog on the compass. Now, he could lock a coordinate like a pin on a map, and cast his projection straight through like an arrow through cloud.

The prayer’s cadence was familiar, an old river he’d walked. It chanted the oldest edition of the Void Canon, the only one Ouyang wrote by his own hand; later versions were Collin’s weaving. That first text remained etched deepest, a blade-edge in memory. So this praying soul was his follower.

“Interesting.” His smile warmed like tea at dusk. “Such devout prayer crossed countless worlds like a bell over valleys. That’s a gift only the legendary zealots carried.”

In the ‘Source’ World, gods had become many, like stars on a winter field. The word “god” no longer meant the imperial-age omnipotent, the one who turned sun and moon, who weighed life and death. Zealots had almost vanished, like rare birds in noisy cities.

Yet here he received a zealot’s prayer, and curiosity rose like mist over water. A follower was family in the temple of faith; if unknown, so be it, but now that he’d heard, he would descend a projection and look.

That was the plan, clear as a path under snow—until big-mouthed Kooson dropped by for a chat, learned the tale, and let it fly like seeds on wind. Soon, every Demon King knew. The idle kings wanted to tag along, stirring the pot like carp in a pond.

In that instant, Ouyang felt ten thousand alpacas stampede across a boundless steppe, hooves drumming like drums of war. He’d only wanted to quietly descend a projection, to glimpse the believer whose devotion burned like a lantern. Then someone blared the news, and the whole mountain heard.

Could they even play in peace now?

They argued like rain and thunder, then settled. No true bodies; projections only.

Since a group outing was rare, Jue raised an idea, neat as game pieces on a board.

“I think if our projections drop straight into that world, it’s dull,” he said, voice calm as stone. “We should descend onto the world’s dream layer and each find a vessel willing to sign a pact…”

Jue’s rules rolled out like a red scroll. If they wanted to project into that world, they must first find, in the spirit realm, someone willing to sign a pact with them. Fail within the allotted time, and you’re out—game over, like a candle snuffed.

The core was simple: fifteen Demon Kings and fifteen contractors would race to gather demon crystal shards scattered across that world, like pearls lost in sand. Whichever side completed the set would use the crystal to make a wish, a star bottled.

For the contractors, a wish was a prize bright as dawn. For the Demon Kings, victory itself was the laurel and wine. As for that demon crystal—it was only a low-grade godhead, brittle as cheap glass. Crush it, toss it into that world, and let the game begin.