Blue hills, green waters—an endless forest rolled like a sleeping beast. At its heart, a boundless sea of flowers breathed like a painted tide.

“Awaken, my children.”

An emerald spark bloomed, a dew-drop of light that spread like spring rain. The whole flower sea drank it in. Every blossom under the green veil twisted and swelled—petals unfurled into maws, tender buds turned into massive Man-eating Flowers, clear viscous threads dripped from serrated mouths like spider silk.

The culprit was a wish-fiend—Yulan. She couldn’t cross worlds to summon minions like Glenza, but she could infect the local flora. Root by root, she rewrote them. Hand-brew your own army instead of summoning abroad—how could that be against the rules?

In a hidden hollow, Yulan stood as her Man-eating Flower ranks rustled restlessly, petals like helmets, vines like spears, itching to creep toward the human kingdom.

Annoyance pricked first. “I have to drag a human onto this pirate ship… what a stupid rule.” Her gaze swept the hills of snapping maws, yet her brow tightened. She still hadn’t found a human to join this “game.” When seven days ran dry, she’d be tossed out. Plainly put, she still didn’t have a ticket in.

Elsewhere, in a wasteland so bare even birds wouldn’t stop to poop, laughter clacked like bones.

“Gak-gak… who can stand against my Bone-Sea tactic? I, the Mew-King, ask you!”

From a great black maw in the earth, skeletons surged like a pale tide. They wore matching bone mail and carried matching blades. Behind the “infantry,” came “cavalry”—human-shaped skeletons on skeletal horses, lances under ragged pennants, grim and grand as frost-bitten banners.

“Those morons think I’ll slip and summon a god-tier skeleton. Heh. Me, the Mew-King, make such a rookie mistake?”

The Lich Glenza was cloaked head to foot in shadow. Jet-black finger bones gripped a black bone staff. Inside his skull, two flames of life danced like twin will-o’-wisps. At his side stood a man with bowed head, spilling praise like cheap wine.

“Your Majesty the Lich King will surely succeed! Those so-called fourteen champions are mist in your path. Once we seize the Wish Crystal, you’ll rule the Nether and the mortal realm—an undying myth.”

The middle-aged man was named Afelai. He was the human who agreed to join Glenza in the scramble for the Wish Crystal.

“Wish Crystal? What’s that?”

The question popped out before his mind caught up. When it did, Glenza froze, then forced a cough. The “Wish Crystal” hadn’t gripped his attention at all. Like the other Demon Kings, he found the routine boring—gather fragments, forge a whole crystal, win by the book. Only blockheads like Kooson and Valiant might trot after shards like good boys.

Precisely because Glenza didn’t care, he blurted, “Wish Crystal? What thing?” without thinking.

“Kid, run with me. You’ll get one wish.”

To paste over the gaffe, Glenza threw Afelai a sweet.

“Yes, yes. Your Majesty won’t forget my humble service…”

Submission showed on Afelai’s face, but his eyes were thundercloud dark. He had never believed Glenza. Glenza didn’t need belief either. He only needed a human “ticket” to enter the game. The rest, he didn’t bother to notice.

Suspicion curdled first. “Damn it—‘you’ll grant me a wish’? Do I look three years old? You just asked what the crystal is. Planning to hog it, aren’t you?” Afelai knew he was no saint, but he hadn’t expected Glenza to be worse. The Fifteen Champions of the Nether came here for the Wish Crystal, didn’t they?

Yet Glenza had asked what it was, plain as day. The subtext? “Wish Crystal? Never heard of it.” Then his promise would evaporate—no crystal, no wish. The plan smelled like playing dumb and swallowing the prize whole.

Absolutely.

Afelai was crooked, so his lens on others was crooked too. He decided on the spot that Glenza would steal his wish.

“Hmph. My whole life, I’ve only conned others. I’ve never been conned. You bag of bones, just wait. I need you to gather fragments for now. Once the shards are piled high… we’ll see who owns the crystal.”

Plots hummed in his chest like hornets, but his face stayed docile, a servant’s mask smooth as clay.

Luckily for Afelai, Glenza didn’t know. Or he might have coughed up flame. Glenza was a Realm God; would he break his oath for a shabby divinity?

Whatever the truth, a seed of mistrust had been sown—small as a thorn, sharp as winter.

Back to Ouyang, in Lesenya’s palace, inside Jiu Wenxin’s study. A knot sat in his chest as he flipped through books, bored hands skimming dusty leaves. By chance, he noticed something odd.

A century ago, this world seemed to have suffered a civilizational break. Yet neither the books nor the people—Jiu Wenxin included—seemed aware of it.

He opened volume after volume; most records were a diary of the last hundred years. Two hundred years, three hundred… a thousand… those spans were blank, like fogged glass. It was unscientific and eerie, a dream that refused to wake even when it bent logic.

Stranger still, the Void Codex Ouyang had authored had appeared in this world. He had never found a reasonable path for that.

In Jiu Wenxin’s telling, she received it in a dream. The dream itself had faded like mist at dawn; she only remembered a figure gifting her the book. The figure’s final word was clear as a bell: Hope.

She remembered only that word—hope.

Curiosity pricked first. “Hope? As in, placing hope? With this world’s absurd seams, is it nudging Jiu Wenxin to pray and call a Void Messenger to mend the weave?”

If his true body descended, Ouyang might see clean through the knots at a glance. For now, he was only a projection.

He chose to set it aside. First finish the Demon Kings’ game. After that, his true body would come down. Answers would be waiting like stones at low tide.

While Ouyang sifted thoughts, Jiu Wenxin returned. Earlier she’d brought the message: the palace’s Lord Mage wished to summon Ouyang. Ouyang hadn’t spared him a glance. He told Jiu Wenxin to tell the mage to come to him instead.

She must have delivered it, then hurried back.

“How’d that filthy mage reply?”

“First Champion, the Lord Mage says… he wants you to go to him.”

Heat flared first. “What? That filthy mage really thinks he’s somebody? I should go to him? He wants to see me, and now it looks like I’m chasing him?” His voice snapped like a banner in wind. “Tell him: come if he wants, or don’t. I’m not playing house. If I carve time from a packed schedule to see him, that’s his fortune. He wants to see me and expects me to go to him? Am I some errand boy you can whistle for?”

Ouyang burned. He was the First Demon King. He’d already been generous, dropping the pomp. If the mage wanted a meeting, fine—come yourself. To demand Ouyang go grovel? How could he not flare?

You’re a “big man,” and I’m what—a small one?

Ire mounted like rising thunder. A six-pointed sigil bloomed before him, lines bright as ice, and a girl with dragon wings stepped from the hexagram, light trailing like scales. “Bai, see our guest out.”

Bai didn’t care whose study it was. Two kitchen knives appeared in her hands like moonlit cleavers, and she leveled them at Jiu Wenxin with pure, clueless focus. Jiu Wenxin yelped and fled like a startled sparrow. She didn’t expect Ouyang to remember she owned the room.

Why Bai? A hunch moved first. Ouyang felt Bai’s presence would help. Besides, Bai wasn’t his minion. Bai was his Guardian Angel, his companion spirit; in some ways, they were one body, one breath. Ouyang, ever crafty, pressed her power below divine before summoning. Dongze, a Tiered Being, noticed and didn’t judge Ouyang out of bounds.

You could say these Demon Kings were all threading loopholes like needles.

“Why the kitchen knives?”

Ouyang frowned at the cleavers. In his mind, Bai never used weapons—especially not offbeat ones like kitchen knives.

“Aurora said, if I see girls around you, I must chase them off with kitchen knives.” Bai explained with cloudless innocence. Her pure face tugged a twitch from Ouyang’s mouth.

“Aurora also said, if you send me back, it means you’re guilty.”

He almost tripped mid-spell. He knew it—he took a mere projection for a walk, and Xi still planted eyes at his side.

“When will this end?”

Relief landed first, and it came fast—a knock of fate at the door. He didn’t need to stew over Aurora’s “eyes” any longer.

Lesenya’s consecrated Lord Mage finally came in person to meet Ouyang, the “champion from the depths of the Nether.” In the mages’ schema, the Nether didn’t exist at all. Even those steeped in mystery had never heard of it.

So he came to measure Ouyang, to see what manner of being stood before him.