Black light speared into the heavens, and a black whirlpool opened in the clouds like an ink stain spreading in water.

“What… what kind of setup is this?” Glenza was thrown off balance, thoughts scattering like leaves in a gale. He didn’t remember fifteen shards doing this. In their plan, once all shards were gathered, the victor was decided. They would tell the truth to the last one standing, then grant that person a wish.

So what, exactly, was he seeing now?

“Divine Dragon, come out!”

Before Aflai, a complete black diamond crystal floated, its radiance a pillar that pierced the sky like a midnight spear.

“Hahahaha… hahaha… hahahahaha!”

He howled with laughter, heart pounding like war drums. He’d bet right. He was the true winner. A wish-granting dragon—fifteen shards to summon it. Judging by the omen, the magcrystal hadn’t lied.

“Divine Dragon, my first wish is this: I want you to grant all my wishes from now on!”

A dragon’s head pushed through the black clouds like a mountain cresting a tide. A black dragon, oversized sunglasses on its snout, a pipe clamped between its teeth. Whoosh—the dragon blew a massive smoke ring, a pale halo rolling across the gloom.

That… was the dragon that grants wishes?

A long silence hung like frost. The dragon didn’t answer. Aflai assumed it hadn’t heard and shouted again, throat raw and bright as a flare. “Divine Dragon, the one who summoned you—me, Aflai—wants you to grant all my future wishes!”

Whoosh.

The dragon exhaled smoke at Aflai like a lazy breeze, then kept smoking in the clouds, shades on, pipe glowing ember-red in the dark.

Maybe he’d phrased it wrong. Aflai frowned, then switched targets. “Divine Dragon, my first wish is this: I want to be strong. Unbelievably strong. Ridiculously, impossibly strong. So strong, so, so—”

This time, the dragon finally reacted. It nodded once, calm as a drifting moon. Then it unraveled into black light and vanished. A black diamond crystal shot toward Aflai, a streak like a falling star, and burrowed into his chest.

“Urrgh… I feel it… a primordial flood raging in me, about to break the dam…” Aflai didn’t even know why he said something that weird. But when the magcrystal sank into him, power surged like a storm tide he’d never known.

He threw one punch, and space shattered like thin ice on a winter pond.

“Hahaha… you dogshit Wumiao King, you think I’m scared now? Come on, show up right here! And you, Lich King—watch me beat you into a Wumiao King!”

The swell was intoxicating. Aflai felt like a god crowned by thunderheads. He felt like the one who would rule the world.

“I’m a god… I can do anything!”

He reached toward the sky. With a light wave, heaven’s face changed color. “Night and day shift with my single thought. Life and death bend beneath my will.”

One taste of that power, and he couldn’t put the cup down. The sweetness hooked like wine on an empty stomach.

“Wumiao King! Come out! Crawl to me! Lick my toes!”

Now that he held this force, only Glenza registered as a real threat. The rest were stray dogs and alley cats, not worth a glance. Even Glenza didn’t weigh much in his mind.

Far away, Glenza—dragged into this for no reason—flared with anger like a torch in dry grass. He’d provoked no one. Yet someone had picked him.

He marched with an army of rotting flesh, a tide of carrion rolling over the land. Only then did he realize the troublemaker was an acquaintance.

That title, Wumiao King, was half his own self-mockery and half a jest other Demon Kings used. As for outsiders, there was nothing to discuss. Call him that, and suffer his wrath like standing under a falling mountain.

“A mere mortal. You really think you can defy the heavens?”

He hadn’t figured out what exactly was going on, but that didn’t stop him from schooling a cocky fledgling who didn’t know the height of the sky.

Battle came sudden as a summer squall. Endless corpses clawed up from the ground like weeds after rain. As a Lich, Glenza kept his habit: send in a wave of small fry to scout, always.

This wasn’t his true body. His power was capped. Even so, they fought from one end of the world to the other, shattering nations like clay pots along the way.

Under a dim sky and over a world of ruins, Archmage Omalihas let out a deep sigh, the sound like wind through an empty hall. Beside him, the witch Tico hovered in the air. Unlike her usual look, she wore a phosphorescent robe today, and the loneliness on her face was a pale moon behind clouds.

“It’s returned… everything’s replaying the calamity from a hundred years ago.”

The Archmage sighed again. A few days ago, a blank in his memory had suddenly filled. Some rule that bound all this seemed broken. Past memories came flooding back like a high tide over old stones.

A hundred years ago, a Demon King walked the mortal world. After he reduced all living things to ash and misery, the world’s Guardian fought to protect this realm. In the end, the Guardian used their life to seal the enemy away, along with everything from that century-old era.

So for nearly a hundred years, no one mentioned that time. The rules made their minds sidestep those questions. In their deep subconscious, that period was sealed, and did not exist.

“Since we can recall it now, the seal made by the Guardian’s life has broken. The Demon King from a hundred years ago has escaped.”

Tico kept silent, then nodded, her assent a snowflake falling.

Today’s scene mirrored the old disaster, but with a twist. Back then, the Demon King slaughtered without restraint. Now, Aflai hadn’t lost himself to senseless killing. The destruction came from his fight with Glenza.

“Is history going to repeat?”

Tico tipped up her witch’s hat, silver six-pointed stars turning in her pupils like frost in a scrying bowl.

“Tico… you followed that Guardian. You’ve seen more than I. What do we do now? Is this world… truly hopeless?” The Archmage sounded spent, his spirit like a burnt-out wick. A century ago, the disaster plunged this world into a darkness never seen. Countless civilizations crumbled to ash. That age had shone brighter than today.

And now, setting aside the ancient Demon King, the two present fighters were still tearing the world like a storm rips sails.

“Hope… the final hope.” Tico looked to the sky, where clouds moved like migrating beasts. “Those so-called ‘warriors’ are the last hope. The outcome here was set from the start. What we should fear is the one from a hundred years ago.”

The victor was decided the moment the board was set.

Aflai, like Baruya, had immense power he couldn’t truly tame. He held a god’s force, but in a real fight, Glenza’s Demigod projection was enough. In fact, Glenza was deliberately holding himself to Demigod strength against Aflai.

“Gahaha… kid, I gotta say, you’re trash.” Glenza stood on a colossal bone dragon, its skull-lantern burning with soul-flame, a sun in a graveyard. Divine-level, without a doubt. “Here’s a fact: that magcrystal? Just junk we tossed out.”

“One underling of mine can beat you till your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”

The bone dragon roared. The shockwave hit like a falling cliff and drove Aflai stumbling back.

“Impossible… the magcrystal’s power is invincible. You’re lying. You must’ve found a way to jam it.” Aflai’s eyes shook like candle flames. Weren’t those ‘warriors’ killing each other over magcrystals?

Lies. The guy had to be lying.

Bang. A skeleton warrior planted a fist in Aflai’s face and dropped him like a felled tree.

“See clearly now? That’s just a nobody under my throne. A no-name Demigod. Gahaha…” Glenza’s sneer was winter-cold, and Aflai’s heart sank like a stone in deep water.

Looks like… the intel was wrong.

Elsewhere, the Archmage and Tico whispered, their words like moth wings. “Could that guy be telling the truth? The magcrystal… just garbage?” The Archmage had a hunch, but it felt too insane.

Tico wasn’t sure. From what she knew, Ouyang—the one who called himself the ‘First Warrior’—didn’t care much about magcrystals either. “Maybe… their world runs deeper than we can fathom.”

Aflai lost without suspense. He never got within a hundred meters of Glenza. Endless skeleton soldiers beat him senseless, a tide beating a lone rock. By the end, he couldn’t even hear Glenza’s words. Punch after punch blurred into white.

Until… a skeleton’s fist slammed into his little brother, and the numbness shattered like glass.

“Ah!”

“Bastard… what kind of bastard skeleton does that!”

Glenza laughed, loud as thunder over a canyon. “Boys, take good care of the kid. He insulted the illustrious Wumiao King. Without a proper lesson, he won’t know why the flowers bloom so red.”

This skirmish fell silent, but the world lay pocked like the moon, riddled with wounds.

“The Demon King from a hundred years ago… do we really need that guy over there to solve it?” The Archmage found Glenza unreliable no matter how he looked, but Glenza was the only ‘warrior’ they could ask.

Tico seemed to know more. The hexagram in her gaze mirrored the firmament like a still lake. “Those matters… aren’t ours to manage. Lord Jiuwenxin disappeared with that ‘warrior’. They should’ve entered the ancient battlefield…”