Broken swords, torn banners, shattered armor—ruins strewn like dead leaves on a windless plain.

On the barren earth, not a breath of life stirred, only an endless sea of bones like a pale tide.

“This place is called the Ancient Realm,” Jiu Wenxin said, her voice thin as frost over graves. “They say when heaven and earth were made, it was the first to be born.”

She stepped over ribs that crunched like old snow, while Bai held Ouyang’s hand, her eyes bright with childlike wonder, like lanterns against dusk.

Days earlier, Ouyang and Jue had sensed something wrong, like a fault line under a calm sea. One had the sharpest power, the other the longest years, like twin stars in a dark sky.

Ouyang noticed a fracture in the human world, a gap like a scar in glass, and Jue noticed too, while the other Demon Kings sank into games like drunks in warm wine.

The big discovery still came from Ouyang’s side, or rather from Jiu Wenxin herself, like a hidden root under moss. She was a fanatic devotee of the Void Messenger, a flame hungry for darkness.

Ouyang had felt her prayer like a thread tugged through a needle, and that tug drew him to her world like a fishhook under skin.

But after he met her, the shape of it changed, like fog revealing a cliff. She was his fanatic, yes, yet she’d never heard of other Demon Kings, like a bird that knew only one sky.

Her knowledge of the Void Messenger stopped at the Holy Codex of the Void, lines carved like rivers on stone, and nowhere else.

So where did she get that earliest Codex, that seed like a spark before dawn? Jiu Wenxin answered with one word, dream, like dew that couldn’t be held in a fist.

It sounded flimsy as paper in rain, but Ouyang took it seriously, like a hunter noting fresh tracks in mud.

When nothing moved for a while, Ouyang found Grand General Baruya’s trail, and he found polluted magic crystal shards, like wells fouled with ink.

That familiar scent stung him like cold smoke—Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts.

From those tainted shards, he felt the Artifacts’ breath, like an echo off iron, and memory struck like thunder across a clear sky.

Back in the age when the Twelve ran wild, Ouyang had seen a sliver of the future, like a comet through cloud, and he’d turned toward old friends beneath another starry vault.

He’d overlooked the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts then, or rather, he didn’t chase where they ran, like wolves he let slip into night. He did remember Black Butterfly breaking her chains and taking human form, like a chrysalis splitting to white.

Some Artifacts, it seemed, were devoured by Sin, like snakes eating snakes, and one host ran off with the rest, as Xi had said, like a thief slipping past rain.

Those Twelve were cobbled together by great figures in the First Cult and other Tiered Beings, like alchemists brewing storms in jars. From birth, they were cruel without shore.

It was said they were meant to devour each other, like pit vipers in a jar, and the last survivor could rival Original Sin, like a mountain against the sea.

The First Imperial Princess hated that kind of evil, so she smashed them like clay idols. The First Cult’s geniuses and madmen patched them back together, like tailors sewing torn silk.

They were restored, but the power and function paled, like a fire damped by wet ash, far from what they’d been first forged to be.

No matter the weakening, once Ouyang linked the polluted shards to the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts, he went alert like a blade catching light.

A hundred years ago, the host of [Inherited Grudge] was a mere mortal, a reed by a river, but under that Artifact’s boost, he reached the power of a Realm God, a storm wearing skin.

Now a century has passed, and someone holds several Artifacts at once, like moons yoked to one tide. What does he hold in his hands today?

With that weight on his chest, Ouyang went to consult Jue, like a traveler seeking an old map by lamplight.

By sheer years, in the Source itself, no one matched Jue, like an old pine on a cliff. Ouyang brought him new pieces, and Jue added guesses like ink into water.

The key swung back to Jiu Wenxin, like a compass needle to north.

Jue used an ancient hex to replay Jiu Wenxin’s dreams, like a pond rippling back to a single pebble. At last, Ouyang learned why she held the Holy Codex of the Void, like a pilgrim holding fire.

A hundred years ago, a man named Dylan fled into this world with four Artifacts, like a wolf limping into tall grass.

He’d escaped Sin’s hounds once, using the four Artifacts like shields of iron, but he took heavy wounds, scars like cracks in porcelain. To recover fast, he began to sacrifice the living of this world, their lives poured like oil into a dark lamp.

With four Artifacts in hand, even wounded, he was not something mortals could shoulder, like a tidal wave against straw huts.

He churned the world into blood wind and iron rain, and the Creator God who guarded it took notice, like thunder waking a sleeping mountain.

The Creator God had made two worlds, like twins from the same breath. The first was the Ancient Realm, its life mostly god-tier, like stars bright and cold.

The second was the mortal world, later born, soft as spring clay. The Creator led the Ancient Realm’s gods to battle Dylan, like cranes diving against a hawk.

He drew the war into the Ancient Realm, since the mortal world was too fragile, like glass in a hailstorm.

Even with countless gods at his back, the Creator found Dylan growing fiercer, like a fire riding wind. Each enemy that fell had its soul devoured by the Artifacts, and Dylan swelled, like a river fed by storms.

At last the scales tipped, slow as snow, sure as winter. Under the Creator’s banner, a whole pantheon still fell to Dylan alone, like trees felled by one great axe.

Black Butterfly happened to be wandering the Ancient Realm, a traveler like a night moth near flame. Her true body, the Sacred Revelation, had shed its book-skin and turned human, like scripture given breath.

She was strong, but not enough against Dylan with four Artifacts, like a candle before a gale. He sensed the Twelve’s aura on her and hunted her madly, like a bloodhound on a hot trail.

As her true body shattered like glass under a hammer, she passed to the Creator a forbidden art meant to counter the Twelve, like a thorn crafted for a wolf’s throat.

With that art, the Creator sealed Dylan, and he sealed a hundred years of time with him, like winter folded into ice.

That war wiped out the gods of the Ancient Realm, Creator God included, like stars snuffed before dawn. Black Butterfly used what soul remained to drift from the Ancient Realm to the mortal world, like a leaf crossing a river.

She had no strength to return to the Source, like a bird with wet wings. So she chose Jiu Wenxin, and while the girl was still green, she placed the Holy Codex of the Void in her hands, like a seed pressed into earth.

Black Butterfly brainwashed her for five years, the drip of water wearing stone, and then finally faded into air, like mist at sunrise. The remade Jiu Wenxin became a zealot, and her prayers called Ouyang over, like bells drawing a storm.

All this Ouyang learned at the threshold between the Ancient Realm and the mortal world, where Black Butterfly had carved the tale into stone, like runes in bone.

Standing on that carpet of bones and shattered gear, Ouyang felt his chest grow heavy, like rain on an old cloak, and Bai felt the same.

It wasn’t for an entire pantheon’s end, not really, like a stranger’s funeral at dusk. He barely knew Black Butterfly, but she’d stayed in his castle for a while as a maid, like a swallow nesting under eaves.

To say he felt nothing would be a lie, like ash denying the fire. She’d just broken free of the Twelve, eager to see the world’s splendor, and then died, like a flower cut at noon.

It felt like fate, a fate with a curse stitched through it, like iron inside silk. Ouyang had heard that when the Twelve were first forged too evil for daylight, the Dark Magic Association’s president, Yimeng, cursed them, like night spitting on stars.

Some say the Twelve’s fate was fixed then, like chains dropped onto wrists, and destiny clung to them like cold iron.

Truth is, they’d done nothing yet and still got cursed by a Second-Tier existence, like kittens marked by a tiger. Then again, they were smashed by the First Imperial Princess of the Third Tier, like statues toppled by a queen.

“Sigh. Fate,” Ouyang said, shaking his head like shaking rain from hair. He felt heavy for Black Butterfly too, because, well, the household was short one maid now, like a room with one lamp gone.

The Ancient Realm itself was a vast sealing ground, like a mountain folded over a well. The moment they stepped in, the seal broke, and Dylan clawed free, like a bear from winter.

Ouyang sensed his body had fused with the four Artifacts, like bone set into steel. He wasn’t holding them anymore; he was them, a collection turned creature.

“Jue, take Jiu Wenxin and leave,” Ouyang said, voice steady as stone. “Ask Senior Dongze to seal this world. This fight looks shaky,” like a bridge in wind.

He held Bai’s hand, and holy light rose from her like dawn over snow. Her dragon wings turned into white wings, feathers pure as frost.

She stirred those feathers, and pale motes drifted everywhere, like stars shaken from a branch. “The fate of the Twelve began at the Other Shore,” Ouyang murmured, “and now it will end by the Other Shore’s hand,” like a circle closing.

Whoosh—the moment Jue left with Jiu Wenxin, black wings unfurled behind Ouyang, like night blooming from his spine. The Cursed Wings drank the light like ink.

Dylan still hung in the air bound by countless chains, links thick as roots. The chains cracked and snapped one after another, like ice breaking under spring.

“Heh-heh… I’ll eat you,” he hissed, grin twisted like a wound. He raked his claws, and swaths of chain burst apart, like reeds under a scythe.

He laughed, and the space around him fractured like glass, shards falling in silence.

Thankfully, a power wrapped the world’s shell like a great hand, keeping it from breaking, like a bowl cupped before it drops. Dongze and Agas had moved, it seemed, like twin pillars holding the sky.

Dylan whipped a chain-wound fist and appeared behind Ouyang, like a shadow after lightning. “Kid, die,” he snarled, voice like gravel on iron.

But in the next heartbeat, white light bloomed, and Bai slipped from Ouyang’s back like a swan from a lake. Her white wings caught the blow like shields of snow.

“Looks like I need to send the true body,” Ouyang said, calm as a blade in its sheath. He and Bai traded blows with Dylan for a time, sparks flying like meteors.

His probing was enough; his projection began to blur, like ink in rain. Bai nodded, then put her right index finger to her lips and bit down, blood bright as a berry.

With that blood she drew a circle in air, a red moon hanging for an instant, like a seal pressed in wax. Dylan didn’t know what she worked, but he knew to stop it, like a wolf scenting a trap.

Ouyang’s hazy projection had already counted on it, like a gambler palming a card. He rushed in, and the Cursed Wings spread, black as storm crows.

In that instant, Dylan felt a fatigue he’d never known, like sand poured into his bones. Weakness washed him, nausea rose, dizziness spun, stars burst at the edges of sight, like moths round a flame.

“Dylan,” Ouyang said, voice cold as winter water, “I curse you. You’ll never approach that girl, never harm her in any way, like a river barred by stone. Unless my life reaches its end. Until I vanish from this world like smoke.”

“Damn it,” Dylan spat, fury boiling like pitch. His long-range strikes passed through Bai like arrows through mist, and when he tried to close, he could not, like a man wading and getting nowhere.

She was near as breath and far as the horizon, like a mirage over heat.

“Then I’ll kill you first,” he roared, voice like thunder over cliffs. He drove a fist into Ouyang’s blurred projection, speed cruel as a falcon’s dive.

Without Bai’s help, Ouyang couldn’t guard against that speed, like a swimmer caught by a sudden undertow.