After checking straps and nerves, they finally set out, like a small band stepping into dawn mist.

Bags swayed like dangling gourds as they headed for the World Gate, and Xiao Bayat spotted a familiar face waving like a flag in traffic—Bruslin, the kid he’d met a year ago when Qiu Bi 250 hauled him to the Demon King Academy.

Xiao Bayat threw his arm high, a gull over surf, and Bruslin spotted him too. Several upperclassmen ringed Bruslin like taller trees around a sapling, making the freshman stand out.

Two brats lost for a year chattered like sparrows on a wire, and from Bruslin Xiao Bayat learned the truth—he too was being led by seniors to finish a summer assignment.

“Our homework is to save a world,” Bruslin said, eyes bright like starlight on a pond.

A minor world had warped, like ice cracking on a black lake, and their assignment was to mend the crack and save that world.

“Senior said a king there promised this—if we fix it, he’ll marry off the princess to one of us,” Bruslin added, voice bubbling like a spring.

Xiao Bayat’s lips twitched, a knife nick in a fruit’s skin.

Others save worlds and catch a princess like a kite in a clear sky; we destroy worlds and pay our own fare like trudging through mud.

After saying goodbye, Chloe saw Xiao Bayat’s gloom, a shadow under noonday sun, and patted his shoulder like brushing dust off armor. “Junior, breathe. ‘Destroy a world’ sounds cool as thunder rolling over mountains. If we meet an enemy, you both flash your past homework like blades. One saved a world; one destroyed a world. Tell me, under that storm, which one would they fear?”

“And princesses? That’s glass jewelry in our market. Forget a kingdom’s princess—an entire continent’s queen is just another crown in our attic,” she said, voice steady as a drumbeat.

Xiao Bayat shot her a sly side‑eye, a cat from the shadows, then said fast, “You’re right, Senior!”

They lugged their bundles out of the Demon King Academy and headed into Miracle City, where World Gates stood like stone arches over a moonlit river, each door opening to a different sky.

“Look at them,” Jast muttered, rubbing his eyes like fog from a window. “They save a world, and the locals cover the fare. We? We bleed our own coin.”

To use a World Gate you had to slot in mana crystals, blue as frozen seawater, and those stones cost a small house. The farther the coordinates drifted across space, the more the crystals burned like candles in wind. Bruslin’s team, blessed as heroes, had their travel paid by that world’s people.

Chloe’s lips pouted like a bowstring. “No. On paper our assignment is to destroy a world, but in truth we’re saving Ladosgar. So they owe us travel money, banquet or not,” she huffed, cheeks puffing like a bellows.

Xiazuo, the handsome one, only shook his head, calm as a lake. He pulled a mirror that caught the sun like a silver fish, checking his hair with priestly focus.

“You’re shallow,” he said, voice cool as shade. “Fine. I’ll pay the fare. Don’t count pebbles on a mountain.”

Xiao Bayat expected Chloe and Jast to push back like waves on rocks, but they didn’t.

“Thanks, Mr. Moneybags,” Chloe said, smiling like a fox with a key.

“Long live the rich,” Jast yawned, a lion too lazy to roar.

Later, Xiao Bayat learned that Xiazuo wasn’t just a top‑tier pretty face; his family swam in coin like carp in a lotus pond. Rich, handsome, and—mirror habit aside—graceful, competent with housework like a quiet butler of steel.

That “perfect idol” praise outside was a little loud, like drums in a shrine, but it still traced his real edge.

“Junior,” Jast added, voice thin as smoke, “that narcissist comes from a divine lineage clan.”

The words hit Xiao Bayat like a bell in a temple. Xiazuo’s bearing had always hinted at old halls and long corridors, but a divine clan? That was thunder behind the clouds.

Without Jast, Xiao Bayat would’ve never known. In the Academy’s wind of rumors, no one said Xiazuo hailed from the divine. His status, like a blade in a sheath, stayed low‑key.

Not that divine blood meant much here; the Demon King Academy had a forest of them, and the ‘Source’ world had gods sprouting like weeds after rain.

Talking and walking, they reached a great plaza where countless World Gates stood like a colonnade of blue throats. Each frame had a slot for power, a little altar for crystal. On the way, Xiazuo bought mana crystals, enough to drain a common family for half a year, coins scattering like seeds.

He slotted a crystal into the groove, and blue ripples spread like rain rings on a lake as space warped like heated glass.

“It’s ready. Move,” he said, stepping first like a spearpoint.

Jast followed, shadow to his sun. Chloe, thinking of Xiao Bayat’s first time, laced her fingers with his and went last, a lantern in a cave.

The instant they crossed the twisted air, Xiao Bayat’s world spun like a storm‑tossed boat. Then black. When he woke, he was in a desert big as a sleeping dragon, hot wind combing the dunes, and Chloe was carrying him piggyback. Up ahead, Xiazuo and Jast murmured strategy like chessmen clicking.

“Senior… where are we?” He rubbed his eyes, sand‑dry and guilty, like a child after a fall. Fainting after one gate—was he really that weak, like a candle in wind?

“And… thank you, Senior,” he added, words soft as a ribbon.

Chloe glanced back, smile blooming like sun through cloud. “We’re in the world of Ladosgar, a desert not far from the last human survivors’ encampment.”

The phrase “last survivors” fell like frost, and the air felt colder than the sand.

“Our job is to erase the source world, and for relief here, I’ve already pinged the Academy—” Xiazuo began, but Jast suddenly barked, “Not good!” His shout cracked the heat like lightning, and everyone jumped.

Usually listless, a playboy drowning in nights, the guy’s roar cut like a blade.

Chloe and Xiazuo pinned him with their eyes, twin spears, waiting for the verdict.

Jast’s face went stone‑cold. He looked back the way they’d come, a hunter tracking prints in dust. “The World Gate… vanished. The space beacon’s gone.”

“You sure you didn’t misread?” Xiazuo asked, voice dropping like dusk.

“Can’t be wrong,” Jast said, nodding hard as iron. “As an Abyss Walker, my power outstrips yours, so my senses are sharp as needles. We set foot in Ladosgar, and right after, the gate winked out like a snuffed lamp.”

Even Xiao Bayat felt the wrongness, a thorn under the skin. This wasn’t an accident; this was a net cast in clear water.

“Think. When we arrived, this world had only one last survivors’ camp left, a cliff after an earthquake. That’s a seismic shift. Yet the data we got from the Academy still said the locals and the Devourers were locked in stalemate, like two oxen butting horns,” Chloe said, setting Xiao Bayat down gently, face set like slate.

“Junior, I’m sorry. We’ve been pulled into a conspiracy,” she added, a bitter wind under her smile.

With no clear map of the enemy, Chloe’s worry coiled around Xiao Bayat like a protective shawl. He was the weakest, the smallest flame, and flames die in wind.

Xiao Bayat was tense, a bow half‑drawn, but he shook his head, saying he was fine, like grass rising after a footstep.

They shelved the old plan. They’d meant to enter Ladosgar, slip through a rift to the Nameless World, and snuff it out like a candle. Now, even getting home was fog on a river. And if someone had trapped them here, that someone likely crouched in this same world, a wolf in scrub.

“First, analysis,” Xiazuo said, voice cool and clear as well‑water. “I think the World Gate wasn’t destroyed; it was moved, like a chest lifted before the taxman. If they broke it, the gods of the ‘Source’ would notice. Every gate gets inspected on a schedule, like stars counted by priests. If something’s off, they’ll know. And they didn’t strike us head‑on. That means their battle power doesn’t beat ours by much. At least, they’ve got no sure kill.”

His calm reason fell like pebbles into a basin, rings spreading, and even Xiao Bayat felt a surge of respect, a sail catching wind. Xiazuo wasn’t flawless—no one is—but his analysis, his fighting, his manners, his face—they all shone like facets of a blade. With a teammate like that, the heart steadied, like a drum finding tempo.

“Fair point,” Jast said, and then his mouth twisted into a feral grin, a wolf showing white. The lazy playboy melted away like mist, and something sharp stepped forward.

Chloe’s smile brightened, and she cracked her knuckles like beans popping in a hot pan. “Heh. I thought a god‑level hand did this, and it almost scared me stiff. Not even ascended, yet they dare poke us? Relax, junior. If there are no gods on their side, Jast, that forgotten Abyss Walker, is no pushover.”

“An Abyss Walker?!” Xiao Bayat blurted, shock striking like a bell in a quiet hall.