“So… the Hell crowd’s finally coming out for a stroll? After millions of years, they’ve punched through the carcass of that dead prehistoric beast.” Ouyang sighed, pity like cold dew on stone.

In commerce, the Underworld snatches almost every corpse, a quiet river of souls. In pyramid schemes, the Divine Realm owns countless worlds, faith gushing like spring rain. Even sabotage’s crowded—Hell gets squeezed by Demon World fiends, no room to breathe.

Worst of all, a few thousand years back they reconnected with other worlds from radio-silence. Before they could roar, humans sealed the tunnels between the Subterranean World and the Surface, iron lids on boiling pots.

Of course, cheap little seals won’t stop Hell. But we haven’t seen hellspawn since then, which means their gate isn’t stable yet. That thousand-year bloom was just a test. Otherwise, hellspawn would’ve surged up like lava long ago.

The three huddled, muttering like rain on eaves.

Then Dufei yanked the goblin named Balakala to the front. “Alright. This goblin’s ours.” He waved Teddy’s group off, a casual flick like shooing sparrows after pocketing the key witness.

Teddy’s grandpa didn’t speak much of the Source World’s common tongue, but the man read Dufei’s gestures and face. Rage flared like a brushfire. The Subterranean World planning a counterattack—that’s a thunderclap. And the witness, the defected goblin Balakala, was a mountain of merit.

Who’d expect three suspicious guys to snatch the most vital witness, wave them away, and tell them to leave like wind clearing fallen petals?

Snap. The old man drove his wand into the soil. He shook all over, anger buzzing like hornets.

“Hey, got spine. This old guy wants to resist us?” Dufei’s smile was ice. He stomped. The ground quivered, a drumskin under a giant’s knuckles.

One light stomp, the earth trembles—terrifying, like thunder under a calm lake.

Fear first, action second. Teddy dragged his grandpa back. His grandpa didn’t grasp the Source World yet, but Teddy did. He wasn’t from the Demon King Academy, sure, but his academy still carried a name like a bright banner.

He’d grown up in this Source World. His understanding was a torch; his grandpa’s was a fog.

“But… sirs, that’s the Subterranean World. I heard hellspawn roam…” Teddy’s voice shrank, a reed in the wind. Ouyang waved it off like smoke; in his eyes, those underground folks were all trash—only Hell merited a glance.

Grandpa wanted to fight, sparks in dry grass. Teddy held him tight. On Ouyang’s face was a calm too calm, a pond under moonlight. It screamed that the underground lot were nothing, and these three could flip them like carts.

Think it through. The Subterranean World can’t kick up a real storm. Any city on the Surface could stamp it out like sparks in snow. Some tough villages birth Sky-tier and even Demigod-level folks; one village could pound the underground back into the dark.

Teddy exhaled, pulled his grandpa away, lanterns retreating into night.

Their scene ended there, the curtain falling like dusk.

Elsewhere, Ouyang’s trio ringed the goblin. Silence hung like frost.

“Sirs… may I…” Balakala’s voice trembled, a thin thread in the wind.

He stared at the three clowns, not knowing where to put his hands or fear. As cannon-fodder caste in the Subterranean World, his power was gutter-light—he could barely toss a fireball. Three big shots encircled him; pressure was a mountain on a sparrow.

“So… we clean up trash first. Let the underground clowns wait.” Ouyang picked up a broom, sweeping under moonlight like silver dust on stone. Dufei and Glenza held brooms too, as if the Subterranean World’s invasion was a leaf on water.

Truth was, it really didn’t matter.

By next day, Balakala had trailed the three clowns over who knew how many miles. They moved without fatigue, rivers never tiring; he was nodding off like a moth to a cold flame.

Ahem. “Hey, little goblin. Want to become the great Goblin King?” The gray-haired human’s words were thunder in a dream. Balakala snapped awake, heart a startled bird.

“Goblin… King?”

He blinked, fog lifting in shards. The gray-haired man raised a book. Black and scarlet stitched its cover like night and blood. Symbols crawled across it, unfamiliar as distant stars—yet somehow, Balakala understood their meaning.

Forbidden Codex.

Ouyang drew out his treasured masterpiece. Dufei and Glenza didn’t know what the Forbidden Codex was, but Ouyang’s aura hit like a cold wave; they stiffened, breath thin.

“So… what even is this Forbidden Codex?” Glenza’s confusion was a cloud. Dufei thought hard, then his face drained, a candle in wind. Even that shameless fat man went pale—the Codex had to be monstrous.

Dufei swallowed, voice shaking like reeds. “It wouldn’t be… that legend, right?”

“Yeah. That one.” Ouyang’s answer fell like iron.

Their exchange sailed right over Glenza’s head. Dufei sighed and gave him the short version.

“The Forbidden Codex is a grimoire, sure, stuffed with spells. But it’s not the quantity—it’s what’s inside. They say it holds the First Cult’s distilled madness from the First to the Eighth Epoch.

By the Eighth Epoch, it became standard for First Cult core members. Those deranged spells outgrossed black magic, outdid the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts in pure nastiness.

Spells that make you eat with your butt and poop from your mouth—filth dressed as sorcery. Spells forcing certain parts so huge you can’t walk—a burden like chains. Spells that make people feed on menstrual blood—sickness braided with ritual.

Utterly deranged. Not ‘can’t do,’ only ‘didn’t think to.’ In the end, the Sovereign by Qianling Lake got disgusted, swept them into a sealed black cell, and had the Forbidden Codex burned.

Ouyang had lived through that storm. Then and now, his verdict was the same—Ye-jie is mighty. Those clowns nauseated him. He was branded First Cult, fine, but that never meant joining their filth.”

“They say when the Codex was destroyed, the Sovereign faced the Four Heavenly Kings together.” Dufei rubbed his chin, thoughts ticking like gears. His rank gave him a wider window. Rumor said Tiered Beings clashed behind the curtain, and the Four Heavenly Kings lost.

After that, the Codex vanished like ash in rain. The First Cult’s problem children turned into obedient lambs. So yeah, Dufei figured the Kings ate the loss.

Ouyang knew more than this outsider.

“Back then it did start as a fight, and not just the First Cult—other clown cults piled in. The Twelve Sages and the Five Emperors intervened. That battle showed us Ye-jie wasn’t First Tier; she’d already stepped into the Second Tier.”

Early in the Eighth Epoch, after the Seventh’s Epoch of Myriad Stars, the Other Shore gained many newcomers. Not races migrating—newcomers like Ouyang, from beyond this sky, meteors in foreign night.

Because their numbers soared in the Seventh, they called it the Epoch of Myriad Stars. More people, more geniuses, like constellations lighting the world. That’s the name’s root.

Ye-jie, the lady by Qianling Lake, appeared in the Seventh’s early days. An epoch struck the world’s hymn; she was the hand on the bell.

Midway through the Eighth, for reasons kept behind veils, Third-Tier beings vanished—God Emperor, Dominators, names like pillars snuffed. Since the Sixth’s Eternal Wound, the Seventh passed with no word from them.

The only Third Tier, the First Imperial Princess, never showed her face. Decrees came through subordinates. Many believed she was gone. That the show was a scaffold to steady the Other Shore.

So in the Eighth’s middle, the Second Tier were the real giants, mountains against the sky.

As for Ouyang’s Forbidden Codex—its trail leads to Ye-jie’s little brother. Back in the Starry Citadel, Ouyang had a bizarre neighbor. Not First Cult, but always in every scam, tricks that hurt others without helping himself. Ouyang kept mistaking him for First Cult material.

Too bad Mapleleaf, a First Cult core, investigated again and again. That weirdo was truly not First Cult.

One day, not long after the Codex storm, that guy claimed he’d scored something huge. He dragged Ouyang to share. In a sealed room, he opened a box—

Ouyang froze on the spot, shock like ice-water.

It was only a fragment of the Forbidden Codex, but even a shard could draw a blood-soaked storm. The Sovereign had declared the world would not permit that vile thing.

The weirdo just patted his chest, calm as moonlight. “Relax. I swiped it from my sis. Almost got burned with the rest…”

That’s when Ouyang learned his bizarre neighbor had a sister who was pure steel—crazy, cool, blazing. The guy who spent his days borrowing money and never knew the word ‘repay’ had a background that could blot out the sun.

Back then, Ouyang was a newbie, a chick under rain, knew nothing.

Looking now—

“That guy… he’d counted on his sister being a total brother-obsessive. That’s why he had no fear.”