Haim came from a world called Hogla. He crossed the void to a world named “Yuan,” drawn by threads his ancestors knotted ages ago.

Thousands of years back, underworld creatures clashed with surface folk in Yuan, and hellspawn boiled up like lava. The allied leader of Yuan sent pleas to other worlds, a cry like a horn across a frozen lake. Hogla’s Archmage-Emperor answered. He gathered masters like stars in a net and marched to Yuan’s aid.

Then angels and devils fought like lightning locked in the same cloud. They vanished like sparks in snow. A chain of strange turns left everyone stunned. When it was sure the angels and devils were gone, the Archmage-Emperor led the surface coalition to seal the underworld passages. But no seal is a mountain forever. One day, the underworld would surge back like a black tide.

Back then, the envoys from allied worlds swore an oath beneath shared sky. When the seal broke, their heirs would come to Yuan, seal the passage again, and hold the line.

Haim’s clan once blazed like a comet. His forebears fought in that war and bound themselves to the oath. Centuries rolled like sand. His house withered like a frostbitten vine. Then Haim was born, a talent like spring rain, and hope stirred in the ashes. Even so, a house fighting to breathe has no leisure to honor a millennia-old vow.

Until one day, a beautiful girl found him. Her ancestor had also sworn the oath. Because of it, Haim and the others could sense the oath-mark glowing faintly on her like moonlight on skin.

She dragged him, smiling and relentless, to Yuan. Through the emergency arrays left a thousand years ago, scattered heirs trickled in from Hogla’s oath-born lines. The ones living hand to mouth stayed home like shutters in a storm. Aid begins where hunger ends.

Haim was famous in Hogla, a genius like a blade just quenched. So he got pulled along.

They stepped out of the old array into a forest, dark as an ink wash. Circles of carved sigils ringed them like ripples on a pond. Other people stood in other circles, each styled like a different season.

Some wore thick furred coats, winter wrapped around them. Some wore short sleeves, summer grinning on bare arms. One or two sported only underwear, like kids plunging into a river.

They didn’t share a tongue. Words fell like pebbles in different wells.

A senior mage used a language spell, a breeze clearing fog. Then talk flowed. Like Haim’s group, they were heirs of those who once aided Yuan and sealed the underworld back in its pit.

The old oath-marks tingled like live coals. They knew the ancestral seal had cracked. The underworld’s counterattack was a storm cloud on the horizon. So, obedient to dust-laden vows, they came through their forebears’ emergency arrays to Yuan.

There were only five arrays, five doorways in stone. That meant only a handful of worlds had joined the sealing. Among the five, one faction shone like noon. A carriage forged of gold gleamed, pulled by unicorns tossing moonlit horns. Behind it, ranks of soldiers in golden armor stood straight as wheat. Not just armor. Their weapons were gold, too, bright as hammered suns.

If Ouyang had been here, he would’ve yelled, “Gold Saints!”

Beside the gold blaze stood a silver glare. No luxe carriage. Instead, each soldier sat a mount, a river of hooves and breath. They were called the Silverlight Knights. Their gear was all mithril, from helm to spur, cold as starlight.

The gold-shine called themselves the Gilded Legion. The silver-shine called themselves the Silverlight Knights. From the first glance, gold and silver sparked like flint and steel. One wrong word, and swords would sing.

The third-largest group looked simple as soil, and they were many. That world sent over a thousand, a tide of boots and banners. The gold and the silver had only a hundred or two, bright but thin. After those three, only Hogla’s modest band and one nameless world remained.

The nameless world looked pitiful, a lantern in daylight. Only two or three stray cats came to honor the old vow. After talk, they learned every signatory power from that world had decayed. Some lines had ended like candles guttering out.

So miserable.

By contrast, Haim eyed the few dozen from Hogla. It was still laughable, a fifty-step sneer at a hundred-step falter. But dozens beat a handful by a nose in the wind, right?

“Just… just us?” Haim stared at the field, barely two thousand heads. Their enemy was underworld stock, scales and shadow. A thousand years ago, hellspawn howled in that war.

The Gilded Legion’s captain stepped up, gold blazing like a knife to the eyes. “Few or not, that’s the lot. Most powers who swore the oath have fallen like old oaks. Only those of us still standing can spare hands to honor it.”

They argued next about who’d lead this ad hoc alliance. The Gilded Legion’s captain, Davel, and the Silverlight captain, Leficada, clashed like thunderheads. Neither could stand the other’s shine.

“You? Lead? Don’t make me laugh. We’re fighting creatures of night. What’s all that glitter worth in the dark? Only mithril bites them deep. Only our Silverlight blades can cut true. By that alone, you’re out.”

Leficada was a woman, steel in her voice and frost in her eyes. She disliked the handsome Davel like a cat hates rain. Rumor said old grudges lay between their worlds, roots twisted underground. Haim had no map to that story.

“In the end, our job is to reseal the passage,” Davel said, suave as a swan on a lake, gold flaring. “Our ancestors left contingencies. Only we, their heirs, can close it. As for clashing head-on with the underworld’s army—this world won’t sit idle. Let Yuan’s own legions lock their lines with the enemy. We slip in and seal the gate.”

No leader was chosen. They decided to follow the pull of the oath-marks to the exit between underworld and surface, to scout like foxes, to see if a sealing chance opened.

Days later—

They reached a gloomy place where even breath felt black. The plants were black, the earth was black, the rocks were black—an ink painting left out in the rain. Smoke curled ahead like snakes. Four figures huddled by a fire, roasting something that hissed and dripped.

Sizzle, sizzle. The meat turned honey-gold. The scent rolled over them like a warm tide.

They moved to ask questions, when lizardfolk clawed up from underground like spades breaking sod.

“Bad. That’s the underworld’s vanguard!” Leficada snapped, nerves taut as bowstrings. Her ancestor’s notes were clear. First came goblin hordes, chaff in the wind. Then lizard warriors as the spearhead.

The records said lizardfolk resisted magic like turtles shrug rain. Their scales were hard as hammered plates. A plain iron blade might not even scratch them.

“Silverlight Knights, form up! Left wing, stall those lizards. Right wing, guard those four and pull them out!”

On the other side, Ouyang and his two friends were happily barbecuing like kids on a riverside holiday.

They’d been sweeping trash as they walked, slow as drifting clouds. Calm, calm, and calmer. It was a picnic in all but name.

“Ugh. Bat meat is awful. Sour like old fruit… Why’s minotaur meat so weird, sweet and salty? Pah. Night-hawk’s actually sweet? I’m a salty diehard!” Ouyang bit, grimaced, and spat. He was a salty-party loyalist. Sweet meat, or sweet-and-salty meat—an insult to salt itself.

Dufei’s reaction matched Ouyang’s mood, but his creed flipped. “By Magaji, aren’t succubi supposed to look sweet as candy? Their meat should be sweet. Why’s it salty? And this stupid fruit—half sweet, half salty. That’s spitting on the sweet party!”

“Screw you. Salty’s king.” Ouyang shoved a chunk of salty meat into Dufei’s mouth. Dufei’s face went stormcloud-dark.

He spat it out in one quick arc.

“You… you… jerk… long live… the sweet party…”

Then the two dropped into grade-school brawling, rolling in the dirt like puppies. After a while, they called a truce. They chewed their skewers in sullen peace. That’s when a bunch of lizardfolk popped out of the ground like weeds after rain.

“Fatty, I’m sure those lizards are salty meat!”

“Hah? Don’t kid me. You think the sweet party doesn’t exist? I can see with my eyes closed—those things are sweet.”

So they sent Balakara, the turncoat goblin, to grab a few lizardfolk for taste-test justice.

Balakara obeyed at once, pulling out the Forbidden Codex. His grin went crooked, a knife in moonlight. As a cannon-fodder race, goblins had always been bullied by lizardfolk. Balakara had eaten his share of kicks. Now it was payback time.

“Grandsons, face the wrath of Balakara, the evil warlock of taboos!”