"This world… it’s oddly marvelous, but everyone’s power feels thin. Are we back to noob‑stomping?"

Ouyang lounged in Saya’s arms, while she strolled a broad avenue like a river of cobbles. Four cats padded at her heels; five meowing stars plus one pint‑sized girl. The street wore a West‑Medieval skin, and people moved like old mills grinding the same grain.

This is an age where crown and altar wrestle, like sun and moon tugging the same tide.

Big gray cat Dufei heard him and flicked an ear like a leaf in wind. "Noob‑stomping? Boring. In the end, the battlefield still explodes between us. Sigh, lonely as snow."

He meant their earlier Magic Crystal Scramble. The first Scramble ended like staged farce; no one won. By the rules, you only win by gathering all crystals. Glenza, left alone for no reason, tried to teach Aflay a lesson and blew him into scrap, like clay pots under a hammer.

Aflay—yeah, that guy who quietly hoarded fifteen tainted shards and summoned a Divine Dragon like calling thunder with a whisper.

Glenza got too excited and pushed past mortal bounds, a torch flaring into wildfire; that alone knocked him out of the game. Then he lost control again and blasted Aflay, along with those fifteen polluted shards, into dust. Curtain down.

"Magic Crystal Scramble? Heh, our Night Nobles carried the banner." Vampire cat Devila meowed, voice silky as dusk. Since they’d become cats, they talked in cat tongue to avoid a public stir.

Devila’s I‑rule‑the‑world look wasn’t all hot air; it touched the later Scrambles. After the first one, three clowns grossed everyone out, and the other Demon Kings lost any interest in a second round. Wutong and Eunice didn’t want in, but Dufei, that chubby troll, taunted them day and night like dripping eaves.

At last they couldn’t stand it. They set up the second Magic Crystal Scramble. Not them personally—each of their factions would join. Fifteen Demon Kings, fifteen banners. By their rules, every faction sent one contestant. The Scramble would run every hundred years, like a comet on schedule.

Devila’s Night Nobles had been on a hot streak, taking two straight crowns like ravens stealing shiny rings.

"Trash!"

Ouyang raised his chubby paw and flipped Devila the middle finger, as impudent as a snowball to the face. Dufei didn’t need prompting; he threw his big, round body like a boulder and tackled Devila.

To bystanders, it was just a knot of cats yowling and clawing, a noisy storm in fur.

The crowd’s patience snapped like a dry twig.

"These cats are nuts! Too noisy!"

"Yeah, keep it up and we’ll toss them in the pot!"

In the next beat, Dufei and Devila, who looked ready to kill each other, traded a very knowing nod, like two knives agreeing on a cut.

"Meow—mere mortals, taste Grandpa Dufei’s paw!" Dufei sprang up like a spring and raked his claws across a butcher’s face, leaving fresh red lines. That butcher, brandishing a pig‑sticker, was the one yelling about stewing them. The moment those words hit air, not just Devila and Dufei bristled. Even the mighty Hell Lord steamed.

Big tabby Hell Lord Christo flashed her claws; she ghosted under the butcher’s crotch like a gust under a curtain.

A scream split the street like thunder cracking a winter sky.

"Meow meow meow~ (Holy crap—worthy of the Hell Lord. She actually chopped off his little manhood!)" Ouyang shivered in Saya’s arms, tail puffing like a brush. Hell Lord Christo’s swipe was too fast; she snipped the butcher’s twig clean. Nobody saw that coming.

"Ah!!!"

"You damned cats, you’re dead!" The butcher’s face went paper‑white. One hand clamped his blood‑slicked trousers; the other strangled the knife handle like a drowning man clings to driftwood.

Ouyang felt killing intent spike like frost on the back of his neck. He wriggled free of Saya’s hug. "Meow~ (That’s bloodlust. Brothers, wind tight—bail!)" He bolted, a black streak. Saya glanced at his route, then took off after him like rain chasing wind.

Dufei, White Cat, and Devila shared a quick look, a triangle of mischief, then peeled off in three directions. That left Hell Lord Christo alone, her majesty wearing a puzzled frown. They might be cats, but their strength remained like fire under ash. Mere mortals dared offend her? So why did the others run?

Could this world hide a danger, like thorns under moss?

At that thought, the mighty Hell Lord felt a child’s tremor under her fur. She glanced left and right, then chose the most reliable tail to follow—Ouyang’s—and sprinted in his wake, claws whispering like reeds.

Truth was, Hell Lord Christo overthought it. Ouyang and the jokers ran for fun, boredom crackling like dry leaves. At their true power, destroying a world is a fingertip tap. Long lives drift either in sleep or in watching mortals live, like looking at lanterns in rain.

This was their recreation—tag with mortals instead of breaking the board. But earlier, several Tiered Beings had appeared near Ouyang’s group, so Christo assumed they’d sensed a looming crisis and bailed.

Elsewhere, Ouyang sprinted until wind buoyed him like wings. Faster. Faster. He felt flight rising in his bones like heat.

When boredom hit, he realized he’d run to nowhere. Now, he stood at a zone of chaos, like fog past the last tree.

"Ran past the edge."

This world wasn’t a sphere; it was heaven‑round, earth‑square—a floating continent drifting like a leaf on the star‑river. Ouyang poked the space ahead with a paw. A membrane shimmered there like an eggshell over dawn. He tried piercing it. He only used his Realm God strength, and the film popped like soap.

Then it healed, quick and clean, like water smoothing a ripple.

Independent world, they call it: a membrane wrapping a world, cut off from the starry sea, like a pearl sealed in shell.

Independent worlds are rare as phoenix feathers. In Ouyang’s memory, across the long ages of the Other Shore, fewer than a handful were found. Each discovered world gets guarded tight, prized like a lab of miracles.

Most time‑field experiments happen inside such worlds so the time‑river won’t be muddied. Some even proposed fishing for "parallel timelines" within them. Sadly, those researchers were like Ouyang and his friends—their existence in the independent world is unique. Yesterday Ouyang ate at a tavern. Today he moved back along the timeline to yesterday, yet saw no yesterday‑him. That’s uniqueness on the time axis.

Scattered or not, Ouyang wasn’t worried. Even Saya, mostly support in their squad, was terrifying by this world’s scale, a moon rising over candles. The uniqueness applies to gods: each god who enters an independent world is the only one of themselves on its time axis. A god’s mere presence is too heavy a burden for such worlds; that’s why their overall combat level is light. Of the worlds found by the Other Shore, none had birthed a god.

He shook out his head like a wet cat and decided not to leave. To Ouyang, this independent world was a giant treasure vault, a field of questions and seeds. Once, he might’ve had little to do with it; in recent years, his strength grew deeper, his domains more profound. Now he could start studying independent worlds.

Paws twitching, Ouyang took off at a run, fur slicing air like ink strokes.

Before long, he was in a vast ocean, blue sprawling like silk. When he skidded to a stop, a colossal waterspout spun behind him, wind and water braided like a whip. Beyond the spout, waves towered—mountains of glass ready to fall.

"Good grief, I was just traveling. Blink, and… eh, whatever."

He eyed the hundreds‑meter waterspout and the wrathful surf. It’d wreck every coastal nation like a storm chewing docks. But none of that was his problem. Sure, it’s a natural phenomenon.

Watching the roaring waves, Ouyang stretched a paw. His personal weapon still answered like a hawk to glove. He had Youwen shape itself into a wave‑riding board. Big black cat Ouyang began his surfing saga.

A pitch‑black ring hovered above his head like an eclipse. The cat stood like a human, two feet on the board, balanced over blue.

"Meoooow—let the storm hit harder!"

He spread his front paws like arms, embracing the sea like a lover.

Then the giant wave rolled right over him.

Glug‑glug‑glug…

Wipeout. Rookie surfer Ouyang got flipped by the wave, a mop in a bucket.

"Meow, I don’t buy it. I, Starry Citadel’s number one surfer, won’t be beaten by a puddle. If I can’t tame this splash, how do I conquer the Sea of Stars?"

"Meoooow—let the storm hit harder, harder!"

"Let the storm hit harder, harder, harder!"

"…harder, harder, harder, harder!"

"…harder, harder, harder, harder, harder—"

Days later…

"Sigh. Fragile world. I just wanted a surf—was that so hard?"

Ouyang lay back in Saya’s arms, and below them sprawled an ocean like a mirror shattered into endless blue. Yeah, the world was flooded. Ouyang flooded it.

Independent worlds make delicate glass; for someone like Ouyang, idle words can become law. Focused on surfing, he didn’t notice—his "let the storm hit harder" became a rule. Under that rule, the towering waves drowned the land.

"Idiot Ouyang, hello! Idiot Ouyang, goodbye!" Dufei stood on the water like a stone skimming forever. He wasn’t done playing, yet Ouyang had drowned the board. Lately Ouyang’s idiot moves were piling up. First he went rubberneck a Tiered Being clash and got splashed. Then he pulled out the team‑killing Calamity Cloak. Next he tossed a cursed ring that turned them all into cats. Now he went full idiot and wrecked a world.

"Relax. We’ll walk the time axis back to before the flood. Easy."

Ouyang sounded calm, breeze over tea. That’s the perk of an independent world. Outside, if you waded up the time‑river, you’d see your past self—and pay a steep price. In here, it’s simple. Thanks to uniqueness, we won’t see another us; no messy paradox like a serpent eating its tail, and no brutal cost to pay.