“Everyone, I’ve got a bad feeling—like frost crawling up my spine.”

After breakfast, the cats drifted into Yulithilis’s garden like dusk shadows, and the little girl didn’t complain—who’d scold a pride of nightmare beasts you might see once a century?

A bad feeling…

Dufei lunged and clung to Ouyang’s leg like ivy to old stone. “Boss, please, shut that crow mouth of yours.”

“For meow’s sake, watch it,” the White Cat muttered, tail low like a wilted reed. “At your level, words don’t just fly—they land.”

For mortals, hunches are dandelion fluff, he went on in a low rumble; for gods, omens are iron bells that make the air ring.

Ouyang’s face was as grave as a winter sky, and Dufei knew he wasn’t joking—this wasn’t banter, this was thunder behind clouds.

“I don’t know the shape of it,” Ouyang said, voice like a stone skipping. “The Source World should hold. The Tiered Beings are there like mountains.”

He still felt uneasy, like grit in the eye; he’d watched that demon monarch blow himself apart like a dying sun, yet something felt missing.

“Either way, let’s end things here early, before the wind shifts.”

The world’s split, he thought, must tie back to that ‘meteor’ shard, the first crack in ice; and that shard lay sealed inside Yulithilis.

In the garden, the cats stared at Yulithilis with scientist eyes—bright as scalpels, cold as stainless steel—like they’d lay a white mouse on the tray.

“Um… senior, you still haven’t told me where you came from,” Mo Rain said, voice thin as mist, trying to drag eyes away before they cut.

Countless worlds had worn her down like tide over stone, yet she’d grown fond of Yulithilis; she wanted fate to end, but not with a knife.

Mo Rain’s words tugged Ouyang’s gaze aside like a reed tugged by current.

“My origin? That’s a long road through night,” Ouyang said. He didn’t start at the first dawn; he offered a lantern’s worth. “There are many like us.”

“Behind that barrier lies a vast sea of stars,” he said, eyes distant as frost, “and I only found this place not long ago, and stepped in.”

Eight epochs, the first spark—too many threads for one breath; the loom would snarl.

“So, let’s dissect the girl first,” he said, flat as iron, “and when we’re back at base, I’ll give you the full map.”

Mo Rain had wanted to throw dust in their eyes, and she had; but Ouyang had no patience today, his mood a drumbeat—something had gone wrong.

As for that barrier, Mo Rain had seen the sky’s paint peel; the ‘barrier’ was chaos wrapping everything like fog, and she lacked the knife to tear it.

The cats’ eyes pinned Yulithilis again; her skin prickled like grass in a cold wind.

“Wait,” she said, voice shaking like a leaf. “Couldn’t we wait a year or two—until Hakone shows—and trigger the seal then?”

She had barely finished when the black cat thrust a paw into her chest like a hand into water—no wound, no blood, only the skin of a pond.

When the paw came close, Yulithilis had wanted to flee like a deer; her mind raced, but her body froze—no words, no breath, no helm.

“That is… as expected.”

As Ouyang’s paw sank into her heart, runes rose and circled her like fireflies, and light speared from her chest like dawn over a ridge.

When the strange light faded, Ouyang drew back holding a blue shard the size of a fist, cold as glacier ice in his claws.

“A fragment of the Philosopher’s Stone,” Saya said at once, eyes like a keen blade; the White Cat narrowed his, and Dufei frowned, thoughts knotting.

Devila and the Hell Lord Christo stared blankly, like travelers lost in fog.

Ouyang’s face darkened until it was stormwater; he stared at the Philosopher’s Stone like it could stare back. At length, he breathed, “I… am… sorry.”

The others traded looks like confused birds; even Saya couldn’t read the wind on this one. Only Yulithilis and Mo Rain wore that twisted look.

Yulithilis gulped air as if breaking the surface; Mo Rain watched the shard in Ouyang’s paw, her silence heavy as wet cloth.

The air turned strange, a room with the windows nailed shut; no one knew what they had missed, why Ouyang’s face had gone full night.

Or why Mo Rain and Yulithilis looked like that—half shocked, half something else—like thunder with no rain.

“Tell me what I can do,” Ouyang asked them, too quickly, like trying to catch a falling bowl before it shattered.

Mo Rain kept pale, her voice coming from far away, like wind through a corridor. “If I can break this endless loop, that’s my one wish.”

“In the endless reruns of the same ending,” she whispered, eyes like winter water, “changing the final fate is the only fire that keeps me walking.”

“What about going home?” Ouyang asked, a soft question tossed like a pebble. “Back to that homeland—no regret left there?”

She shook her head and smiled at herself, bitter as tea gone cold. “That homeland… I’ve almost rubbed it away. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“After ending upon ending, the past blurs like ink in rain,” she said. “For me, this world is home now.”

Ouyang understood; she wasn’t a god, and old memories sink under new ones like sunken leaves. By now she likely recalled only a blue planet.

Time is the sharpest knife. He’d founded the Other Shore to gather companions from the same place, same tongue, same stories, so the old wouldn’t drown.

“Don’t worry,” he said, voice steady like a hand on the tiller. “I’ll deal with that guy. Your vow ends in this parallel world.”

He turned to Yulithilis.

She kept silent, biting her lip till it paled; her eyes reddened like sunset clouds. After a long breath, she choked out, “My wish… is simple.”

“To live happy with my father and mother, to live without worries, like a small house under spring rain.”

Ouyang said nothing. He let out a sharp meow, a cat’s bell in twilight, and left the garden like a shadow slipping off a wall.

Sarayka watched the black-tail vanish; she hesitated like a lizard at the edge of sun, then scurried after her boss.

Even with Ouyang gone, the cats sat there baffled, ears tilted like weather vanes with no wind.

“Can you tell what happened?” Dufei asked Saya, glancing at Mo Rain and Yulithilis, both looking like mourners. He turned from them and asked the one who’d named the shard.

Saya wasn’t a miracle worker. She frowned, a crease like a cut, and still couldn’t stitch the whole cloth; but she said what she knew.

“The Philosopher’s Stone,” she began, voice calm as dusk. “You’ve all heard of the Sages, like stars over a desert.”

The White Cat lifted a paw. “Meow. Heard it. In the Other Shore there’s a saying: in the East, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors; in the West, the Twelve Sages.”

Saya nodded, the motion light as a falling leaf.

“The Twelve Sages rose in the darkest Third Epoch,” she said. “Few originals survived the night; most were chosen under the Sage of Truth.”

“In the Other Shore, the Twelve still stand like pillars,” she added. “First-generation Sages, only a handful endure; the rest were selected to keep the fire.”

It was a quick lesson, a lantern in a cave; even the White Cat, who’d prowled the Other Shore for ages, hadn’t known these bones.

“Four are the most famous,” Saya continued. “You’ve heard of the Sages of Sun, Moon, and Star—names like day, night, and the river of lights.”

Heard of? The Moon Sage was still parked on the Source World’s moon like a squat tenant who never paid rent.

Of the three, the Star Sage shone brightest in rumor. His tarot reached a peak like a mountain; his fighting style was strange as dream.

He never fought with his own hands. He’d draw a thick deck, and all sorts of demons and oddities would march out of those cards like a parade.

“As for the Philosopher’s Stone,” Saya said, eyes dim and bright in turn, “the Sages’ Council forged it from countless civilizations and their knowledge, like smelting worlds.”

“The details are fog,” she admitted. “I’d need to link with my main body and use high permissions to read the deep files.”

—

Elsewhere, Ouyang bounded from rooftop to rooftop, a black blur against brick and sky, like a swallow riding the city’s breath.

The city’s bones smelled of Earth, every street a familiar line; that duke—Yulei Hayato—clung to the old homeland like moss to a rock.

A lizard, cat-sized and quick as a spark, scrambled after him, claws ticking like rain on tile.

“Boss…”

Sarayka wanted to say more, but Ouyang didn’t open that door. He chose the highest roof and sat, a lone shape against the reddening light.

“Sit, kid,” he said, voice as soft as ash. “Watching the sunset isn’t the worst way to spend a breath.”

Sarayka didn’t know human rules, but she knew her black-cat boss was a storm held back. She sat, obedient as a shadow, and watched the sun sink.

“Kid… I’m sorry,” he said at last, words falling like leaves. “I’m a lousy boss. This might be the last sunset.”