Golden wings of light unfurled across the world, like dawn without a sun, and noon washed every shadow clean.

The Light Angel, lord of the light element, rewrote day and night like a scribe, its radiance freezing the world in endless noon.

Just as Mo Rain feared, the last three element lords were overwhelming, a mountain that wouldn’t budge no matter who pushed.

The allied host drew on a tide of lives and barely sealed the Wind Child and the Water Butterfly, a lock without a blade.

Only sealed, not slain, and nine of ten fell like stalks in a storm, leaving the field stripped and bare.

Their final wail birthed a sky-high water twister, and the continent sank under sheets of surf like drowning parchment.

The ocean roared as if it had a soul and a throat, a voice pounding cliffs like drums.

The remnant army died beneath the Night Herald’s Eternal Night, a lid of ink that stole breath and name.

Only a few dozen ancient relics endured, their strange powers guttering like stubborn coals in a kiln of dark.

And now the real problem loomed like a blade on a thread.

How do you face the Light Angel, the Night Herald, and the Thunder King, three storms riding one sky?

I’ll burn everything I have, and I can only stall one, Mo Rain thought, fear ringing like ice in her ribs.

She stared at the three like a judge at three masks, breath tight as a bowstring in the wind.

The Light Angel matched its name, a figure drowned in white glow, an angel by outline and by myth.

The Night Herald hid under a robe the color of wells, a body swallowed by shadow like ink in water.

The Thunder King had no body at all, just a black thunderhead where lightning raged like chained tigers.

Above the three, a throne drifted like a dark star, and the black cat on it looked down like a sovereign.

Yulei Hayato glanced at the ancient survivors behind him, wiped blood from his mouth, and spoke like flint striking steel.

I’ll team with them and hold one, he said, a promise thrown like a spear.

He and Mo Rain had touched the Philosopher’s Stone, a fire that brands the bone and changes the hand that holds it.

As Ouyang put it, Mo Rain was a false god in all but name, a peak higher than a Demigod yet under the clouds of a god.

Yulei Hayato lagged far behind, but he stood at the mortal summit, a Demigod with a storm of Demigods at his back.

Against the weakest blow among the three, the Light Angel, they might manage a bleeding draw.

Even so, one element lord would remain, a third blade left to fall like winter.

At best, Mo Rain could only stall the Night Herald, a lantern facing a cavern, but who would take the Thunder King?

As they gambled on sending Yulei Hayato to stall one while the ancients swarmed another, a new black cloud slid in like spilled ink.

It wasn’t the Thunder King’s fury, but night of a different grain, a hush of ash over embers.

That’s… Hakoen?! Mo Rain’s voice cracked like thin ice, and the others recalled the tale she once painted in smoke and tears.

Makes sense, she murmured, eyes like two wells, if the world ends, that one was bound to show.

She didn’t fear Hakoen turning on them, not with that cat on the throne, a noose on any wild neck.

The next beat hit like a drum and matched her guess, yet slipped and cut on its own edge.

Hakoen drew the black cat’s gaze, a hawk’s shadow on a field, but the cat did not strike first.

Instead, Hakoen lost its mind like a dam bursting and hurled itself at the black cat on the throne, a storm chasing a moon.

The Thunder King, a fellow cloud, refused to let that ink darken the throne without trial, and they collided like mountains of weather.

Rage-bitten thundercloud smashed against ink-black cloud, two tempests wrestling like dragons over a ruined sea.

As I guessed, that thing never meant to destroy the world, the black cat said, voice flat as a blade, only the shard of the Philosopher’s Stone in my hand.

Stubborn, aren’t you, it added, a sigh of frost, you turned monster and fused with the world’s leftover images, and you learned the last page.

So your madness isn’t rage for rage’s sake, but a vow to crush the shard, and to tell your partners the root sits in that shard.

Ouyang named the truth of the third traveler between worlds, a truth like a thorn under a fingernail.

That man wanted the shard destroyed, but his reason had burned to smoke, leaving only a nailed-down obsession that couldn’t form words.

The shard lay sealed in Yulithilis’s body, a seed under glass, so Hakoen sought first to end the vessel.

Mo Rain and Yulei Hayato were companions, and Yulithilis was Yulei Hayato’s daughter, so Mo Rain’s path drew its blade.

One parallel world after another, one loop of fate after the next, the wheel grinding bone to chalk.

The first world fell to Hakoen’s revenge, a torch dropped in dry grass, but from the second on, his aim shifted to the shard’s root.

With reason broken, his mouth could not carry his heart, and a single misunderstanding hardened into a fate older than dust.

Old friends hacked at each other without end, like twin rivers trying to cut the same stone.

Hakoen kept trying to tell Mo Rain and Yulei Hayato, the shard is the root, we died, the shard killed us, and the world with us.

But Mo Rain kept shielding Yulithilis, the seal around the shard, a wall built from grief and iron.

Her heart filled with hate, a furnace with no door, and she called the monster to the square again and again.

In worlds beyond counting, Mo Rain even killed Yulei Hayato, a gamble thrown at the beginning to break the game.

Three who once leaned on each other in a strange land became wolves on the same hill, howling with each new moon.

Hakoen came again, and this time the shard lay in Ouyang’s palm, a coal he did not drop.

Hakoen tore straight for him, a spear of storm, ready to crush root and bearer in one blow.

Through all-seeing cat eyes, Ouyang glimpsed a big fool of a man, over and over, trying to smash the one root that cut all roads.

Because they were already dead, a verdict carved in stone, and the living was a dream with warm hands.

Destroy the root and everyone wakes, he saw, and remembers the grave that already took them.

Parallel worlds repeated like a lullaby with no end, a sleep so deep even sunrise could not pry the eyes open.

No matter how sweet, it was paint on a mask, and Hakoen meant to remind his partners of the face beneath.

He meant to tell them the whole truth, to wake his partners and himself and the world from that false dream.

From the ink-dark cloud came a beast’s roar, harsh and raw, full of refusal and vow and hate.

How could this be, Mo Rain breathed, eyes blank as rainwater, staring at Hakoen locked with the Thunder King.

Only when Ouyang spoke the truth did the shape fill in, a lantern lit in a cave.

So we were always partners, she thought, salt burning her mouth, always and still.

Tears broke like a river over its banks, and she couldn’t hold them, not with both hands.

Seeing her cry, Yulei Hayato felt heat rise in his eyes, a storm he couldn’t name.

He didn’t know why he wept, only that his heart clenched like a fist and wouldn’t open.

Something shattered in his mind like a mirror dropped on stone, and scenes spilled like glass.

Memories from one parallel world after another rippled through him, from three friends on a road to the last horizon.

He looked up. Around the black cat on the throne, countless gears bloomed like a steel flower and spun outward.

He didn’t know the details, but he knew the flood of memory tied to the cat like threads to a spindle.

So then, the cat said, voice bending like heat haze, the three of you are together again.

His body twisted, slow as sap, and took a human shape, with wings spread behind him, one black, one white, like night and frost.

The so-called funeral was Ouyang’s gift for three juniors, a rite written for those who still walked.

If they lacked whole memories, what meaning would the rite carry, a bell rung in an empty hall?

So Ouyang tapped power beyond this isolated world, a river that broke its banks, and drew all data from the time of endless parallels.

He restored Yulei Hayato and Hakoen, like portraits cleaned of soot, faces bright again in the frame.

His power outgrew what the isolated world could bear, a mountain on a reed basket, and the world began to crack.

It would be slow, a cliff eroding to sand, and he had time enough to send them off.

Now things were clear as dew. Hakoen held a god’s power, a storm in his chest, yet every parallel showed him like a stain on parchment.

He had fused with the world’s leftover will, a thread in every tapestry, so each world wove him in.

Ouyang folded all those Hakoens into this one, a flock into one bird, and though his body was still lost, his mind cleared like a sky after rain.

Begin, Ouyang said, a bell in a temple, this is your funeral.

A meteor shower traced the sky again, not just scratching stars, but falling like tears toward the earth.

Huge stones dragged long tails of fire, but they passed through the soil like mist and left nothing scarred.

They were phantoms, and the phantom rain of stars was the last rite, a lantern parade no hand could touch.

Kid, I forgot your name, Ouyang said, fanning black and white wings as he dropped before Yulithilis like night and snow, thanks for the hospitality these days.

His black glove narrowed into a sword like frost, and he slid it into her heart like a sigh.

The expected spray of blood never came, a brush left dry, because this isolated world had linked to the starry vault and the Supreme Law kept rewriting the page.

They were dead already, names carved off the stone, and what blood could spill from what no longer exists.

Heh. Ouyang, right, she whispered, a smile cracked like glaze, I won’t hate you, I’ll make you feel guilty forever, so I won’t hate you.

Her gaze tangled, part wild, part lucid, a candle guttering in wind.

Unless one had been like Mo Rain, walking world after world and swallowing the truth whole, who would accept it, a verdict against a warm morning.

To live well and hear you say we’re dead, who could nod, when the sun still rises and the moon still rocks us to sleep.

Everything looked so real, a painting you could step into, and so her grievance burned bright as a comet’s tail.

What a stubborn girl, Ouyang murmured, mouth sad as winter, to make me feel guilty forever, isn’t that another name for hate.

Rest easy and go, he said, and I’ll keep this hate like a token.

He drew the sword, and crimson bloomed across her white clothes like a memory, and she refused the truth even at the last blink.

With one step he stood before a little girl in fire-red, Sarayka, the Flame Lizard, a coal with eyes.

Hey, brat, he said softly, I told you, I’m not a proper boss, I never took you roaming the starry sea.

The starry sea, Sarayka breathed, face turned up like a flower, Boss, is the starry sea fun.

Yeah, he said, a small smile like creased paper, it’s a place more fun than the human world, and wider than any map.

But I’m a boss who can’t even save my own little brother, a dull blade in a silk scabbard.

No way, she laughed, eyes like embers, Boss is super strong, stronger than all of them together.

So many creatures couldn’t beat you, she said, full of shine, like a kid counting stars.

Boss, I’ve wanted to duel you for so long, she grinned, sweet as candied haw, don’t you dare hold back.

Elsewhere, Mo Rain’s trio couldn’t match the three element lords, three candles against a typhoon.

Senior, she said with a crooked smile, the gap’s a canyon, isn’t it, and her heart sank like a stone.

If this is the end, I’d have faded into the river of years, she said, but I swore I’d leave the brightest scar.

The watch in her hand swelled like a moon, and its huge hands spun like oars in a black sea.

Hakoen and Yulei Hayato stepped in, their eyes like flint, and joined hands over the pivot, three shadows against the wind.

They had all taken power from the Philosopher’s Stone, and now that power seeped from their bodies like light from a cracked lantern.

It flowed into the watch, and the surge made Ouyang’s face tighten, a weight settling on his brows.

Black and white wings hummed, black and white light circling like fish, and Ouyang sighed long, two tears sliding like slow pearls.

Newcomers, he said, voice both storm and lullaby, as your senior, let me say welcome.

Welcome to the Second Cosmos, he said, and the tears kept falling like slow rain.

And I send you my blessing, too. May you find joy in that unknown world beyond the veil… if such a world truly exists…

Void Art: The End of Nothingness—The Lament of Black and White!

…

Senior… you… you’re actually a good man—like a lamp in the rain!

Heh… even as you leave, you still hit me with the “you’re such a nice guy” line—like a stamp on my forehead.

Hehe… you really are a good man—like a mantra… good man… good man… good man…

The voice grew soft, like smoke in the wind, until everything sank into a world of black and white.