In the Second Space, an obsidian road unfurled under their feet as they strolled, while a seven-colored void around them twisted like liquid silk.

Without that nightglass path, even an ordinary god would drown and lose themselves in the rainbow churn.

The main artery was a broad obsidian highway, hundreds of meters wide, once flanked by trees and flowers like painted borders.

In Ouyang’s memory, both sides bloomed green and bright; now it lay cold and empty, a corridor of stone and hush.

They’d only just reopened this corridor between spaces; there was no time to lace it with living color.

In the old days, the Second Space teemed with travelers, a tide of beings flowing like markets on the move.

Some spread mats on the road and hawked specialties from their own worlds, a bazaar stitched into the void.

At the stations, that scene multiplied; a station meant a wide obsidian plaza set inside the Second Space.

In the former “Origin World,” entry opened onto a colossal square, nightglass paving stretching like a sea; that was a station.

Each world set a station where its projection fell inside the Second Space, a gate that returned you to the matching world.

The size of a station matched the world’s prosperity; the richer the world, the grander the plaza.

Likewise, the main avenue touched major worlds; smaller, distant ones hung from secondary roads and slender branches.

A secondary road split from the main and tied back to it; a branch peeled off the secondary like a thin twig.

From trunk to twig, widths shrank: main at hundreds of meters, secondary at tens, branches carving only a few.

Main, secondary, branch—three roads for high, middle, and low worlds.

The “Origin World” kept a station on the main, a plaza vast as horizon.

A low world called Terui had its station on a branch, barely the size of a football field.

Folks from low worlds hiking toward high ones would enter their station, follow the branch, then widen onto a secondary road.

They’d walk a stretch, reach the main avenue, then ride that artery to a high-world station and pass through.

For low civilizations, that’s a long pilgrimage; there are other ways, but the Second Space is the common road.

Many commoners saved a year’s coin to afford a single journey through that rainbowed corridor.

Today’s Second Space can’t touch that former bustle; it feels back at the first mile, the age of exploration reborn.

Then, hearts burned bright with curiosity for new worlds; now, warmth has guttered, and a pale sorrow films every soul.

Even a constant smile hides a name or a moment etched like frost inside.

They followed the main road for a while; veterans of this route, they let the rainbow churn slip past their gaze.

Only Xi, stripped of memory, watched the twisting colors with bright, childlike wonder.

The old road had shattered during long wars, smeared into the vast void; Moqi built this one anew.

In this rough-cut era, he didn’t make it grand; just a few meters wide, a lane like the branches of old.

“Here we are—just ahead.”

Ouyang wore a straw hat woven by Youwen; the obsidian way widened into a square about a hundred square meters.

Patterns, mute and mysterious, sprawled across the open stone; past them, the road resumed as a straight, narrow line.

That vast sigil mattered; it tethered the target world to the Second Space like a knot in silk.

In the old “Origin World,” the Second Space wasn’t easily reached; even lesser gods might fail to enter.

Moqi had etched an ancient rune array here, binding the “Origin World” to its station in the Second Space.

After that, even ordinary folk with a touch more mental strength could sense the Second Space like a hidden bell.

Most magi or apprentices could pry open a temporary door to it.

Without that great pattern—the array—only god-tier beings could walk these roads.

Ouyang tugged his hat with his right hand, then drew a door in the air with his left forefinger.

A phantom gate twisted and turned, then unfurled into a landscape scroll—river surging, beasts running, rain whispering crisp.

He stepped through, and Xian hauled her sister with one hand and Loyin with the other, chasing his heel.

Bai had already slipped in, her feet a heartbeat behind his.

The station view matched what they’d seen before: a gray sky shedding rain like threads.

They stood by a river; across it, a forest breathed dark green.

Ouyang glanced back; not far away, a ribbon of cooking smoke rose into the wet air.

He swept his hand across the doorway; the portal blinked out like a snuffed lamp.

“The world where Lingwen lives—if I recall—it’s called the ‘Ling World’.”

He muttered as he conjured umbrellas for the girls; for himself, the straw hat was enough.

He could change the weather with a thought, but that would kill the vacation mood.

A vacation needs leisure’s drift; Lingwen won’t die anytime soon—he felt her state the moment they arrived.

So they strolled this world, Ouyang curious about its shape and weave.

Intel from Sheila said the world was in chaos; the Creator God slept, and restraint had gone out like a lamp.

The gods fought; their believers fought; war seeded the fields, and that became the root of this disorder.

At Ouyang’s level, even with Xi—a powerless mortal—there was no pressure at all.

The blessing he laid on Xi could block a Tiered Being’s strike; forget the small fry serving gods.

He worried even less about the rest.

Bai’s power matched his own; he feared for the world instead, that she might slip and break it.

A Tiered Being—the god above gods—wasn’t a jest; one blow could dim the star-sea.

Loyin posed no worry; as the “Origin” within “Original Sin,” she was no gentle reed.

Xian had been tempered by long war; she wasn’t that harmless girl anymore.

“What do we do next?” Xi asked, umbrella tilted, curiosity bright as a lantern.

Rain stopped short a few centimeters from her clothes, blocked by Xian’s invisible ward on the skirt.

Even without umbrellas, none of them would be wet; but among mortals, that would look divine and strange.

Who vacations while being worshiped?

Ouyang’s rain parted the same way; he stared into the gray, toward lights, likely a human settlement.

“Do what? Vacation, of course.” He paused, mood cooling like steel.

“But intel says this war isn’t only gods; a third party’s shadow moves in the dark.”

“If nothing’s off, they’re lapdogs of those three worlds. We’ll clean up the stragglers.”

They knew which three worlds he meant.

Xian’s face cooled; that war had cost her more than words could hold.

Luoyu City spent most seasons under rain; legend said a god once wept here, and the sky kept weeping.

To people, rain was the tears of their god, a soft grief poured over streets.

At the gate, Bai tugged Ouyang’s sleeve, star-bright eyes a little lost.

“A‑yang… someone’s crying.”

“Crying?”

Xi blinked at Bai; she heard no sobbing.

Rain’s susurrus muffled many sounds, but she was sure no one cried.

There were no guards at the gate; Ouyang shook his head, a small ripple of thought.

“A clinging obsession that won’t disperse… What happened at the end to make a god weep?”

In truth, the city carried more than that lingering, weeping intent.

Bai hadn’t said it; she didn’t care to.

The crying had piqued her only a little, so she spoke of that and left the rest.

Beyond the tears, resentment churned through the city, an endless tide pressing at its walls.

A hidden power kept it suppressed, so the city stayed merely somber, not broken.

They didn’t dwell; they acted on whim.

In a world at war, resentment was common as rain; a city steeped in it wasn’t worth their interest.

No soldiers guarded the gate, so they walked in openly, rain painting the stones behind them.