Before the altar, Hamrus murmured unknown words at the mosaic pillar, his voice dripping like oil on stone.

As his tongue spun that nameless speech, black mist drifted off the mosaic pillar. The mist rolled like storm clouds; after a while, it gathered into a black orb of chaos.

Yes, that black chaotic sphere was the imagined Void Messenger. No face, no gender, just a ball of murk. Ouyang blinked, stunned; his scalp crawled—this is your imagined Void Messenger?

He rubbed his temples; anger flared like sparks, but he cooled fast. On second thought, this was fine. If they’d imagined a hulking brute, or something weird, the joke would grow teeth. A simple sphere, he could accept.

“This is our god—the Void Messenger!” Hamrus knelt to the orb, palms together like folded wings, whispering prayer.

At that moment, Ouyang’s soul stepped into a strange place, a world pitch-black, with no hint of white. From the dark came a sound, like footsteps striking water under a moon.

“Who are you?” A childish voice rose from every direction, like wind echoing through a hollow night.

“Me?” A man’s voice reverberated in the space, and a snap cracked the dark. Light spread from a man in black at the center, pushing back night like dawn.

As the glow grew, a boundless sea surfaced in the darkness, waves breathing like silver beasts. Ouyang walked on the sea; ripples blossomed with each step, rings skimming like coins.

The world split in two: endless sea below, pure night above, a horizon cut sharp.

“You can call me the Void Messenger.”

“You’re the Void Messenger? Then who am I?”

“Eh... who knows.”

The one speaking with Ouyang was that imagined Void Messenger, still soft as new clay. In his world, told someone was the Void Messenger, he asked who he himself was. The bewildered child could only ask Ouyang who he was. Ouyang didn’t give real answers; he tossed casual lines like stones skipping water. One true and one imagined Void Messenger rambled through boundless chatter, clouds drifting without edges. The old hand Ouyang held the reins; the imagined one listened and asked, eyes wide. After all, the imagined Void Messenger was just a child.

No one knew how long they chatted; outside, it was only the blink of an eye.

Hamrus finished his prayer, bowed to the black orb, humility pooling like shade. “Divine one, these few before you—”

Before he finished, a childish voice chimed from the chaotic sphere, like a bell in fog. “Dad, that pale pretty boy next door keeps eyeing me; you gotta avenge me!”

“Hah? Little punk, daring to bully my godson? Come on, goddad will help you get your honor back!”

Ouyang rubbed his fists together; heat rose like a small storm. Hamrus watched, mind turning to stone; what was this—goddad, godson?

Xian stared, conflicted, at Ouyang and the lump of chaos; she had figured it out. “Brother-in-law, you took this counterfeit Void Messenger as your godson?”

“Not counterfeit; he’s renamed as the Son of the Void.”

Xian felt that familiar defeat—sounds right, and she had no reply.

Ouyang turned to Hamrus, calm as still water. “Kid, this one’s my godson now. From now on, address him as the Son of the Void.”

Hamrus wore snow-white hair and centuries, yet before Ouyang’s crew, he was still a kid.

His thoughts were a mess; this was a god, and gods had goddads now? And Ouyang looked utterly matter-of-fact; what had the world become?

The elder was still dazed when Ouyang drew a strange thing from his straw hat. It was an LCD TV Ouyang had snagged from Yiye long ago. Yiye had asked him to mass-produce it and return it; Ouyang had forgotten. Besides, Yiye now led an imperial legion to hunt the one who struck the royals. No one knew which corner of the stars they were in, so the TV stayed with Ouyang.

Ouyang clicked the remote; the screen bloomed with a bustling city, neon flowing like rivers. “Godson, that’s the nearest divine stronghold to us,” Ouyang said. “Tell goddad: is the one who bullied you from that city?”

The frame shifted; a man appeared. A blond man in a long golden robe, its hem dragging like sunbeams across marble. Hamrus saw him and his face changed, shock like frost. “Sun God!”

Even among the Isles of the Gods, the Sun God was a high-tier deity. Except for a few firstborn birthed with the Creator God, high-tier deities strutted unchecked there. The Isles of the Gods floated at the sky’s far edge, islands where gods made their home.

“Sun God? Godson, how do we teach him a lesson?” Ouyang asked, casual as rain. Hamrus went half-dead with fright; sir, that’s the Sun God, a high-tier deity! Aside from the Sky God and the Earth Mother, firstborn with the Creator God, high-tiers strut unchecked.

Ouyang’s bargain godson circled him again and again, like a moth around a lamp, thinking hard. “Dad, I want to cut off his little ding-ding.” After a long moment, the godson finally said it; everyone went slack-jawed.

“Son... why? Did he harass you? Wait, you don’t even have a gender; how’d he think you’re a girl?”

Truth be told, Ouyang was contradicting himself; no gender, yet calling him godson. Honestly, gender didn’t matter; Ouyang already had a daughter. Giving Klafias a younger brother sounded nice to him. Of course, neither child shared blood with Ouyang; both were picked up along the road.

On the side, Hamrus, nearly short-circuited by shock, raised his hand slowly. “Regarding the divine one, I know some things.” On the screen, the Sun God hadn’t noticed the crowd watching him. From that alone, Hamrus inferred plenty. If someone could stream the Sun God’s every move while he stayed oblivious, their power was above his. Or maybe the ‘artifact’ in Ouyang’s hand was too strong, masking the gaze like mist. Either way, it was someone Hamrus dared not offend.

“As for why our divine one wanted to cut the Sun God’s little ding-ding, there was inside story. Given our god was still childlike, his words might be off. So I should explain.

“Ten years ago, our church birthed a prodigy. At twenty, she held Sky Level strength. In management and military, she was no less dazzling. Under that prodigy, our thirteenth Saintess, Afrei, our church met its peak. Talent flooded like spring rivers; the divine one was our trump, the saintess our pillar. Those were our brightest years, gold like harvest fields.

“But ten years ago, the Sun God noticed the saintess. He wanted her to serve him.”

From Hamrus’s words, Ouyang understood this world’s mortal tiers matched the old Origin world’s scale. Back to the Sun God ordering the Void Church’s thirteenth saintess to serve him.

Naturally, the Void Church refused. As a god, the Son of the Void fought the Sun God at once. The result was never in doubt. Under the Sun God’s power, not only the Son of the Void, even the whole church might vanish.

At that crucial moment, Saintess Afrei bought a thread of life for the church. She pledged to serve the Sun God for life, in exchange for sparing the church and the Son of the Void. Proud, the Sun God agreed. He didn’t strike openly afterward. But in secret, he sent his mortal force, the Sun God Temple, against us. During that time, Void Church members were hunted everywhere; lives were bitter as ash.

Only recently did Hamrus find Luoyu City, a place to hide from the Sun God Temple. For some reason, they seemed wary of Luoyu City; no one dared enter to search. So the church could finally breathe for a while.

“What a swaggering Sun God,” Xian huffed, anger crackling like dry leaves. “I’ve cut down more of that trash in the war years than I can count. He even dares to strike the Void Church, even if it’s not ours...”

Ouyang said calmly, “How’s it not ours? Didn’t you see, the kid’s my godson? So this is our Void Church.”

Xian again had no words, because Ouyang’s logic felt annoyingly sound. “Then... brother-in-law, I’m going too! Let’s gang up—no, a duel. We’ll duel that Sun God together!” Her eyes flashed like stars; her fists clenched; she wanted to dive through the screen and pound him.

“I’m going too; we’ll duel that guy together!” Loyin hugged Ouyang’s neck and shook him like a bell.

Bai watched in silence and called a starlit longsword into her hand.

Ouyang felt amused and helpless, a smile tugging like wind on flags. “Guys, don’t be like this. The Sun God surviving till now isn’t easy. I’ll go alone and vent for the kid. You don’t need to crowd...”

Before he finished, Loyin and Xian vanished from his sight, like swallows into cloud. They left only one line hanging in the air: “Big Brother, I’m off to beat up the Sun God!”