The City of Earth still bustled; Ouyang tipped his straw hat, eyes drifting like clouds, and he sighed as if wind combed a golden field.
At the horizon, a lance of starlight flared—daylight be damned, it shone like a newborn sun. When it halted above the city, endless starfire drifted down like rain.
“Is that… an angel?”
“An angel as brilliant as starlight—could it be a herald of some High Lord?”
“I’ve never seen a being like that… feels stronger than any main god.”
Faces turned up, a tide of awe under the sky. In an age of war, miracles still came, yet this one felt like night itself unfurled. The falling light became a vast starfield; you could almost see stars being born, then popping like bubbles back into rain.
The light-rain thinned, and the starlit angel vanished. While the crowd guessed her path, she had already slipped quietly into the city.
“Ayang, I found it!”
Bai stood before Ouyang, the task he’d set her now complete. Beside her came a woman, who dropped to one knee when she saw him.
“Havidifika, Captain of the Earth Mother’s Guard, pays respect to Your Majesty, the Void Messenger!”
At his nod she rose. “Your Majesty, the Mother Goddess invites you.”
“Gaia… she won’t come see me?”
Ouyang’s voice stayed calm, a still lake under dawn light, and the Captain felt winter creep up her spine. Long ago she’d visited the ‘Source’ World; the First Demon King’s strength had always been a mystery. Among the Panworld Alliance, no high civilization had ever seen his limits. Before the link to the Source World broke, the First Demon King already stood above the Creator God.
“Your Majesty… the Mother has her reasons. In that war, the Creator God fell asleep, and the Mother Goddess was gravely wounded. She can’t leave the temple—please forgive her.”
She used “pay respects,” because even their Creator God couldn’t compare to the First Demon King; Gaia, as Earth Goddess, stood below the Creator God, and should by rite come to bow when the First Demon King descended.
Ouyang listened, brow folding like a shadowed ridge; then he glanced at Bai.
“She’s right. This world’s Creator God took the deepest wound; Gaia the next. If Gaia leaves the temple now, she’ll dissipate,” Bai said, her words steady as starlight. Havidifika breathed easier.
“In that case, lead the way.”
“Yes!”
Havidifika pressed a fist to her heart and bowed, then took point.
Behind, Bai eyed Ouyang, her doubt a small ripple. “Ayang, where’s Aurora? She not with you?”
His smile turned bitter, a crescent cut by cloud. “She’s… still angry. She ran away from home. Once she cools, she’ll see it through. With Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai, she’ll be fine.”
He did not explain further. He moved after Havidifika; Bai wasn’t one for gossip. For her, Ouyang’s word was truth—if he chose silence, she chose to let it be.
Havidifika flew, wings of speed beating the wind; Ouyang and Bai walked, step by step across the sky as if strolling a garden path. Each step spanned vast distances, and no matter how she pushed her flight, they stayed just behind her.
Two titans at her back—pressure pressed like a stormfront. She strained in the air while they wandered as if beneath willows by a stream. As her thoughts tangled, the high sky ahead bloomed with endless thunderclouds—then a colossal fireball rolled like a burning moon.
“Thunder God. Fire God.”
Havidifika stopped. Those two were high-tier gods, power at the upper rank; she was only mid-tier. Worse, they’d always squeezed Gaia’s lineage—stealing believers, carving territory, pressing hard like iron jaws.
Once, with Gaia’s firstborn strength, the Thunder God and Fire God wouldn’t dare disrespect a supreme-tier force. But ages passed without a trace of Earth God’s aura. Rumors spread: the Earth God had fallen. After the Creator God, another great deity was gone.
Without the Earth God, their lands were eroded like cliffs in a relentless tide. Now, Gaia’s line huddled within the City of Earth.
“Yo, Captain, where are you rushing?” a voice rumbled from the thunderclouds, nine heavens of noise that would pulp a mortal with sound alone.
A voice boomed from the fireball too: “Not staying in your kennel, and still daring to wander…”
Bad blood, sharp as flint.
Havidifika faced the two high-tier gods, jaw set like a drawn bow. In the Ling World, high-tier gods were born in ancient dawns—innate beings. They said the Fire God was the first flame between heaven and earth. Havidifika was different—once a human, forged by years into godhood. For later-born deities like her, becoming high-tier was a near-impossible dream.
With such a disparity, she could only glance back at the two figures behind her. Her chestnut hair snapped in the gale; her right hand found her sword’s hilt—then let it go, like a leaf unclenching from the branch.
“Your Majesty, these two high-tier gods are from a hostile faction. I’m not their match.”
The Fire God and Thunder God watched her ignore them and turn to salute those behind her; temper flared like oil on flame. A mere mid-tier deity, while they were innate beings; fire and thunder are tempers born wild.
Before their threats could crack the air, the black-clad man was harsher still. “You two trash. You’re in my way.”
“Kid, you’re bold,” the Fire God barked a laugh, sparks in his voice. Among high-tier gods, he knew every name; he’d never seen Ouyang. Of the firstborn kind birthed with the Creator God, only a handful existed, and this one wasn’t one of them. So he laughed, his judgment a blade: at best, the man was mid-tier.
“Bold. In front of me you still dare spit steel—interesting. Kid, submit to—”
The Thunder God never finished. A single slap erased him—Bai’s palm, woven from condensed starlight, swept him into nothing like ash in the wind.
The Fire God froze, flame guttering.
What… just happened?
“I told you. You’re blocking my road.” Ouyang spoke softly, voice like a black river at night. “Some do dare block the Void Messenger. But not you.”
Void Messenger?
Suddenly, the Fire God remembered—the memory buried under ages, a shard he never dared touch. That era: the First Demon King—the Void Messenger. Time had scoured those marks, and with the Creator God asleep, this world’s ties to others were severed. No wonder he’d dismissed the idea that Ouyang came from beyond.
Of course—no wonder Gaia’s Captain bowed as if to dawn itself.
“You are… the First… Demon King…”
His vision cracked like glass in frost. Then everything shattered, and fell into a darkness that had no end.
On a barren path, Xi cradled two plush rabbits, one black, one white. Head bowed like a wilted flower, she watched the dust and wandered without a map.
The black rabbit squirmed in her arms, voice low as a night breeze. “Mistress, let’s go back. Without Master, this chaos is dangerous.” The white rabbit chimed in, a soft echo like moonlight on snow.
Their gentle nudge struck a fault line. Her feelings surged like a storm tide breaking its banks.
“No. I’m not going back!” Her voice shook like a chime in wind. “He keeps talking about the past, but I remember nothing. He loves the one called Aurora—not me. In his eyes I’m just her stand-in.”
Her words caught; tears fell like cold rain. It had felt perfect, but last night Ouyang spoke of their first meeting, of youth like spring grass.
For Xi, that past was an empty room. What he described was a stranger, a shadow on a wall. She held to her truth: she is herself, and Aurora is Aurora.
Every kindness he gave, every love he showed, felt built on mist—on believing she was Aurora. If you strip that mist away, would he still be so tender? If she were only a face that matched Aurora’s, what choice would he make?
All that love, all that sweetness, twisted inside her and exploded like a trapped star.
She asked him, one question after another, like arrows shot into dusk. He gave no answer—hesitation hung heavy as fog.
“I don’t want to be a replacement.” Teeth clenched like a locked gate, she cried and left, footsteps scattering leaves.
Ouyang didn’t chase. He stood there, hollow as a statue, and let her go. In that moment, she understood: to him, she was a mirror, not a world.
“You promised forever. You promised to show me a sea of stars. You promised to walk with me to the end of time… Liar. He’s just a liar. Without him, I’ll still live—alone, under my own sky.”
