The files were still on paper, a thick sheaf stacked like slabs of bark.

Nostalgia rose in Ouyang like dawn mist. Back then, he’d toss headaches to Xi; girls tended to be meticulous. Now, when he slid the stack to her, Xi only blinked, eyes empty as a winter pond.

Liuli had handled plenty under his seat, a reed tempered by wind and rain. Yet she still wasn’t qualified to sift these documents.

He rubbed his temples. In his own castle, stone breathing like a sleeping mountain, he sank into a chair. Time to get serious.

“Liuli, notify Feges. Tell her we caught some remnants in Lingwen’s world. Have her interrogation unit bring them back to Miracle City and question them thoroughly. Also ask Lingwen what help her world needs.”

“As you command.”

When Lingwen captured those agents from the three high-civilization subordinate worlds, Ouyang hadn’t brought them back. He’d left them parked in that world, like fish kept in a side pond.

Feges, a dark elf born in shadow, had once kept a night-blooming heart. Then she fell in with a bunch of goofy Demon Kings, and the gloom got covered like moonlight behind clouds. Interrogation? Feges was a veteran, steel under velvet.

Ouyang glanced at the sky, blue like a vast lid. Should he build a prison? A higher civilization needed laws and rules, like riverbanks for a flood. Back in the Source World, many things were rough. No prisons—lawbreakers got blasted out of the world, not kept in a cage.

“Glenza keeps shouting he lacks human specimens. With a prison, he could take a walk and pick them like sour fruit…”

He didn’t plan to dwell on it. Not his field. “Forget it. When there’s time, tell Wutong to refine the system. Saya, scan these files for me. Sort their importance into three grades.”

He spoke to the air. One heartbeat later, the air rippled, and a projection bloomed—palm-sized Saya, a tiny lantern of light.

Saya was a network hub. Long ago, when Ouyang planned to ram the Other Shore against those three worlds, he’d evacuated her from the Other Shore. Back in the Panworld Alliance, her avatars appeared everywhere, and now was no different. In Miracle City, call once and a Saya projection would appear—science’s sharpest mind, the strongest intelligence born on the scientific side.

Her true body was busy helping others with the “Starry Sky Decoration” project, so she couldn’t come in person.

Pages whirled like migrating leaves, then settled themselves onto the table.

The thick sheaf split into three neat stacks in a single second. The light-doll bowed and vanished, like a firefly snuffed by wind. She was busy—so busy even a projection felt hurried. It made sense. “Starry Sky Decoration” wasn’t just picking a star; it meant composition, orbital dance, mutual gravity between worlds—an ocean of numbers, a forest of equations.

He had a crowd of Creator Gods under him now, a canopy of talent. Even so, if he ordered them to create a planet where higher wisdom could arise—and keep it viable without divine power—maybe one or two would succeed. Maybe.

Worldmaking wasn’t child’s clay. Continents and seas needed relative stability. Nearby stars tugged like wolves on a pelt. The sun’s breath warmed or burned. Everything counted. Without math, physics, chemistry, and astronomy, only seasoned hands who failed thousands of times could earn the right to succeed once.

Traditional world-creation was different. A Creator God could spin a world with a flick, let it breed life over time. But those worlds leaned on their god like vines on a trellis. When the god fell, the trellis broke, and the vine withered.

In Ouyang’s concept, a world must stand without a god’s hand, a lake that holds its own reflection. That was a qualified creation.

He had a plan. Around the Eternal Sleep Continent, too many stars had been shattered by long wars, like lamps kicked in a riot. The “Starry Sky Decoration” was literal—ornament, not a place for ordinary mortals to live. Even after tens of thousands of years, refilling a living sky would be a slow tide.

So he thought of founding a Divine Academy. Graduate at Realm God level. The thesis: create a world. Only worlds that needed no divine crutch would pass. Free labor would swell the starfields, and because graduation was on the line, those Creator Gods would pour heart and marrow into their worlds. Worlds crafted for hearts beat better than worlds churned for quotas.

If orders said, “Stars are few, make more,” you wouldn’t pour your soul into it. The cosmos was too vast. Glance once and you’d turn away from sculpting star by star.

“This is a good idea. For their diplomas, those kids will go all in. Their worlds will be wild and wondrous. It’ll be lively.”

He looked down at the paperwork and folded his arms on the desk. “As a great Tiered Being, how could I be beaten by mere paper?”

Saya hadn’t marked the urgent ones, but the truth lay clear as starlight. The most important should be the smallest share. The thinnest stack was the key.

The rest? Pass them downslope. If it’s “not important,” he didn’t need to grind the wheat himself.

A sly smile curved his mouth. He thought of Cataclysm and the Sword Demon. Pity. Those two grabbed their loot and ran. If they’d stayed to visit, Ouyang would’ve dumped this pile on them with a laugh.

He picked a few sheets from the thinnest stack and skimmed.

He frowned, then flipped to the next.

These were high-priority. Saya hadn’t made a mess. Most reports logged newly found worlds—almost all controlled by subordinate worlds of those three high civilizations. In such cases, a clean wipe would be ideal. But intel found something strange. The natives didn’t worship those three. They worshiped the Source World.

To their eyes, the Source World was the only higher world. They called it Heaven. Civilizations birthed their own Divine Realms and Underworlds, like islands sprouting temples. Even the Divine Realm that opposed the Source World was just a fragment of the Divine Continent; other worlds had their own “Divine Realm.” The Aup World did, too.

By extension, the Demon World and the Underworld were the same story. The universe was too vast. Their civilizations ruled a puddle in the sea. Outside their reach, other realms existed—other “Divine Realms,” other “Underworlds.”

But Heaven was unique. And after those three arrogant civilizations were erased, their believers’ faith hardened like iron. They preached that only Heaven was the destination of all things, that every cycle returned to the root. Their slogans hit like drums—Ouyang could feel the fervor in the beat.

“Tsk, with slogans like that, they’re old hands and veteran zealots. Talent. All of them.”

He had to admit, they weren’t wrong. Once, even the Divine Realm and the Underworld held mortal lives that aged like autumn grass. Now, on the Eternal Sleep Continent, he had written the rule of immortality himself. Any being who entered no longer feared lifespan. Unless the world broke, the rule was rewritten, or the true god who penned it fell.

He read on. Boredom drained like rain, and interest rose like a tide.

Some of those believers were gods, too. They’d hidden for years, whispering the “Only Heaven” doctrine in the dark. Silly at first glance, yet somehow touching, like a candle kept in a storm.

Out in distant worlds, someone still held the line. Someone waited.

“You didn’t fail me. I’ll give you an ideal paradise.”

A decision settled in his eyes like frost. “Unique, right? Then we’ll forge a world that’s one of one—like the Other Shore once stood alone in the star-sea.”

“Bai, call Augustine and Jade Rabbit here. And the Hericot siblings—bring them, too. Also, any Demon Kings who’re idle—”

A few seconds passed.

“Fine, I thought too far. Just Augustine, Jade Rabbit, and the Hericot siblings.”

When he said “idle Demon Kings,” Bai looked at him, puzzled as a deer in snow. “Idle” was hard to define. He was asking too much.

Soon, Bai brought them in. In the Eternal Sleep Continent, people held a shared understanding: seeing the Starlight Angel was like the Void Messenger himself arriving.

Augustine, Ouyang’s first student. Jade Rabbit, the steward. Nabelia and Eika of the Hericot Clan. They came the instant Bai called.

Augustine ditched several dates with girls without a second thought, like a hawk dropping trinkets mid-flight.

“Teacher, do you have a mission for us?”

Before he finished, the Rabbit launched at Ouyang like a white comet—only to be snagged mid-air. Nabelia, once head maid, pinched its long ears with practiced fingers. “Stupid rabbit, don’t disrespect His Majesty the Demon King.”

Judging by Nabelia’s smooth grip, this scene had played out many times. Ouyang watched their roughhousing, and a smile warmed his mouth, like embers under ash.

This feeling—how long had it been since he’d felt it?