After shooing that wild cluster of kids away, Ouyang let out a long breath, like mist after rain. Hard—he’d watched them grow inch by inch, from dust-born to sky-reaching.

The Source World fed them well, in flesh and in spirit, yet their grit braided with every gift, like roots gripping rock.

How long since he gathered them like this? A little wistful, a little lost, like a boat hovering in fog.

He didn’t tell Augustine what they were doing. Instead, he led him to the Ever‑Sleep Cemetery. Seeing those children, old memories tugged up like moonlight caught in a net.

Long ago he built a Sanctum of Souls, a hall where the dead would return. He’d been too naive then—his dream fat with promise, reality starved to bone.

At god‑tier war, death shatters soul. When you die, most scatter like ash in wind. What use is a sanctum to dust?

For mortals, maybe it worked. Mortal fights rarely slice to the soul. The dead drifted back like swallows to eaves.

Then the Tiered Beings went to war. The Source World nearly collapsed, and the Sanctum was hammered to nothing, like a bell cracked on stone.

War dragged on for ages. Ouyang had no heart to tend graves while skies burned.

“Augustine, you know…” He paused, feeling moved like water stirred. “I stumbled on records. In corners we never see, at edges we forgot, someone keeps vigil, and waits.”

To them, our world is where all returns, the circuit of souls, like rivers seeking sea. Their faith is feverish. They believe if they believe in us, their souls will enter the Root Land—our world.

“Yet what can we give?” His sigh was a wind in ruins. “Dead is dead. There’s no ‘soul ascends’ we can hand out.”

In those chaotic years he never paused to ask. War at that scale burns souls to cinders. Nothing returns to any hall.

Now it’s peace of a sort. Traitors need watching, but it’s not War‑Age fire.

“Teacher… are you going to build a space like an Underworld, a place where all souls return?” Augustine stared, blank as fresh snow, hope and dread mixing like stormlight.

He didn’t think the prior expedition was “going big.” If they truly went big, every Demon King would move, like mountains marching.

By contrast, that expedition was a skirmish, foam on a wave.

Ouyang nodded. The City of the Dead he made before was a test, but he learned such things can’t be raised at whim. The Supreme Law clamps down deep, like iron under ice.

Back then Ouyang was a weakling. Augustine today could beat him silly, like a drum in rain. So he dropped that thought.

But now it’s different. He’s peered through the Gate of Truth, like an eye opening in night.

“You wait here. I’m going to consult a senior.”

He left Augustine and stepped to a barren world in the next heartbeat, like a hawk crossing a ridge. The sky was torn. The earth was broken. Magma bubbled from seams like blood from stone.

The Primordial Continent, also called the Origin Continent. Now it mirrors the Sealed Land he’d seen—stillness, dead soil, a hush like winter fields.

Long ages ago, this land held blazing civilization, like lanterns hung in stars. Longer ages back, the Sealed Land was the same.

In that battle that almost crushed the Source World, the Sealed Land vanished, like a ship swallowed by night. Even Ouyang lost its trail.

“Long time no see, Lord Azathoth…”

A gigantic turtle shell sprawled ahead like a fallen moon. The oldest creature under the starry vault.

When the Source World was attacked, Azathoth didn’t intervene. Ouyang felt a pebble of displeasure, small and sharp.

But only a pebble. No one owed his world a shield, like strangers under rain.

The giant turtle kept shrinking until it stopped at the size of a small car, a mountain folded into a stone.

“You… went to that place…” The Ancient Turtle’s face cracked with surprise, like ice under heel.

Ouyang knew what “that place” meant. Only the Gate of Truth can startle an off‑the‑chart being like him.

He nodded, face stern, no pride, only weight, like a banner heavy with night. “So, that heavy duty fell onto my shoulders.”

Azathoth’s look said, of course, like thunder answering wind.

“One cosmic epoch of waiting, and finally you,” he murmured to the stars. “The manager the Law recognizes.” Melancholy draped him like an old cloak. “With the previous Administrator’s fall, everything was buried.”

Ouyang once struck a deal with the Supreme Law: take up the previous Administrator’s yoke, carry that fate like a millstone. In trade, the Law gave him ease—green lights all the way.

If no Administrator rose, then when the hostile one drifted by on a whim, the whole universe might get erased, like chalk rinsed by rain.

The most likely picks were those few from the Other Shore. But their hearts weren’t for these stars; they longed for home, like geese turning south.

Worse, they were outsiders. With many worries, the Supreme Law sent them away like plague gods, blessings edged like knives.

The Law never spoke to them, but they guessed. Before leaving, they did one thing, like sowing a seed in ash.

They harvested Chaos from the deep and molded a body, clay kneaded from night. Then they snatched a soul back from the Law, a spark stolen from lawfire.

Thus Ouyang was born. It’s why he could so easily strike up the world’s anthem, music rising like dawn. He’s half a chaos‑being.

For Ouyang, the Law was less wary. The shaping Chaos belonged to these stars, like native soil under foot.

To the Law, Ouyang was half native, half storm.

The Law had other candidates, sure. But Ouyang was best because of that fate, like a key cut for one lock.

To face that Administrator, even if the chosen reached the step, could he win? A blade shines; can it cleave iron?

Those tied to Ouyang had the same potential. As his friends, even if he couldn’t beat that Administrator, he could call brothers, drums calling men to the gate.

All threads weighed, plus Mapleleaf’s arrival, the Law finally chose Ouyang, a die cast into river.

Truth is, the Supreme Law had no choice. Mapleleaf’s sword back then was a near‑threat, a flash at heaven’s throat.

Don’t pick our man as Administrator? We wipe you out. That was the gist, like thunder without cloud.

Ouyang recalled what he learned at the Gate of Truth and wiped cold sweat, like dew shaken from leaves. His brothers seem to be doing fine—bold enough to threaten the Will of the Great Universe, and across time itself.

If they’re that flashy, and I stay low‑key, won’t I shame them? The thought pricked like nettles.

He shared his plan with the Ancient Turtle, seeking details, like a sailor asking a mapmaker. That being existed before the previous Administrator.

Even Jue only formed after that Administrator appeared, then followed at his side like a shadow. Jue’s curse came after that fall, laid by the hostile one, a chain locking him for endless years.

If not for a final aid before the previous Administrator entered eternal sleep, Jue wouldn’t be alive now, a candle snuffed in wind.

The Ancient Turtle had lived so long his knowledge dwarfed Ouyang’s, like a mountain over a hill.

As expected, Ouyang left satisfied. The Ancient Turtle had helped build the forebear of the Underworld, the Nether Soil, a land like dark loam.

Later, the Nether Soil shattered. Its largest shard became the Underworld, a moon born of broken rock.

It’s like the Divine Realm. Its predecessor was the Divine Continent. Once shattered, the largest shard became the Divine Realm, a crown remade from wreckage.

With the cycle of reincarnation learned from the Ancient Turtle, and green lights from the Supreme Law, Ouyang felt ready, like a bow strung.

“Kid, from your face I can’t see a hint of fear,” the Ancient Turtle mused, voice like gravel. “Do you think you can beat that hostile Administrator?”

He was curious. This candidate gig isn’t easy. Picture two nations, A and B, like two storms.

A killed B’s king, then ravaged B until it broke, and left—ashes on wind.

Now B’s king is gone. Who dares take the throne? A seat is a snare.

If it’s a strong kingdom, who wouldn’t? But a fallen one? Once you sit down, A might get annoyed, like a tiger hearing footsteps.

We killed B’s king with effort. Now a new one pops up? That’s poking A’s eye, a thorn in paw.

If it blows open, Ouyang is the most endangered, a flag alone on a wall. He also carries the heaviest pressure, a roof under snow.

Yet though his face was grave, the Ancient Turtle felt no fear inside him, no shaking leaf.

“Hah? That problem… it’s fine. I got brothers.”

Ouyang said it and vanished, like a spark skipping.

He wasn’t lying. Mapleleaf dared to threaten the Great Universe’s Will and planted an Administrator in a foreign cosmos. What does that say? Knife‑edge courage.

Ouyang pictured two gangs, Green Dragon and Axe, alleys wet with rain.

Say Green Dragon’s boss is the hostile Administrator. Our Axe boss got killed by Green Dragon. Ouyang’s just a no‑name Axe punk, a face in shadow.

Then a swaggering crew walks in, boots ringing like drums.

“This kid’s my brother. From now on he’s your Axe boss. No objections.” And the Green Dragon trash? Our brothers can beat him at will, blades singing.

He ran that scene in his head, and his cheek twitched, like a thread pulled too hard.

The Administrator business is still far from him, a star beyond horizon. Likely eons away.

For now, take each step well, then speak. Steps first, sky later.