People say time is a river; every choice is a fork in its current, carving different endings, sketching different fates like ripples in moonlight.

Across the human-held lands of Ediluwasha, city-states and kingdoms glittered like stars scattered over a dark field, and after fighting through thorns and storm, Glorious Moon and Xi reached the great human city-state called Heaven’s Favor.

They went to the Hero Association to register, cheeks bright as spring peaches, but Ouyang refused flat-out, pride sharp as a drawn blade. He was a Void Messenger; why would a shadow of the void queue for paperwork under the sun?

He only showed himself as Glorious Moon’s contractor to shield Xi like a pine against winter wind, and to watch the two girls grow, warding off stray disasters like a shepherd dog in the dusk.

Otherwise, what—show up just to preen under torchlight? Signing up at a human Hero Association would be a slap to the face, a peacock strutting in borrowed feathers.

The so‑called Hero Association governed humans who signed pacts in the Star Spirit’s name with beings from other spaces, threads tied between heaven and abyss.

Glorious Moon was human; after she signed with an otherworldly being, she became, in a sense, a guardian among the lanterns of mankind.

Because of countless people like Glorious Moon who could summon fighters from elsewhere, humans held a patch of steady earth in the Stellar Courtyard, not drifting like dust before foreign boots.

Thus, anyone who could sign with an extra‑dimensional being was crowned “hero,” a laurel woven from starlight and smoke.

Glorious Moon took Xi to register; they logged the card’s basics and Glorious Moon’s own data, the Association storing them like seeds in a granary for troubled seasons.

When war flared like wildfire or a crisis called for otherworldly aid, they could search by listed abilities like reading constellations on a clear night.

If Xi’s gift was water control, and flame‑spawn attacked like a red tide, they’d find a water‑wielder by the records, then have Glorious Moon summon Xi like rain over drought.

Of course, heroes received a monthly stipend—no feast of jade cups, but enough bread to keep winter’s hunger from the door.

Ouyang skipped the registry and lay in the grass outside the city, a green blade between his teeth, eyes drifting across the sky like a lone cloud.

In the river of time, every turn split into different streams. He had missed too much, let too much fall like leaves in autumn wind. Was there, in some parallel current, a self who chose perfectly?

What was that self like—throwing open a crystal palace, a harem glittering like ice, or walking a long road alone like a lantern in rain?

No, he thought, if the choices were perfect, how could that end in lonely frost? He shook his head. People said only an unfeeling god could choose perfectly—discarding desire like old husk, weighing gains and losses like iron on a scale, chasing maximum benefit until the world turned mechanical.

But Ouyang clung to another creed like a candle in wind: even with strength beyond humans, don’t abandon humanity. Cherish amid gains and losses like cupping warm tea; taste life’s joy and sorrow like tides on a shore. The “imperfect” choice, rough as uncut jade, was the perfect one.

Wait—what was this? Why was he suddenly swamped by sentiment, like fog rolling over a quiet lake?

He shook his head. Why think of strange things—other timelines, perfect choices, tangled weeds by the path?

Something was wrong.

He cooled his breath and felt it. He was a Tiered Being; few things could stir the still pool of his mind. If something did, it was no common wind.

He raised his hand, and shock rang like struck glass. In his sight, chains of causality coiled around his fingers like iron vines. Since he had sounded the world’s hymn, those chains had vanished like dew at dawn. Now they gleamed again.

What thing could make my chains return like thunder after clear skies?

He waited for Xi and Glorious Moon, but dusk bled into night with no footsteps; he decided to hunt the source alone, a lone wolf slipping into the trees.

Without him, the Star Spirit would still watch over the girls like a guardian star; his eyes were simply an extra shield against stray arrows.

Somewhere beneath his ribs, a hunch burned like a coal: that source mattered to him, heavy as fate’s stone. He couldn’t wait; he had to go now, like a hawk diving on a glint.

But the moment he stood, that faint thread snapped, the feeling vanishing like a scent in rain. The chains on his hand remained, cold as moonlit metal, but the path went blank as fog.

Bewilderment and helplessness rose like a tide, swallowing his ankles.

He felt like a child who’d wandered too far down a twilight lane, unable to find the lantern-lit door of home.

Damn it, what is that thing? Why this strange ache, like a thorn under skin?

A pallid world opened like paper in his ears; someone was crying behind a wall of mist, whispers brushing him like farewell blessings, like a coda under a closing curtain.

Tears sprang for no reason, sudden as spring rain. His heart clenched as if a hand gripped it, pain beating in waves.

A world once prismatic went gray in a blink, colors draining like ink in water; only black and white remained, an old photograph under frost.

Time itself seemed to still, each mote of dust hanging like a star in ice.

I failed…

A voice drifted like a reed flute, but when Ouyang searched the frozen world, he found no throat for that sound.

Do you believe it? At each moment, different choices fork into different times. Today you stepped out with your left foot first; in another stream, you started with the right.

The black‑and‑white world wove itself into a net of lines, a loom humming in the dark.

Points became lines; lines crossed into planes; planes kissed and rose as space, a crystal unfolding in air.

Then the world unraveled toward origin, like a tide pulling back to bare sand. Space broke to planes, planes to lines, lines to points. The feeling was strange and new, a shoreline he had never walked.

He stood as if in primordial chaos, where all things were only a point, a seed under endless night.

I’m you from another timeline. I failed. I chose wrong…

The voice returned like a wind from far peaks.

What choice? Why failure? He didn’t know; the words thinned like smoke, swallowed by the sea of chaos, leaving only salt on the tongue.

As he sifted the message, the point burst like a star, scattering points into lines, lines tangling into planes, planes rising into a three‑dimensional hall.

No matter filled it, only bare space like a clear bell. In the void, Ouyang slipped into that strange state again, as if the emptiness was his own skin.

Slowly, ghost‑blue flames bloomed like night blossoms. They formed a vast ring; at its heart, the same blue fire drew an emblem—star and moon veined with cracks, like porcelain under strain.

Crimson Night Star?!

Wait—how did this odd space brush shoulders with that crowd, like strangers meeting under the same moon?

From the ring of blue fire, a conference table unfurled like a bridge. Six chairs encircled it, each with a tag like a plaque on an ancient gate. The one facing Ouyang read: Chaos and Order.

Chaos and Order—wasn’t that the First Imperial Princess, Cynthia, ice and fire in one hand?

Chaos and Order, Light and Darkness, Ruin and Annihilation, Time and Eternity, Fate and Hope, Oath and Promise. Six tags for six Watchers, the Other Shore’s six beings beyond specification, like six pillars under a sky.

Of them, Chaos and Order, Light and Darkness, and Ruin and Annihilation were the public faces, the Other Shore’s Big Three, tall as mountains above the clouds.

The latter three were veiled like moons behind gauze. Even for Time and Eternity, people knew only an alternate mask; in the Sixth Epoch, the Supreme Law erased him like chalk from a slate.

Ouyang leaned in; something lay on the table—a sheet dense with cipher, characters coiled like snakes in grass. He couldn’t crack them cleanly; he’d need Saya’s blade of mind.

The cipher was murky, but the sign staked at the table’s center cut like sunlight through leaves. He read it in a glance.

At the top, four neat words: Void Waystation. The calligraphy was delicate, like plum blossoms after snow; Ouyang knew at once it was Cynthia’s hand.

Below, someone scrawled a line that shattered the mood like a rock through glass: Xuan was here! Also, the next line’s an idiot!

That atrocious handwriting pointed straight at a certain ill‑tempered jerk, as rude as muddy boots on a mat.

He looked lower. Someone had dared answer, ink calm as a clear lake. The next handwriting was clean and square, a breeze through bamboo, instantly soothing.

It read: The one above is a problem child who’ll never grow up. A smiling face bloomed at the end, a petal of mischief that felt like a girl’s laugh.

More lines followed, the usual “was here” graffiti like footprints in soft sand. But the third, fourth, and so on all roasted the first line like sparrows pecking a crust.

Staring at the scribbles, Ouyang let out a soft snort of laughter; the nameless grief from moments ago lifted like morning mist under rising sun.