“Welcome... to a new world...”

They stepped out of the prismatic, twisting corridor like swimmers breaching a rainbow current, and a newborn world unfolded like a dawn-lit scroll.

Life hummed everywhere, resources gleamed like scattered stars, and promise stretched like sunlit plains beyond the horizon.

The instant they crossed the threshold, a mysterious force fell over them like a soft veil.

“Here, you won’t age to death with the years, unless the laws of this world are altered, or the world itself perishes.”

“From now on, you’re citizens of the void!”

They stood on grass-green earth, gazing at rivers and mountains carved like ink strokes on jade, and the dreamlike haze felt sweet and unreal.

Yet under their feet, the solid touch spoke plain truth like a bell on a clear morning.

Shock lingered a heartbeat, then joy burst like fireworks and rolled through them like a rising tide.

Time flowed like a wide river, and more immigrants arrived like migrating flocks.

The world’s quiet widened into bustle, voices layering like market bells at noon.

They chose to settle on the land below Miracle City’s corresponding shadow, hammering together a rough little village like a first hearth in winter.

They raised an altar of stones like stacked moons, offering to former gods or ancestral names like seeds carried through storms.

At last there was room to breathe, and Glenza came racing out of his laboratory like a startled deer.

Xi was summoned again by Glorious Moon, and Ouyang meant to join the stir like a kite tugging for wind.

But Glenza found him first, so he shelved the trip to the Stellar Courtyard like a scroll returned to its case.

“Skeleton, what’d you run over here for?”

Glenza touched his skull; the fire in his sockets flickered like candlelight in a draft.

“Mm. News for you. In a while, someone might come to attack us.”

“Huh? Attack us?”

It started back in the Stellar Courtyard, where threads of destiny cross like starlight in a lattice.

After the earlier discussion, the gods of Miracle City were free to enter the Stellar Courtyard, as long as they obeyed rules set by the Star Spirit.

A Realm God named Hasen wanted the coordinates of other worlds, and he came up with a method like a fox offering a bridge.

“It’s not that I’m calling any one of you out. I’m saying you’re all trash.

Here’s my world’s coordinate—come make trouble. Solo or swarm, I’ll take it!”

Hasen stirred trouble like a stick in a hornet nest, offending many across the worlds.

Every time he raised a ruckus, he’d spit that line like sparks, then toss a small orb of light like a firefly in dusk.

That orb held the coordinates of the Eternal Sleep Continent like a map draped in night.

Seeing his swagger, beings from other worlds threw out their own coordinates like gauntlets, because face is a banner you don’t let fall.

So Hasen gathered a trove of coordinates like pearls on a thread—and a depth of hatred like storm-clouds piling high.

“Not only that, others saw Hasen’s trick and started imitating him like echoes down a canyon.”

Listening, Ouyang felt a headache bloom like thunder behind his eyes.

He hadn’t expected that Hasen guy to be so “talented,” clever as a blade wrapped in braggadocio.

Yes, he gained those coordinates, but it smelled like a bonfire of wrath waiting for a spark.

Then his thoughts pivoted like a weathervane: they wanted those coordinates to rule those regions anyway.

War was inevitable, like winter after autumn.

This time they strike first, and we’ll have a cleaner reason to hit back, like justice spoken by steel.

“Then... you take this one. I’m busy doing research in the Stellar Courtyard.”

Ouyang tossed the task to Glenza like a hot potato, ignoring the helpless look on his bony face.

After, Ouyang climbed to the castle’s second floor and pushed open the door to the Void Illusion Realm.

Inside, threads webbed the space like spider silk in dawn frost, all converging on a single figure—Saya.

Seeing him, Saya lifted her head like a lily in rain and handed over a paper.

She’d been decoding for a while, and the note Ouyang took from the Void Relay Station had passed through her patient light like a seed through soil.

He took it, and the strange ciphers had turned into words he could read like footprints in soft sand.

The note wasn’t left for any one person, but for a future administrator recognized by the rules—whoever could bear that mantle like a mountain’s crest.

Reading, Ouyang’s pupils tightened like blades drawn in moonlight.

He drifted back to that strange dream, where Loyin’s smile was a cracked mask and sorrow bled like rain through stone.

He’d thought the dream warned of an era of war, a storm he’d need the world’s anthem to survive.

If he failed to play it, he might drown in those years, and Loyin might meet that same tragic end, like a lantern snuffed by wind.

But now he saw the error, a mis-aimed arrow from the start.

“Hey, Saya. If one day I really vanish, will someone inherit my will and keep walking?

Or after I die, will all I’ve struggled for blow away like ash?

The Church, Miracle City... will it all collapse in a heartbeat like a tower of sand?”

Saya looked at him, unsure why he’d turned to shadow and questions.

She reached to touch his head, clumsy and gentle like an older sister steadying a crying child in the rain.

“No. At least Augustine will inherit your will. He’s your finest student.

You might not see his effort, but he works hard, always chasing your stride like a runner on your trail.

Your will will pass on like a flame, handed down age after age, never going out.

Until one day, you invert unreal and real, break the chains of illusion in everyone’s mind, and return to reality like dawn through mist.”

Saya rarely spoke so much, and her earnest face was clear as autumn water.

Ouyang couldn’t help kneading her cheeks like dough under warm hands.

“Can someone really reach that step?

If someone still knows your name—if you haven’t vanished from every memory—can you be reborn from the minds of all?”

“According to the records, yes.

In the instant of death, spread your soul along a Concept like wind through grass.

In that moment, every being who knows you carries a you in their minds like a lamp in a shrine.

Live in all memories.

If across long ages, someone still knows you, someone still bears your will, then by inverting unreal and real, you can return.”

“Records? Who was that person?”

Curiosity pricked like nettles, and Ouyang leaned in as if chasing a firefly.

Saya looked at him, parted her lips like a petal, then closed them, and pointed at his head with a slender finger like a reed.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me that person is me?”

“Mm.”

The affirmation tangled Ouyang like branches in night.

Was he really that strong, or just a leaf in a larger wind?

“Ultimate Art—Void!”

The words widened his eyes like a bell’s shock.

Ultimate Art—Void was his unique power, a blade with zero reflection.

Yet in his understanding, it was useless—use it, and you vanish from everyone’s memory like a shadow erased at noon.

How does that match living in everyone’s memory like embers in many hearts?

Because of that, even after becoming a Tiered Being, he never studied it, never dared touch that edge.

“To fool others, you have to fool yourself first.

At least you succeeded in deceiving yourself...

You’re someone who’s died once.”

Saya’s “death” wasn’t mere body’s ruin; in Ouyang’s eyes, only one thing deserved that name: the death of the Void Watcher.

“Back then, your control of ‘Void’ wasn’t enough, so your memories split like water around rock.

The Watcher’s share returned to the Aether Sea—that counts as ‘death.’

The other share is the you that stands here.

Outside interference revived you, but it proves your ‘Void’ can let you return.

In theory, without those Crowned interfering, the years you’d need might be countless billions, like sand through a cosmic hourglass.”

To Ouyang, Saya was an encyclopedia with warm hands, a lantern that knew the paths.

“Then... the deception? Why do I have to deceive myself?”

“To deceive yourself is to deceive others...”

“Others? Who?”

“Outside the specs—a god above gods!”

Ouyang’s smile turned bitter, like tea over-steeped.

He let out a long breath, a sigh like wind over empty fields.

“Saya, if that day really comes, will you inherit my will?”

The future wavered like heat-haze, and his choice had taken shape like ink under the brush, but he needed proof.

“I... won’t. Because I’ll fall with you into eternal sleep, like a pair of leaves drifting to the same still pond.

One person... is too lonely.

Bai can inherit your will.”

She shook her head and clutched his clothes like a child holding the hem, eyes pleading not to be left beside a dark river.

Ouyang had never thought of that path.

Bai was obedient like a gentle dove, but on this matter, that seemingly clumsy angel would choose to sleep beside him in eternal night, not carry his torch.

So the best fit might be Augustine after all.

He snapped back, shaking his head like a dog flinging rain, suddenly aware he sounded like he was arranging a funeral.

“Well... I won’t chase it on purpose.

If the flame of legacy keeps burning, and the long years pass like migrating stars, and someone still carries my will...”

His gaze pierced the Void Illusion Realm like an arrow through silk, sight set on unknown space.

Broken sky hung like torn cloth, cracked earth gaped like dry lips, and a mountain-sized creature lay across it like a fallen range.

Where it began, perhaps all will end—like a circle closing around its first step.

“I inherited your will, and made the radiance of the Other Shore shine again like dawn on a cold sea.

I believe, in a distant future, someone will inherit mine, planting the banner of Void across every corner of the starry sky.”

The flame of legacy kept burning, ancient and abiding, undying through generations like a hearth tended by many hands.

Meanwhile, across that pitch-black ocean, a lighthouse’s beam cut the dark like a silver knife.

Closer. Closer...