Chaos writhed through an unknown world, flooding every inch of space like storm-tide. Faint palaces flickered in the warped void, like ghosts behind rippling glass.

“Opportunity… we finally caught it!” A man stared toward the horizon, where the far end looked like endless ruin, a sea of ash. Several stood beside him, eyes fixed on the same bleak line.

“A once-in-a-millennium moment. It’s time to move the whole army.” His voice landed like war drums on wet stone.

After a breath, the twisted realm birthed a press of figures, power uneven among them, like waves tall and low across a black ocean.

“Merck, the First Cult’s lot vanished…” Hands clasped behind his back, the man wore the poise of someone who could sink fleets with a laugh. At the report, that calm cracked like ice under a boot. He’d resisted the First Cult all along; truth now vindicated him, yet far too late.

“Gone? What’s that supposed to mean?” Merck’s eyelids twitched like sparrow wings, a bad omen beating at his nerves. Trouble was coming, thick as stormcloud, yet he couldn’t see its shape. With his current strength, very few could threaten him.

Pressed, the subordinate hesitated, then spoke, voice thin as reed in wind. “The First Cult said they only obey the Four Heavenly Kings. A summons came. So… they left.”

Four Heavenly Kings? Merck sifted through his intel, thoughts clattering like bones in a box. Three had departed; the fourth had died… yet the Eastern Heavenly King, the chief among them, had been revived. And the one who brought the dead back wielded the Arcana of Deathless Return…

“Jiling!” Merck’s face shifted like stormlight across water. When Jiling moved to resurrect those people, he had put his weight behind it. To him, Jiling belonged to their camp, and the revived should only obey the holder of the Arcana. But the First Cult’s actions screamed rebellion. Orders from the Eastern King, and they flipped the table. If the Eastern King was revived by the Arcana, then he should be bound to the Arcana’s master.

The way the pieces sat now, even if Merck refused to believe it, this mess was tied to Jiling—all the way down to the bone.

Why? Why this turn? His chest tightened like a fist. He loved Jiling—then and now—more than anyone, or so he believed. No way. There has to be a mistake. Yeah… it could be Ouyang’s scheme, stirring the pot, turning hearts against hearts. He forced that threadbare reason around his fear like a cloak.

“Where’s Jiling? We’re on full muster. Why isn’t she here?” Only then did he notice the crowd lacked that girl’s presence, an empty space like a missing star.

The moment wouldn’t grant him time to think. Far off, a streak of light cut the sky, clean as a blade.

A sword—its light whooshed through the warped space like lightning cracking a stormfront.

Two men walked out from a distant span of time, slow and sure, as if painted figures stepped down from silk to stand in air. Both wore short black hair. One was draped in the First Cult’s constellation robe; the other wore white and held a greatsword that breathed frost.

“Long time.” The man in the constellation robe smiled, fox-cold. “Former Minister of Oversight, Merck. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eugenson. Former Warden, Shixing Shawu…” He took minutes to recite each high-ranking name, tapping them like knuckles on tombstones.

Merck’s gaze flickered like a knife-edge. “Eastern Heavenly King, Zhao Dongze. And… Sword God Wuhen! Why? Wuhen, didn’t you fall after losing a single move to Emperor Luo when you challenged him?”

Dongze alone made Merck feel pressure coil around him like steel cable. Still, it remained within the storm he could weather. He had braced for the worst when Jiling used the Arcana to revive the dead—that those resurrected wouldn’t be controllable.

But Wuhen’s arrival came from nowhere, sharp as a spear in the dark. Back then, during Jiling’s revival, Merck had helped. He never saw Wuhen brought back.

The Sword God kept his eyes shut, face carved in frost, declaring that all living beings were ants beneath a mountain. He didn’t open them because, to him, the foes before him lacked the right to be seen. Anyone who’d heard his legend knew his nature: if he opened his eyes, the enemy died. No love, no hate, no desire, no want. His blade was a heartless blade—no feeling, only cold slaughter.

That was why, in the Other Shore, his sword arts could rival Emperor Luo’s, yet few chose his path. To study that edge was to strip the soul bare.

Seeing Wuhen had no intention to speak, Merck narrowed his eyes and fixed on Dongze. “Zhao Dongze. Where’s Jiling? I need her. I need an explanation.”

“An explanation?” Dongze’s laugh curled like smoke. “Why should she explain anything to you? Who do you think you are? Be real… the answer already sits in your chest like a shadow. You just don’t dare face it.”

He wore the same crooked grin, a lordling born to defy. That grin was his legend—the sigil of the Eastern Heavenly King, chief among four.

Veins rose on Merck’s brow like cords about to snap. His patience stretched to its limit.

“Tell me where that traitor is! Why won’t she face me?” His roar broke like surf against cliffs. It didn’t move Dongze in the slightest. Wuhen stayed a statue, cold as iron. Even if he weren’t, a mere Merck wouldn’t stir him.

Dongze watched Merck’s rage and burst out laughing. “Amusing. A ‘traitor’? Do you even have the standing to say that? She was never one of you. What betrayal are you talking about? This is all your self-indulgence. As for why she’s not here… to her, what she’s doing over there matters more than this.”

The ripped-back bandage stung. The blood-bright truth made Merck’s breath hitch. Was this betrayal? Or had it always been a one-sided dream?

“That woman… fine. My gut was right. She was never trustworthy.” The speaker was the former warden, Shixing Shawu, a knife scar crossing his face like a crescent. He alone stayed calm. “One thing still puzzles me. Why did the First Cult act in perfect lockstep? I watched them. Some were moles you pushed in, sure. But some truly wanted to join us. Four Heavenly Kings represent four factions in the First Cult. As Eastern Heavenly King, you can sway your faction, but you can’t make everyone bow.”

If a former warden couldn’t spot plants in the First Cult, he was water-thin. Like that big brute, Cervantes—his report was a mess.

Shixing Shawu was not just a former warden; like Dongze, he was an ancient who had lived since the First Epoch. He knew the First Cult far better than Merck. In his eyes, even if Dongze was chief among the Kings, that might mean supreme power anywhere else. But the First Cult wasn’t “anywhere else.” In the First Cult, if you didn’t like the chief, you refused his order. Simple as a blade.

“You’re right, Shixing,” Dongze said, smile like a crescent blade. “But you forgot the most vital piece. Through long ages, many knew the Four Heavenly Kings. How many knew the Three Swordsmen? Duskstar Church follows the will of the Three. And I hold their rescripts in hand. In other words, I am the sole master of Duskstar.”

“Duskstar Church… a distant, ancient name. Brings back ghosts,” Shixing murmured, eyes misted like rain over stone, lost in old nights.

First Cult was just a title, so loud it drowned its true name. The Starry Citadel, the oldest city, rose in the First Epoch, built by Duskstar’s hand. It was called the Starry Citadel because its residents were Duskstar’s own. Under dusk’s sky, they lifted their faces to the constellations; so the city took its name from stars.

“Idle talk’s over,” Wuhen said, voice like frost on a blade. The sword in his grip breathed death, a winter wind through bone.

Dongze grinned at his side, infuriating as a smirk carved on jade. “Friendly tip: I’m just here to play extra. Your enemy is him.”

“What do you mean?”

“This.”

Wuhen opened his eyes. Cold pupils looked down like a god staring from a high cliff at ants.

“That power… impossible. When did you gain out-of-spec strength?” Terror washed every face like a black tide. For years they’d pulled allies: traitors from the Other Shore, elites from higher civilizations; they had over ten Tiered Beings now. It wasn’t the old Other Shore’s glory, but it could rule a region.

Yet their alliance lacked a true anchor—an out-of-spec existence to sit in the throne of fear. Wuhen was not like the two anomalies who fought Ouyang. Those two had to traverse the ocean of time in unknown space and suffer strikes from Litian and his crew; at best, half their strength showed. Wuhen stood at full power. Ten out of ten. An out-of-spec monster beyond the tiers. He alone could crush ten-plus Tiered Beings. Their alliance had numbers, sure, but not a single second tier—let alone a third-tier, out-of-spec horror.

His sword drew a line. In the starry dark, it flashed like a meteor, here and gone. Then everything split—like mirrors shattering, the world fell into glittering shards.

“Hahaha… if we can’t live, you won’t have it easy either. Come out, final weapon—primordial Sin.”