Prologue:

This route is the Alpha Line among the three lines of the World.

It pairs Ye Weibai with [Time] as his partner.

...

"...Where is this?"

"The Inner World."

...

When Ye Weibai opened his eyes, chill ran first, then breath.

He was flying in the night sky, like a loose leaf on a black river.

Hundreds of meters below lay G City, his home.

It looked like the day after doomsday, ash settling like snow.

The pride of the city, the Sky Tower at 375 meters, stood halved.

Its top was gone, like a mountain shorn by a giant blade.

The ordinary buildings fared worse.

Broken walls and fallen beams carpeted the alleys like bones.

His pupils widened, and shock bit through his ribs.

At the Sky Tower’s cut, the edge gleamed smooth, mirror-cold.

It was as if a colossal knife had sliced tofu in midair.

He forced his gaze down, and dread rose before understanding.

The cratered ground seemed pocked by shells or fallen stars.

When he looked closer, his skin crawled with cold.

They were fist marks.

One by one, stamped like seals upon the earth.

Whoosh—

A wind rushed from the horizon, a wolf through reeds.

It lifted dust into a gray storm, and the city coughed.

Crack-crack-crack.

The whole city groaned, a wounded beast in the dark.

Bricks fell and buildings collapsed, a drumbeat of ruin.

Ye Weibai watched as the last hundred meters of the tower gave up.

It crashed down in a roar, like a tree felled by night.

He stared, speechless, silence hanging like frost.

A thought stabbed him, and he turned toward Jiahui Amusement Park.

His breath hitched.

The giant Ferris wheel on the mountainside hung like a broken moon.

It had been split in two.

Half still clung to the frame, swaying, about to fall.

The other half lay hundreds of meters away, a black trail between.

The ground was strewn with wreckage, a path of torn metal.

It looked ripped apart by hands, then hurled like a stone.

If buildings were smashed like that, what about the people?

"Lin!"

"Don’t worry."

The answer came from the black flame behind him.

In this ruined world, the flame drank power like a flower drinks rain.

It unfurled like a butterfly, slow and deliberate.

"This is the Inner World," it said.

"It mirrors the world you came from—alike, yet never touching."

Ye Weibai turned, no mirror needed this time.

The black flame hovered, then twisted, wrapped itself, and grew.

It blossomed into a girl-shaped shadow, ink-dark and sure.

Waist-length waterfall hair and a black dress fought the wind.

A scythe as tall as a door dragged behind her like a crescent.

Her exposed skin flickered with warped black light, face unreadable.

Only her eyes showed, two pits of red fire in the Void.

Ye Weibai stared, disbelief trembling under his calm.

"Xiaohei?"

Her voice had changed with her form, frost where there was soot.

"You may call me [Nightfall]."

"[Nightfall]..." He studied her, unease stirring like mist.

This [Nightfall] felt unlike the little-girl flame from the Surface World.

"Am I dead?" he asked, the question tasting of iron.

"Not yet. I moved you to the Inner World," she said.

"And I erased all traces of you in the Surface World."

Even her words had been sharpened, stripped of warmth.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes."

"Any chance I live?"

"None."

"Even with all these bonds wrapped around me?"

Her gaze didn’t ripple. "Yes. None."

"I see... then there’s no helping it."

Helpless and wry, his smile held regret, not fear.

"Do it," he said.

Her red-fire pupils fixed him, arrows aimed at his heart.

She sought fear, a tremor, a flinch, a plea.

At judgment’s edge, his smile still held only pity and reluctance.

A curious human.

A pity... fate was already etched.

Her right hand turned on the scythe’s grip.

Hum—

The blade sang, a winter line through the air.

She raised the scythe, then let it fall.

The edge drew a half-moon, dropping from overhead.

Its path sheared for his waist, a clean cut in darkness.

As the blade was about to kiss his skin, he sighed.

Guilt first, then the words.

"Sorry." — I lied to you.

That odd apology trembled in her wrist.

The edge stalled for a heartbeat.

Then it kept falling.

Ye Weibai wasn’t there anymore.

In his place stood a girl in ashen gray.

Clang!

The black scythe met a delicate gray dagger midair.

Black and gray particles burst like twin storms in the Void.

Both figures snapped back, thrown apart.

"Why are you here?!"

Regaining balance, [Nightfall] spoke the intruder’s name, cold and furious.

"[Misfortune]!"

"Hahahahahaha! [Misfortune] is everywhere~!"

The gray-haired girl laughed with her chin to the sky.

Short hair whipped in the wind.

A cropped top and short skirt flashed like a dare.

Metallic gray particles wrapped her like a storm.

They hid her face from Ye Weibai behind her.

"Xiaobai—no, Ye Weibai!"

Black-haired [Nightfall] stared past gray hair and metal haze.

Her eyes found Ye Weibai, who looked unsurprised at [Misfortune].

"You met [Misfortune] already."

Ye Weibai kept his silence.

"Your guess was right—" the gray girl laughed.

"I met this boy two years before you did~!"

"I saw your ‘mark’ on him right away.

I was excited for days, you know."

"I’ve long been sick of you, [Nightfall].

I’ve long wanted to snatch a toy from your hand."

She jerked her chin, glancing sidelong at [Nightfall].

She thumbed toward Ye Weibai with careless flair.

"From now on, this boy’s under my wing."

[Nightfall] tilted her head. "Huh?"

[Misfortune] threw her head back and cackled.

"I’m his boss now~!"

"Ha—listen to yourself."

Black hair snapping, the girl smiled like a knife.

Her chin lifted, gaze dropping from a queen’s height.

"You don’t think you were my equal just now, do you?

Hm? Trash."

Boom—!

A hurricane bloomed around [Nightfall] like a black flower.

Wind howled off her body, the air buzzing like a wire.

Black particles flared like blades and split the Void into scars.

The gale hit like surf.

Black meteors screamed in, a storm of knives.

"Fun~!" [Misfortune] whooped, eyes blazing.

She flung her hand, laughing.

Her gray particles surged like a summoned tide.

They crashed head-on into the black wave.

Then she spun, hands quick, and hugged Ye Weibai.

"Run~!"

Ye Weibai almost choked blood.

"You put on a big show, and you can’t win?!"

"How would I know she’s this strong?

Look at her—she’s absurdly strong~ I can’t win~!"

She dragged him through the air, laughter a trail of sparks.

"If she catches us, we’ll be paste~"

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Because it’s fun~! I love dying-but-not-dead moments~

I’m [Misfortune], after all~! Hahahahaha!"

"Where do you think you’re going?"

The cold voice fell like frost from above, not from him.

[Nightfall] appeared overhead like an eclipse.

A waterfall of black particles poured down with her.

"Bad! We’re toast—kidding~!"

Danger made [Misfortune] giddier, laughter peaking like a wave.

The black flood kissed her hair.

She snapped her right hand, a casual snap in the Void.

Snap.

An ice-blue rift opened above her like a slit of winter.

It swallowed the falling black particles to the last mote.

"How about that? My divine art—[Misfortune].

I can assign ‘bad luck’ to an enemy.

Just now, [Nightfall]’s attack ‘unluckily’ met a spatial rift.

Boom, gone. Isn’t that busted as hell~"

She grinned at the boy while they fled.

"That’s why you insist on explaining your skills..."

"Hahahaha~ I’m just telling you~

My name and my special effects are thunder among the Deities~"

"You think only you have a divine art?"

Her black particles rose again, a flood from every side.

They closed in, breath by breath, into a massive cube.

It swallowed all three, a black room without walls.

Only [Nightfall]’s red pupils glowed afar.

Only [Misfortune]’s gray light flickered near.

Everything else went pitch-black.

"Cheating! You pushed my magic particles out!

I can’t cast anything like this!"

"So why explain it..."

[Misfortune] didn’t look worried at all.

She winked at Ye Weibai and smiled.

"I didn’t want you to get confused~"

"..."

"Haha, but this time we’re really going to die."

"Then die," said the black-haired girl, cool as dusk.

The cube collapsed at her word, a black quicksand.

It rushed to swallow [Misfortune] and Ye Weibai.

"Tsk~ I’m done—"

[Misfortune] clicked her tongue, then burst into laughter.

"I’m done playing~ Switching players~"

"Switch now or I’ll really die~"

[Nightfall] didn’t blink.

"Nonsense."

In her domain, nothing else could enter without leave.

That was the law—until a crimson light broke it like dawn.

Boom—!

Red roared upward, a tide against the night.

It tore through black particles in a single breath.

The Void rolled with crimson waves, bright as fireworks.

Like flowers. Like a volcano. Like—

"[War Deity]—Crimson."

The black-haired girl stepped back twice, cloak of wind trailing.

She named the newcomer with a voice like steel.

The red flood arced and fell, then coiled back.

It condensed into a blazing red girl before Ye and [Misfortune].

She stood between them and the dark.

"That would be me."