Augustine—

The name fell like a cold stone into a well, and even the brash, cocky Qi went quiet for a breath.

Across 9,879 Hero Kings from antiquity to now, he might not have lived the longest. But among those who slipped the net of the Cycle, the strongest—was him.

Strongest of all eras—Augustine.

Of all the Hero Kings, the one who came closest to the Deity was Augustine. That “closeness” was moon-on-water, a mirage. Yet across an endless distance, he took one step more than the rest.

And even so—Augustine—

“He died.” Pope Xiuze smiled, like warm light on frost. “I saw it coming. He looked obedient, but inside he was the most defiant. The Deity cannot stomach Augustine.”

“Defiant?” Qi’s eyes were cold as winter rivers on Xiuze. “Where does ‘defiant’ come from? Did you collar yourself like a dog? Do you really take the Deity as your master?”

“Don’t be shallow.” Xiuze’s voice moved slow, like fog over graves. “I mean he betrayed his own desire to live. He could have lived, better than any of us—he did, in fact. And yet he did foolish things, drove himself to death.”

“You don’t understand,” Qi said, shaking his head, heat under ice. “I spoke with Augustine. I felt it—he wanted to die, but he feared dying inside the Cycle. This generation’s Demon King killed him. That freed him from the title—Hero Kings don’t die to Demon Kings. He died, so he ceased to be Hero King. He got what he wanted.”

“Heh.”

The Pope laughed, gentle sunshine hiding a well of pity.

“What are you laughing at?” The smile made Qi’s skin crawl, like ants under bark.

“At your naivety. You think the Deity is kindly?” His staff tapped stone, a heartbeat in a crypt. “It’s a convergence of human minds, storing every shadowed emotion. Such a Deity—do you think it would let Augustine pass quietly?”

He rose, gaze slipping through the cathedral’s iron doors like an arrow, landing on the moon hung like a silver coin over the distant sky. “In the end, he truly wasn’t a Hero King anymore. Because he became the Imperial Tutor.”

“What did you say?!” Qi’s voice sharpened like a blade snapping.

The Pope changed course, voice cool as flowing water. “I sent the Sanctum Knights to hunt this generation’s Hero King.”

He said it openly, a taboo like thunder under a clear sky. If a third ear heard it, the city would shudder.

Since its birth, the Church of the Divine has thrown all weight behind the Hero King. Yet the Pope, first under God within the Church, sent a kill-squad to encircle the Hero King?

“You?!” Qi’s stare pinned Xiuze like a spear pinning a wolf.

“This isn’t my order.” Xiuze smiled, but his eyes, haloed in pale light, held no warmth, only winter. “It was Augustine’s order before he died. He told me to pressure the current Hero King.”

“You sent a kill-squad for ‘pressure’?” Qi’s voice was the edge of ice. “I don’t believe Augustine could order you.”

“Augustine couldn’t. But—the Deity can.” His hand tightened around the milk-white crystal set in his staff, light flowing like cream. He smiled. “The Deity wants Augustine labeled the Imperial Tutor.”

“He’s dead,” Qi said, breath thin as frost.

“Even dead, he must die inside the Cycle.” Xiuze’s eyes didn’t ripple. “That’s the Deity. It performs for us.”

Cold sweat pricked Qi’s back, a winter river running his spine.

…

…

“Ready?”

Night.

Wind prowled the riverbank, a restless wolf. Waves shouldered the shore, and the seventeen bodies on the gravel cooled, like embers going gray.

Midsummer night, warm air clung like silk. Blood had clotted to dark varnish. A sour reek kept rising—the river’s breath, the iron tang of death, braided together.

A golden-haired girl sat hugging her knees on a boulder, away from the bank, like a bird shivering on stone.

Ye Weibai sat nearby, watching her in quiet. He knew it wasn’t only the first kill gnawing her. She was sinking into self-doubt, a lake without bottom.

Fear strips bindings. It tears law and custom like old paper, and drags out the face you hide even from mirrors.

Aerin had seen that face.

Bloodthirsty. Cruel. Cold. Indifferent. A blade with no sheath.

But—

“Don’t think the you under Fear is the real you.”

After a long silence, Ye Weibai spoke, voice like a steady hand on a storm-tossed shoulder. “Aerin, listen.”

“Mm?” She tipped her head, half her face tucked in her knees. One eye, red as a rim of dawn, watched Master Bai. She’d cried.

“The ‘real’ is born of its setting,” Ye Weibai said, words falling like rain on parched earth. “Wearing Fear is just one setting among many.”

“I don’t get it, Master Bai.” Her voice held fog, lost in trees.

“Let me ask you something. Your boyfriend and your father fall into a river at the same time—who do you save?”

“Eh… huh?” She’d braced for a survival test, blades and traps. The question arrived sideways, like a sparrow through an open window. And itself was—absurd.

How would Dad and a boyfriend both fall in? They’d swim. And I don’t even have a boyfriend.

Ye Weibai saw the blankness in her eyes and went on, calm sea under moon. “Another. You have one antidote. It can save a gravely ill adult, or a group of children who are less ill. Whoever you save, the other side dies. Who do you choose?”

“I…” Words broke like thin ice. Choice on one side was abandonment of the other. Numbers didn’t matter—the weight was life.

Whomever you save, you kill the rest. The question itself is a trap.

“Hard, isn’t it?” Ye Weibai sighed, the sound like wind through pine. “That’s how it is—human nature buckles under trials. The one who poses such questions is twisted. He doesn’t want your answer. He wants to watch you flounder.”

Aerin nodded, half-understanding, half-drift. She felt he meant more than what had happened tonight, more than this blood-soaked river.

She also didn’t understand why, while he spoke, his gaze at the silver moon was so sharp and cold, like a blade’s back glimmering in frost.

Then he asked another question, one crueler, one that took breath.

“Aerin. Your family’s lives—or the World.” Ye Weibai lowered his head, looking at her. “Which do you choose?”

She met his eyes, black as midnight lakes. Her heart stuttered. Cold climbed her spine like a snake, straight to her crown. Gooseflesh broke over her skin.

She didn’t know if it was the question, or the storm of emotion in those night-dark eyes.

Her breathing stalled. Not a syllable came.

“Idiot.” His voice drifted, teasing as smoke.

A crack.

“Ow.” Pain bloomed on her forehead, familiar as old steps. She clutched her brow, watery-eyed, watching Ye Weibai slide the black ruler back, unhurried as a cat sheathing claws. The sting hurt, but the familiarity soothed her bones.

In two short days, it felt like two years. Everything around her had changed shape. She hadn’t complained, but her heart was splintering. If Ye Weibai hadn’t stayed at her side, this Hero King might have broken.

After suffering, people retreat like tide to familiar sands, avoiding a second wave. It’s natural.

So the pain, precise and known, calmed Aerin. It felt like stepping back into days before the storm.

Ye Weibai saw it all inside her, like looking through water at stones—clear.

He didn’t stop it. Not yet.

He only watched her.

Her silhouette reflected cleanly in his clear eyes. But in his heart, she looked different.

A heart already splintered, glued together with whatever scraps were at hand, a mosaic of cracks and stubborn hope.

“Let’s go.”

Their talk wandered like a river, and her doubts didn’t find answers. Yet Ye Weibai, with deft hands, turned her attention away, like guiding a boat to calmer current.

Her self-questioning remained, but her gaze had shifted.

His aim was met.

“Go where?” Aerin blinked, watching him rise.

“To meet your companions.”