At the torn, not-yet-broken barrier between skies, the Hero King Ye Weibai lay pinned like an ant beneath a flood of power.
The sky stretched boundless; within half a mile, every cloud had shattered and blown away like porcelain dust. The blue was so clear it felt aqueous, and the cracks between two Worlds rippled like water.
A purple-haired girl stood revealed, her grace like a blade unsheathed, her presence blazing across the World.
Then our gaze fell, like rain dropping from eaves, back into the old castle.
Its dome was smashed; thin light spilled into the hall like pale riverwater. Actors stepped onto the stage.
First, a giant hound blooming with black roses burst from the Void. Its leap was too bold; it nearly slammed into the stone wall, then pressed supple paws to the masonry, flipped like a hawk, and landed.
It lowered its head and sniffed the floor, silver flecks in its black eyes flickering like cold starlight, agitation stirring like wind in thorns.
Next, a foot in dark red boots stepped out, then a long, lithe leg. Crimson Blossom walked from the Void, a flame in silk.
She swept the hall with a glance, then met the hound’s glare. Doubt skimmed her face like a passing cloud; she felt she’d seen this dog somewhere.
Before memory could surface, a black rose bloomed five meters before her.
Pop.
The next beat, roses opened in a rush, like a storm across a field. A gust rolled in; petals melted into streaming light. The light thinned; a black-clad girl appeared—Lustrous.
She yawned, lazy as a cat at noon, tilted her head, looked left at the hound, right at Crimson Blossom, and spoke in her clear, languid voice. “Ah, all here?”
Crimson Blossom drew breath to answer, but another voice cut in first.
“More or less.”
Her pupils tightened; the hound streaked forward like a meteor, roaring toward the speaker.
A hand met it, pressed to its crown, and slammed it to the floor like thunder pinning a tree.
The hand belonged to Ye Weibai—yet not the golden youth above who had become the Hero King. This was the future self, the black-haired, black-eyed Demon King.
He held the giant hound with one hand. It snarled under his palm, claws scrabbling, gravel flying like sparks, yet it could not touch him.
He smiled and looked past the hound to the two girls. “Welcome.”
“I’m here,” Crimson Blossom said, voice heavy as night rain.
The black-haired girl tilted her head and offered a lazy, perfunctory curtsy, so careless it was almost not a gesture at all. “Father.”
Crimson Blossom glanced at her, startled—Father?
A tug stirred in her chest; she saw a strange kinship between them, the same shade of black, like night shared between two lamps.
Yet the black around the girl felt more ordered, like matchboxes stacked neat and high, tidy yet brittle, a tower that could splinter at a touch.
The thought flickered and went. Crimson Blossom had no breath to spend; if it weren’t for Ye Weibai, she wouldn’t care. But her curiosity pricked like a thorn toward the black-haired boy.
“Is it fine?” Lustrous asked, one brow lifting like a wing.
“Up there?” Ye Weibai shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Crimson Blossom’s brows drew in; anger flashed like a blade’s glint. “We agreed, to protect Ae—”
“No. That’s not me,” Ye Weibai said, meeting her eyes. “That’s him.”
Crimson Blossom held still. She didn’t know the future-self tale, but she understood: the Ye Weibai before her and the Ye Weibai above weren’t clone and core. They were two minds, two flames.
“I don’t handle the Hero King and Demon King’s dance. That’s his affair. Win or lose, I don’t care.” He smiled. “I handle your true wish.”
“True wish…” Crimson Blossom’s face turned complicated, cloud and moon crossing. She lifted her gaze to the sky, where a girl’s body was now inhabited by the World’s sole Deity.
In her heart, she whispered a name the world had forgotten, a name only she would never let go.
Allen—not Aerin.
“I swore to protect you. I tried. I gave it all. Next—” Crimson Blossom clenched her fist like a knot tightening, and faced Ye Weibai. “It’s my turn.”
“Decided?” Ye Weibai asked.
“Yes.” She nodded, steady as stone.
“Can’t wait,” Lustrous murmured, laziness like warm smoke.
Ye Weibai looked down at the hound, breath ragged, body trembling like a spent bowstring. He smiled. “Seems you don’t need to ask. Then come.”
He let go.
The hound exploded upward, jaws a blood-red gate, snapping for the black-haired youth.
At the touch of teeth, black ripples spread like ink in water. The hound vanished into the Void.
It felt like the moment in the sky when he took every strike unharmed, effortless as drifting. Not defense, but sending away—like he moved every blow somewhere in Time.
To the past, or the future?
“You—” Crimson Blossom’s eyes tightened; a thought leapt like lightning. Then her expression softened as never before, like frost thawing. “You want it, same as me. You hunger for—”
“You’re overthinking.” Ye Weibai laughed, stepped forward, and reached for her head. “I’ve never once thought—”
Before the words finished, Crimson Blossom vanished beneath his palm.
He completed his sentence, gentle as dusk. “—of dying.”
“What is it then?” Lustrous asked, gaze steady as a mirror. “You built all this, schemed across three Worlds, set yourself on the chopping block. For what?”
“Are you asking me, or the me above?” Ye Weibai asked.
“Different?”
“Different… I think.” He said, “I act because it’s fun. As for him… honestly, I don’t know.”
“Even though you’re him, you don’t know?”
A complicated look crossed his face, shadow over flame. “I’m only him for a single moment.”
Lustrous blinked, briefly adrift; then understanding struck like dawn. Surprise lit her features; she heard what he meant.
The original me is too complex to grasp, even by myself.
In any instant, the impulse and motive that drive me can split like a river into different seas.
“Do people like that exist?” Lustrous asked, wonder like a feather.
“So chatty. Not very you,” Ye Weibai said.
“Ah, rare moment. No next time.” She smiled, soft as a last petal. “I’m going to die, after all.”
…
…
