As sunlight crossed one hundred and fifty million meters of Void, wearing stars and moon, it seeped through the sky’s shattered barrier into the [X] World—and shattered too.
Its unified glow tore into a kaleidoscope, as the barrier glittered like ice-veined glass.
That crushed light fell soft over the exhausted blond boy, then drowned beneath the purple aura around Aerin, dense as water.
“If I press even a little, you die,” she said.
As she spoke, her surging power pressed without pause on Ye Weibai’s limbs and bones, grinding them till they creaked.
It wasn’t deliberate; it was simply divine might.
A Deity from another [World] had descended; even still, she naturally formed a domain, a stray aura lethal to humans.
Ordinary people—even the Pope—wouldn’t last a minute, crushed to paste by unseen force.
Even the [Hero King] and the [Demon King] would only die prettier.
Only Ye Weibai, bearing the power of the world’s ambience and the [Hero King]’s innate suppression over the [Demon King], stood atop history’s highest crest and could still strike back.
But his bow was spent.
Blood welled at the corner of his mouth.
“It broke,” Ye Weibai said suddenly, the line without beginning or end.
She stayed silent, staring coldly at him.
She already knew Ye Weibai’s slyness and tenacity.
His processing power lagged far behind hers, behind past [Hero Kings] and [Demon Kings].
Yet he did what none of them could—he dragged a Deity down from the sky.
He made it land among mortals.
Whether it consented or not, it fell.
It lost by one move.
But—
“But it’s enough,” she said. “Only equals call it a contest; otherwise it’s just a game. And now, the game is over.”
“It’ll collapse,” Ye Weibai said, as if he didn’t feel the finger at his brow sliding into his skull like tofu.
His face was a mask of blood, yet he kept talking, his words still muddled.
But he was smiling as he spoke.
“Not making sens—”
Before the last syllable, her voice cut off.
Data cascaded down her irises like a waterfall.
In a blink, the fall vanished; a strange flash crossed her eyes—anger.
For the first time in a thousand years, that face bore anger.
When a Deity rages, heaven and earth change color.
Purple light surged like a drowning sea, radiating from her center.
In an instant it twisted into a violet tornado, shaking the world.
She and Ye Weibai stood within its eye.
“You think I’d be afraid?” she said, ice-cold.
“If you feared nothing, Deity, would you waste words?” Ye Weibai smiled. “Shouldn’t I be dead already?”
She stared at him.
Her other hand clenched on its own.
The newborn anger swelled, vast enough to swallow a [World].
She tasted a human emotion for the first time.
The world database matched the label for her.
She still couldn’t restrain it.
Aerin’s human nature tugged at her—humans are born to anger.
She realized fast: she couldn’t stay in this body long. Otherwise something truly terrible might happen.
That was what truly scared her.
“I won’t let you die,” she said, a cold smile on her lips. “You won’t die under the title [Hero King].”
“Because the [Demon King] can’t kill the [Hero King],” Ye Weibai coughed blood and still laughed.
His body seeped blood, beading through cloth into crimson droplets.
He looked wretched, but his joy remained.
“As the [Demon King], if you kill me—the [Hero King]—the [Cycle] will truly collapse.”
Yes!
Peel every layer.
Drive deeper.
Until the hidden blade flashes and fangs show.
This was Ye Weibai’s set-up.
The entity inside Aerin wore the [Demon King].
If it killed the [Hero King], it would smash a millennia-old [Cycle] with its own hand.
A dead end.
The one webbed and bound wasn’t Ye Weibai—it was her.
It had been forced to the brink again by a human. And this time, there was truly no choice.
Pride writhed, ant-bites under the skin.
Aerin’s human nature only made it worse.
Yet she quickly understood something else.
“You still fear death,” she said to Ye Weibai. “Or why speak? If I kill you, the [Cycle] collapses—yet in the end, you begged.”
“Who doesn’t?” Ye Weibai said. “Even you, Deity—don’t you fear?”
“Ridiculous.” She sneered. “You wrung your brain dry, and this is your farce?”
“Yeah. A farce.”
Ye Weibai’s lip lifted.
He tipped his head.
Sweat-slick hair clung to his brow, framing his eyes.
Tired yet precise, his gaze locked on the violet irises.
He said, “But you’re the star—my Deity. Every ant in the world watches this stage. I’m just the writer, a little ant who invited you up.”
“You came to kill me.
“And now you can’t. Instead, you must protect me—careful, careful, so I don’t die.”
“Otherwise the stage collapses—and you won’t escape either.”
“Now—”
Ye Weibai smiled wider, blind to the violet flow in her eyes boiling like water.
Even his eye corners leaked tears as he laughed.
He met those eyes, rage barely hidden, and asked, “Who’s the ant now, my Deity?”
