“Time’s up.”

“Hm?”

“The hour of death.”

...

Leaving the Hero King World.

The return felt familiar.

A throat of night stretched ahead, streaked with blue like cold rivers; unseen grotesqueries sniffed at the black‑haired boy’s scent, trailing like wolves through snow, refusing to let go.

Ye Weibai looked as he always did.

Hands clasped behind his back, eyes closed; calm as still water, yet a tired undertow tugged beneath the surface.

But this time was different. Ye Weibai wasn’t alone. He had a “partner.”

A certain Deity.

Sealed inside a black‑sheath, gold‑edge longsword named Aerin.

When Aerin willingly erased her own consciousness, human emotions exploded like planted bombs, blasting that Deity’s divinity into shattered shards.

After Ye used it to enter the Z World’s back‑island, for reasons unknown, he chose not to snap it. He kept it close, and they stepped onto the road home together.

Home—

The word snagged him like a hook in the chest.

He had died; the door to his real home was already ash. Fi, Die, Rin… were they okay?

He might never see those girls again.

No—maybe a chance still existed.

His spirit lifted a fraction, like a lantern catching wind. He remembered why this journey truly began: a gray‑haired, gray‑eyed Deity named Misfortune had signed a pact with him. The price was “a girl’s earnest, despairing tears,” traded to extend his life.

Those tears became the stakes in the gods’ ceasefire Game.

Win the Game, and he could wish to return to his old World. So they said.

Only...

“I’m so tired,” he said without sound.

Three Worlds, each thornier than the last. Only three—just three. Yet his mind already frayed like silk rained on for years. This Hero King World? No one knew how much blood and breath he’d poured into the Board.

Every link. Every step. The order between links. The thread between steps. That wasn’t effort you describe with “brain‑wracking” and “heart‑draining.” That was bone‑deep grinding against fate.

To scheme a Deity’s Board with a human body was a myth made of smoke. If not for wearing the title of Demon King, even with every calculation nailed, he’d have burned out, lamp‑oil gone, with no strength left to act.

Worse, he’d fought so many battles. The fiercest, most merciless was the last—against Aerin. Or rather, being butchered, one‑sided.

Throughout the fight, Ye’s face never showed gloom. He kept smiling—to keep the Atmosphere, and to anger Aerin. In truth, his body was torn like old cloth.

What wore him down most now was a factor he hadn’t named. Maybe he hadn’t guessed it. Maybe he had, and kept dodging it on purpose.

“What is that thing?”—what was the true driver pushing him through every action?

The question sat like a fishbone in his throat.

Ye Weibai and his Future Self had once shared a brief, deeply cutting talk.

...

Ye looked at the other him. The corner of his mouth lifted, a shallow smile forming. Then something struck him—a tremor that cracked his composure. The smile stopped mid‑bloom, froze like water in winter, and shattered like brittle ice. A cold, terrible expression spread over his face.

How to describe that look?

Across so many Worlds, facing horror, despair, misfortune—he had never worn that face.

he said, abrupt as thunder.

—Wasn’t “interesting” what drove us?

Future Ye blinked, then his pupils shrank hard.

Ye said, flat as iron.

If not for coming to this World, gaining the Demon King’s ability, and summoning a future instant of himself—

Ye would never have found that something unknown had been brewing inside him, weaving subtle illusions, fooling him.

More frightening—Ye didn’t know whether this substance was planted by some Deity after his “death,” or had hidden in him since birth.

...

When the water settled and silt cleared, his so‑called “interesting” wasn’t his engine at all. It was a mirage gifted by a God. Then what could hold him up for the road ahead?

Thinking that, the weariness deepened in his eyes like late dusk, until even his expression turned vague, unfocused.

If he needed one word for his face now: lifeless.

Right then, something awful happened.

A gash blossomed in the center of Ye’s left palm, blood‑slick and raw. The wound wasn’t deep—bone didn’t show—but terror lay in how it opened with no sign, no warning.

It felt like…the wound had always existed, only now choosing to show itself.

Before Ye could grunt, countless other cuts—big and small, deep and shallow, slashes and stabs—flared across his body the same eerie way, one after another, crowding like winter hail.

In a single breath, the man who’d seemed fine was covered in wounds. His black clothes soaked through with red blood and cold sweat. Liquid seeped through the fabric, blood or sweat, no one could tell; it gathered in red rivulets and kept flowing.

A deep gash opened on his right thigh, bone nearly bared. Ye couldn’t stand. He sat down, right on the magic circle. As he lowered himself with a stiff bend, the wounds didn’t spare him; they carved their marks faster than raindrops on sand.

When he finally sat, not an inch of skin was whole.

“Time’s up.”

He smiled instead.

“The death hour’s up.”

He patted the sword at his belt. Even that small motion almost snapped his already fractured right hand clean through.

“Then die already.” A voice full of spite and hate poured from the blade. The Deity from the Hero King World.

It knew where Ye’s wounds came from—Past.

It should’ve known. Even the strongest Demon King couldn’t fight battle after battle at that tier, keep that easy smile, and stay unscathed.

This man had shifted every wound he suffered then… onto his future self.

Now the time‑node had arrived. Death came to collect.

At the Deity’s naked curse, Ye didn’t flare. He simply said, “You know, the Demon King’s power isn’t mine. As I leave that World, the Demon King’s strength in me is bleeding away. Soon, I won’t be able to hold these wounds.”

“Ah—ahh, so what?!”

It couldn’t stand him—this man who stayed like this at any time. If he was telling the truth—no, it could feel he was—then he was calmly talking about his own coming death.

How could he be so offhand?

It had lost. Completely. Yet it still couldn’t fathom how a World spawned a thing like Ye Weibai.

“Aren’t you afraid of dying?!”

“I am.”

Ye’s honesty stunned it.

It had expected the opposite.

“But I don’t think I’ll die.” Ye smiled again.

“No! You’re dead for sure! Drop the wishful thinking!” it said coldly. “Even a Demon King’s body can’t bear this much damage! And you’re turning human—”

“Hey, Lina.” Ye cut it off.

“Li—Lina?!”

“You’re occupying Aerin’s body, so you get one syllable of her name. Anyway, don’t derail. Business.”

Ye sighed.

Who’s derailing here? You’re the one who’s dying and still naming people, you ridiculous man!

It felt close to madness. If he didn’t kill it, he’d drive it insane sooner or later.

“Lina. The time I meant isn’t mine. It’s yours.” Ye’s words shut it up. It accepted the name Lina without daring to argue.

“You feel it, right? The things outside, chasing us—” Ye, eyes closed, pointed behind them. Twisted black masses writhed like knotted ropes—Void Wanderers, denizens of the Void Tunnel, the kind even true Deities dreaded.

“They say those monsters were gods before they turned this vile. They eat anything,” he paused, “and in your state, they’ll eat you just the same as any living thing.”

Monsters? Corpses of gods?

Lina sent a thin thread of spirit outward. The instant it peeked past the blue barrier, a black flash bit down, and that thread vaporized.

Pain screamed through her. A gnawing like serrated teeth raced up the severed line. Something terrible bit her. It was dragging her out of the sword.

This was the goal she’d dreamed of since being tricked into the blade. But the abyss‑deep hunger outside smothered every thought in terror.

She shrieked, hacked off the dangling piece of soul, and stopped herself from being fully dragged out. In the cut’s blink, she snapped back to the furthest depth of the sword, curled into a tight knot, trembling like a winter animal.

She had never found this wretched sword so warm.

Don’t blame her for trembling. In that bite that took a piece of her soul, what fell on her wasn’t mere death. It was worse, a horror she wouldn’t taste again even if she had to die to avoid it.

“You felt it,” Ye said, the blade buzzing faintly. He could guess what had happened. “If I die, this barrier breaks. Then you’re done too.”

“...What do you want me to do?” Silence lay like a sheet of cold water. Only when Ye reminded her he wouldn’t last did she answer.

“Bring out the strength you’ve been hiding. Save me.”

“I don’t—” Her first impulse was to lie. She knew he couldn’t be fooled. She gritted her teeth. “I can’t save you. Your death is fixed. In that World, you already died. What’s returning now isn’t wounds. It’s the imprint of death. This is causality. No matter what you block—even if I slow your wounds—even if you still held Demon King power—you’re finished!”

“I understand.”

Ye’s expression turned grave. “So help me stay alive. Alive until I reach—the Deity who can reverse death’s causality.”