Near noon, the summer sun hung like a burning coin in the sky.

Ye Weibai walked in the shadow of black eaves along the shopping street; a breeze lifted his bangs; he felt at home, a fish in water.

He knew it was the true name of the Demon King working within him; darkness and shadow were his World.

But not only that. Since descending into this World, something lost had returned, threading through his blood like a rising tide.

The feeling was fog lingering in his mind, finally loosening, finally lifting.

He knew this feeling—

In the Monstrosity World, he’d felt it when he realized he was the monstrosity; the inexplicable became clear, like dawn breaking.

In the Detective World, he’d felt it when chaos in his head was blown clean; every detail picked up, like pebbles gathered from a stream.

In the Hero King World, he’d felt it when he tasted the power Lina gifted; the world turned bare to the Demon King’s gaze, like ice under sun.

In that instant.

The fog before him was still liquid-thick and bottomless, yet he caught threads flickering within it, like spider silk in mist.

He needed no blessing—just a return to baseline, to his native state, and the pattern unfolded like lines in sand.

That was the gift of the boy named Ye Weibai, a blade of clarity in a knot of vines.

A thousand clues, tangled and dense; he could feel the pivot in the snarl, almost by instinct, like a hand finding a loose end.

Even a Deity would fear such a skill, cold as moonlight on iron.

"So that’s how it is—" his voice like a veil lifting.

He stopped. The black-haired boy stood in a pool of shadow, eyes on the far sky; his hand rose, fingers splayed, palm up, as if to catch unseen rain.

"What are you doing?" Lina asked, her voice a quick ripple.

Soul-bound, two hearts yoked as one, Lina felt ripples in him, a subtle shift, like currents under calm water—yet she knew nothing of it.

They had only just entered this World, not half an hour ago, together like two birds on one branch; if anything changed, it was the knitting of their minds.

He didn’t answer. He stood, thinking hard over a deep puzzle, then a bright grin opened like sunlight, and he breathed out a long mist.

A wind came from nowhere, lifting yellow leaves; one circled him, ready to slip away, and he pinched it between two fingers, trembling like a moth.

His eyes were a sky rinsed by rain. He smiled. "Thinking of you," the words soft as falling ash.

"You—Ye Weibai, in a crisis like this, are you still keeping things from me?" Her anger pricked like thorns.

"Am I? In our one-heart state, can’t you hear me clearly, Lina?" His calm was a still pond.

Lina stalled; in theory she could hear every whisper in him, like bells through clear air. But now his messages came broken, frames sharp, sequence mud.

In truth, she couldn’t hear his heart cleanly, like trying to read through smoke.

Out of a Deity’s pride, or other moods buzzing like gnats, she held her tongue.

His cool gaze struck true. He glanced at the flame behind them. "It’s not that you can’t see; my heart is a chopped-up film," words dry as dust.

"Is this a joke, Demon King?" Irritation flared in Lina like tinder.

"Easy, Lina." Ye Weibai reached out and stroked the edge of the violet flame; warmth passed through soul, not flesh, like heat through glass.

The gesture meant nothing, yet like petting a cat, it stunned Lina; "What—are—you doing?" Her voice caught like thread.

"Provoking you," he said, plain as stone.

Lina’s tone sharpened, steel under silk. "Demon King, got a death wish? Don’t forget we’re—" her breath a drawn bowstring.

"Yeah—one heart," he answered with a suggestive smile, a crescent under Nightfall.

Lina finally sensed the wrongness, a chill like a draft.

"Ye Weibai, can you hear my mind?" The question fell like a pebble.

The black-haired boy only smiled, thin as moonlight.

"This—is—not—" Pride bit down; she didn’t say, This isn’t fair; the words stuck like thorns.

He answered for her, gentle as rain. "Relax. It is fair. I can’t hear your inner voice either—just sense your shifts, like temperature in the air."

"What—" Her doubt fluttered like a moth.

"—the process of being stained by human emotion," he said with a light smile. "Lina, human passions—those seven emotions and six desires—hard to leash, right?"

Lina startled, realization cracking like ice. Since entering Ye Weibai’s body, this World, her emotions surged like spring flood.

Something subtle as dew seeped through him, staining her soul-form like dye through silk.

Proud as she was, she wouldn’t admit it. "None of your business. Ye Weibai, what are you doing? Your body won’t last," her warning a cold wind.

"I already answered—thinking of you," his calm like mist.

Lina ground her teeth. "Toying with a Deity—is that fun, Demon King?" Her voice snapped like a whip.

"The Demon King doesn’t," his smile fading like dusk. "But the human Ye Weibai finds it… amusing," the words dry as autumn leaves.

She was about to retort, then caught a flicker in him—an intensely serious mood, hard as granite.

She understood in a flash, like lightning on a dark sea: he was trying to send a message.

But why not say it outright? The question hung like smoke.

Afraid someone would hear? The thought pricked like needles.

"Lina, remember our pact?" His voice steady as a bell.

She paused; she thought he meant the promise—she’d later lay bare how human passions had infected her, like rain soaking sand.

"Yes." His nod was a quiet wave, proving again that in soul-fusion, he heard her thoughts like echo; "I’ve already got what I wanted."

She understood. His "thinking of her" meant observing her, closely, as human passion seeped in—nothing was more convenient than this state, clear as glass.

He had goaded her with touch and words to make the process legible, to harvest fuller data, like tracing ink in water.

But what for? The question gnawed like mice. She watched him: still him, yet after entering this World and getting his data, his stance shifted, subtle as dust brushed from an old mirror.

She thought she’d see clearer, but saw only herself; behind the glass remained veiled, like a lake hiding its depth.

She recalled the white world—the trade he proposed, his face as serious as now, a blade’s edge.

She couldn’t help thinking again: what deeper intent lay under his request, like roots under soil?

He cut in, a smile like a ray. "Lina, nice metaphor—the mirror."

"Demon King! Stop probing my mind!" Her protest rose like steam.

She bristled for real, fur on end like a cat; whether as a self-styled Deity or a woman slipping toward human, she couldn’t bear her heart being overheard like a letter opened.

"Yes, my Deity," the black-haired boy smiled and bowed, swift as a reed in wind.

Plainly teased, Lina started to speak, then stopped short, a blade halted on air.

"We’re here," his words fell like a marker.

He turned a corner into another city street and paused; a broad road spread like a river, green trees running down to the stately gate of Qingya High School.

He knew this road; he had glimpsed it in countless shards of glass, the path Yexiaobai walked to school, day after day.

Follow this road and you reach Qingya High School—where it all began, and where it would end, like a circle closing.

There, Ye Weibai should find the answers he wanted, and crack the whole setup, like breaking a game board.

Free himself from it all, like slipping a noose.

"Go. Hurry!"—a voice rang inside, urgent as a drum.

But Ye Weibai stopped short, staring at the campus; doubt rose in his eyes like mist over water.

"Lina, what do you feel?" His question floated like a feather.

She didn’t answer, yet he felt storms in her heart, waves pounding cliffs.

A presence had become a hurricane in that campus, rising to the sky, a column like a roaring dragon.

Even a stray leak flew down the avenue and slammed into them, impact heavy as stone.

Ye Weibai felt only a strange familiarity, like scent remembered. Lina, in soul-form and once a Deity, saw it clearly—the breath howled like a tornado.

A long moment passed before she forced words out, her voice rough as gravel.

"There’s a Deity there," the sentence fell like frost.

Ye Weibai went still, iron in his spine. He understood: not a local god; not the Deity of the Hero King world; not the Exorcist of the Monstrosity World. A true Deity.

Nightfall. Misfortune. Time. War Deity. Doll… one of those still alive after the Wars of the Gods, stars that refused to fall.

Compared to such beings, Lina was a bandit queen crowned in the hills, smoke instead of starlight.

In theory, Ye Weibai still wore the Demon King’s mantle; he should taste that divine aura, like salt in sea wind. Yet he smelled nothing.

Not nothing—covered, smothered by another scent, denser and harsher, like tar.

"If I’m guessing right…" he murmured, cold gathering in his eyes like frost, "it’s terrifying. How desperate must the feeling be to birth this…"

"Ye Weibai—" Lina sensed the unrest, his mind roiling like a storm; she’d never known him to churn so fiercely.

"Come on," he said, stepping forward, feet steady as drums. "Which Deity—or something more twisted… let’s find out."

…

…

As they neared Qingya High School, both fell silent, quiet as snow.

Lina was pressed by divine might sharpening with each step; closer, she felt the gap between her—at her peak—and that aura’s master, a gulf like earth and sky.

A difference in scale—and in kind, granite vs. cloud.

A thread of sorrow slipped through her heart, pale as smoke.

My millennia of self-styled divinity, the dignity I tended like a shrine, mean nothing before this towering breath, a mountain of air.

But the Demon King, Ye Weibai, caught a familiar stink creeping in, like rot under leaves—

Twisted, foul—like a dead fish buried in mud for years, maggots dying and reborn through countless cycles, decay thick as pitch.

He’d last seen it on Aerin, a gray bloom like dead fireworks.

It was the scent of Misfortune, a chill like iron rain.

And this time, its twist and terror far exceeded the gray fireworks Aerin once bloomed, a storm darker than ash.

"So that’s it. No wonder I couldn’t catch Misfortune’s scent at first—it’s been flooding the whole World from the start," his words low as thunder far away.

Ye Weibai murmured, “The air reeks of rot, seeded with gray particles. I’ve been wrapped in it so long I can’t feel any change—can’t smell it, can’t see it. Only—”

But why is the Misfortune this absolute, this despair that swallows the World? Where did it come from? It’s more terrifying than Philia, Mu Ling, and Aerin combined.

Is it because of Zhaomingming? Because she’s the protagonist?

Then isn’t Aerin the World’s child in the Hero King, burdened with all humanity’s hope?

What makes Zhaomingming special?

What happened to her?

“Is that luck, or misfortune?” As he neared the source of the Misfortune, the power of the Demon King inside him swelled, slow as a tide. His constant ache eased—bones and head unknotted—and he understood at last why, the moment he descended into this World, he felt freedom like a bird finding its forest.

“It’s not just this campus. The entire World must be soaked in it. What’s about to collapse isn’t this campus, but the whole World.”

The Demon King’s aura coiled around the black‑haired boy, letting him glide past the gate guard and into the grounds.

Ye Weibai walked toward the Senior Year Building, the stage where every story role was set to move.

Trees on both sides spread like umbrellas, shade flowing over his shoulders. It was the last class of the morning; aside from voices reading in unison, the campus was hushed. No birdsong, only the skittering rub of leaves and air, a rustle like quick insects.

Lina hadn’t spoken since earlier. She looked truly shaken, like a mirror hit by cold rain.

Ye Weibai understood. What she had guarded as precious, the moment she faced a true Deity, turned worthless—jade crumbled to dust.

He didn’t plan to say more, nor pry into her heart.

Some things can only be saved by the one who suffers them.

He moved quickly. His gaze skimmed past the track, landing on the white, solitary block—the Senior Year Building.

The stench thickened, riding the wind like hot smoke.

In his ink‑black eyes, the white building under a clean blue sky gleamed, while the gray particles had liquefied into a dense fog, cocooning the whole structure.

He had never seen Misfortune this color. Not pure—half gray, half black—tainted by some unsettling grit.

The sky was bright and cloudless, yet the gray‑black hung like ash after burning trash, wavering, swirling, smearing the sun into a nauseating, muddy hue.

He felt a sharp discomfort—for the first time. And he was the Demon King, lord of most of the World’s darkness and misfortune.

He kept forward. The air grew viscous, and his skin prickled as if something wet slid across it, creep‑cold.

A great doubt flooded his chest like spilled ink.

“Why is it like this? Even if it is Zhaomingming, from what I saw then, she wasn’t this lost. I can feel a trembling sorrow just by breathing it in. It’s not reasonable. How could a few days twist into this?”

The black‑haired boy moved as if inside gray fog; everything ahead wore a veil of ash‑light.

Suddenly, he stopped. Up the steps lay the main entrance of the Senior Year Building, buried in gray, its inside unreadable.

A wild thought flashed through his mind.

“What if it isn’t a few days? What if this timeline sits decades later—hundreds, thousands? What happened in between?”

He drew a deep breath. Chilling gray particles poured into him. As the Demon King’s power rose a notch, a spiky burn hit—like swallowing thorns.

The taste sank to the bone, mixed with sting, and the Demon King felt clear.

“Come on, come on, come on. Show me the Truth I crave. What is it really?”

Muttering, Ye Weibai lifted his foot and stepped into the lobby.

In the next heartbeat, the gray particles swallowed him.

...

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