The thing flung aside—Qinjin—vanished into a crimson whirlpool; maybe it ran, maybe the Abyss swallowed it into no return, and Qianya didn’t care.

“It’s open already…?”

“Whew. And what good does that do? Heh.”

She dipped her chin, ice-blue starlight flaring in her eyes like frost-lit constellations. From afar her outline looked wrong, a little translucent, like heat haze over snow. She opened her right hand; a pale blue orb gathered slow as a moonrise.

Within it, countless glassy blue motes flickered, then streamed out at her pull like rivers seeking the sea. The world around her began to slow. Clouds in the sky drew together at a pace the naked eye could track. The vault above turned murky. White snowflakes drifted down, yet fell like feathers in syrup. The piled clouds froze into a thick white ice-shelf. The wind eased, thinned, then fell silent like a breath held too long.

The whole world slid into molasses, time included; the rush of seconds throttled down, even dulling every creature’s senses. No one knew they were being frozen mid-thought.

Ice from the firmament sheeted over the land like a closing lid. The ice the world’s will had been struggling to hold back was finished in an instant by Qianya. It was the Authority born from Rain Moon Willow’s ascension, one of the primordial Authorities that could rival the first gods—like a miracle laid by the Creator’s own hand.

“Everyone who’s seen this power ends up fearing me,” she murmured, voice a snowflake on iron. “I still remember the instant Their eyes flipped from scorn to panic…”

The memories surged like a black tide, and for a heartbeat she almost forgot why she stood here.

“I’m here to end this wor… this disaster.”

“Even if you were ten steps ahead, it wouldn’t matter. The moment I descended, the outcome was set.”

Unhurried, she brushed the dust from her clothes like ash off winter silk. Then she closed her left eye, the one starlit pale blue, and with her crimson pupil she swept the frozen tableau. Flesh or stone, leaf or steel, all had been dragged down. Their speed fell fast toward zero. They would stop. They would not restart on their own.

The Authority of Rain Moon Willow didn’t just command water. It ruled energy. For anything to move, it needs fuel, and she could strip that fire and make it hers.

In a way, she was more dangerous than the hellish Abyss itself. But this power had long since exceeded what her body could hold. Rain Moon Willow had failed to pull out of a rampage, and at the brink of death she used the overflowing godhood and demonic mana to seal her burning-out mind.

Now, she stood in daylight again, bearing an Authority that could unmake or devour a universe.

“An evil god? Maybe… I’m the one.”

She closed both eyes. When she opened them, the motes behind her rose and whirled with her mana like migratory stars, shaping a vast and intricate sigil—a divine halo.

The halo flared, bright as glacial noon. She lifted a hand and blew, and the light-specks scattered like dandelion seeds.

“So if I drive the mana in earnest, it forms by itself… This thing’s too eye-catching.” She shook her head. She didn’t care to show off.

She turned to Qingsheng Tangxue, who lay nearby, writhing in pain, and tapped her brow with a white, fine fingertip.

A chill the color of ice-blue swept through Tangxue’s body. Her frenzy snuffed out in a breath. She gulped air, and her breathing steadied like a lake after rain.

Tangxue stared up, incredulous. “Qianya…?”

“…It’s me.” Her gaze was distant, winter-clear.

“You…” Tangxue blinked, then went quiet, as if a knot finally came loose. “Did you make a deal with my… birth mother?”

“Yes. I’m here to end this disaster.”

“I see. Haha.” Tangxue’s smile was thin as paper, a little helpless. “I’m sorry…”

“You don’t owe me an apology, Tangxue. This was my choice.” Qianya shook her head, then turned to go.

In this world of ice, only Tangxue and she moved outside the slowed time. Now she would refreeze the broken seal.

Only by sealing them deep underground could this calamity sleep.

The Far North. Cadres of the Flower of the Other Shore had gathered in person. They mingled with the devils and evil gods that crawled out of the Abyss, waiting together for Vecna to descend.

This used to be the dungeon gate where the gods jailed their rebels. Now, first thing out, they would raze everything in the Far North to the ground.

As the prologue to a new era.

“Are you setting up a welcome party for an evil god? Is the evil god… welcoming me?” Qianya stepped into their midst with a smile. Surrounded by things neither human nor ghost, her silhouette looked small as a sapling in a graveyard.

“!?”

“You only now notice the world’s changed? Far too late.” Her glance skimmed the monsters like a blade. She moved first, shattered the Flower of the Other Shore cultists who sold their souls, and tossed them into the Abyss before the watching evil gods.

“Trash belongs in the bin… If they’re so eager to become you, go down together.”

“As for you lot… why not all at once?” Her smile curled, pure contempt. She didn’t put these almost-motionless evil gods in her eyes. Even with new bodies, they couldn’t escape the taste of chains. If anything, those zealots’ antics had long crossed her bottom line.

“If you’d broken out on your own, I might’ve spared you a sliver of respect… But you’ve stewed in the Abyss for tens of millennia and learned nothing. Utterly useless.”

Her gaze was cold as permafrost as it fell on several monsters. A few of them, as if slipping their leashes, began to move almost normally within the slowed world.

They were burning their lives to accelerate.

“You! Rain Moon Willow! You! You’re not dead!!!”

“Loudmouthed fool. When I heard you nearly destroyed this world, I almost thought better of you. Turns out it was just a weakling’s last flare.”

More and more evil gods roused as time leaked on. They set themselves ablaze and forced motion through the freezing syrup of the world. Qianya stood ringed in.

“Gonna solo all of us? Pfft… Even your sister wouldn’t dare that, right?”

“Hehehe, you sure did underestimate us.”

“Kekeke, why don’t we play a little game before Vecna arrives? See who tears the little thing to pieces first!”

“Deal! One, two—go!”

A swarm of hulking monsters lunged at Qianya like an avalanche of fangs. Barring Vecna, the evil gods and monsters of the Abyss had poured out. Now they all clustered here.

Qianya’s choice was simple—she’d stood up against the entire Abyss.