Ultimate Evil...

The black-robed figure who crossed blades in Eastwind City was an avatar of a member of Ultimate Evil, a shadow cut from deeper night.

That familiar aura rose like cold mist from a well, and Cerqin’s pupils tightened like drawn knots.

The figure flickered past like a fish under moonlight, vanished at the corner, and the hall’s clamor came back like surf in her ears.

Her heartbeat steadied like a drum under cloth; she shook off the gloom like rain from a cloak, and her steps quickened.

Ultimate Evil in the imperial capital—after Eastwind, Cerqin had crammed cult lore like stuffing straw into cracks, and dread moved like storm-scent before rain.

This hidden faction rarely hurt common folk, a knife kept sheathed among the crowd for reasons like ice under glass.

Their moves traced threads that rose like kites to legends of gods, a net cast toward heaven’s quiet lights.

They were a lone, strange order that lifted a blade at the sky, a hand daring thunder to answer.

At the capital’s heart, the palace rose like a mountain of jade, the royal family’s nest set against a sea of roofs.

Spring Tide sat straight in a lavish antechamber like a pine in snow, with Baili and Qianli behind her like silent spears.

“Holy Maiden.” A valet pushed the door with a sigh like wind through paper, and bowed like a reed bending to water.

Spring Tide nodded, rose like a ripple of spring wind, signaled Baili and Qianli to wait, then followed the valet into the palace’s deep river of corridors.

“How is Lord Ming Xi?” The valet walked ahead, his voice soft as felt over steel, words dropping like beads.

“Things have been messy lately; I’d guess she isn’t happy,” Spring Tide said, light as sunlight through leaves, speaking to him like an elder she knew.

The Emperor of the Holy Dragon Empire’s personal attendant was deep as a well; she knew him because he was half a disciple of Ming Xi, a branch grown from her trunk.

When Spring Tide was still small, for some reasons, Ming Xi taught this valet for a time, a short drizzle that left the soil rich.

“I see. Lord Ming Xi never changes,” he said, the words simple as bread, a smile like a crease in old bark.

“I just wish she’d focus on work,” Spring Tide teased, a spark like a firefly; the valet chuckled, a dry leaf’s rustle.

“The capital—” she began, voice reaching like a hand, but—

“Your Highness the Holy Maiden.” His polite thread snapped like silk on a nail, and his tone turned like a blade.

“Do you think this world is real?” he asked, the question dropping like a stone in a pond.

“Huh?” Confusion rolled through Spring Tide like fog over a field, and her tongue stumbled like a foal.

The capital’s strangeness might dodge other powers, like a fox slipping through sparse snares, but she felt the Emperor had to know something.

“If the world is false, then are we real?” His words hung like a mirror catching late sun, bright and cold.

“What are you talking about…” Wariness rose in her chest like frost, and her steps slowed like a river in winter.

His mana felt the same as memory, a lantern steady in the wind, yet the will inside his words twisted like ivy in the dark.

He stopped, turned slightly, and smiled like a mask painted thin.

“Your Highness the Holy Maiden, do you know summoning?” he asked, tossing the question like a pebble.

“Summoning magic?” Spring Tide frowned, the crease like a cut in silk, not understanding his turn.

“Never mind. Pretend I didn’t ask,” he said, the dismissal light as a feather and just as strange.

“Ah?” She stared, caught like a moth in the lamp’s circle, while he turned back and walked on as if the stream had never rippled.

The dissonance swelled like a drum under the floorboards; she drew breath to speak, but he stopped again like a clock that skipped a beat.

They had arrived at a grand door carved like a mountain gate; the Emperor waited beyond, in his study like a den of lions.

The valet gestured like a host at a banquet; the doors opened slowly like dawn prying up the horizon.

Spring Tide frowned and held the valet’s face in her gaze like a pin, then stepped inside, light as a cat.

Daylight poured through the great window like molten gold, gilding the room and forging a quiet, hammering awe.

Behind the desk, a stern middle-aged man turned papers like leaves; as she entered, he raised his head and smiled, stern warmth like winter sun.

“The Sanctuary’s Holy Maiden hurries to see me,” he said, voice even as a still pond. “You must have business.”

As the Holy Maiden of the Sanctuary, her open rank nearly matched a king’s, a banner that carried wind, not weight.

But a banner is a sign, not a sword; before she became Archbishop, her power was more symbol than chain in the hand.

Spring Tide didn’t lose her wind; she bowed like rain tapping stone, then went straight to the point like an arrow to bark.

“Your Majesty…” She reported the anomalies she had felt since entering the capital, words laid like stones across a stream.

The valet’s strange words gnawed at her like mice in the walls; if his mind were broken, he wouldn’t stand at the Emperor’s elbow.

So those riddles had roots; he must have been pointing at something, a compass under a sleeve.

The Emperor’s face stayed calm as a sealed lake; even when she finished, no ripple showed.

Silence pooled like oil. Then at last, his voice rose again like a bell struck softly.

“No need to worry. I’ve sent people to investigate,” he said, assurance smooth as lacquer.

“I see…” Relief didn’t come; unease kept buzzing like a trapped fly, and something felt wrong as a picture hung crooked.

“Holy Maiden, do you understand divine abilities?” he asked suddenly, his words turning like a wind shifting at sea.

“A few bloodline powers, pushed to the edge, can touch rules, becoming ultimate,” he said, each phrase laid like bricks.

“Among them, one stands apart—the divine ability, said to be granted by gods, a power crowned with a divine title like a halo.”

Such notes lay only in archives old as mountains; the Sanctuary was mighty, but its youth left gaps like missing tesserae in a mosaic.

At first, Spring Tide knew only a sketch like charcoal; later, Silver Luan told her things the Sanctuary’s shelves did not keep, a whisper under rafters.

“Powers drawn from the Authorities of the gods, a bridge said to reach them,” the Emperor murmured, his gaze heating like a coal catching air.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Holy Maiden,” he said, the words soft as velvet and just as suffocating.

A throb of dread slammed her chest like thunder; instinct hissed like grass in wind.

“Legend says a holder of a divine ability, at the brink of death, can speak briefly with a god,” he said, the line thrown like a hook.

Squelch—

Spring Tide looked down; a blade pushed through her chest like frost through thin ice, and pain bloomed like fire in dry straw.

She turned her head with effort, each inch like lifting stone; the valet’s familiar face felt wrong, a mask seen at noon.

A high-tier strike from behind—fast as lightning under skin—and even Spring Tide couldn’t call on the Phantom God in time.

She held her bleeding life like sand in a fist, forced her mana to surge like a tide, and stared at the Emperor, whose eyes shone with a fever like a torch.

“Why… do this…” Her voice was thin as smoke; the question hung like a torn banner.

This was war against the Sanctuary; the Holy Maiden’s murder would call wrath like a monsoon, a flood no dynasty could dam.

“Why…” she breathed.

“Because there’s no time left,” a sudden, familiar voice chimed, a bell behind a curtain, and it filled the room like cold.

A black-robed figure appeared, face hidden like the moon in cloud, and sat on the Emperor’s desk as if perching on a branch.

“It’s you… Ultimate Evil.” Recognition struck like flint; the same presence from the Eastwind City basement, an avatar carved from that abyss.

“Truly sorry,” the figure sang, and not a drop of sorrow fell; “we didn’t plan this, but the Demon Race already moved, so we must.”

The word Demon Race sank like lead; Spring Tide’s strength fled like birds at a shot, and thought unraveled like wet thread.

Darkness pressed in like ink; her life climbed to the ledge of death, a breath from the drop.

In the blur, she heard whispers like wind in pine, close and far; she tried to answer, but her mouth was stone.

The gloom folded over her like a tide at night, and her body fell quiet as snow.

In that chamber, the black-robed figure caught her weight like picking up a broken harp, and magic roared off him like wildfire in dry brush.

When Spring Tide’s life guttered out like a candle, the surge dwindled, and his aura settled like ash.

“As expected… even this can’t reach the gods,” he said, words falling like dead leaves.

“I see…” came the answer, flat as dusk.