The gray space shivered.
Lines of light—once simple runes, now whole scenes—rose and knitted themselves into a door ahead of them.
Tiny figures lived inside that radiance.
They were no longer just symbols, but stories: a girl kneeling in prayer before a burning temple; a kingdom marching to war; an old king sitting alone on a throne of bones. Above them all, a dragon coiled around a world and bit its own tail, swallowing and birthing itself in an endless loop.
Every rise, every fall, every flare of hope and despair turned into strokes of light.
Yan Mo's voice rolled out, deep and slow, the sound of an old beast calling from beneath the swamp.
"Seventh world," he intoned. "The Sorcerer's own world. Those who pass here… have the right to call themselves the Sorcerer's inheritors."
The door opened.
The Sorcerer's world was quiet.
Not the choking silence of the Hell level, packed with screams that had burned themselves out. Not the hungry silence of the ghost world.
This was the stillness right before a story started.
They stepped out onto an endless plain under a twilight sky. The horizon curved, subtly wrong—as if they were standing on a small, self-contained world instead of the vast Martial World.
In the far distance, rivers gleamed like silver threads. Mountains hunched against the sky. Cities glimmered faintly, like jewels half-buried in dusk.
Na Yi stretched out her sense.
Nothing.
No people, no beasts. Just faint echoes, like the world itself remembered being full once and hadn't realized it was empty now.
They took one step.
The world changed.
Na Yi blinked and almost lost her breath.
She was standing in the Na Tribe's village.
Before the fire.
Children shrieked and ran through the packed earth streets, chasing each other with wooden spears. Smoke curled lazily from cooking fires, carrying the smell of herbs and roasted meat. Old women sat in front of houses, weaving baskets; warriors checked their bone weapons.
Her father's voice drifted from the temple, low and steady, teaching young witches as he traced glowing witch-script in the air.
Her mother's hand was warm in hers.
"Yi," her mother said, smiling, eyes soft. "Go call Shui. Today's offerings—"
The sky turned red.
Flames roared down like a falling sea.
Na Yi's breath locked. Her heart slammed against her ribs hard enough to hurt. For a moment, she was sure she could smell burning flesh and wet earth, hear the first cut-off screams—
The scene shattered.
It broke into thin, glowing papers—each one holding a frozen moment of her village's life—and whirled away in a storm. The "papers" burned into motes of light and sank into the ground.
Na Yi stood again on the twilight plain, sweat beading at her temples.
Beside her, Na Shui swayed.
For an instant, she was back in the Fire Worm camp—rope biting into her wrists, rough hands grabbing her chin, Baldy's ugly, greedy face filling her vision as he reached for her.
Then that, too, peeled away like flaking paint, revealing the twilight plain underneath.
Ren watched them.
"…Samsara," he murmured.
Martial intent that used lives as whetstones. A road that weaponized cause and effect, rebirth and consequence. It could ruin a soul by drowning it in "what ifs"… or temper it into something that no simple illusion could shake.
Here, samsara wasn't a doctrine.
It was woven into the world itself like invisible threads.
A faint pressure brushed against his soul, searching. Gentle at first, then sharper as it found nothing to latch onto. It tried to hook into regrets and fears, to offer him a hundred lives he hadn't lived and a thousand mistakes he could have made.
If he let it, it would drown him in them.
It touched his Dao.
His inner Heaven unfolded.
Stars burned in that quiet sky: a heavy Martial World star humming with laws; another holding dragons and devils and angels, tinged with Infinity; several dim, distant points—worlds he hadn't fully stepped into yet.
Neutral chaos threaded between them all, roads cut by his own hand across systems that had never been meant to touch.
Samsara slid off that Heaven like water off oiled stone.
"…Cute," he said softly.
He could have ignored it.
He didn't.
Ren stepped forward and let a strand in.
Not into his Dao core—that would have been begging for trouble—but into a quarantined corner of his soul. Like a man cracking a window to feel the rain without inviting the storm inside.
Images flickered.
Lives he could have lived in this world: a Na Tribe boy who never left the swamp; a Fire Worm shaman laughing among cannibals; a Seven Profound disciple dying nameless in some training field; a corpse rotting quietly in the swamp mud.
Lives he could have had in other worlds: an ordinary student at Kuoh who never met Rias and the others; a dragon drifting through the Dimensional Gap that never became a man.
He watched them pass like plays, distant and small.
Along his spine, the Immortal Soul Bone shone with cold light. It traced Samsara's structure, dissecting it: the bait made of regret, the loops of reincarnation, the precise angles where it snagged soul threads and spun them until they frayed.
He smiled faintly.
"Martial intent that uses lives as whetstones," he murmured. "I like it."
Runes formed in his soul.
Not fire this time, but circles. Rings that held the scent of time, of rise and fall, of a story starting and ending and starting again.
A Samsara sigil coalesced, echoing the pagoda's law but twisted toward his own road. Not a prison that trapped souls in endless cycles, but a grinding wheel that turned every experience into comprehension.
Outside, Na Yi and Na Shui were already walking.
...
The world shifted with every step they took.
Na Yi lived and died a hundred times.
In one life, she never left the swamp. The Na Tribe clung to its shrinking territory, shrinking every year, and she died as a witch who had never seen the Sorcerer's tower.
In another, she died in the first pagoda level, trampled under ghosts she couldn't resist.
In another, she lived quietly, married into some small tribe that bowed to the Fire Worm standard, and died with regrets she couldn't even name.
Each time she died, she "woke" on the plain again, chest heaving, fingers digging into the ground, the memory of flames and failure still raw in her bones.
Na Shui's cycles were different.
In one, she ran and left Na Yi behind.
In another, she died trying to shield her sister, body hacked apart by laughing Fire Worm warriors.
In another, she never met Ren—living and dying as "meat" for cannibals that saw her as nothing more than livestock.
Samsara tried to shake them.
To bleed their courage away drop by drop.
Ren watched.
He didn't cut the cycles off.
Instead, he let his newly-formed Samsara Martial Intent leak… just a little.
Not enough to seize control of the trial. Not enough to overpower the Sorcerer's law. Just enough to change the angle, like slipping a wedge under a wheel.
He didn't show them escape.
He showed them choice.
Samsara wasn't only about being tossed from life to life like a leaf in a river. Hidden in each cycle were tiny branch points—places where will could change everything.
Na Yi saw them first.
In one loop, she knelt before the burning temple and wept while the sky fell.
In another, she stood, teeth clenched, and walked toward the flames.
In another, she turned and walked toward the swamp alone.
In yet another, she took Na Shui's hand and, instead of staring at the Fire Worms, she looked at the broken road leading toward the Sorcerer Holy Land.
Branches.
Little forks where everything changed.
Her breathing slowly steadied.
The next time the cycle began, she didn't wait for the first scream.
She walked out of the village before the fire fell, key at her throat, eyes already turned toward where she knew the pagodas waited.
The cycle didn't collapse immediately.
It fought.
But the moment she chose something completely outside the pattern it had offered, cracks ran through its "sky," and the illusion shattered like glass.
Na Shui found her own points.
Run. Freeze. Hide.
Or step.
A hundred times, her knees gave out in front of Baldy's looming face. A hundred times, she flinched back from those reaching hands, hating herself and fearing him.
Then, in one life, something inside her snapped.
Fear had gnawed at her so long it almost felt comfortable.
In that loop, at the moment Baldy's hand reached for her cheek, the fear burned instead.
She lunged forward.
And bit him.
She tasted blood and filth. His scream cracked the air. The shock froze the scene where it stood.
Then it broke.
Na Shui's eyes snapped open on the plain, chest heaving—not from recycled terror, but from a wild, shaky relief that left her light-headed.
"…I can choose," she whispered.
Samsara's pressure faded.
Ren's Samsara sigil turned in his soul, slotting into place beside his Fire Martial Intent like a second wheel beside the first. One burned; one turned. Together, they formed a small engine that promised trouble for anything built on rigid loops.
He lifted his hand.
"Yan Mo," he said conversationally into the air. "You built a nice playground."
The twilight sky trembled.
The pagoda's Samsara law tried to tighten, sensing an intruder tracing its bones.
Ren's smile curved.
"Let me show you something."
He spread his fingers.
Samsara Martial Intent unfolded from his soul.
He didn't push it like a domain.
He laid it over the trial's law like a craftsman examining a formation, tracing every hook and loop, copying it, and then nudging key points.
Hooks turned.
Loop-paths twisted.
Instead of endlessly cycling Na Yi and Na Shui through their traumas, the law found itself… cycling itself.
The core formation that powered the seventh world experienced its own "lives" at absurd speed: stable, unstable, overloaded, drained; adjusted, misaligned, patched, cracked.
It was never meant to experience self-reflection.
It hit the end of its designed possibilities and kept going.
In a single breath, the trial burned through every state it could reach.
Then it reached a configuration that had no answer.
The world cracked.
Twilight peeled away like a shed skin, dissolving into motes that flowed upward toward the pagoda's heart.
Na Yi and Na Shui stood on bare, luminous ground. Their bodies were uninjured, but their eyes…
Their eyes looked older.
Not in years, but in depth.
Their Dao Hearts had been hammered on an anvil and quenched in cold water.
Na Shui blinked, shoulders drooping in honest exhaustion.
"Is… is that it?" she asked weakly.
Ren laughed quietly.
"That," he said, "was the Sorcerer asking if you're the kind of people who let the past chain your feet." His gaze warmed. "You answered well."
Na Yi drew in a slow, controlled breath.
"I saw… many lives," she said softy. "But the only one that felt right was the one where I kept walking toward Master's tower."
Ren's eyes softened. "Good. Keep that."
Na Shui scrunched her nose.
"And I bit Baldy," she muttered, half sulky, half proud.
Na Yi stared.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed—a small, bright sound that didn't quite match the somber hall, but suited her perfectly.
"Good," she said. "Do it sooner next time."
Ren snapped his fingers.
The seventh world finished collapsing.
They stood before the Sorcerer Pagoda's heart.
The seven trial-worlds were gone.
In their place spread a vast, domed hall of dark stone. Frescoes crawled along the walls—carefully carved scenes of the Sorcerer's life: a young man building a tower out of nothing; armies marching under his banners; roads webbing out over a continent; a Divine Kingdom rising from swamp and bones.
At the center floated three things.
A crystal the size of a fist, its interior swirling with a filament of blood-red light that twisted like a tiny living dragon.
A simple jade slip, worn and cracked, its surface dulled by age—but from it spilled a quiet, oppressive pressure, like a mountain leaning on their souls.
A small, dull-black cauldron, no bigger than a man's head, its surface covered in countless tiny witch runes.
Above them, Yan Mo's enormous crimson eye hung in the air, half-transparent, watching.
"These," the guardian said slowly, "are the three gifts Master left for those who walk his smelting trial to the end. They are not infinite. Each time they are chosen, one vanishes from this world."
His gaze slid from Ren to the sisters and back.
"In Master's design, they were meant for his descendants alone," Yan Mo went on. "But this time…"
His pupil shrank slightly.
"…it seems his trial had other ideas."
Ren chuckled, low and amused.
He stepped forward, hands loose in his sleeves, as if he were just wandering through a market stall instead of standing in front of three treasures a Divine Kingdom had once revolved around.
"The red crystal," he said lazily, nodding toward the swirling quartz. "That one's got some really good stuff buried in there."
Yan Mo's eye widened.
"You…"
"I'll take that one," Ren said. "For myself."
Na Shui flinched, startled.
"Ren…" she began, instinctively protesting.
He lifted a hand without looking back.
"Easy," he said. "I'm greedy, not stingy. It's for you two anyway."
He turned toward Yan Mo, smile easy, tone light—but beneath that, something older and harder watched from behind his eyes.
"And my disciples," he continued, "are going to need more than one road if they're going to climb out of the swamp you've been stuck watching."
Yan Mo stared.
Ren's smile thinned by a fraction.
"I'm the one who rebuilt their foundations," he said softly. "I stood with them in hell and ghosts and in front of your Celestial Envoy. I'm also the one who is going to tear down that cannibal tribe using your Master's legacies as toys."
His eyes half-lidded.
"Yan Mo," he said. "You can follow the letter of rules written for a dead era and send these two out with nothing but scars… or you can admit the world has changed and invest properly in the last descendants your Master has left."
The hall went very still.
Na Yi and Na Shui held their breath.
Yan Mo's eye narrowed.
A crushing pressure rolled over Ren.
It was the sort of pressure that had once made tribes kneel. The weight of a Divine Kingdom's authority, compressed into a single gaze.
It hit his Dao.
And broke apart like a wave hitting a cliff.
Yan Mo remembered the sky he had glimpsed behind this man's calm gaze—a Heaven filled with stars that did not belong to any era he knew.
"…You are arrogant," Yan Mo whispered. "You speak as if you stand equal to Master…"
Ren shrugged slightly.
"Your Master built a Divine Kingdom," he said. "I'm borrowing his stove in a swamp." His smile turned faintly sharp. "But whether you like it or not, I'm the one your descendants have. And I don't raise disciples halfway."
His teeth flashed, just for a moment.
"If I wanted to rob you outright," he added cheerfully, "I wouldn't be asking."
Silence stretched.
Then the great eye… laughed.
It was a deep sound, more vibration than voice, rolling up from the stone under their feet.
"Very well," the guardian said at last, amusement coloring his tone. "In Master's time, many tried to bargain for his favor. Most died. You…" His pupil contracted, focusing on Ren. "…remind me of him a little."
He flicked his gaze toward the treasures.
The jade slip and black cauldron drifted toward the sisters.
"The jade slip contains a witch cultivation method that Master refined for his own bloodline," Yan Mo said. "It harmonizes body, soul, and bloodline, allowing you to draw on the Sorcerer's laws without twisting your origins. The cauldron is a life-bound artifact. Refine it, and it will grow with you—tempering medicines and formations to suit your path."
Na Yi's breath caught.
The moment the jade slip's aura brushed her soul, she felt as if she were standing at the foot of a mountain that had once shouldered a kingdom.
For the first time since her tribe fell, she felt something like a hand reaching down from that height—not to crush, but to pull her up.
Na Shui hugged the cauldron to her chest, eyes wide.
"I-it's… really… for us?" she stammered, voice shaking.
Yan Mo's gaze softened.
"Master always said," the guardian murmured, "that roads are wasted without people to walk them. If the last of his line falls here, then these treasures might as well rot with me."
His pupil turned to Ren.
"And the red quartz," he said. "You are certain you can digest it?"
Ren grinned.
"Like I told you," he said, "I've got plans."
He reached out.
The red quartz floated into his palm.
Up close, the pressure was brutal.
The filament in its center was a single hair-thin strand of blood, coiled tighter than any inscription. Every loop hummed with draconic might. Even after endless years, its mere presence made the air feel heavy, like gravity had quietly doubled.
A normal martial artist wouldn't dare to touch it.
Ren's fingers closed around it.
The quartz trembled.
In his inner Heaven, the Magic Cube stirred, a gray sun turning lazily. The Immortal Soul Bone along his spine gleamed, cold and precise, tracing the red filament, analyzing its structure, breaking it down and rebuilding it in silence.
"Later," Ren said softly to the dragon blood coiled inside the crystal. "We'll talk."
He flicked his wrist.
The quartz vanished into his Inner Void, sinking into a protected corner of his Heaven like a star swallowed by a larger sky.
Na Yi and Na Shui dropped to one knee together, lowering their heads.
"Yan Mo senior," Na Yi said, voice steady. "Thank you."
Na Shui bowed so hard her braid almost smacked the floor. "Thank you!" she echoed, eyes bright.
Yan Mo's gaze lingered on them.
"Walk well," he said quietly. "You carry Master's last wish."
Ren exhaled once.
He looked up at the fresco on the ceiling, where the Sorcerer laughed with a cup in hand, cities sprawling beneath his feet.
His own smile faded into something calmer, colder.
"Yan Mo," he said. "This Divine Kingdom of his… it's not going to stay buried forever."
Yan Mo's pupil contracted sharply.
Ren kept looking at the carved Sorcerer.
"The swamp outside is rotten," he said. "Cannibals chewing on your Master's bones. Tribes choking on fear. You've been watching it for how many tens of thousands of years?"
Yan Mo did not answer.
He didn't have to.
Ren's smile curved, lazy and sharp at once.
"Give it some time," he said. "I'll drag this place back onto the map."
Na Yi and Na Shui stared at him.
To them, it sounded like pure madness.
To Yan Mo, who remembered a time when his Master had said something very similar in front of a ruined land, it sounded like something else.
His great eye trembled.
"…If you can do that," the guardian whispered, "then even if Master never returns, this old beast will not have waited in vain."
Light rose from the floor.
The hall dissolved.
...
They emerged into dusk.
The Sorcerer Holy Land lay around them, half-ruined, half-awakening. Swamp mist clung to broken pillars, but it seemed thinner; the air held a faint richness it had lacked before, like a field just after the first spring rain.
To the sisters, the outside world looked… smaller.
The plaza was the same: toppled totems, cracked stone, statues strangled by vines. But the crushing weight they had felt when they first stepped into this place was gone.
Or rather, it was still there.
They had changed.
Na Shui flexed her fingers slowly.
Power flowed through her muscles, clean and sharp. Her bones felt like red-gold metal just out of the forge—hot, hard, humming. Her soul was still tired, but it no longer shook at every stray whisper.
Na Yi closed her eyes.
She could feel the witch cultivation method resting inside the jade slip at her waist, like a sleeping beast waiting for her to touch it. Behind her heart, a tiny Samsara pattern spun quietly, feeding back into her Dao Heart.
Then she opened her eyes again.
"Ren," she said quietly. "We…"
He reached out and flicked his finger against her forehead.
She blinked, startled.
"Don't look like someone about to cry," he said. "Save that for when we're wading through Fire Worm blood."
Na Shui let out a choked, helpless laugh.
Ren rolled his shoulders once, as if shrugging off the last threads of the pagoda.
"Rewards inside a stove are fine," he added. "But there's one more thing I want to give you two. It'll need a little time to cook."
Na Shui tilted her head, still hugging the cauldron.
"Cook…?" she echoed.
"You'll see," he said, amused. "First, we move."
He snapped his fingers.
Fire Martial Intent flared around him.
Not as an oppressive domain, but as a flowing red-gold wind. The air at his feet rippled. The lines of the world—terrain, ley lines, remnants of the Sorcerer's formations—bent toward him like iron filings toward a magnet.
He took a step.
To the sisters, it looked like he simply… sped up.
One moment, he stood in front of them. The next, his cloak fluttered ten paces away, the afterimage of a flame still fading where he'd been.
"Come on," he called lightly over his shoulder. "Fog Valley isn't going to walk to us."
Na Yi and Na Shui exchanged a look.
"Fog… Valley Tribe?" Na Shui whispered, startled. "The servant tribe…?"
Fog Valley—their neighbor, then occupier, then fellow victim. Once, they had dreamed of escaping there, only to find the same Fire Worm emblem hanging over its gate.
Na Yi's hands fisted.
"Let's go," she said.
They ran.
Or tried to.
In reality, Ren reached out with his Dao.
In his inner Heaven, the Martial World star brightened. Lines of force in the Southern Wilderness unfolded like a map—Sorcerer Holy Land, Fire Worm City, Fog Valley Tribe, scattered villages and camps. Each point glowed faintly, connected by the invisible currents of worldly energy and killing intent.
Neutral chaos threaded between those points.
He stepped onto one of those threads.
Space folded.
Wrapped in the edge of his Fire Martial Intent, the sisters saw the world blur into streaks of swamp, forest, fog, rock. The usual sour, rotting smell of the Southern Wilderness gave way to wind that burned their lungs—hot and clean instead of damp and foul.
Their feet still hit the ground. Muscles worked; hearts pounded. But every step covered hundreds of feet. It felt like riding the back of a giant flaming beast.
Na Shui shouted once, half fear, half exhilaration.
Na Yi narrowed her eyes against the wind, instinctively shifting her weight to keep balance.
In less time than it took a kettle to boil, the world slowed.
Swamp gave way to cliffs.
Fog Valley lay below.
Fog Valley Tribe had not changed.
From above, it was still a cluster of stone and wood houses clinging to the valley walls. In the early evening, cooking smoke curled from chimneys; faint voices drifted up.
The old tribal totem was gone.
In its place stood a crude Fire Worm emblem—splashes of red paint, a carved worm-dragon, a symbol that smelled of blood and cheap wine.
Fire Worm warriors lounged at the gates, bored and lazy, their armor stained with old grease and darker things. They laughed too loudly, eyes sliding over passing women with the same hungry weight they used on prey.
Na Yi's jaw clenched.
One hand drifted to the key at her throat.
Ren's eyes stayed calm.
"Later," he said quietly. "Revenge tastes better when you bring your own table."
He let his Fire Martial Intent dim, folding their presence into the evening haze.
The three of them descended the slope like ordinary travelers.
To the Fog Valley people, they were nothing more than a relaxed young man in a travel-worn cloak and two well-built women at his side, all carrying the quiet weight of Body Transformation and Pulse Condensation.
The Fire Worm guards frowned as they approached.
Then they sniffed, sensed nothing beyond "minor talents," and turned away, dismissing them.
Ren's cloak of neutral chaos did the rest—warping impressions, smoothing over any instinct that screamed danger. To the guards, he was already forgotten.
They entered the tribe.
"Fog Mansion Inn…" Na Shui murmured under her breath.
Na Yi nodded, chin jerking toward the main street.
"Up there," she said. "Near the chief's dwelling."
They walked past worn-faced women with baskets slung over thin shoulders, children whose arms were little more than skin and bone, Fire Worm warriors laughing and slapping hands on passing girls.
Na Shui's fingers tightened around her knife hilt.
Ren's hand brushed her wrist, just enough for her to feel the warmth of his skin and the steadying weight of his presence.
"Later," he repeated softly. "We're not here to start the feast yet. Let them laugh a little longer."
His voice was casual.
His eyes were not.
Na Shui swallowed.
"…Okay," she whispered.
Fog Mansion Inn squatted halfway up the valley, a two-story building of dark wood with a crooked sign. Its courtyard held rough tables and rougher men drinking cheap wine; the smell of cheap liquor and overcooked meat clung to the beams.
Ren paid for a room with a few pieces of gold that made the innkeeper's eyes shine like a starving dog's.
When they finally shut the door on their second-floor room overlooking the valley, the weight of everything they'd just endured crashed down on the sisters.
Na Shui sat on the edge of the bed.
Then she simply fell backward, arms spread, staring up at the warped ceiling.
"I feel like I've been beaten to death by mountains," she groaned.
Na Yi sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the wall, breath slow and controlled.
Her body ached in a deep, satisfying way. Her soul felt raw, like someone had scrubbed it with sand, but beneath the pain there was a strange lightness, as if something heavy had finally been set down.
Ren leaned against the window frame, arms folded, watching them with a faint smile.
"You two did well," he said. "From swamp prey to women who can beat a Houtian envoy half to death. Not bad for a week."
Na Shui flushed, half-proud, half-embarrassed.
"A week…?" she echoed weakly. "It felt like years…"
"That's what good furnaces do," he said.
He pushed away from the window and walked over, boots soft on the wooden floor.
"For now," he said, voice gentling, "rest. Let your bodies settle. The worst thing you can do after tempering like that is rush into another fight."
Na Yi nodded.
"Ren," she said quietly. "Thank you. For… everything."
Na Shui pushed herself up halfway, braid messy, eyes soft and stubborn.
"Really," she echoed. "If not for you… we would have died back in the swamp. Or worse."
Ren studied them.
Two women who'd once been barely more than trapped prey, witches clinging to scraps of belief in a swamp full of cannibals. Now, they had a Divine Kingdom's core witch art at their waists, a life-bound cauldron pulsing quietly with their bloodline, bodies strengthened by modified Chaotic Virtues and Heretical God Force, Dao Hearts that had walked through hell and samsara and come out steadier.
And they were his.
Not as possessions.
As people walking a road he'd opened and was still laying down with every step.
Warmth spread through his chest.
He dropped into a crouch in front of them, bringing his gaze level with theirs.
"Don't be in such a rush to thank me," he said lightly. "I did it because I wanted to. And because I'm curious how far you two will climb if I keep feeding your road."
He tilted his head, eyes flicking over them with blatant, unashamed appreciation.
"And," he added, smile turning a touch more teasing, "because somewhere in all that, my cute swamp witches turned into beautiful women without asking me first."
Na Shui's brain stopped.
"B-beautiful—?!" Her face went crimson from neck to ears. She squeaked and slapped her hands over her cheeks.
Na Yi blinked, caught off-guard.
A faint blush climbed the tips of her ears.
"…Ren," she said, aiming for dry and landing somewhere softer. "You… were watching even then?"
"Of course," he said easily. "I have eyes. It'd be a waste not to use them."
His tone stayed relaxed, but his gaze softened.
"I told you," he went on. "I don't hand out roads to people I don't care about. You're not just 'disciples' to me."
Na Shui's heart stuttered.
Na Yi's fingers curled on her knee.
Ren's smile curved, gentle with a wicked edge.
"So rest," he said. "Once I finish your next reward, we'll go take that revenge properly. After that…" He paused, watching the way their eyes widened despite themselves. "…we'll see how you feel about walking this road with me for longer."
He rose in one smooth motion.
Na Shui made a small, strangled sound and promptly buried her red face in the blanket.
Na Yi exhaled through her nose, fighting a losing battle against the warmth blooming in her chest.
"…Don't tease your benefactors so casually," she said quietly.
Ren laughed.
"Who said I was casual?" he replied.
He ruffled Na Shui's hair, earning a muffled protest from the blanket mound, then turned back toward the window.
"Sleep," he said. "I'll be back before long."
Na Yi's head jerked up.
"Back…?" she began.
He winked.
"Just taking a little walk," he said.
He pushed the window open.
Fog Valley's night air slid in—cool, damp, tinged with smoke and the distant, sour scent of fear.
Ren stepped up onto the sill.
For a heartbeat, he stood there, framed by the night, cloak stirring in the valley breeze.
Na Yi's heart skipped.
Na Shui peeked out from under the blanket.
Ren smiled at them one more time.
Then he stepped sideways and vanished.
...
The Great Zhou Mountains fell away.
Not like a landscape shrinking beneath flight.
Like an ink painting rolled up and tucked aside.
Ren stepped sideways through his inner Heaven.
Above his soul, stars burned: Martial World's heavy, law-rich star; a star pulsing with devils, angels, dragons, and the scent of holy light and demonic power; dimmer stars—worlds touched but not yet claimed.
Neutral chaos flowed between them, roads made from Biblical God's old seals, Infinity's borderless nature, Great Red's dream paths, and Trihexa's irreversible ruin.
Martial World's star dimmed a fraction.
The DxD star brightened.
Ren walked along a road that did not exist for anyone else—a path only his Dao could maintain, stitching realities together and refusing to let them drift apart.
Gravity shifted.
The smell of damp earth and smoke vanished.
Coffee, holy light, devil magic, and something fried took its place.
Kuoh.
He opened his eyes.
Evening light filtered through the manor's windows, washing the living room in warm gold.
Voices spilled from the kitchen—Asia humming as she fussed with plates, Xenovia grumbling about portion sizes, Irina scolding her with exaggerated righteousness. In the living room, Koneko was curled up in an armchair, demolishing a plate of snacks. Rias lounged on the sofa, flipping through papers, crimson hair spilling like silk. Akeno sat beside her, a small, amused smile behind her teacup.
It was peaceful.
Ren stepped out of the shadow near the entrance like he'd just walked back from the convenience store.
Asia spotted him first.
Her head popped out from the kitchen doorway, golden hair a little disheveled, apron crooked.
"Ren!"
Her face lit up like sunrise.
"I-I knew you would come back soon, but—!"
Ren smiled, something inside him unclenching at the sight.
"Missed me that much, huh?" he said.
Asia went bright pink.
"Yes!" she blurted, then squeaked and ducked her head, fingers twisting in her apron.
Rias looked up from the sofa, red hair catching the light.
"That was fast," she said, lips curving. "I thought you were going to vanish for a few more hours."
"I found what I wanted quicker than I expected," he said, walking in. "Besides, if I stay away too long, certain devils might start plotting to chain me down."
Akeno's laugh tinkled out, low and musical.
"My, my," she said, eyes curving. "Who says we haven't already?"
Koneko glanced up from her snacks.
"You're noisy," she muttered.
A beat.
"…Welcome back," she added, just loud enough to hear.
Ren reached over and gently patted her head.
"Thanks," he said.
...
The last hours of the day wove themselves into a familiar rhythm.
Asia dragged him into the kitchen to taste her latest attempt at cooking. Ren sampled everything with the seriousness of a man judging a grand feast. The food was simple, a bit uneven, but warm.
"It's good," he said honestly, watching her eyes. "You're getting a lot better with seasoning."
Asia's whole face lit.
"R-really?!"
"Really," he said. "Next time, we'll try something spicy. I'll walk you through it."
"Yes!" she said, practically bouncing.
Xenovia cornered him in the yard with her sword already out.
"Ren!" she called. "I want to try that stance you showed me again."
He chuckled.
"You mean the one where you nearly tripped over your own blade yesterday?"
Her cheeks flushed.
"That was… an accident," she muttered.
"Sure it was," he said, stepping in front of her. "Alright. Feet a little wider. Don't force the power down the blade; let your body remember the weight."
He turned her "spar" into a lesson, tapping her sword aside with two fingers when she overextended, stepping just out of reach to make her feel the gap in her timing. She ended up panting, hair sticking to her forehead, eyes bright with stubborn joy.
Irina barged in halfway through, ranting about paperwork and Heaven's bureaucracy, and left with her complaints neatly derailed by a few casual comments and Ren listening just enough to make her feel heard.
Back in the living room, Rias and Akeno traded quiet comments with him over tea. He made Rias laugh with a few well-placed jokes about "archaic systems" and "buggy devils," and shared a charged, half-teasing, half-knowing glance with Akeno that held far more than words.
He gave them time.
They gave him warmth.
By the time the sky outside turned properly dark and the household settled—Asia curled up with a book, Koneko dozing with a snack tray on her lap, Xenovia and Irina bickering over a TV show—Ren slipped away.
He found Ophis where he expected.
On the roof.