"What is it?"

Ning Xue asked, voice tight with anxiety.

Yuriko's eyes widened in genuine confusion.

"...Nothing," she muttered, surprised. "There's nothing wrong... but..."

"??"

"Your body... it's becoming weaker. Almost like a mortal's."

"!!" Ning Xue's face changed. "How? My powers feel even stronger lately..."

To prove it, she flicked her wrist, turning the damp alley air into swirling golden dust that shimmered like captured starlight.

Yuriko's face darkened with conflict. She hesitated, not wanting to crush her. Ning Xue wasn't just any god-born, she carried the evolved bloodline of beings like Aurora. Her very anatomy should have been fundamentally superior, built to command aether and psychokinesis with effortless dominance.

Yet now... it was normal.

Fragile.

The kind of fragile that, in the brutal, crushing pressure of the Netherworld, could get a person killed in seconds.

A true mortal, one unable to instinctively command aether, wouldn't last a single breath here. The ambient aether was so obscenely dense it could liquefy lungs and shatter blood vessels.

Even the aether that had leaked back to Earth during the year of great reset had wiped out half the population.

Here? It was a thousand times worse.

Aisha, Helena, and Lukas possessed decent aether control; they would feel heavy pressure at worst. But someone with Ning Xue's current physiology? She should have collapsed into a puddle of blood and regret the moment she arrived.

"Did Wang Xiao do something to your body?" Yuriko asked impatiently, then immediately flushed, regretting how crude the question sounded in the desolate alley.

Ning Xue's cheeks burned crimson. "He... did plenty of things," she mumbled, voice barely above a whisper. "But nothing that should..." Her mind drifted to the bracelet he'd given her and that ridiculous stuffed toy. One was silly. The other... she wasn't so sure anymore.

Yuriko stared hard at the bracelet, her sharp eyes narrowing. She recognized it, forged from celestial apophis. Strong protective amulet, yes. But nowhere near powerful enough to rewrite Ning Xue's fundamental physiology like this.

And yet something was clearly twisting Ning Xue from the inside out.

Fearing the worst, Yuriko quickly layered several protective blessings over the girl. If Ning Xue truly was reverting toward mortality, the dense Netherworld energies would soon start tearing her apart like wet paper.

Ning Xue's mood, already fragile, plummeted further.

She had sought out Yuriko because she felt inexplicably lost, an overwhelming urge to just lie down and cry for no reason.

Now even her body was betraying her?

"What, is going on...?" she whispered, frustration and anger rising fast.

A dangerous ripple exploded outward from her.

"Stop-!" Yuriko's eyes widened.

BANG!

The entire alley detonated in a cataclysmic explosion of golden dust. In the same instant, that shimmering dust ignited into a roaring inferno of flames, vaporizing everything in its path within microseconds.

Buildings crumbled to ash, prayer wheels melted mid-spin, and unfortunate souls nearby simply ceased to exist, erased so completely that not even screams remained.

"..."

Yuriko stood frozen, pale-faced, as Ning Xue remained standing in the center of the raging whirlpool of inferno, completely unharmed and still lost in her own thoughts, as if she hadn't noticed a thing.

To Yuriko, it was like staring at a walking apocalypse.

She glanced down. Her own armor was torn open, blood steadily flowing from a deep gash across her once flawless stomach, staining her pristine skin crimson.

She had shielded everyone else in time, Xue Tianming, Xue Qiulian, the others, but left herself exposed, thinking the outburst couldn't possibly hurt her.

She had been wrong.

Horror filled her eyes as she looked around. The Twin Saints and Althaea were running toward them, shouting in panic.

Everyone else in the vicinity... was gone. Charred remains littered the ground.

"Hm...? What happened?" Ning Xue finally snapped out of her daze, her eyes widening in pure shock as she took in the burning streets, collapsing buildings, and thick clouds of smoke rising around them. "Why... why is everything on fire?"

Yuriko stood frozen for a moment, blood still dripping from the deep gash across her stomach.

Her lips trembled as she finally spoke, voice low and strained. "... You did this."

"Me?" Ning Xue's voice cracked with disbelief. "No... I didn't- I couldn't have-"

The moment the words left her mouth, a massive gust of wild golden energy erupted from her body like an invisible storm.

The air itself screamed as if bending violently.

"!!!" Yuriko threw up her hands instantly, reinforcing her defenses.

Too late for the others.

The violent wind blast tore through the alley like a vengeful dragon. Althaea reacted fastest, slamming her feet into the ground and instantly increasing the local gravity hundred fold to anchor everyone behind her. They were saved from being hurled away, but the rest of the city wasn't so lucky.

Buildings groaned and uprooted like fragile weeds. Prayer wheels spun wildly before shattering into pieces. Entire burning sections of the spiraling red pagodas were ripped from their foundations and flung into the sky.

"Stop! Ningning, calm down!" Yuriko shouted, her voice echoing desperately through the roaring wind.

Ning Xue stared at the destruction in horror, her face pale. "This... this was me?" She took one panicked step backward.

CRACK!

The ground beneath her foot shattered like glass under the uncontrolled pressure, cracks spiderwebbing outward violently.

"Ah-!" She yelped in fear and instinctively shot backward into the sky, flying away in a streak of golden light.

"Wait! Don't run!" Yuriko cursed under her breath and immediately gave chase, one hand pressed over her bleeding stomach as she sealed the wound with glowing runes.

"Ningning! Come back here, I-I won't let anything happen to you!"

High above the city, Ning Xue's panicked voice echoed down. "I didn't mean to! What's happening to me?! I swear I didn't do anything!"

Althaea lowered her hands slowly, releasing the gravity anchor as the pressure finally subsided.

She let out a long, exhausted sigh, wiping dust from her face. "What in the nine hells is wrong with this child today...?"

Xue Tianming, still catching his breath, stared at the devastated district with wide, horrified eyes. "That... that wasn't even an attack. She just panicked. How does someone accidentally level half a city by getting scared?!"

Xue Qiulian's expression remained grim, her usual confidence cracking. She couldn't make sense of it either.

A hidden Immortal guardian who had been protecting them finally revealed himself, stepping out from a shattered illusion. His face was pale with disbelief. "This kind of strength... I've guarded these lands for eight thousand years and I've never seen anything like it."

"Should we go after them?" Lukas asked, already taking a step forward on instinct.

Helena immediately shot him a sharp glare. "Do you want to die that badly? We barely survived that. Stay right here."

Aisha nodded in agreement, her voice unusually firm. "She's unstable right now. Chasing her would be suicide."

Althaea dusted off her hands and sighed. "Okay, enough playing around for today. Those two will find their way back eventually. Let's move. We should meet the rulers of this land before anything else explodes."

She glanced at the Twin Saints and the Xue siblings, signaling them to lead the way.

Xue Tianming and Xue Qiulian wanted to protest or at least ask questions, but the sheer pressure radiating from the group made them swallow their words.

They exchanged a quick, uneasy glance.

Xue Tianming's eyes seemed to scream at his sister: 'I told you this was dangerous! We should have stuck with Yue Qingshuang!'

Xue Qiulian could only grimace silently in response. What if their entire kingdom got accidentally erased because of one emotional outburst? These outsiders weren't just powerful, they were walking catastrophes.

Still, they had no choice but to obey.

With heavy hearts and growing regret, the siblings lowered their heads and began leading the group toward the capital, silently praying that nothing else would go wrong. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

_____

Meanwhile, far away...

"Haa... Haa... Haa!"

Yue Qingshuang sprinted desperately through the dense, mist-shrouded mountains near the edge of Samsara Great Lord territory.

His green hair was matted with sweat and blood, chest burning as he gasped for air.

Just a little further—

His eyes locked onto a narrow crevice hidden behind cascading vines. Without hesitation, he dove inside.

The cave mouth was deceiving. What looked like a cramped hole instantly expanded into a vast, otherworldly space, an ancient pocket dimension filled with towering ancient forests, glowing fungi, and rivers of liquid starlight.

But Yue Qingshuang had no time to admire the view. He pushed deeper, the walls closing in around him until the passage became suffocatingly narrow.

At the dead end, instead of stopping, he leaped straight at the solid stone wall.

SQUELCH!

His body passed through the rock as if it were liquid mercury, a hidden spatial membrane rippling around him.

One of the emergency escape routes he had prepared long ago, a tunnel leading to a secluded lesser known universe.

He refused to stay in the Netherworld any longer. Not with that monster hunting him. He would escape, gather reinforcements from his hidden allies, and return with enough force.

_______

On the other side of the spatial wall...

RUSTLE... WHOOSH!

A massive ripple tore across a serene blue sky dominated by a single blazing sun. A figure shot through the tear like a meteor, plummeting violently toward the ground.

Yue Qingshuang's eyes snapped open mid-fall. Below him stretched an endless range of snow-capped mountains and sparse, hardy vegetation clinging to rocky slopes.

The wind screamed past his ears as the earth rushed up to meet him at terrifying speed.

"Shit-!" he cursed, panic flaring in his chest.

He twisted his body desperately, channeling what remained of his battered energy to stabilize. Golden-green light exploded around him as he forcibly slowed his descent, skidding to a harsh landing that carved a deep crater into the mountainside.

BOOM!

Snow and rock exploded outward.

Yue Qingshuang rose shakily from the crater, coughing blood, his face twisted with fury and faint fear.

"That bastard… he actually chased me all the way," he growled under his breath, wiping blood from his lips. "But this portal is hidden. He won't find me here."

He glanced back at the invisible spatial tear high above, now slowly sealing itself.

A dark, predatory smile crept onto his face despite his exhaustion.