*Era of the Origins... The Confines of the Kingdom of Nothingness...*

The sky of the first era was nothing more than an open wound, an expanse of purple clouds and violet lightning where Khao energy stagnated like a gaseous poison.

The smell of the end of the world saturated the air: a bitter mixture of iron, sulfur, and spiritual decomposition. In the middle of the smoking ruins of a draconic outpost, two silhouettes ran at breakneck speed toward a spatial rift that shimmered with an unstable glow.

BaiShe, whose white linen tunic was now soiled with ashes and blood, maintained a steady pace despite his lack of Qi. At his side, Yi Lan, the Hundred Faces Demoness, acted as a shield, her nine pink tails whipping the air with predatory nervousness.

The Rakshasa invasion had reached its climax. These creatures, born from the accumulated hatred of the fallen Origins races, poured in by the millions onto the domains still standing. Behind the duo, a dozen Rakshasa Valets were hot on their heels. These monsters, recognizable by their hornless masks and chalk-white skin, moved with a speed that defied human perception.

"They are getting closer, Darling..." murmured Yi Lan, her voice betraying fatigue.

"The portal will not hold for more than a few minutes. The space is already collapsing under the pressure of Khao." ...

BaiShe adjusted his monocle, his silver pupils analyzing the probability vectors of their survival. His Omega Heart, which he had just stabilized at the cost of a ritual sacrifice, beat at a slow rhythm, filtering the toxic emanations of the battlefield.

"Only flight is our only variable of success" he replied in a monotone voice, ignoring the Qi explosions that shook the ground.

Simultaneously, three Rakshasa Valets leaped from the shadows, their claws surrounded by a corrosive violet aura. Yi Lan did not wait for the signal. She thrust her right hand forward, activating her art of illusion.

< Arts: Mirrors of Obsessional Illusion >

Fragments of pink glass materialized in the air, forming a sharp barrier. The first Valet crashed head-on into the mirror. The creature was literally sectioned into three pieces, its black and viscous blood spraying the stone slabs. A second attacker was decapitated by a shard of glass that sliced through his cervical vertebrae with a sharp crack, leaving his head rolling on the ground while his body continued to run a few steps by simple nervous inertia.

However, the number of assailants kept increasing. An additional fifty Rakshasas emerged from the surrounding debris, forming a circle of expressionless masks. The pressure of Khao became so dense that it began to liquefy the very structure of reality around the portal. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Yi Lan suddenly stopped a few meters from the spatial rift. She turned toward BaiShe, and for the first time, the young master saw a glimmer of resolution that had nothing to do with her usual yandere madness. It was the clarity of a calculated sacrifice.

"Go, Darling..." she ordered, her pink Qi beginning to boil. "This portal will only accept one soul before closing."

BaiShe frowned, a gesture of displeasure that betrayed a crack in his impassivity. "Lan’er, I will repay you for this..."

"I am sure of it, Master." she added with a sad smile.

Before he could protest, a wave of Khao submerged the area. The Rakshasa Valets threw themselves at her in a compact mass. Yi Lan unleashed herself. She used her tails like maces, crushing the monsters’ skulls in a symphony of dull sounds and broken bones. One could see fragments of gray brain and porcelain masks flying in all directions. She grabbed a Rakshasa by the throat and, with a brutal twist, tore out its trachea with her fingers, letting the black blood spurt onto her silk robe.

However, numerical superiority eventually bore fruit. A Valet more massive than the others managed to immobilize one of her tails with a Khao chain. Simultaneously, four other monsters threw themselves on her, sinking their claws into her limbs to pin her to the ground.

BaiShe, at the entrance of the portal, witnessed the scene. He saw the emaciated hands of the Rakshasas gripping the delicate flesh of the fox. One Valet seized Yi Lan’s first tail. With bestial force, he pulled it backward.

The sound was unbearable: the cracking of vertebrae giving way and the tearing of ligaments. The tail was ripped out at the root in a fountain of purple blood. Yi Lan screamed, a cry of agony that made the last pillars of the palace tremble. But the monsters did not stop there. A second Valet seized the second tail and severed it with his teeth, chewing the pink fur and flesh before spitting out the piece with contempt.

The massacre continued with methodical cruelty. One by one, the fox’s tails were torn off. One could see red, pulsating muscle fibers emerging from the gaping wounds. Yi Lan’s blood now covered the entire basaltic ground, creating a steaming puddle under the weight of the attackers.

Consequently, BaiShe felt something stir in his Omega Heart. It was not love, that feeling remained an enigma to him, but a glacial respect for this loyalty that defied fatality. He saw this creature, cursed by the Dao, doing everything for his survival, while he was only a human without real power at that time.

Yi Lan, whose face was now a mask of blood and pain, turned her gaze toward him one last time. Her sapphire eyes were dull, but her lips still moved.

"Go... become the sovereign you were meant to be..." she murmured in a hoarse breath, as a Valet sank his claws into her plexus to reach her Dantian.

BaiShe took a step back, his body already half sucked into the rift. His face remained jade-like, but a single silver tear, icy and unique, rolled down his cheek before evaporating instantly.

"Your courage in the face of the Dao’s fatality will not be forgotten, Lan’er" he declared, his voice resonating with an authority that seemed to command time itself. "In the next life, it will be me who faces it. I will no longer tolerate anyone touching what belongs to me."

The portal closed with a dimensional thunderclap, carrying BaiShe toward a new era. Yi Lan collapsed completely, her mutilated limbs no longer able to support the weight of the Rakshasas. She died alone, in the twilight of a world that had always rejected her, but with the certainty of having saved her only god.

Silence fell over the ruins, disturbed only by the whistling of the wind through the dried carcasses of foxes. The Celestial Demon had just left, carrying with him a promise and a karmic debt that the centuries would not be able to erase.