When the sun rose, Li slipped on his robe and headed for the pond. Halfway there, he stopped—memories of the previous night rushed back, stopping him cold.
The Imbecile was gone. In the courtyard, disciples and masters moved about, their steps unhurried. The teahouse buzzed with more people than usual. Master Zhang stood in the center, gesturing animatedly as he spoke with a group of scholars. Li decided to skip tea.
Still, something pulled him toward the pond. A strange, almost morbid curiosity. He moved slowly. If anything happened now, it would be in plain view of everyone on campus.
He reached the edge and looked down, directly at the spot where the face had appeared last night.
Nothing. The water was calm, the tiny pond creatures had returned, flitting about as if nothing had disturbed them. The sun was warm on his skin, but Li couldn't feel it. The night's events hung over him like a shadow.
A hand landed gently on his shoulder.
"You seem a little rattled, Li," said a voice. "How about helping me clean out the archives?"
It was Assim.
Li agreed, grateful for something to occupy his mind. They walked together toward the main library. Assim was a little shorter than him, but age was hard to judge here—Master Xing was over four hundred years old and still looked like a woman in her forties. Li didn't dare ask.
"Some of the scholars told me about you," Assim said as they walked. "You can read while we sort things. I doubt Master Zhang has much planned for you today, and the Paduk has lessons. Maybe you'll find something interesting down there."
Li nodded his thanks. He didn't know Assim well, but he knew of him—and of Moses, his constant companion. The two of them practically lived in the archives, buried in ink and history.
Li had visited the archives a few times in the past two years—whenever he found time between lessons to catch up on the immense knowledge of this universe. He'd spent most of that time learning the common tongues, the systems of governance, and absorbing every scrap of wisdom the Paduk and Master Zhang offered.
They stepped into the library and descended a long, creaky spiral staircase. No matter how often he came here, the archives always felt new—immense, alive.
The scent hit him first: old parchment, ink, clay tablets, the dust of forgotten centuries. A scholar's heaven.
"This way," Assim said, leading him through the rows. "I just finished going through the complete history of the anti-Covenant militias. I need them sorted into folders, by category."
Li nodded, then hesitated.
"Master Assim… do you really think we're going to be attacked in two days?"
Assim looked down, exhaled slowly.
"I don't know," he said. "But something's coming. The question is… what do we do when it does?"
Li frowned. "We've got Guardians stationed all over the planet. This is Wisdom Bank. What could they possibly do here?"
"I've been wondering the same thing," Assim said. "The records show all kinds of scenarios—most coups fail within a year, especially in regulated systems. But in the unregulated sectors… it's a different story entirely."
He reached into his bag and handed Li a worn, annotated book.
"I finished this last night. Read it."
Li looked down. The title was written in English: A Commentary on the Anti-Covenant Thesis. A portion had been bookmarked and circled. He began to read.
"Appendix IV: Operational Breakdown – The Opal Kingdom Offensive (2/3/10001)
On 2/3/10001 (Standard Cycle), Anti-Covenant forces executed a high-efficiency offensive operation targeting the Opal Kingdom.
Despite the deployment of twelve S⁺-tier Guardians assigned to planetary defense, hostile operatives achieved full operational superiority within 4.6 hours of initial contact ref.88:2ref.
Planetary environmental conditions—specifically sustained cross-atmospheric winds averaging 63.7 km/h—facilitated accelerated combustion vectors.
Ignition points expanded exponentially, resulting in total citywide flame propagation within ~2.2 hours post-engagement. Resultant structural degradation reached 68% of the planet's habitable zone.
Casualty assessment reports indicate ~50,000 fatalities, encompassing both civilian populations and active defense units. Forensic analysis of combat remains and telemetry confirms the presence of no fewer than fifteen S-tier Anti-Covenant entities, each exceeding standard engagement thresholds.
These operatives neutralized all twelve stationed S⁺-tier Guardians with minimal observable resistance, in addition to auxiliary defensive assets.
Post-conflict analysis categorizes the event as a Type-IV Collapse Scenario. Current modeling assigns a sub-2% probability of systemic recovery without external stabilization forces.
This event provides a critical data point for evaluating the limitations of fixed-tier deterrent systems against modular S-tier threat architecture.
It is recommended that future iterations of the Anti-Covenant Defense Framework integrate dynamic threat escalation models and real-time counterforce adaptivity."
Li glanced back at Assim, catching the worry in his mentor's eyes.
"Fifteen S-tier criminals?" he asked, disbelief sharpening his tone. "How do they have that many?"
Assim exhaled slowly, shaking his head.
"They've been training for years—maybe decades. They're not from one place, Li. They're from across the stars… worlds that hate what we stand for. " He paused. "We'd be lucky if there were only 15. We know there are more. Far more. This is excluding the fact that we don't know what systems they are utilizing."
A chill ran down Li's spine. He already understood the devastating power of a single S-tier Guardian. But Guardians were accounted for—tracked, trained, limited. The Anti-Covenant militia? They had no ceiling, no registry, no rules. That thought alone was enough to make his chest tighten.
Without a word, he sat down cross-legged on the floor, spreading out a cluttered stack of documents in front of him. Assim joined him nearby, flipping through dense texts and crumbling reports. Some pages held tactical breakdowns of Anti-Covenant activity; others were just personal logs—haunted reflections from those who had seen too much.
Nearly two hours passed in heavy silence before Assim stirred, closing his book with a soft thud.
He looked at Li, voice low but firm.
"Li, take a break. I think you'll want to read this."
He handed Li a worn sheet of paper, and instantly, his hand turned cold to the touch.
It was a newspaper of some kind, but what caught his eye was the image. Xiao Shu—alive—standing beside someone who looked more cheerful.
It took Li a moment to realize the other person was himself, before whatever event had erased his memory and caused the teleportation between universes. Below that image was a photo of Xiao Shu's body.
The blood had mostly been wiped away, but it still looked as vivid as the memory Li had carried for three years; the first one he ever had on the wedding day back on the Orange Flatlands.
Assim whispered,
"The headline translates to 'The Cold Case.'"
Li already knew how it ended. His office had burned down, every document gone. Xiao Shu was dead, leaving no trace to follow. Li was found unconscious, in a coma for nearly two weeks, and when he finally woke, he began disappearing intermittently.
Presumably, that's when his life in China resumed, though it didn't explain the missing years during which the two timelines just didn't seem to add up.
He'd been removed from the A-tier Guardian list, dropped to C-tier, and later, a specialized S-tier unit with his friends was tasked with monitoring and working to stabilize him—until the day Aoki somehow "pulled him" into the Orange Flatlands, where he was sent to recover and train.
Now he was here, with still no real progress. The frustration made Li want to slam his head against a wall, as if the pain might jar his memories loose. It had been so long since he had "returned to China," and there were still no new memories of Xiao Shu.