How many years has it been?
Quinn Shepherd didn’t know either. The Chiming Era was destroyed three hundred fifty thousand years ago, and it lasted a hundred thousand years. That means the Dragon-Han Era ended four hundred fifty thousand years ago.
But how long did the Dragon-Han Era itself last?
That’s impossible to guess.
Countless ages have passed, the days and months uncounted. Could that masked, withdrawn youth really have waited in the Netherworld all this time for Quinn Shepherd to arrive?
Did he really stay there all this time, guarding Heaven-Guide Venerable’s coffin?
Quinn couldn’t imagine it—the same boy who once idly bombed fish with Netherworld arts from the Jade Pool bridge, the one who curled up shaking in grief and guilt, would really stay in the Netherworld’s darkness for ages, waiting because of a single promise.
Back then, he was just a pale-faced teenager. Now, he’s become an old man. Only someone as withdrawn as him would create so many avatars, ferrying the dead across worlds to the Netherworld day after day.
Only someone that withdrawn would talk to himself, keeping watch over Tu Bo, the unsmiling ancient god, for hundreds of thousands or even a million years as if each day were the same.
All for a single promise.
Countless ages ago, Quinn hadn’t even made the promise to him in person—it was entrusted to him through Venerable Skysoar.
I understand. I’ve come back.
For those words, he went to the Netherworld, guarding Heaven-Guide Venerable’s coffin, growing from a youth into an old man.
He and Heaven-Guide Venerable weren’t even related by blood—he did it simply because, when his mother was deathly ill, Heaven-Guide Venerable came to visit, treated him kindly, and cared for him.
That little bit of kindness was enough for him to devote his life.
Quinn leapt from the bridge, landing on the paper boat. Old Ox saw this and hurried to jump too, but with a splash he landed in the fiery, watery Nai River instead—the boat carrying the Underworld Courier and Quinn had already sailed into the Netherworld, leaving him behind.
“You little rascal, you don’t recognize me anymore?”
Old Ox flew into a rage, grumbling, “Back when I made a scene in the Heavenly Court…!”
Lady Lurien, Lord Deluge, Marshal Noctis, and Marshal Thunderbane—the Four Netherworld Marshals—looked at each other in dismay. The Underworld Courier who had attacked Nether City so fiercely just now suddenly sailed off in his little boat, abandoning them here!
If not for the Underworld Prince and the Underworld Courier saying they’d attack Nether City, they would never have dared to charge in so recklessly.