From head to toe, the blade came down with the force of ten thousand pounds, slicing a person cleanly and neatly in half as if cutting through a melon. The blade, carrying a chill, struck the ground, leaving a deep trench nearly three feet thick in the snow-white surface. Everyone standing nearby could feel the tremor in the ground from this unparalleled, fierce blow.

The person who was split open remained standing even then, their facial expression forever frozen in an indescribable frenzy.

Logan Sullivan was stunned. After a moment, he instinctively took a step back. Before his eyes was truly blood splattering three feet.

It was a while before he slowly raised his head, looking at William Sherman in front of him. His throat moved with difficulty, but he couldn't utter a single word.

"Are you alright? Come with me, quickly." William Sherman had reached out his hand, but he quickly noticed that Logan Sullivan's pupils contracted sharply for a split second. Lowering his head, William Sherman saw his own hand covered in blood, looking just like a butcher. He immediately withdrew his hand uncomfortably, wiping it hard on himself, but still felt he couldn't get it clean. A nameless disgust and revulsion rose in William Sherman's heart, so he no longer wanted to touch him, hurriedly tucking his hands into his sleeves, and explained in a suppressed and restrained voice, "You suddenly disappeared in front of me just now, I..."

At this moment, Logan Sullivan finally snapped out of it, strode over, and grabbed William Sherman's hand. William Sherman flinched violently and instinctively tried to pull away, but was held even tighter. Logan Sullivan said carelessly, "So you're the one from eleven years later? Then do you remember how many times we lost control after drinking?"

William Sherman: "..."

After a moment of speechlessness, William Sherman finally decided to skip the conversation, stopped wasting words, and with a lift of his hand, tore off the Aquadrake Orb from Logan Sullivan's neck. As soon as the Aquadrake Orb landed in his palm, it was as if cold water had been poured onto a burnt pot bottom—a thick black smoke hissed out, and then it turned into a scale. Logan Sullivan widened his eyes, just about to take a closer look, but with a flip of William Sherman's hand, the scale disappeared.

"Wait, what was that?" Logan Sullivan asked. "It didn't look like a fish scale, more like some kind of reptile. Was it a snake?"

"You just put anything around your neck without knowing what it is." William Sherman said irritably, "And it's... it's something from someone else's body. Aren't you disgusted?"

Logan Sullivan looked at him innocently.

William Sherman met his gaze for a moment, then couldn't stand it anymore and turned his head away. Instantly, a huge, torn hole appeared behind him. He pressed down on Logan Sullivan's head and roughly shoved him through it.

Light and shadow swirled before his eyes. Logan Sullivan felt himself surrounded by a mass of water. Caught off guard, he forgot he no longer had the ability to breathe underwater and didn't have time to hold his breath. He silently cursed, already bracing himself to choke on water, but as soon as his body touched the water, someone turned him over, and then a soft tongue pried open his lips, passing him a breath of air.

Then William Sherman took him and swam rapidly upward. Every time he ran out of breath, William Sherman would pass him another. After just four or five exchanges, they had already broken the surface.

Thinking back on the descent where he almost fell asleep halfway, Logan Sullivan truly experienced what it meant to move like the wind.

William Sherman hauled him onto a Ferryman’s Vessel, not even glancing at the trembling Ferryman cowering to the side. He lifted Logan Sullivan's chin: "Veilwater can't be drunk by the living. Did you choke? How do you feel?"

Logan Sullivan wiped the water from his face, carefully recalling the journey that had seemed especially brief, and concluded, "...I feel like I rode up here on a torpedo."

William Sherman let go of him. Having just come out of the water, Logan Sullivan's legs were a bit weak, and he collapsed heavily onto the Ferryman’s Vessel, nearly capsizing the little boat. With a "plop," the faceless Ferryman, finally terrified beyond endurance, jumped into the river.

William Sherman was startled and quickly bent down to grab his arm. "What's wrong?"

But Logan Sullivan didn't have the strength to get up. His hand, soaked white by the Veilwater, was limp and powerless, almost slipping out of William Sherman's grasp.

Logan Sullivan had been in the Underflow for so long that his lips were almost devoid of color. He rested his head on the edge of the boat, his eyelids heavy, and let out a low groan: "I'm dizzy."

"I'll take you up right away," William Sherman said, trying to help him up. But whether Logan Sullivan was deliberately uncooperative or truly had no strength left, he kept sliding down. William Sherman had to free both hands to try to carry him, but Logan Sullivan wasn't a petite girl—though William Sherman didn't mind the weight, the height made it awkward to carry him. When he was completely unconscious, it was fine, but now Logan Sullivan was semi-conscious and kept moving uncomfortably, making William Sherman almost drop him.

In the end, he had no choice but to carry him on his back.

Logan Sullivan mumbled in his ear, "And my clothes."

William Sherman: "What clothes?"

Just then, a Ferryman’s Wisp popped out of the water, dragging over a Ferryman’s Vessel with a neatly folded coat on it, not a single edge out of place. William Sherman paused, then took it along as well.

William Sherman carried Logan Sullivan all the way home, gently laid him on the bed, and was about to go to the bathroom to heat some water when, just as he moved, the "half-dead" man on the bed suddenly sprang up like he'd been injected with chicken blood. With a tiger's leap, he pounced on William Sherman, knocking him onto the bed. His previously closed eyes now sparkled mischievously as he lowered his head, touching noses with William Sherman: "Where are you going?"

Only then did William Sherman realize he'd been tricked: "...So you're fine?"

Logan Sullivan smiled silently, his eyes curving: "Not fine, it's serious. My wife ran away from home—hey, baby, you really shouldn't run off. You're so easy to fool, what if someone kidnaps you?"

William Sherman was practically fuming, pushing him away with a raised hand, unable to express his anger, and finally burst out, "You're full of shit!"

Logan Sullivan grabbed William Sherman's coat, hugging it like a pillow, and rolled around on the bed with a cheeky grin. Right in front of William Sherman, he buried his face in it and took a deep breath: "Wow, you cursed at me. That means somewhere in the world, a baby panda must have just been born! Sounds great, curse me again."

William Sherman thought his actions were downright perverted and reached out to snatch back his own coat: "Give it to me!"

Logan Sullivan rolled around wildly, clutching it tightly, and said in a perverted tone, "No way. If I give it back, what am I supposed to jerk off to?"

William Sherman: "..."

Embarrassed and angry, he suddenly thought of something, and his face flushed red.

Logan Sullivan looked up and said seriously, "You look like you really want to murder your husband."

Without another word, William Sherman knelt on the bed and lunged to grab it. Logan Sullivan rolled away, William Sherman grabbed a corner of the coat and pulled, Logan Sullivan kept rolling... and, as expected, with a "thud," he rolled off the bed.

The two of them were silent for a moment, then finally couldn't help but laugh together.

Logan Sullivan sat up from the floor, leaning his upper body on the edge of the bed, his eyes crinkling with laughter as he looked at William Sherman. Suddenly, he said, "Hey, baby, let me ask you something."

William Sherman lowered his eyes to look at him.

Logan Sullivan asked in a casual tone, "Is the Earthmother’s Seal about to fail? What are you planning to do?"

William Sherman was taken aback.

Then he heard Logan Sullivan ask again, "So do you want me to stay with you forever, to die with you?"

William Sherman's hand clenched tightly on the bedsheet, only to be quickly grasped by Logan Sullivan.

The man's smile was genuine and clear, with not a trace of falsehood or gloom.

"Actually, when Embergrower talked about 'death,' he meant 'chaos,' right?" Logan Sullivan's gentle voice sounded like thunder in William Sherman's ears. "You didn't let Embergrower finish, but I figured it out."

As he spoke, he stood up from the floor, bent down, and pulled the stiff William Sherman into his arms. "You've never asked me for anything, so I don't even know how to please you. If you really want something, you can just tell me. As long as I have it... why lie to me?"

Author's note:

In case some younger readers haven't learned about this yet, here's an explanation.

Because the theory of relativity adds a time axis to the coordinate system, in theory, time travel is possible. But suppose someone travels back in time and meets their grandfather, then shoots and kills him. After that, there would be no father, and without a father, there would be no self. Without oneself, it's impossible to go back and kill the grandfather in the first place—in short, this is the basic idea of the "grandfather paradox."