After slaying the gods and bringing the Cthulhu war to an end, Lin Qiye discovers that ice-blue epiphyllum have begun blooming along his blade.
Following the strange trail of flowers, he digs up an ice coffin beneath a psychiatric hospital. Inside sleeps Hua Wuyue, the last spirit maiden of the Eternal Night Flower Realm, a silver-haired girl with the blood-red digits [24/24] carved into her neck. When she awakens, memories from twenty-four cycles of reincarnation crash open:
~ Every evil god he slays hastens her withering.
~ Every time she saves him, one of the chains wrapped around the towering pillar reaching the heavens breaks.
~ When the two touch, the mandrake blooming in his palm and the black epiphyllum swaying in her hair intertwine to form a new law for slaying gods.
"In this cycle, I want you to live to see your twenty-fifth bloom." As Lin Qiye cuts through the shackles of space and time, Hua Wuyue drives the Scepter of Eternal Night into her own heart. The gear garden is collapsing, and Nyarlathotep's laughter rings out from the future: "How amusing. One of you slays gods, while the other slays fate.
Core concepts:
- A flower-blooming combat system: each of Hua Wuyue's destined flowers corresponds to a weakness of the Cthulhu Mythos.
- A pain-resonance bond: when he is wounded, she blooms; when she is near death, his blade cracks.
- The mystery of twenty-four cycles of reincarnation: each time, another slash appears on the tombstone.
- A mutual-redemption romance: the cold god-slayer and the self-destructive spirit maiden.
Memorable scenes ahead:
"The blood-moon mark on your collarbone... it's devouring my time to bloom!"
▸ Modern-day Lin Qiye kneels in the gear garden, holding her as she fades away.
▸ At the climax, his god-slaying blade pierces all twenty-four Pillars of Time's End, and she becomes a sky full of ice epiphyllum.
"We aren't in love. We're two stars tearing each other apart."
