The sun had fully set by the time the new students were shown to their dormitories.
Shrek Academy, poor as it was, still possessed a handful of wooden cabins scattered around the main field. They smelled of old pine, dust, and the faint tang of spirit beast blood from years of training.
Flender, ever the opportunist, had quickly calculated how much he could charge this new batch of "monsters." His eyes had gleamed when Aza—without a word—produced a heavy pouch of gold spirit coins from within his dark robes. No one asked where they came from. Nyarlathotep's smile had simply widened a fraction further, as though the coins themselves were amused by the transaction.
Tang San and Xiao Wu were assigned to the girls' cabin for appearances' sake (though everyone knew they would spend most nights talking quietly outside). Dai Mubai returned to his private room in the teachers' building. Oscar and Ma Hongjun shared a larger cabin near the edge of the forest.
And Aza?
Flender had hesitated. The boy's… companions… did not seem inclined to leave him. Yog-Sothoth's spherical mass alone would not fit through any door. Shub-Niggurath's projection pulsed with a thousand unseen young that made the grass beneath it wither and regrow in the same breath.
In the end, Aza simply inclined his head.
"I will remain outside tonight," he said. "The sky is… pleasant."
Flender did not argue.
So it was that, when the moon rose high and silver over the ramshackle academy, Aza sat cross-legged on the grass in the centre of the open field. Around him, in a perfect circle twenty metres across, the Outer Gods arranged themselves like courtiers in an invisible throne room.
Nyarlathotep lounged elegantly on nothing, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap, his featureless black face tilted toward the stars as though listening to a private joke.
Yog-Sothoth hovered, gates and eyes slowly rotating, reflecting constellations that did not exist in Douluo's sky.
Shub-Niggurath's darkness spread like roots, forming a living carpet of shadow and hoof-print that gently cradled Aza's seated form.
Smaller entities—blind, faceless flautists with elongated fingers, amorphous spawn that bubbled softly—knelt or floated in concentric rings further out. Their music was faint, almost tender tonight: a lullaby of madness played on instruments carved from bone and dream.
The piping rose and fell like breathing.
Inside the girls' cabin, Xiao Wu pressed her face to the window.
"Third Brother," she whispered urgently, "look at that. They're… having a concert or something."
Tang San joined her, his sharp eyes narrowing. The scene outside was beautiful in the most terrifying way possible. Moonlight fell on Aza's pale profile, turning his hair into liquid starless night. The Outer Gods moved in slow, ritual synchrony, as though performing an eternal ceremony for an audience of one.
"He's not cultivating," Tang San murmured. "His spirit power isn't circulating at all. It's just… there. Like an ocean with no shore."
Xiao Wu shivered, though not entirely from fear. "He looks lonely, doesn't he? Even with all those scary things around him."
Tang San said nothing. He had seen loneliness before—in his own reflection after the Tang Sect's fall. But this was different. This was the loneliness of something that had never known company until now.
Across the field, in the boys' larger cabin, Oscar and Ma Hongjun were similarly awake.
"Did you see the way Zhao Wuji backed off earlier?" Ma Hongjun whispered, his round face pale. "The Immovable Bright King, scared stiff by a kid who hasn't even got his first ring yet."
Oscar swallowed. "Those things following him… they're not spirit beasts. I've never felt anything like them. My sausage spirit actually trembled."
Ma Hongjun rubbed his arms. "And the way they look at him… like he's the only thing in the universe that matters. Creepy as hell."
Yet neither boy could tear their eyes away from the window.
In the smallest cabin—the one meant for auxiliary spirit masters—Ning Rongrong had arrived late, escorted by two Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan guards who had taken one look at the field, turned even paler than usual, and fled back toward Suotuo City with excuses about "reporting to the sect leader."
Rongrong stood at her own window now, pink dress still pristine despite the journey, arms folded tightly across her chest.
Her Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda floated beside her, un-summoned yet present, as it sometimes was when she felt unsettled. The seven towers glowed softly—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—but tonight the light flickered strangely, as though trying to match a rhythm it could almost hear.
She watched the pale boy in the centre of that impossible court.
He sat perfectly still, eyes half-lidded, listening to music she could only catch in fragments: flutes that made her heart ache with feelings she had no names for. Longing. Eternity. The sound of something vast waking up and realising it was alone.
Rongrong's fingers tightened on the windowsill.
"He's weird," she muttered to herself. "Totally weird. And those things around him are horrifying."
Yet she did not move away from the window.
Minutes stretched into hours.
At some point past midnight, Aza finally stirred. He rose smoothly, the Outer Gods rising with him in perfect unison. The circle parted as he walked—not toward any cabin, but toward the girls' dormitory.
Xiao Wu squeaked and ducked. Tang San tensed, hand on a needle.
But Aza stopped ten paces from the building. He looked up—not at Xiao Wu's window, but at Rongrong's.
Their eyes met across the moonlit grass.
Rongrong felt her pagoda flare brighter for a heartbeat. A soft chime rang from its towers, unbidden, like a greeting.
Aza tilted his head, curious.
Behind him, Nyarlathotep's voice drifted forward—audible to everyone this time, smooth and amused.
"The light-bearer watches, my Sultan. Her tower sings for you already."
Aza did not respond aloud. But something shifted in his void eyes—a spark of recognition, perhaps. Or interest.
He bowed, very slightly, toward Rongrong's window. Not subservient—more like an acknowledgement between equals across an infinite distance.
Then he turned and walked back to the centre of the field. The Outer Gods closed the circle once more. The flutes resumed their gentle, endless lullaby.
Rongrong stood frozen long after he had sat down again.
Her cheeks were burning. Her heart pounded in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
"What was that?" she whispered to the empty room.
The pagoda chimed once more, softer this time, almost like a sigh.
Outside, dawn was still hours away. The court of the Outer Gods played on, and their Sultan listened—perhaps, for the first time in uncountable aeons, not entirely alone.
In the teachers' building, Grandmaster sat at his desk, candle flickering, furiously scribbling notes.
Subject: Unknown martial soul "Void Nucleus." Innate spirit power off the charts. Accompanied by entities of unknown classification. Possible threat level: Continental? Divine? Universal?
He paused, pen trembling.
Addendum: The entities display absolute loyalty. They do not act without his presence or implied will. Behaviour suggests… devotion. Worship?
Grandmaster stared at the page for a long time.
Then he wrote one final line.
Recommendation: Observe closely. Do not antagonise. If possible… befriend.
He did not sleep that night either.
And so the first night at Shrek Academy passed—quiet on the surface, but beneath it, the wheels of fate had already begun to turn in ways no one, not even the gods above, could predict.
The dream of Azathoth had found a stage.
The court had taken its place.
And somewhere in the darkness, a pagoda of seven treasures had begun, very faintly, to learn a new song.