“What do you mean?” Lu Yun wasn’t quite following Qing Yu’s line of thought. First she spoke of a third realm, now it was suddenly the fourth realm?

“Take a look at this.” Qing Yu rose and stretched out a finger, drawing four concentric circles in the air. Each successive circle enveloped the previous one, but they were connected at the very bottom with the one starting point in common between all of them.

“The innermost circle is our realm. It continually grows and will one day assimilate the second circle—the chaos. This new combined realm will continue to expand and one day subsume the third realm, then the fourth, becoming a world without end or bounda...