That Glimmer of Silver-White

Yunhuo's smile froze on his face.

He knew the border was dangerous.

Everyone in the Federation knew it.

He had seen too many photos in his streamers' group, photos sent back from the front lines.

The Zerg nests looked like enormous pustules.

The surfaces of the planets they had gnawed on were pitted like rotten apples.

And there was all the debris floating around them...

He had saved every photo.

He had looked at each one over and over again.

But only now that he was actually here did he realize how inadequate photos were.

No pixels could convey the oppressive feeling seeping in through the porthole.

The livestream fell silent.

Everyone stared through their screens at the gray-black expanse of space outside the porthole along with him, forgetting even to type.

Yunhuo's hands were trembling, and the control stick was slick with his sweat.

But he didn't turn back.

He remembered his livestream with only a few dozen viewers, the nights he had spent talking to himself in front of a cold, unfeeling camera, the time he had seriously considered finding a proper job, only to sit in silence for a long time after closing the livestream...

A person had to live for some kind of goal.

Some lived for money.

Some lived for fame.

Some lived for an obsession they couldn't even put into words.

And Yunhuo didn't want to remain an obscure little streamer, swallowed up in the crowd.

"Everyone, look. This is the border between the Federation and the Zerg. That region of space ahead is Zerg territory..."

The comments began scrolling again, faster and denser than before.

[Holy shit! He actually made it!]

[Oh my god! What is that black stuff? It looks terrifying.]

[Streamer, are you still alive? Blink if you are!]

[Does anyone else think that black stuff looks alive... I've got goosebumps.]

Yunhuo's gaze swept over the comments, and the corners of his mouth lifted involuntarily. The number in the upper right was climbing at a pace that made his heart race.

Eight hundred thousand.

Nine hundred thousand.

Then something outside the porthole caught the corner of his eye.

Something was glowing there.

At first, it was just a pinprick.

As if someone had used the finest brush tip to place a drop of silver-white in that impenetrable darkness.

Yunhuo thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He blinked once, then again.

The point of light was still there.

Not only was it still there, it had grown brighter.

He hadn't been seeing things.

[Huh? What's that? Why is it glowing?]

[Where? Where?]

[Right up ahead, there's a white dot in all that darkness. Don't you see it?]

[There really is! I see it!]

[I see it too! It wasn't there just now, was it?]

[I got a screenshot, I got a screenshot! What is that thing?]

They started calling their friends over.

Nine hundred and fifty thousand.

Nine hundred and eighty thousand.

Just like that, the number approached one million.

Yunhuo didn't notice the viewer count.

He couldn't take his eyes off that point of light.

Curiosity.

For a small-time streamer like him, it could sometimes outweigh the instinct to survive.

Yunhuo gritted his teeth and pushed the control stick forward one notch.

The ship moved a little closer in that direction.

At the same time, he reached out and turned the zoom ring on the camera, bringing the image closer.

He had spent more than half his savings on this equipment for the livestream.

It had certainly been expensive. His heart had bled when he paid for it.

But now, when he turned the zoom ring all the way and the image remained perfectly clear, he silently thanked the version of himself who had gritted his teeth and paid for it.

Being expensive had its advantages.

Unlike those cheap knockoffs, which turned into a blurry mosaic as soon as you zoomed in a little.

The camera steadied.

The shaft of an arrow pierced through the void, trailing a long streak of silver-white as it flew straight in his direction.

Its apparent destination was that Zerg nest.

In the livestream, nearly a million pairs of eyes fell silent in unison.

They didn't know why they were paying such close attention to it themselves.

On closer inspection, the light was cold.

They found it cold, like a sliver of moonlight slipping through a crack in a window at midnight in the depths of winter.

It was also very still.

As still as if you were walking alone across a deserted wilderness.

You looked up.

And found a lone moon hanging in the vast sky.

It had lit your way all along, but you had never noticed.

In the livestream,

A few scattered comments finally began to scroll again.

They came slowly.

As if the people writing them were weighing every word.

[What is that...]

[I don't know why, but that light looks so sacred.]

[That light feels so cold and ethereal to me.]

[Like moonlight... I can't explain it, it just reminds me of moonlight.]

Yunhuo's gaze swept over the comments.

Sacred, cold and ethereal.

As the two descriptions slid past his eyes, it was as though two fingers had gently plucked the strings of his memory.

A hum rang out, its resonance lingering.

Yes.

Yunhuo also found it utterly sacred, utterly cold and ethereal.

And once those two descriptions were put together,

As if by some magic, the Moonlight Clan suddenly appeared in his mind.

Back then, a silver-white figure had flashed past his ship's porthole, as fleeting as an illusion.

He hadn't even had time to raise his camera.

The figure had already vanished into the far reaches of the sea of stars.

Yet he had remembered that glimpse to this day.

The Moonlight Clan.

The Moon God's favored ones, the darlings of the moon...

They had been given countless titles since the moment they were born, each one a sigh uttered by those who looked up to them.

They possessed perfect looks and formidable strength...

They had so many, so very many halos surrounding them.

So many that whenever the people of the Federation's planets mentioned the Moonlight Clan, their voices would inevitably take on a tinge of envy.

And whenever Yunhuo thought of that race, bitterness would well up in his heart too.

Others were born with strength he could only look up to for his entire life. Meanwhile, he had to struggle on his own, had to stake his life, had to do everything himself...

Yunhuo stared at the light, all sorts of thoughts churning in his mind.

By now, the livestream was in an uproar, comments flying past as everyone guessed what it was.

[The Moonlight Clan!]

[It has to be the Moonlight Clan. Look at the color of that light, it's exactly the same silver-white as theirs.]

Yunhuo came back to his senses and saw that comment.

But a voice in his heart, very quiet yet utterly certain, said:

That isn't the Moonlight Clan.

He couldn't explain why he was so sure.

His only encounter with the Moonlight Clan

Had been that fleeting, breathtaking glimpse back then. He hadn't even gotten a clear look at what the figure looked like.

By rights, he shouldn't have been able to judge.

He should have been just like the more than one million people in the livestream, following the clue of "silver-white"

And naturally concluding that it was the Moonlight Clan.

But he simply felt it wasn't, and it wasn't even just that.

Yunhuo had a vague feeling that comparing this light to the Moonlight Clan was itself a kind of blasphemy.

The thought startled even Yunhuo himself.

What kind of beings were the Moonlight Clan?

The Moon God's favored ones, a race he had always considered far beyond his reach.

How many people would never even have the chance to see one in their entire lives?

To place a light of unknown origin above the Moonlight Clan—

If he said that out loud, his livestream would be flooded with abuse until it was shut down.

But that was truly how he felt.

As the light drew closer and closer to Yunhuo, it finally revealed what it truly was.