Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts

"Captain, Uncle Bai, ahead—look ahead!"

Yang Zhi shot to his feet.

His face was almost pressed against the transparent cabin wall, and a vast expanse of silver radiance filled his eyes.

An ancient palace stood before them.

A palace of incredible size.

Yang Zhi stared at it for so long that his breath left a layer of white mist on the window.

He suddenly turned back and asked a completely unrelated question.

"By the way, what do you think about what happened on the star network?"

They had watched the livestream together, from beginning to end.

Not one of them had spoken during it, and no one had said a word afterward, either.

Until now.

Li Ze scratched his head and was about to speak when Bai Yang suddenly spoke up.

"I think it was real."

"I think it was real too."

The second statement came from Yang Zhi.

Bai Yang stared at Yang Zhi in disbelief, as if trying to determine whether the person before him had been replaced by someone else.

He knew Yang Zhi too well. The kid was the most stubborn person on the team. He had never believed in gods, ghosts, or legends, only what he could see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands.

He had even questioned the existence of gods before.

Yet now, those words had actually come out of his mouth.

"Don't look at me like that, Uncle Bai."

Yang Zhi noticed his gaze and turned his head away.

He looked back at the silent palace outside the window. Moon-white light fell into his eyes like a handful of fire that would never go out.

"Before, I actually heard it. The silver-haired boy you told me about—the things he said when he appeared. Even though I'd passed out at the time, I don't know why, but I heard every sentence, every word, perfectly clearly."

Yang Zhi recalled that scene as he spoke.

The spaceship flew onward, and the moon-white palace grew larger and larger in their view.

Silver radiance streamed in and filled the cockpit, casting a cool glow over everyone's faces.

Yang Zhi said no more.

But he knew Bai Yang understood.

Some things didn't need to be seen with one's own eyes. Hearing them was enough to make one believe.

The silver-haired boy, for example, had just such a quality.

As they drew closer and closer to the palace—

Something happened!

Outside the spaceship, a patch of blazing gold and red appeared amid the moon-white radiance that had filled the sky.

The colors resembled a melting sunset, or a nebula set ablaze. They surged in from every direction in the void at once, enveloping the entire spaceship.

The temperature was also rising sharply.

Before the alarm could sound, the people in the cockpit had already frozen.

Outside the window were things they should never have seen in their lifetimes.

They were creatures that existed only in ancient scrolls and fragments of myth. The moment they spread their wings, golden feathers streamed down from them like inverted waterfalls of flame.

Every feather burned, yet none was consumed.

They simply kept burning, for thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Their eyes were condensed Solar Discs, with endlessly surging solar flares in their pupils. A single glance was enough to make one feel an urge to prostrate oneself from the depths of one's soul.

Beside the Sun God Birds, several enormous Starry Sky Beasts swam out of a rift.

Their backs brushed against an asteroid belt, and the asteroids around them crumbled to dust.

Their bodies were so enormous that the spaceship did not even amount to a speck of dust before them. At most, it was a tiny glimmer floating in their pupils.

Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts.

They lowered their gazes in unison, watching the spaceship before them, so tiny it was almost beneath notice.

They were the guards of the Moon God Palace.

From the beginning of the Age of the Gods, from the moment the Moon God Palace appeared, they had been left here as gatekeepers personally appointed by the two supreme deities, the Sun God and the Star God.

They were the two deities' followers, ordered to stand guard in this Star Region and protect the Moon God Palace.

They allowed no one to approach and disturb the peace of the Moon God Palace.

But how long had it been since the Age of the Gods ended?

So long that no one could give an exact number.

Stars had shifted, galaxies had revolved, old star charts had long since become obsolete, and countless civilizations had risen and fallen.

That era, when gods stood side by side and divine radiance shone everywhere, had long since been ground to dust by time and scattered into myths and legends.

If not for the ancient species and the gods' followers left over from the Age of the Gods, perhaps gods would have become nothing more than fanciful tales mentioned by old people when entertaining children.

Even though the gods slept, these Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts were still carrying out that order from the Age of the Gods.

They had not left for a single day.

As for why the Moonlight Clan did not protect the Moon God Palace, and why it was guarded by the Sun God's and Star God's followers instead—

To explain that, one had to mention the two who had been famous even during the Age of the Gods:

The ultimate younger-sibling and older-sibling obsessives.

The Sun God, the Moon God's older brother.

The Star God, the Moon God's younger brother.

These two supreme gods were famous throughout the Age of the Gods for their obsession with the Moon God and their desire to protect the Moon God.

Among the gods, no brothers could be found who were more protective than these two. But if one truly had to look, perhaps only the Spring God's three younger brothers could compare.

The Spring God's three younger brothers.

Their feelings for the Spring God were no less intense than the Sun God's and Star God's feelings for the Moon God.

To return to the subject, after the Moon God Palace was completed,

The Sun God and the Star God sent several of the strongest followers under their command to the area around the Moon God Palace.

And so, these Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts put down roots in this Star Region.

They remained there for countless years.

Inside the spaceship, someone's lips were trembling.

Bai Yang's fingers had already reached his Lightbrain.

He deftly brought up the template for a last letter that he had written long ago.

This was the third time he had prepared to send it.

But just as his finger hovered over the send button, he hesitated.

The previous two experiences had been too harrowing. Each time he sent his last letter, only to turn out fine in the end, his friends and relatives had gone mad, bombarding him with reproaches and lining up to video-call and scold him.

Bai Yang's finger hovered over the send button, trembling again and again.

In the end, he still did not send it.

Yang Zhi stared at the Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts, his pupils contracting sharply.

Only now did he realize that those Starry Sky Beasts were practically newborn cubs compared with the ones before him.

How many times larger were these?

Ten times? A hundred?

And then there were the Sun God Birds.

Under the pressure emanating from them, Yang Zhi felt that each beat of his heart took more effort than the last. The feeling was more like insignificance, like the trembling that seeped from his very marrow when he stood at the edge of a bottomless abyss and looked down.

He felt it keenly.

The weight of the Age of the Gods.

They were just outside the window, separated from him by a thin cabin wall, silently watching the tiny spaceship with gazes steeped in tens of thousands of years.

As if watching a speck of dust.

Perhaps, in their eyes, the people aboard were worth less than a speck of dust.