Moon God Palace

Wuma Xiu hovered above the Moon God Palace, arms folded, watching the confrontation below with interest.

With the tension as it was, if he stayed silent any longer, those people might really die.

Forget it.

He had watched enough.

Wuma Xiu stopped watching the spectacle and ceased deliberately suppressing his divine might.

At that moment, Yang Zhi and the others saw the Sun God Birds, which had just been looking down on them from on high, suddenly lower their heads.

Their heads dipped deeply.

Those heads, so proud and overbearing, hung with their crests lowered, utterly submissive without a moment's hesitation.

The golden flames flowing over their wings also lost their fierce edge at that moment. They no longer burned unchecked, but gathered meekly at their sides, like a dazzling cloak being drawn closed.

At the same time, the Starry Sky Beasts folded in their tail fins.

Before Yang Zhi could figure out what this meant,

a moon rose.

The moon cast its clear radiance down in a torrent, like a weightless silver waterfall pouring from the heavens into the world, enveloping the entire Moon God Palace and the tiny spaceship alike.

Then the gates opened.

"Rumble—rumble—rumble—"

Three successive rumbles, each deeper and farther-reaching than the last.

Light squeezed through the gaps in the gates and streamed down from the lintel, gathering into silver rivulets that flowed down the doorframe.

Then the steps appeared.

Step after step materialized at the city gates.

They spread upward, one level at a time.

Their texture was like white jade, translucent and smooth.

When the moonlight fell upon them, a soft, mellow halo rippled across their surface.

The steps rose from the ground.

They stretched straight through the city gates.

Like a staircase to the moon, plucked from the highest heavens and set down here.

All to wait for one person to step upon it.

This ancient city had slept in the sea of stars for tens of thousands of years beyond counting.

This forbidden land had been guarded day and night by the Sun God Birds and Starry Sky Beasts, allowing no one to approach.

This Moon God Palace existed only in ancient legend and had been worshipped as a myth by countless civilizations.

It opened its gates and laid out steps to receive its master, whom it had awaited for countless years, with the utmost reverence.

To welcome its master home.

And did anyone still need to ask who its master was?

By now, how could Yang Zhi and the others not know where they were and what was about to happen? They had stumbled into the legendary [Moon God Palace] by sheer chance.

The [Moon God Palace] really did exist.

No, even more shocking than that was its master.

The Moon God's return.

The thought had only just crossed their minds when they saw a figure on the moon-white steps, having appeared there at some unknown time.

Moon-white light spilled from the full moon like a waterfall, like a veil, enveloping the figure in clear radiance.

Wuma Xiu's clothes had changed too. At some point, he had put on a robe the color of frost.

The hem lay against the steps, borne up by the moonlight as though floating in it. The fabric bore no elaborate patterns, no gold or silver embroidery. It was plain white. Yet bathed in moonlight, that plain white was more dazzling than any brocade.

It was moonlight worn upon his body.

The silver ornament on his forehead glimmered in the moonlight.

When the sun and moon appeared together, people's attention was often drawn to the sun.

Yes.

The sun was too bright, too fierce, too overbearing.

When it appeared, all things had to bow their heads to it, and every gaze was drawn away by it.

No one looked up during the day to search for the moon.

No one remembered, when the blazing sun hung overhead, that a cool, silvery disc was also hanging quietly in the sky.

It neither competed nor fought, neither spoke nor made a sound.

But did the moon care?

It did not.

It did not need to be noticed or looked up to, nor did it need to burn itself like the sun to prove its existence.

It simply hung in the sky, and those who wished to see it naturally could.

It lit the way for those returning home at night, shining for those who looked up in the darkness...

Wuma Xiu lifted his foot and stepped onto the first stair.

A ring of ripples spread through the moonlight beneath his foot.

He walked upward, one step at a time.

This Moon God Palace, which had slept for tens of thousands of years beyond counting, had finally seen its master return.

And the few people standing in the spaceship, who had witnessed everything from beginning to end, could not utter a single word.

The silver-white figure had already climbed the last step and stood before the gates of the Moon God Palace.

He stopped.

And at that very moment.

Thousands of beams of silver-white light suddenly appeared.

One after another, wave upon wave, thousands of silver-white beams tore through the void.

When the light faded, it revealed people.

Figures stepped out of the void one after another, cold light curling around them, sharing the same origin as moonlight yet not quite the same.

That was the aura of the Moonlight Clan.

Yet it was sharper and more violent than that of ordinary Moonlight Clan members, and more... murderous.

The Moonlight Clan's Vanguard Squad.

Not long ago, they had received an order.

"Slaughter the one who dared to blaspheme our god."

They had pursued their target all the way here, following the coordinates provided by their clan.

The same thing burned in every one of their eyes.

It was the fury of violated faith, the violence born of a defiled sacred object, and the killing intent that longed to tear the blasphemer to pieces.

Then they reached this star region and saw the disturbance in the distance.

Golden-red light tore across the heavens, the wings of the Sun God Birds burning. Enormous dark-blue shadows moved through the void, the tail fins of the Starry Sky Beasts stirring up stardust.

But these were merely enemies they had defeated before, and they paid them no attention.

Their gazes were fixed solely on the Moon God Palace, which had existed only in their clan's ancient scrolls.

And now it was slowly awakening before their eyes, its gates opening wide, its steps unfolding, moonlight pouring down like a waterfall.

Then they saw the moon.

A full moon hung in the air directly above the Moon God Palace.

Its light fell on the upturned eaves of the Moon God Palace, on the white jade steps, and on the silver-white figure standing before the palace gates.

That figure was bathed in moonlight.

His long hair was the color of moonlight, his robe had the texture of moonlight, and the silver ornament on his forehead glimmered in the moon's radiance, like a glowing drop of moonlit dew.

Everyone in the Vanguard Squad stopped.