God, You've Finally Returned

The bodies of the Moonlight Clan's vanguard squad reacted before their minds did.

Their legs would not obey them. Their hands would not obey them.

Even their breathing would not obey them.

The hands gripping their swords and sabers trembled. Every part of them that had been bathed in moonlight awakened at once.

It was the resonance of their bloodline, the instinctive submission of divine kin to their god. It was a mark engraved deep in the souls of every generation of the Moonlight Clan from birth.

That's our god's aura.

We couldn't mistake it.

There's no way we could mistake it.

One person dropped to one knee, then another, then two, ten, a hundred... The members of the vanguard squad fell to their knees one after another, like a silver field of wheat harvested by moonlight.

It spread from the very front to the back row.

Even on their knees, they kept their heads raised, unwilling to look away from him for even a moment.

Their lips moved, but they could not make a sound.

Something swirled wildly in their eyes, blurring the Moon God Palace and the silvery-white figure standing before its gates into a flowing expanse of white.

That's our god.

Not some legend, not a portrait in a scroll.

Nor some clan member's vague description.

A living, breathing god!

God, have you returned?

We've finally lived to see you return.

Yue Rushui, captain of the vanguard squad, had fought in countless battles and slain more enemies than he could number.

The names of those battles—

Some were engraved on the Federation's monuments to military valor, while others had long since been worn away by time. The enemies he had killed, piled together, could probably have filled a sea of stars. He had fought his way from recruit to veteran, from veteran to legend, and from legend to a living, breathing god of slaughter.

His hands never shook, and his saber never fell.

But now—

Blue veins bulged on Yue Rushui's hand as he gripped the hilt, as though he were holding a rope extending from a bottomless abyss. The Moonblade that had drunk the blood of countless enemies at his side had nearly slipped from his grasp dozens of times in the space of a few breaths.

"God..."

"You've returned..."

He did not know what else to say, so he could only repeat those words over and over.

Each time he said them, his eyes grew a little redder.

Each time he said them, his voice broke a little more.

The figure stood before the palace gates, his head turned slightly to the side. Moonlight traced the cool, gentle contours of his profile.

"Come in, all of you."

Then Wuma Xiu turned back and stepped over the threshold of the Moon God Palace. The hem of his robes brushed the moonlight on the threshold, stirring up a cloud of the finest, faintest dust of light.

The dust of light rose and scattered through the air.

Like a handful of spilled stardust.

When those words reached the ears of the Moonlight Clan members kneeling in the void, they were nothing less than a decree of pardon, a summons that had crossed from the age of gods to the present, for which they had waited countless tens of thousands of years.

Thousands of members of the Moonlight Clan's vanguard squad raised their heads as one. Tear tracks still marked their faces, and their eyes were still red, but a nearly frenzied light was already burning in them.

It was the light of those personally summoned by their god.

It was a light for which any divine kin would die, burn, and give everything they had.

They rose.

Pale ripples of light spread across the white-jade steps beneath their feet, like moonlight breaking the surface of water, impossibly gentle.

At that moment, they were like the most devout pilgrims in the world.

No.

They were.

Nothing in this world was more devout than divine kin returning to the side of the god they worshipped.

They walked slowly, but not one of them thought it slow.

They walked for a long time, but not one of them thought it long.

For they had walked this path countless times in their dreams, seen it countless times in their clan's scrolls, and imagined it countless times on every night they knelt beneath the moonlight in prayer.

Now, at last, it lay beneath their feet.

Once all the Moonlight Clan members, Sun God Birds, and Starry Sky Beasts had entered the Moon God Palace,

the gates boomed shut behind them.

The full moon above the Moon God Palace vanished as well. It had never belonged there in the first place.

It had appeared only because its master needed it to shine for that brief moment.

Like a lamp lit to give its master light when he came home.

What were Li Ze and the others feeling at that moment?

They too had once thought that the Moonlight Clan's actions were exactly those of mad dogs no longer restrained by their master, allowing no one to mention anything about him.

But now, they finally understood them.

Their master was gone. They did not know where he had gone, when he would return, or whether he would return at all.

They could do nothing but keep watch and wait.

Yet understanding was one thing. Something seemed to be swelling in their chests, pressing against their ribs until they ached. If they did not let it out, they would burst.

Why did they get to have all of this?

Why had they been born into the Moonlight Clan?

Why was that being's mark engraved in their blood?

Why could they kneel before the Moon God Palace?

Why could they be invited inside by the Moon God himself?

Why could they be so close to the legendary Moon God?

That feeling was called resentment.

Envy was sour. It was the itch in your heart when you saw something good belonging to someone else: "I want that too."

Resentment ran deeper and hurt more than jealousy.

It was "Why do you have it when I don't?" It was "What gives you the right?"

It was watching someone else stand in the light,

while you stood outside it, unable to catch even the warmth of their shadow.

Jealousy.

They were terribly jealous of the Moonlight Clan.

They had all of this: a god like him, the privilege of being summoned by him in person, the right to kneel at his feet, the good fortune to be so close to him...

They had practically claimed every benefit for themselves.

Unfortunately, no matter how jealous they were, they could only stand outside the gates and watch it all happen.