A Resounding Slap Descends

Yet life had never played fair.

It didn't care who you were.

Nor did it care how lofty an air you had put on before.

Given enough time,

reality would deliver every slap it had coming for you, without missing a single one.

It had always been that way. No one could escape it.

Take the Moonlight Clan. They had run roughshod over others for so many years, smashing countless planets and harvesting innumerable lives.

They had always been the ones doing the slapping, never having tasted a slap themselves.

But today, the hand that had hung over their heads for so many years finally came down.

It slapped them squarely in the face.

Fortunately, Wuma Xiu considered himself a merciful god, so he forgave them.

And just now,

the forgiven Vanguard Squad had sent a message to their clan through the Mental Network shared by the Moonlight Clan.

[God has returned.]

Immediately afterward, they added a set of coordinates.

Then, with a snap, they cut off their connection to the Mental Network.

They had no desire to stay online and face the storm that would follow.

Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off now.

In fact,

the ones who understood the Moonlight Clan best would always be the Moonlight Clan themselves.

The instant the message went out, the Moonlight Clan, always known for its efficiency, operating like a precision instrument—

—ground to a halt.

Whatever they were working on, they stopped.

Reports half written were tossed aside.

Missions in progress were abandoned.

Almost at the same moment, everyone dropped everything in their hands and flew off in the same direction.

The commotion was enormous.

So enormous that the Federation's Starfolk could hardly fail to notice.

And so, the Star Network, already on the verge of collapse from the barrage of news, received one final crushing blow.

It was on the verge of crashing.

The only reason it hadn't crashed yet, hadn't completely broken down into a screen of static, was a miraculous species of creature.

—Code monkeys.

Thanks to them.

Thanks to them, red-eyed and gulping down coffee as they hammered frantically at their keyboards late into the night, thanks to them battling the servers to the death with dark circles under their eyes, they somehow held back this tidal wave of traffic and kept the Federation Starfolk's fervent gossip flowing.

Let us thank the code monkeys.

Palms together.

Ahem, we've gotten off topic.

We've gone too far, too far.

Let's bring our attention back.

While the Federation's Star Network was in an uproar and the code monkeys were fighting bloody battles, Yuexi, the patriarch of our Moonlight Clan, was on his way.

Even while traveling, he couldn't neglect important business.

As he sped along, he didn't forget to keep threatening the Star-Moon Bow and the Star-Moon Arrow.

The Star-Moon Bow and the Star-Moon Arrow, however, remained like dead pigs unafraid of boiling water, standing firm and unmoved.

Just then,

two messages lay quietly in the Mental Network.

[God has returned.]

With a set of coordinates underneath.

Yuexi's gaze froze.

He lowered his head and looked at the two things in his hands, which had been utterly useless from beginning to end and were as stubborn as Starcore Black Iron.

Then,

he casually tossed them away.

I don't need you anymore.

The moment his arms were empty, Yuexi's figure vanished into thin air, without leaving so much as an afterimage.

He was going to see God.

He didn't want those two things following his aura and taking even a single moment of his audience with Gods for themselves.

Besides, he had gained the upper hand in their earlier contest.

Those two had fought him together and still hadn't been able to beat him.

By that reckoning, the Moonlight Clan still had the edge.

Therefore, the Moonlight Clan remained God's most powerful creation. That hadn't changed.

Yuexi's figure solidified in the void.

He stopped outside the Moon God Palace and raised his head.

The palace hung there in silence, cold and magnificent, like a moon that had been forgotten for far too long, shining alone for ten thousand years.

It had been recorded in the Moonlight Clan's texts.

Those pages contained its outline, descriptions of it, and its legends.

Later, however, for some unknown reason, the Moon God Palace had vanished after God fell into slumber. Every trace of it had been wiped clean from everyone's sight and from every star chart.

They had searched for a long time.

Generation after generation of the Moonlight Clan had searched the vast Sea of Stars for countless years.

He hadn't expected it to be here.

Yuexi stepped forward and walked up to the great doors.

His steps came to an abrupt halt.

He lowered his head and began straightening his clothes.

His lapels, cuffs, sash...

He carefully smoothed out every wrinkle.

He meticulously straightened every line.

He did it slowly, solemnly.

Once everything was in order, Yuexi felt regret.

He should have dressed more formally before leaving home today.

And by rights,

before an audience with Gods, one should bathe, change clothes, and burn incense.

Fast for three days, and meditate for seven.

Those ancient rules, every last one of them, were engraved in the Moonlight Clan's blood.

But now, he couldn't hold himself back.

He couldn't wait another moment.

Besides, he thought he still had to go and hold Yue Rushui accountable.

So there was a reason for it.

With that thought, Yuexi raised his hand and gently knocked three times on the silent great doors.

The doors opened soundlessly.

This time, once the doors had swung open, they never closed again, as if they knew that beyond them, many more members of the Moonlight Clan were coming from every corner of the Sea of Stars.

Yuexi went inside.

He passed through the long corridor and the cold, watery moonlight, coming step by step to stand before Wuma Xiu.

Then he stopped.

He was very different from an ordinary member of the Moonlight Clan.

When those clansmen saw Gods, their gazes burned with such heat that they wished they could engrave every inch of Gods' outline into their eyes. But Yuexi was different.

He didn't dare raise his head now.

Yuexi hung his head and stared at the tips of his feet, like a quail curled up into a ball.

All sorts of jumbled thoughts kept popping into his head, one after another:

He worried that he wasn't good enough, that he didn't measure up to what the patriarch of the Moonlight Clan should be in Gods' eyes.

He worried that God wouldn't like him, that he was clumsy with words and would say something wrong as soon as he opened his mouth.

He worried about this and that.

He worried about everything there was to worry about, and everything there wasn't.

All those worries piled up, pressing him smaller and smaller, quieter and quieter.

He withdrew into himself.