The Goddess of Beauty Idrila's Beauty Is Unrivaled!!

Jingxing froze. The Xianzhou sachet Robin had entrusted to him was pressed against his chest, vibrating like a pulse.

He pulled out the sachet and held it in his palm. Then he saw the azure and gold patterns on its surface move across the silk. As if awakened by some force, they lit up one by one.

And inside the space within the sachet, the large White Cloud brush he had brought from Klimt began to glow softly along its shaft, resonating with the sachet—as though the two were answering each other.

Jingxing stared down at the light. He had seen those colors before.

Many years ago, at the end of his previous life, those were the last colors he had seen during the accident that led to his reincarnation.

The moment the radiance from the sachet swept over him, everything went black.

When he opened his eyes again, everything around him had vanished.

He seemed to be standing in a void drained of color. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky overhead, only a quiet expanse of grayish white stretching endlessly in every direction. Jingxing looked down at his open hands. He could flex and extend them.

He distinctly remembered crouching backstage a second ago, pressing his palm against bloodstained gauze. Had he been teleported away again, just like that?

"No, Robin still needs me!" Just as Jingxing raised his head to look around—

"Don't panic."

Hearing the faint voice, Jingxing felt his eyes grow hot.

He knew whose voice it was.

It was the voice Jingxing had heard in the final moment of his previous life, the voice that had pulled him out of that all-encompassing sea of bubbles.

Twenty years had passed since he last heard it.

"Idrila." Jingxing's voice trembled involuntarily. "Did you summon me here?"

There was no response from the void, but Jingxing sensed something drawing near. It was like wind, like light—impossible to see or touch, yet he knew it was there.

After a long while, the voice sounded again, ending on a note so faint he could not tell whether it was a laugh or a sigh. "The wish you just made crossed many worlds and reached my ears."

"My... wish?"

"You said that the purest beauty was vanishing before your eyes."

Jingxing opened his mouth.

He wanted to say that he had simply been desperate and out of options, that he was only an ordinary painter—what right did he have to disturb an Aeon?

But wasn't this a good thing?

Because he had indeed made a wish. When he had crouched before Robin backstage, watching her blood seep between his fingers, he had called Idrila's name over and over in his heart, like a drowning man trying to grasp the last piece of driftwood.

"Can you... hear me now?" he asked. "But haven't you already..."

He left the sentence unfinished.

In this world, nearly everyone knew that Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, had disappeared.

The Knights of Beauty had searched the galaxy for who knew how many years, but there had never been any news of her. The Mirror Holders, convinced that Idrila had fallen, were also using every means at their disposal to collect the Transcendent Mirrors, said to be pieces of her body, in an attempt to resurrect her once they had gathered them all.

"...Of course I'm still here." Idrila's voice was indistinct, as though it had passed through a thick barrier. "I just can't come back."

"Then why am I here?" Jingxing asked. "Did you summon me because you're going to grant my wish?"

"I'm sorry. Outside this universe, I can't grant your wish."

Just as Jingxing's heart sank, Idrila changed tack. "But I have good news for you."

"Good news...?" Jingxing's smile was full of bitterness. "At a time like this, what could possibly count as good news?"

"Congratulations, you've stepped onto a Path," Idrila continued, undeterred. "My Path, the Path of Beauty."

Jingxing stared, stunned. It took him a while to speak. "...Me?"

"Your wish is very pure. Pure enough to resonate with a Path." A nearly imperceptible trace of amusement entered Idrila's voice. "You wanted to preserve beauty that was fading away. That thought resonated with my Path."

Jingxing looked down at his hands.

He had waited so long to "step onto a Path"—as a child, he had wanted to do it to avenge his parents; later, he had imagined doing it so he could travel the stars safely. More recently, while traveling with Robin, he had envied her ability to control the sachet, and now he was powerless once again...

Jingxing had always believed that, having caught Idrila's favor for that brief moment, he would step onto a Path. But he had thought it would happen at some earth-shaking moment.

Instead, he had finally gained the power to do something while he was backstage amid all that blood, kneeling before Robin and hating himself for being unable to do anything.

"That's wonderful." Jingxing looked up in delight.

He would give it everything he had. He would never let himself bitterly regret this moment in the future.

But before leaving, Jingxing wanted to take advantage of this rare reunion with Idrila to ask the Aeon two questions.

"Your Highness Idrila, please tell me," he paused, "why do my eyes hurt when I look at Robin?"

Idrila did not answer immediately.

"And one more thing," Jingxing continued. "Someone warned me that if I became a Pathstrider, I should be wary of Pathstriders of Harmony. Why is that?"

The void remained silent for a long time. Just when Jingxing thought Idrila had disappeared, her voice sounded again. "As for your first question, your eyes came into contact with that existence just before you died in your previous life."

"That existence?"

"Do you still remember those bubbles?" Idrila said. "Those all-encompassing bubbles, as brilliant as a dream. They swallowed you, and your soul was nearly devoured. An ancient existence projected those bubbles into your world. Its name was once part of your memories from your previous life, but I erased it when you were reincarnated."

Jingxing's breath stopped for a moment.

Of course he remembered that string of bubbles. After his reincarnation, he had always deliberately avoided recalling the final moments of his previous life. As it turned out, that was not just because of fear, but also because it had been erased.

"It is called Yog-Sothoth," Idrila said. "As the All-in-One, it once gazed upon you. To gods like us, blessings and curses are both gifts. It tried to collect your soul, and in return, it would have given you a pair of eyes capable of seeing through the universe."

"Though that sounds wonderful, the human brain cannot process that much information. So when I reincarnated you, I made a few alterations to your eyes," Idrila continued. "To prevent it from continuing to track you after your reincarnation, and so that you could live safely, I removed the vast majority of the blessing, leaving your eyes only with the ability to perceive Imaginary Energy. The burning pain you feel comes from high-intensity Imaginary Energy gathering together."

"It is like being burned by looking directly at the sun. The denser the Imaginary Energy you see, the more your eyes hurt."