The Aeon of Beauty Manifested Here

Jingxing raised a hand and touched the corner of his eye.

His eyes weren't diseased after all. They had an ability he couldn't control.

"Is there a way for me to overcome it?" he asked.

"You'll have to find it yourself." Idrila sighed. "After all, what I am now is a ripple that remains, separated from you by countless universes."

"As for your second question..." This time, Idrila fell silent for even longer. "The answer was in my previous reply. It was the cause and also the consequence. For your own good, I can't tell you everything. After all, in this universe, too much knowledge is also a curse."

She paused. "So you must be careful in all things. Even with that naive Halovian young lady, you must remain on guard."

Jingxing froze. "Even Robin?"

A faint laugh came from the void. "If you don't believe me, then be prepared to pay with everything."

Jingxing wanted to ask more, but the voice receded from around him bit by bit, like the ebbing tide, until it disappeared.

"Idrila—" He reached out instinctively, but everything before him was like a shattered mirror, slowly squeezing Jingxing out.

At the very moment Jingxing's consciousness faded, the sky over the whole of Vesna IV suddenly changed color.

The clouds on the horizon parted as if pushed aside by an invisible hand, letting the last rays of the setting sun shine through. Then a vast, indistinct outline took shape among the clouds, without any facial features, like a silhouette wrapped in a halo of light.

Across the land, people raised their heads almost as one.

At the same time, across the galaxy.

On an unremarked, desolate planet, a knight in full armor dropped to one knee, his eyes beneath his helmet fixed on the outline. He was so overjoyed that his voice trembled. "Idrila... it's Her Highness Idrila—the goddess Idrila has manifested!"

He sprang to his feet, his armor clanking dully. "I must hurry and pay homage!"

Like him, nearly a hundred streaks of light, swift as meteors, tore across the galaxy from different locations at the same moment, racing toward the same coordinates.

At Interastral Peace Entertainment's headquarters in Thousand Stars City, a bespectacled executive stared at the real-time star chart on a holographic screen in a conference room, his brow tightly furrowed. "The Aeon of Beauty has manifested... at Vesna IV in our galaxy?"

He murmured, "That backward planet... could an Emanator of Beauty have appeared there? No, it couldn't be Robin, could it?"

Just as "Xipe" had targeted Idrila, couldn't Idrila strike back just this once?

At the thought, his brain began to tremble. He hurriedly picked up his phone. "Get me Ofila. How is Robin doing right now? What happened on Vesna IV?!"

The Genius Society, the Xianzhou Alliance, the great Families... every faction capable of detecting an Aeon's manifestation received the same intelligence at almost the same time: Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, missing for who knew how many Amber Eras, had appeared above Vesna IV in the Epsilon Galaxy.

Across the universe, every interpretation pointed to the same conclusion—in that region of space, an Emanator personally favored by the Aeon of Beauty had been born.

On a ridge outside the city, Kafka gazed up at the slowly fading outline, dazed for a long time.

"...So that's how it is," she said softly. "So this was why you arranged for me to come here, Elio?"

"To witness a god I once revered turn her gaze upon someone else..." Kafka closed her eyes. "How mean of you."

She would have to add something to Elio's cat food when she got back.

Penacony, the Moment of Morning Dew.

Sunday stood before a floor-to-ceiling window in the Oak Family residence, clutching an urgent report that had just arrived. It contained a single line: Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, had appeared on Vesna IV.

His gaze stopped on "Vesna IV."

The coordinates of Idrila's manifestation were on the same planet as his sister.

The Aeon of Beauty had been missing for so many years, yet her first appearance had been right beside Robin. Sunday didn't think it was a coincidence.

He suddenly recalled The Family's assurance, relayed by Gopher Wood—that Robin would be all right. He recalled the Hidden Night Thrush's confident gaze. He recalled the absurd thought he couldn't suppress.

"Would The Family really guarantee Robin's safety?"

Sunday closed his eyes. His fingers gradually tightened around the report, and the paper rustled softly.

After a long while, he opened his eyes, his voice growing low. "Connect me to Interastral Peace Entertainment's direct line. Tell them I want a detailed update on Robin."

The attendant behind him bowed his head in acknowledgment and withdrew.

Meanwhile, in a corner none of the people looking up at the sky would notice, Jingxing opened his eyes backstage at Rovini Central Square.

The smell of blood, the smell of disinfectant, and the dim light all came flooding back at once.

He was still crouched where he had been, his palm pressing the gauze against the side of Robin's neck, the warmth of her blood lingering between his fingers.

That conversation in the space between Paths had felt as long as a whole night, but only a few seconds had passed in reality.

But now, he was no longer the same as he had been a few seconds ago.

Jingxing blinked, and the world before him seemed to have been washed clean.

Countless faint, flowing trails of light floated in the air, like diluted paint poured into water, each with its own color and direction.

And beneath his palm, Robin was surrounded by a layer of pale golden light, like silk wrapped around her entire body.

By the riverbed and in front of the earthen slope, these lights had been the culprits that stabbed at his eyes and made them burn every time she used the power of Harmony.

And now, these lights were steadily dimming.

The golden light broke off at the wound on Robin's neck, like a hole burned through silk. At the edges of the hole, strands of golden Imaginary Energy peeled away and dissipated.

Jingxing's heart sank.

Gauze could stop the bleeding, and stitches could close the wound. But he could "see" perfectly clearly that the physical wound wasn't the most important issue at all.

If he couldn't repair the scattered Imaginary Energy, all other measures would be in vain.

Jingxing slipped his right hand into his pocket. The sachet was startlingly hot against his palm, almost hot enough to blister it.

The moment his fingers touched the silk, blue-gold divination patterns lit up along his fingertips. The sachet, which Robin had said he "couldn't control unless he was a Pathstrider," lay obediently in his palm, and the space inside it unfolded like origami.

Without hesitation, Jingxing decisively picked up Big White Cloud, the brush that had been with him for more than ten years.

The moment Jingxing's fingers closed around the brush handle, the whole world fell silent.

The clamor backstage, the doctor's shouts, and the faint voices from the square all receded into the distance.

The scene before him slowly flattened and unfurled, like a long scroll spread across a desk—

Light was color, sound was form, and people were outlines.

Robin lay at the center of the scroll, a painting with one corner torn away.

Jingxing raised the brush, its tip hovering an inch above the edge of the "tear."

He recalled the first time he had held a brush at three years old, the mountains of discarded drafts in his studio, and his mentor saying that his paintings lacked a little "meaning."

"So this is my 'meaning.'"

The brush tip fell.