Fleeing is the mindset of the weak

It was not until his fourth day on Azure Star that Jingxing began to paint.

For the first three days, he had not made a single stroke. He got up on time every morning and, while exercising in his hotel room, went over the basics Feixiao had taught him in the Light Cone. Then he spent the rest of each day standing at the foot of the mountain, gazing up at its peak.

In the morning, Mount Herta was immersed in a sea of clouds, with only a short black tip showing. At noon, when the clouds dispersed, every fold along its ridges stood out clearly in the sunlight. Evening was the best time to view it, when the setting sun sank behind the mountain and edged it in gold.

Paper had to be stretched before a painting was mounted, and a whetstone tested before a blade was sharpened. Since Jingxing intended to use the mountain before him as a reference, he first had to get a feel for its temperament.

On the third night, Jingxing tore the sketches from his sketchbook and spread them across the bed.

"I've mastered the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer now, and I've gathered all the fragments of inspiration for this painting. I'll go into seclusion starting tomorrow."

Just then, his phone vibrated on the bedside table. It was a message from Robin, with a photo attached from backstage at the Thousand Stars City television station. She was having her makeup done in the mirror: [Today's rehearsal went smoothly. What about you? Have you started painting?]

[Jingxing: I'm going into seclusion tomorrow, so I might not reply much for a while.]

[Robin: I'll be waiting for your good news.]

[Jingxing: I won't disappoint you.]

After sending it, Jingxing silenced his phone and placed it face down on the bedside table.

He first put away the easel by the window—he couldn't paint the mountain in his heart through a pane of glass like this. Then he took the Light-Severing Sea out of his eyes and put it in the box he kept on his person.

The next second, the entire world surged into his mind with a boom.

The outlines of everything before him lit up—the pipes and wiring buried in the walls, the residual heat from the stove downstairs, the elevator shaft at the end of the corridor. The long-absent burning pain deep in his eyes came uninvited, like an old friend.

Jingxing blinked hard, squeezing the tears from his eyes, then began packing his painting supplies.

Early the next morning, before the sun had even clocked in, Jingxing stepped off the shuttle at the foot of the mountain with his easel on his back. He walked for nearly another hour before setting up his easel on a gravel flat due south of Mount Herta. It was the best spot he had found over the previous few days.

Looking up, he could see the sea of clouds roiling around the mountainside, yet the gravel flat was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.

Jingxing slammed the easel into the gravel at his chosen spot, then picked up several stones to weigh down its legs.

Then he looked up again. Without the lenses, the mountain, which emitted almost no light, looked almost unnaturally dark.

The whole mountain was like a block of ink saturated with Imaginary Energy. The moment his gaze fell on it, it was swallowed up and compressed into a profound darkness.

The more brilliantly the world around it shone, the blacker it appeared, drawing his attention irresistibly toward it.

"And when I stare at this mountain, the burning in my eyes disappears too..." Jingxing sat down before the easel and drew out the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer. "Let's begin."

The Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer's tip moved across the paper. The energy of the Path soaking the brush flowed down its shaft and gathered at the tip, like the eternal, unchanging light of the stars.

The first stroke established the mountain ridge.

The brush touched the canvas, and an ink line slowly flowed out in accordance with Jingxing's intent, finally drawing to a close, crisp and distinct.

The second stroke, the third... the sweep of the sea of clouds, the texture of the mountain rocks, the layered light radiating from the glaciers... Jingxing condensed everything he saw onto the tip of the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer and related it all in measured strokes.

Only when the sun climbed above the summit did Jingxing's movements slow.

It wasn't that he had finally begun to feel the fatigue accumulated from concentrating so intensely. Rather, the longer he looked at Mount Herta's ridgeline, the more familiar it seemed.

Not from this life. At the end of his previous life, in his studio, on his canvas, the landscape painting that had briefly caught Yog-Sothoth's interest had looked just like this.

"If I keep painting, will I draw Its gaze here too?" Jingxing held his brush, motionless.

The memory of that time was a painful one. He had been lucky enough to be saved by Idrila, but what about this time? Was he supposed to count on Herta aboard the space station overhead?

He watched the mountain from his previous life and the one before him slowly overlap in his vision.

The thought of giving up welled up in Jingxing's heart. Maybe... I should forget it?

If he really did draw Its gaze here again, he didn't think Herta could keep him safe. As for the Aeons...

But the next second, just as Jingxing tried to put down the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer and sort out his thoughts, a flash of inspiration appeared deep in his mind.

First came a flood of indescribably magnificent colors, more brilliant than any light in the galaxy.

Then came a sound like hundreds of millions of mirror fragments colliding, ethereal and so gentle it made his scalp tingle.

Last came a few fleeting words—"...see..."

Blood from his nose dripped onto the lower edge of the canvas, leaving a small dark-red spot.

Jingxing came back to his senses and raised a hand to wipe his nose. Looking at the smear of blood on the back of his hand, he took a breath.

Struck by the drop of blood, the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer began to heat up as well.

The grooves Yunli had carved into its shaft in Zhuming's furnace flashed with light, as though expressing its feelings to its master.

The Demonic Swords of the Zhuming Xianzhou had Heliobi fused into them to help their wielders absorb the emotion of fear and grow stronger. But Yunli, who loathed the practice, naturally would not do that. Even so, she was capable of making the wondrous items she forged share a connection with their masters without relying on Heliobi.

The Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer was one example. Having absorbed its master's blood, it was now eagerly expressing its desire to finish today's painting.

"Do you want to continue?" Jingxing stared at it and tightened his grip on the shaft. Before, he would certainly have chosen to stop. After all, as an ordinary person with no power at all, he had been forced to tread carefully in the face of such an existence.

But things were different now.

Although Jingxing did not think that stepping onto a Path meant he could do as he pleased in this galaxy, now that he had touched upon a chance to bring the painting from his previous life to perfection, there would indeed be no faulting him for choosing to give up.

But that was the mindset of the weak.

Mortals exhausted their flesh and blood just to win a moment's grace from the light of heaven. And now that chance had fallen before him.

The burning in his eyes mingled with the sound of shattering mirrors in his mind, stabbing at his nerve center in waves. But Jingxing ignored it all. He raised the Cloud-Washing Ink-Tracer again and set brush to canvas.

He no longer tried to forget those memories.

When they surged up, he looked at them. He studied the brushwork they carried and remembered their course. He was no longer painting Mount Herta, nor the mountain from his previous life—he was painting the shadow of the two mountains superimposed, his final obsession.

"I'll paint this painting to absolute perfection!"