The Gap Between Us and Monsters

"Yo, Big Star, finally awake?"

Seeing Chen Kong in a white patient gown, his body still weak and unsteady, Tiandao immediately greeted him with a grin.

Hearing Tiandao's words, Chen Kong was instantly embarrassed, not knowing how to respond.

A crafty glint flashed through Tiandao's eyes. He then walked over to the siblings and began looking Chen Kong up and down.

His strange behavior left both of them baffled, completely unable to keep up with the leaps and bounds of his wild thoughts.

A moment later, Tiandao suddenly leaned close to Chen Xing and, with absolutely no sense of personal boundaries, poked her bandaged arm with a finger. "Xing, look at how well your brother's injuries recovered. He doesn't even have a single scar left on him."

"Now look at you. Not only did you insist on leaving a scar on your arm, you even gave it the fancy excuse of using it as a warning to yourself."

"If you ask me, your life's been way too comfortable. You just love making yourself suffer for no reason. What normal person would refuse scarless surgery and insist on getting the kind that leaves scars? Isn't that just a sickness?"

The moment Tiandao said that, Chen Xing's expression darkened instantly, and even the star energy within her began to churn out of control.

Boom!

Violent star energy ignited scorching flames around Chen Xing's body.

The searing heat instantly made the thermometer hanging on the nearby wall explode with a bang.

Fortunately, though she was angry, she had not completely lost her reason. She kept the flames around her from spreading.

Only then did the unlucky fellow who had just recovered from a serious illness avoid being caught in the flames.

Even so, Chen Kong only barely endured the suddenly soaring ambient temperature after putting some distance between himself and Chen Xing.

Once she noticed that Chen Kong had retreated to a safe distance and no longer had anything to worry about, Chen Xing finally stopped suppressing the Karmic Fire within her and unleashed it without restraint.

But in doing so, the flames instantly reached Tiandao.

"Come on, you're getting worked up over that? You won't even let people tell the truth?"

Facing the fierce Karmic Fire Chen Xing had suddenly unleashed, Tiandao immediately put on a startled expression and leaped back. Then, with a casual wave of his hand, he brushed aside the incoming flames as if flicking willow fluff from his shoulder.

As the saying went, outsiders watched the excitement, while insiders watched the craft.

Tiandao's move instantly left Chen Kong staring in shock from afar.

Because Tiandao had not merely ignored the damage from Chen Xing's Red Lotus Karmic Fire.

With a simple gesture, he had also effortlessly seized control of her Karmic Fire from her.

That one move alone was enough to reveal the enormous gap in strength between him and Chen Xing.

Unlike Chen Kong's shock, however, Chen Xing remained very calm.

Because three days ago, after obtaining the Red Lotus Karmic Fire, she had overestimated herself and sought out Tiandao to challenge him again.

The result was obvious. She had suffered yet another crushing defeat at Tiandao's hands.

And this defeat had been far worse than the previous ones, dealing a tremendous blow to Chen Xing's pride.

Because at the time, just like now, she had not even been able to hurt Tiandao.

If it had been anyone else, their Dao heart might have shattered under Tiandao's pressure, and they would have abandoned all thoughts of challenging him.

But Chen Xing was different.

Her pride would not allow her to submit to anyone.

Not even if that person was Tiandao.

Therefore, even knowing that she was no match for Tiandao, when faced with his "provocation," Chen Xing still chose to bare her fangs bravely and warn him that she was not one of those useless lambs outside, ready to be slaughtered by him at will.

"Tiandao, aren't you meddling a little too much?"

"How I choose to act is my decision. It has nothing to do with you, and you have no right to decide it for me."

Hearing Chen Xing's warning, Tiandao said casually, "Xing, listen to yourself. Wasn't I just concerned about you? If you don't want to hear it, then forget it. Why get so angry?"

It would have been better if Tiandao had said nothing. The moment he spoke, Chen Xing's face grew even gloomier.

She looked at Tiandao seriously and said firmly, "Tiandao, something as trivial as a scar is not important to me, because I am not some useless ornament who can only hide behind others."

"Rather than wasting my attention on such useless things, I would rather focus it on exploring the Star Source."

"Only then might I have the faintest possibility of barely catching up to your footsteps."

"Uh..." Tiandao gave an awkward laugh, clearly not expecting Chen Xing to steer the topic somewhere so heavy.

After a moment, faced with Chen Xing's earnest expression, Tiandao finally raised both hands helplessly. "Fine, since you put it that way, I won't bring it up next time."

With that, Tiandao immediately headed out of the training room.

He looked as if he were about to go out and rest.

Yet as he walked, he secretly counted down in his heart.

3

2

1!

"Wait."

Before Tiandao could leave the training room, Chen Xing suddenly called out to stop him.

Tiandao turned around in "confusion" and asked, puzzled, "What is it now, my Young Miss Chen Xing?"

"I've trained all day. I'm exhausted enough already. Could you please say everything you need to say at once?"

Chen Xing looked at him with utmost seriousness. "Tiandao, fight me again. I want to see the gap between us."

"Huh? Again?"

Tiandao wore a pained expression, clearly unwilling to deal with such trouble.

But when he saw Chen Kong's curious face in the distance, Tiandao suddenly seemed to "realize" something.

"Oh, so you want your brother to get an early look at a battle between Star Envoys."

"No, Xing, if you want to teach your brother a lesson, then teach him yourself. Why drag me into it? I really am going out to eat."

Faced with Tiandao's teasing, Chen Xing, whose true thoughts had been exposed, could no longer maintain her previous "coldness" and "strength."

Even her cheeks visibly reddened, the contrast reaching its peak.

Fortunately, the Karmic Fire around her was already dark red, so the change was not very obvious.

Looking at the suddenly awkward atmosphere around them, Tiandao finally sighed.

"Fine, fine. Then I'll play with you again."

"But..."

Tiandao walked to a spot in the middle of the room, then suddenly stopped.

He waved a circle around himself, only one meter in diameter, then raised his head to look at Chen Xing in the distance.

"Xing, let's change the rules this time. I won't attack you, and I won't leave this area."

"As long as you can force me out of this spot within three minutes, I lose. How about it?"

Hearing Tiandao's incredibly arrogant words, Chen Kong froze.

Based on what he knew of his sister—

She should never have been able to accept such an obvious act of "contempt."

Yet, to Chen Kong's surprise, Chen Xing not only readily agreed to Tiandao's "new game."

She did not show the slightest dissatisfaction throughout the entire process.

As though, to her, Tiandao doing this was not an insult.

But a disguised form of fairness.

However, when Chen Xing walked toward Tiandao and passed Chen Kong, she suddenly spoke without warning.

"Watch carefully, Kong, because you'll soon see the true gap between us and monsters."

"And that gap... is so great that it makes people despair."

Chen Kong opened his mouth, but in the end, he could not voice what he was thinking.

Because he felt that no matter how strong Tiandao was, they were still the same age.

With his movement restricted and no ability to strike back at all—

Could he really win this "game"?

After all, his opponent was not just anyone, but his incomparably powerful sister, Chen Xing.

But looking at Chen Xing's grave expression and Tiandao's relaxed face in the distance, Chen Kong felt that things might truly develop far beyond what he had imagined, just as his sister had said.

And he did not know whether it was merely an illusion.

As he looked at Tiandao standing inside the circle, relaxed and utterly harmless-looking, Chen Kong felt the surroundings becoming increasingly blurred, while Tiandao's figure seemed to grow larger and larger until all one could do was look up at him.

It was as though he was not looking at someone his own age at all.

But at a terrifying humanoid monster, someone utterly beyond reach.

In his daze, Chen Kong suddenly recalled what Chen Xing had just told him.

The one who has always been strong is not the Star Source, but Tiandao.

At that thought, Chen Kong immediately shook his head, forcing his mind to clear completely.

Then he looked at Tiandao and Chen Xing in the arena, his expression incomparably solemn.

At this moment, he desperately wanted to know just how strong the "monster" his sister spoke of had become.

At the same time, he wanted to know exactly how vast and despair-inducing the gap between them and that "monster" truly was.

The answer to all of this would soon be revealed before his eyes.

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