Lunar Descends, Solar Rises

Golden light covered Chen Yuan's body.

Beneath the Great Sun's radiance, his form gradually blurred. Its once-distinct outline softened, then slowly dissolved.

The texture of his robes lost its shape first, turning into strands of golden-red energy that the Great Sun drew in. Then came his hair, brows, eyes, and fingers. Every visible contour softened and blurred in the golden light until all became one.

From afar, no human figure remained. Only a dense mass of golden light hung in the void, pulsing slowly, with power enough to burn all things surging within it.

Who knew how much time had passed? In this Ebbing Tide Space, time itself had lost meaning. The mass of golden light trembled faintly.

Then "he" opened his eyes.

That gaze was nothing like Chen Yuan's.

Chen Yuan's gaze was calm and restrained, always weighing and calculating. This gaze... held the bewilderment of something newly born as it surveyed an unfamiliar world.

He lowered his head and looked at his "hand."

It could no longer be called a hand. It was merely an outline formed of pure golden light, long and indistinct, its touch unreal, as though felt through a thin layer of water.

He slowly curled it into a fist. Feeling the warmth and pulse of flesh at his fingertips, he frowned slightly, bewildered like someone waking from a long sleep.

"To think... I've fallen to such a state."

He seemed to have finally remembered something. His voice still sounded like Chen Yuan's, but now carried a deep resonance.

He raised his eyes toward the depths of the golden region. There, golden mist lay so thick it could not be dispersed, concealing whatever lay within.

He beckoned in that direction, like an old friend greeting a long-lost companion, or a master summoning a servant who