Starry Sky Giant Whale

Light poured out from the crack, surging like a tide across the barren land, swallowing the crumbling rocks, swallowing the dissolving sand, swallowing the burning leaden clouds.

Wherever the light passed, everything returned to nothingness.

The Fifth Parallel Universe that Pluto King had conjured shattered completely in that moment.

Situ Xuan stood where he was and let that pure white light engulf him. He did not struggle. He did not resist. He simply stood there, body ramrod straight, as though using that posture to pay tribute to the figure that had already dispersed.

The light welled up from beneath his feet, sweeping over his ankles, over his calves, over his waist, over his chest. When that light reached his shoulders, he took one last look at the starry sky that was vanishing, at the homeland Pluto King had conjured with his will, the homeland he had not seen for a hundred thousand years.

Then he closed his eyes.

The radiance swallowed him completely.

When Situ Xuan opened his eyes again, he had already returned to that pure white space.

Boundless white extended in every direction, without end, without border, without sky, without earth—only pure, absolute whiteness. That white was not the white of snow, not the white of light, but a white of nothingness, a pure emptiness without the slightest impurity.

It was as if nothing had happened.

But Situ Xuan knew that everything had already happened. His fists still hurt, his shoulder still retained the warmth of that palm, and that voice still echoed in his mind—that steady, deep voice, carrying the composure of a philosopher.

"The height of a fountain will not surpass its source."

The Bronze Book hovered in midair.

It hovered there quietly, its pages tightly shut, its bronze cover reflecting a dim luster beneath the