The Light of a Firefly, Daring to Illuminate the Bright Moon?

"So... so beautiful..."

Xiao Wu was completely stunned.

She stopped hopping and bouncing, instead cupping her cheeks in her hands, those big pink eyes reflecting the vast river of stars, filled with intoxicated little sparkles.

As a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast in human form, she was most sensitive to natural energy.

She could sense that these silver specks of light contained not a single impurity, so pure they made you want to cry.

"Is this Boss Su's world? It's so beautiful... I want to go in and play too..."

Xiao Wu murmured to herself. In that moment, her admiration for Boss Su shot straight through the roof.

Meanwhile, at the classroom door, Luo Bu had finally let go of his obsession.

He was no longer angry, no longer jealous, no longer even feeling wronged.

When the gap is just a little, people feel jealousy.

When the gap is a river, people feel rage.

But when the gap is an entire galaxy, all that's left is to kneel.

"Ha... haha..."

Luo Bu collapsed to the floor, letting the blood from his forehead trickle into his eyes, his vision blurry as he stared at that silver ocean, letting out a relieved, foolish laugh.

"I was such an idiot... really."

"I actually thought... I could race against a starry sky?"

"This is... not even the same dimension of life!"

The silver river of stars poured down from the Star Gate behind Su Yun, flooding the entire classroom in a sea of radiance.

This light was pure to the extreme, carrying no warmth, yet exuding a kind of indifferent nobility that treated all things like straw dogs.

Tang San sat slumped on the ground, his hands braced firmly against the floor, trying to maintain the last shred of clarity under that vast, ocean-like pressure.

The inner force of his Mysterious Heaven Skill had long since stopped circulating. The energy that once flowed like an endless river, smooth and natural, was now frozen solid in his meridians by that silver pressure.

It no longer obeyed Tang San's commands, instead cowering like snakes and insects before a true dragon, driven by instinctual fear.

The feeling was as if, daring to leak even a trace of aura at that moment, he would be instantly ground to dust by the starry sky.

"This... is this Su-ge's true strength?"

He looked up, through the slits of his eyes stinging from the silver light, at Su Yun bathed in the river of stars like a deity, and a bitter, self-mocking smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Ridiculous... Tang San, you're so ridiculous."

Tang San lowered his head, staring at his own fists clenched white, his heart filled with intense shame.

"Just moments ago, I was still agonizing over whether to teach him the Mysterious Heaven Skill against the sect's rules?"

"I was still worried that he couldn't progress without a cultivation method, still looking down on him with a benefactor's mindset, debating whether to give him a hand..."

An unprecedented sense of absurdity filled his chest.

It was like a beggar, clutching half a moldy flatbread in his pocket, watching an emperor seated before a feast of a hundred dishes, still debating whether to share that half a flatbread with him, even worrying that giving it might break the beggar gang's rules.

"A firefly's light, daring to try and outshine the full moon?"

"The method Su-ge cultivates is vast and profound, countless times superior to my Mysterious Heaven Skill! That is the true Dao, the very source of orthodox mysticism!"

"And here I was, thinking so highly of myself, believing only the Tang Sect's ultimate arts were the best under heaven... In Su-ge's eyes, my little dilemma was probably as childish as a child guarding its food."

In that moment, the last shred of pride in Tang San's heart was crushed to dust by the starry sky.

The way he looked at Su Yun had completely changed.

Yet, at the center of the storm, Su Yun was not exactly at ease.

As the Dao Canon Heaven Skill operated at full power, things were gradually slipping out of control.

"Whoosh—"

The desk closest to Su Yun suddenly trembled, and the textbooks and pencil case on it slowly began to float, as if gravity had vanished, spinning in midair.

Then came the desks and chairs at the back, and even the broom in the corner started shaking restlessly.

"Not good! The pull is too strong!"

Su Yun's heart jolted, and he was about to rein it in a little.

But just then, Rat, who was lying on Luo Bu's head—having just performed a great feat and now unconscious—was so light that it began to float gently upward!

Its limbs dangled, eyes rolled back, and it traced an arc through the silver currents, heading straight for the Star Gate behind Su Yun!

Luo Bu's pupils, which had already gone unfocused, snapped into sharp clarity the moment he saw this.

That was his dad's most precious treasure!

"RAT!!!"

A piercing, agonized scream instantly cut through the silver storm, even drowning out the hum of surging energy.

Luo Bu's face, covered in blood and grime, twisted in terror.

"No! That's my rat!"

Su Yun's eyelids twitched at the scream, and he snapped his eyes open.

When he looked, he was startled too.

"Holy shit!"

Su Yun forgot to maintain his lofty demeanor, his face shifting dramatically.

A gruesome scene from the Earth lab flashed through his mind—back when he hadn't yet attached a Soul Ring and was testing the Star Gate's safety with live transport experiments.

Every single one of those white mice, the moment they touched the spatial folds of the Star Gate, had their bones crushed on the spot, or even exploded into a cloud of blood mist!

Even though he now had his first Soul Ring and the Star Gate had turned white, he'd never done a full live test from start to finish!

If it crashed into that, wouldn't the little thing be ground into meat paste?!

Su Yun didn't want to harm an innocent rat just because he was cultivating.

"Disconnect the link!"

In his urgency, Su Yun barked inwardly, and his will instantly severed the anchor between the Star Gate and the depths of the cosmos.

That vast silver river of stars cut off in an instant.

But even though the suction was gone, the rat still carried its momentum, flying toward the Star Gate with an unstoppable force.

Whoosh!

Meanwhile, on Earth, at the Joint Command Center.

Because Su Yun had changed the link coordinates to deep space, the big screen now showed only a blinding snow of static.

"Zzzz—"

"Reporting to Captain Lei!... The link was forcibly severed!" The operator's fingers pounded frantically on the keyboard, but his voice trembled with barely concealed fear.

Lei Zhan stared fixedly at the screen, fine beads of cold sweat seeping from his forehead, his heart clenched as if by an invisible giant hand.

An unprecedented wave of regret surged through him.

"Damn it... Su Yun didn't really blow himself up, did he?"

Lei Zhan gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with remorse and self-blame:

"If I'd known... I never should have given him those techniques! Even if he trained slowly and stayed an ordinary person, that'd be better than not knowing if he's alive or dead now!"

Just as everyone's hearts were in their throats...

Suddenly!

At the center of the hall, on the transport platform specifically used to receive supplies, a silver-white light flared up without warning!