The Demigodhood Left Behind by the Moon God

When Yun Jingheng's consciousness surfaced from the darkness, his first sensation was softness.

Something warm was resting on the back of his head, and a faint, familiar scent wafted from that direction—it smelled wonderful and was very familiar.

The taste of Gu Yuena...

The thought flashed through his mind, and his consciousness snapped out of its chaos.

Yun Jingheng suddenly straightened up, his movement so fast that his own neck cracked, and the back of his head almost hit Gu Yuena's chin.

She clearly hadn't expected that the first thing he did upon waking wouldn't be lying there panting, but rather that he would spring up as if he'd been electrocuted, so much so that she didn't even have time to dodge, only slightly tilting her head so that the top of his head grazed her chin.

"You—" Gu Yuena's voice was a little hoarse.

"I—" Yun Jingheng's voice was even hoarse.

The two people stared at each other for about two seconds.

Gu Yuena sat cross-legged on the ground, her long white dress spread out on the ground, the hem covered in dust.

Her hands remained in the same position, one hand on her knee and the other hanging in mid-air, as if she had been suddenly interrupted while doing something.

Her eyes were very red, as if she hadn't closed them for a long time; blood vessels stretched from the corners of her eyes to the redness around her pupils.

Her lips were chapped, and her face was unnaturally pale, like a sheet of paper that had been washed too many times, so thin it was almost transparent.

Yun Jingheng's mind was a complete mess, like a pot of burnt porridge.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say, "What are you doing here?", "How long have you been waiting?", and "Why are your eyes so red?"

But all the sounds were stuck in his throat, unable to escape.

He just sat there, very close to her, close enough to see the curve of her eyelashes, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath.

Gu Yuena spoke first.

Her voice was very soft, as if afraid of disturbing something. "You were unconscious for about ten minutes. After that white light rushed into your body, you collapsed. When I ran over, you were already unconscious, your breathing and heartbeat were normal, and your Soul Power was recovering, but I couldn't wake you up no matter what I did."

She paused for a moment, then said, "I put your head on my lap. Is it comfortable for you?"

She said that last sentence very naturally.

But Yun Jingheng noticed that the tips of her ears were red, so red they looked like they were about to bleed.

"... Comfortable." Yun Jingheng wanted to bite his tongue off as soon as he finished saying that word.

Gu Yuena shifted her gaze to the still-glowing Dragon Bone Ocean behind him. Her purple eyes reflected the silver-white, pale gold, and deep purple light, as if countless stars were simultaneously shining and extinguishing in her eyes.

After a moment of silence, she spoke again, her voice even softer than before.

"You've been missing for seven days."

Yun Jingheng's fingers tightened suddenly.

"Seven days?"

He stayed in the Moon Domain for seven days?

He stayed for seven days amidst the collapsed buildings and wandering Mutant, between Tian Apo's silvery-white grass and Chen Weitao's Moon Martial Soul, between the white-haired God Servant's golden eyes and the hands Chen Weitao pressed against his chest.

Different time flow rates?

Gu Yuena's voice continued, as steady as a frozen river, but only she knew how swift the current beneath the surface was.

"The day after you disappeared, your father arrived in Star Luo City. Teacher Cai told him you were missing, and he rushed over from Shrek City that very night. He flew all night, searching the skies over every possible route between Shrek and Star Luo Empire. He couldn't find you."

Yun Jingheng gripped the trouser leg above his knee tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"Your mother is here too. After Ye Xinglan and the others' injuries were stabilized, she started searching for you non-stop, and we couldn't stop her."

Gu Yuena spoke a lot in one breath, and after she finished, she took a deep breath, as if she was taking a breath or cheering herself up.

"After your father arrived, the Star Luo Empire faced immense pressure."

"A powerhouse at the Limit Douluo level flew over Star Luo City all night, activating the entire city's Soul Power sensing network."

"The Star Luo Empire's military thought Shrek was about to declare war. The lights in the palace stayed on all night, Dai Tianling aged ten years overnight."

"The people from the Spirit Pagoda 'Star Luo Empire branch and the Tang Sect's Star Luo Empire branch arrived early the next morning, not to help the Star Luo Empire, but to help Shrek."

"They dispatched all available personnel within the Star Luo Empire to search for you throughout the city. Seven days passed, and they found nothing."

Yun Jingheng felt as if something was choking him.

"I have to prepare for the worst."

Gu Yuena's voice finally showed a slight fluctuation, not a sob, but a more suppressed, more restrained tremor, as if all her emotions were suppressed to the deepest part of her chest, with only a tiny crack showing.

"I summoned Ferocious Beast and entered Dragon Valley. I want to obtain the Dragon God Heart and fuse with his complete bloodline."

"Only in this way can I sense whether there are unstable spatial fluctuations within the Star Luo Empire, whether you have fallen into some rift, into some spatial crevice that no one knows about."

She turned to look at him.

The purple eyes appeared exceptionally deep in the dim light of Dragon Valley, like two bottomless wells.

But the well water wasn't stagnant; it was flowing water, the kind that had been suppressed for a long time, constantly churning but never overflowing.

"I came to find you. I begged Him for a long time... He wouldn't budge at first, but then suddenly agreed. I was just about to leave Dragon Valley to find you when He suddenly said you had come to Dragon Valley."

There was a long silence.

The wind from outside the basin blew into Dragon Valley, passing over the dragon bones and souls, producing a low, drawn-out wail, as if all the dead dragons were sighing at the same time.

Yun Jingheng lowered his head, looking at his hands resting on his knees, his fingers trembling slightly.

"I fell into a place called the Moon Domain."

His voice was hoarse, each word sounding as if it had been sanded on sandpaper.

"That's a demiplane. From the intelligence I've gathered, it's the place where Godhead Fragment the Yue Shen's divine position coalesced after her fall."

"That place is divided into inner and Outer Circle, and there are people who have been transformed from Godhead Fragment. They don't know that they are Godhead Fragment, nor do they know that the meaning of their existence is to be absorbed by others. They think they are human beings."

He took a deep breath and dug out everything he had experienced in the Moon Domain from the depths of his memory, bit by bit.

The image of Tian Apo squatting on the edge of the field loosening the soil, the sound of silvery-white grass rustling in the night wind, the image of the old woman's head twisted at an impossible angle, her mouth torn to her ears, rushing towards him.

He suppressed all of that and continued speaking.

"There was a God Servant, the largest fragment in the Moon Domain. He waited for me for ten thousand years; he wanted me dead, to take my place and become the Yue Shen."

"Chen Weitao —when he escaped from the Moon Domain, he took three thousand people with him, three thousand fragments that did not want to be absorbed."

His voice began to tremble, "Chen Weitao risked his life to get me out of the Moon Domain. He stuffed the core of the Silver Moon Divine Light Shield into me and left himself in the Moon Domain, leaving it to that God Servant."

"I don't understand his motives for doing this... and my mind is a mess."

Gu Yuena didn't speak; she just listened quietly.

"Then I fell into Dragon Valley, smashing through several trees. My back hit a tree trunk, and I spat out blood."

"Then I heard something calling to me, and I followed my instincts and ended up here."

He stopped and looked up at Gu Yuena.

"What just rushed into my body?"

Gu Yuena looked at him for two seconds, then lowered her eyes and focused her gaze on the huge rabbit carcass.

Even in the dim light of Dragon Valley, the color of the bones remained a shade between pink and white, like snow dyed by the morning glow.

Her voice was calm. "After the Yue Shen fell, her Godhood was split in two. This fallen divine body has been carrying it here for tens of thousands of years."

"It was waiting for you. What rushed into your body just now should be the Godhead Fragment that it has been guarding."

Yun Jingheng remained silent for a long time.

He stared at the enormous rabbit carcass, at its empty eye sockets and the hind leg bones half-buried in the ground, and the tightness in his chest grew heavier and heavier.

"I... I've attained a demigod Godhood?"

Gu Yuena's voice sounded beside him, soft but every word clear. "Yes."

Yun Jingheng turned to look at her and stared at her for a long time.

The wind from outside the Dragon Valley blew in, stirring her long, silvery-white hair. A few strands floated in the air, shimmering in the light emitted by the dragon bones.

"Let's go out first, okay? They're all very worried, and Xing Lan has looked for me many times."

Yun Jingheng nodded slightly. "Let's go out first. I need to sort things out."