The two continued flying toward the Living Star.
As the distance shrank, the planet's outline grew clearer and clearer.
From afar, not a single meteor crater, mountain range, or canyon could be seen across the entire planet.
Its surface was wrapped in an enormous layer of skin, its thickness impossible to gauge, covered in countless crisscrossing trenches and wrinkles.
A dark green, viscous liquid flowed between those trenches.
It looked like bodily fluid secreted by some colossal creature, flowing through the trenches at an exceedingly slow pace and even emitting a faint phosphorescence.
The glow was extremely dim, yet in this pitch-black void where one could not see their hand before their face, it stood out with an almost eerie clarity.
At intervals, a wave would appear on the planet's surface, stretching from south to north. Wherever it passed, the surface rippled like a lake swept by wind, sending out ring after ring of green undulations.
Hell Star and Frozen Prison Star hung to the left and right of the Living Star.
The three planets each occupied a point in a triangle, tugging at one another and forming a delicate balance.
Metallic lava churned endlessly on Hell Star, while vaporous clouds formed a crimson halo above it.
That halo cast onto the Living Star's left side, brushing a layer of dark red over the deep green.
Frozen Prison Star, meanwhile, cast a lightless pitch-black shadow over the Living Star's right side.
Under that stark contrast, the Living Star seemed suspended in the middle of a bizarre giant painting.
One half was illuminated by firelight.
One half was swallowed by shadow.
And it itself continued breathing without pause.
Xu Changqing stopped three hundred li above the Living Star's surface. From this distance, he could already clearly sense the surging vitality within