Then he reached out and stroked his younger sister's hair.
"Silly girl. The burden of holding the defense line can't rest entirely on you. Know your limits, whatever you do. Don't overdraw the foundation of your cultivation."
He lowered his hand.
"You have me."
The spatial passage swallowed his figure. The fissure closed. The study felt empty again.
Chen Siyao stood where she was.
Yang Wanqing walked to her side without a word and simply rested a hand on her shoulder.
Cai Jingwen had already turned and opened her communications panel. She had a hundred things to do.
Outside the window, Pengcheng's neon lights still flashed. But from tonight onward, those lights meant something different.
They no longer meant prosperity.
They were a countdown.
Deep space.
Chen Hao emerged from the spatial passage above the orbit of Mars.
Beneath his feet lay the rust-red surface of Mars. The planet, four thousand kilometers in diameter, slowly rotated below him.
In the distance, he could see the sun, a dazzling white point, a little smaller than it looked from Blue Star.
Farther away, in the direction of Jupiter, lay a swath of darkness.
Not the darkness of space itself. Darkness caused by something blocking the view.
Chen Hao extended his divine sense in that direction.
Still there. Blind Ancient was still at Jupiter's location. It had not moved. It was feeding. The remaining thirty-seven percent of Jupiter's mass would keep it digesting for a while yet.
But the surrounding Gold-Eater Clan army had already begun advancing. The vanguard of that black tide had crossed the Asteroid Belt and was surging toward Mars.
Chen Hao withdrew his divine sense.
He did not continue forward.
He chose a spot in the space between Mars and the Asteroid Belt and sat cross-legged.
Right there in