The light from the explosion had not faded.
Perhaps it would linger for a long time yet.
Meanwhile, the illusory river of stars glowing pale violet transformed into a pair of enormous hands, which gently seemed to cradle something beneath the explosion before slowly lowering it.
The white-haired boy had his eyes closed, magnificent, starlike radiance shimmering through the cracks in his body. He seemed to be Their favorite, gently carried onto the Xianzhou in those hands.
When those enormous hands passed through their bodies, everyone felt only a light breeze brush over them. Then they all stepped forward together and caught Jiang Yu as he drifted down.
At the same time...
A flicker of memory surfaced in the depths of his consciousness. Looking down at the others' worried expressions and his own body, Jiang Yu raised a hand to his chin, recalling how Amdo had seemed to be dying back then, and how the fellow had not reacted when Jiang Yu patted him...
A moment later, floating unnoticed in the depths of space, he finally seemed to reach a firm conclusion and said in a solemn, serious tone:
"Judging by the situation, I really am dead, right? After all, my body's right down there, and Amdo didn't react when I touched him earlier, though afterward he suddenly seemed all fired up. But he looked pretty pitiful falling like that. Since he'd let Jing Yuan and the others leave, I tried catching him, and that actually worked."
As he spoke, Jiang Yu turned to glance at the body of the elderly man floating nearby...
"So, not only did I kick the bucket, I turned into a ghost with superpowers."
[Ding! Correction: the host has not died, and your current state is not that of a ghost.]
"Really? Fair