The moment the Ancient Star Heart was absorbed, the mini-realm began to die. The starry sky flickered. The floating platforms trembled, cracks spiderwebbing across their surfaces. The air itself began to tear at the seams.
"The party's over!" Little Comet zipped back into Ye Xingliu's pocket. "Time to go!"
Ye Xingliu, his body still humming with the power of his 40% Awakening, scrambled to his feet. He grabbed a stunned Shui'er by the wrist. "We need to move. Now!"
The portal back, which had been a stable pool of silver, was now churning violently, shrinking like a closing eye.
"Jump!" Ye Xingliu yelled.
They leaped together into the disintegrating gateway. The sensation was not of smooth travel, but of being violently spat out. They tumbled through a vortex of screaming energies and landed hard on the cold, familiar stone of the Forbidden Ground clearing.
Behind them, the Stellar Stele gave one final, deafening CRACK! The runes shattered, their light extinguished forever. The obsidian monolith turned a dull, dead grey, and the portal collapsed in on itself with a sound like a dying star, leaving behind only the scent of ozone and a profound emptiness.
The resulting shockwave of disrupted energy was a silent bell, ringing through the sect's spiritual arrays.
BWOOOONG!
Alarm formations flared to life all across the Starfall Sect, painting the night in pulses of angry red light. Shouts echoed in the distance. The thunder of approaching footsteps grew rapidly closer.
"We have to run!" Shui'er hissed, trying to pull him up.
But Ye Xingliu didn't move. He just sat there, catching his breath, a faint, tired smile on his face. Running would only make them look guilty. The best lies were often the most absurd.
Before they could even properly stand, a figure descended from the sky, landing before them without a sound. It was Elder Mu Qing. Her pristine white robes were immaculate, but her eyes were like twin glaciers, reflecting the flashing red alarm lights. Her gaze swept over the dead Stellar Stele, then settled on the two disheveled inner disciples covered in cosmic dust and smelling of void.
"Explain," she said. The single word carried the weight of a mountain.
Shui'er froze, her mind racing for a plausible story. But Ye Xingliu simply got to his feet, brushed off his robes, and looked at the Elder with an expression of profound and sincere bewilderment.
"Elder Mu?" he said, his voice laced with convincing confusion. "What... what happened? The alarms...?"
"Do not play the fool with me, Ye Xingliu," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "You are in the Forbidden Ground. The Stellar Stele is destroyed. Explain. Your. Presence. Here."
Ye Xingliu blinked, looked around at the clearing as if seeing it for the first time, and then gave a slow, dawning nod of understanding.
"Ah," he said, snapping his fingers. "It must have been the sleepwalking again. A terrible habit. My master, Old Drunkard Huo, says it's a side effect of my... unique spirit root. I just wake up in the strangest places."
The silence that followed was thicker than the void they had just escaped. Shui'er stared at him, her face a mask of pure horror at the sheer, breathtaking audacity of the lie.
Elder Mu Qing's expression did not change. She stared at him for a long, long time. She could feel the vast, untamed stellar energy rolling off him in waves. She could see the lingering cosmic light in his eyes. She knew, with absolute certainty, that he was lying through his teeth.
She also knew that the Stellar Stele had been a mystery that had confounded the sect for millennia. This boy, this "Laughing Comet," had not only unlocked it but had somehow consumed its core, leaving it a dead husk. Punishing him for that was like punishing the rain for falling. It was a force of nature.
A deep, weary sigh escaped her lips, the sound of a woman who had just realized she was dealing with something far beyond her pay grade.
"Sleepwalking," she repeated, her voice flat.
"Yes, Elder," Ye Xingliu said, bowing respectfully. "My deepest apologies for the disturbance. I will... try to tie myself to my bed from now on."
Elder Mu pinched the bridge of her nose. "Get out of my sight," she said, her voice heavy with resignation. "Both of you. Consider this your first and final warning. If I find you 'sleepwalking' in a forbidden area again, the consequences will be severe. Now, go."
Without another word, Ye Xingliu bowed again, took Shui'er's still-trembling arm, and calmly walked away, leaving the Elder standing before the ruins of an ancient treasure.
As they disappeared into the trees, Shui'er finally found her voice. "Sleepwalking?!" she whisper-shrieked. "She could have vaporized us!"
Ye Xingliu just grinned, the starlight in his eyes brighter than ever. "She knows we did it. But she also knows she can't prove it, and she has no idea what we really did. Sometimes, the best way off the road is to convince everyone you were never on it in the first place."
He patted the compass in his pocket, now a cosmic map.
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