Chapter 47
"And each perfected crystal," Huan Zheng continued, his voice returning to its lazy tone yet strangely resembling someone reading a treasure map he had never shown to anyone, "grants different abilities. With one to two crystals, you are still limited to enemies within a few solar systems—but you can already fly, Liu Xin. Not fly like birds or lesser Goddesses, but fly like a meteor streaking through the vacuum of space without needing to breathe, without fearing cold, heat, or emptiness."
He paused for a moment, staring at Ling Xu with eyes that suddenly grew deeper, heavier, like an ancient well untouched by sunlight, then continued in a near whisper, like wind murmuring through dry leaves before a storm arrives.
"With three crystals, you can traverse several planetary clusters. With four to six crystals, you begin expeditions across every corner of the heavens spanning multiple star clusters. With seven to nine crystals, you surf across all star clusters—without limits, without obstacles, without anyone able to stop you. And with ten crystals—"
He smiled, a smile neither warm nor cold, but empty, like a hollow at the bottom of the ocean untouched by light, like a gate opening toward something words were never meant to describe.
"You can open and close portals, Liu Xin. You can explore the entire universe—within the bounds of the universe we currently inhabit—for missions or countless other activities. You can go wherever you want, whenever you want, without asking permission from anyone. You can… go home, Liu Xin. Wherever you call home."
Fhuuuh!!
The 156th Liturgy of a Thousand Years of Blood began with the sound of a trumpet carved from the bones of an ancient dragon, its echo resounding across the ten great capitals of the fifth sky city and reaching even the most remote star clusters. Among dozens of renowned sects and thousands of smaller sects sending their finest representatives, Huan Zheng stood atop the battle arena with his hands in his pockets and his eyes half-closed.
Not because he cared to win—he had won too often in his life for victory to taste like anything more than stale rice—but because Ling Xu, standing among the audience with a hood covering his white hair, whispered through vibrations of Qi.
"Just follow along, Zhao Wei. At least we can measure the strength of other cultivators in this realm without having to kill them one by one."
And Huan Zheng, with his characteristic laziness, followed match after match, defeating his opponents without ever appearing to sweat, to breathe heavily, or to move more than one hand, until eventually he reached the final round.
Not because he tried, but because his opponents were too weak to make him yawn more than three times in a single match.
Yet in the final round, before the ten remaining prodigies, Huan Zheng did something that silenced the entire audience.
He raised his hand, signaling surrender, then walked down from the arena with an unsteady gait like someone who had just woken from sleep, and when the referee asked why he withdrew, he simply answered in a lazy voice that echoed clearly through the suffocating silence.
"I've already secured fifth place. That's enough to get invited to banquets. I don't need the champion's title—it's just troublesome."
Ling Xu, who heard that from afar, merely shook his head with a faint smile, because he knew Huan Zheng had deliberately held back, that he did not want to attract more attention than necessary, that he preferred to be an unremarkable number five rather than a number one who would be watched by every sect and faction across the boundless universe.
And the invitations came pouring in.
Not one or two, but dozens, hundreds, from various star clusters not even recorded on any map, from the high authorities of the fifth sky city who wished to "make acquaintance with the talented fifth-ranked contestant and his mysterious companion," from renowned sects seeking to "establish cooperation in interstellar missions," from the Old Gods who wished to "see with their own eyes whether a descendant of one of this city's founders truly still lives and wanders the eternal markets with a hood concealing white hair."
And so Ling Xu and Huan Zheng set out.
Not as fugitives forced into hiding, not as a lesser Goddess and one of the Cultivation Wheels hunted by the Supreme Court of Humanity, but as honored guests escorted by luxurious ships plated with gold and the remnants of dead stars, welcomed by parades on every planet they visited, and treated to feasts beyond anything Ling Xu had ever imagined when he was still mixing herbs in a crumbling hut that once served as a god's stable.
"This doesn't feel real," Ling Xu whispered one night, as they stood on the balcony of a floating palace in the third star cluster they visited, beneath a sky with two moons shining in different colors—one red like blood, one blue like the midnight sea—his eyes gazing upon countless stars like an endless ocean of light.
"A year ago, I was still sleeping on moss with the same recurring nightmares. Now I sleep on silk, dreaming of a future I never once imagined."
Huan Zheng, standing beside him with a glass of star wine in his left hand—though he never truly drank it, only held it because he said it "made him look classy"—merely shrugged lazily and replied in a tone that sounded like someone complaining about tofu prices in a market.
"Just enjoy it, Liu Xin. Tomorrow we have a mission in the fourth star cluster. They say there's an interdimensional beast threatening the balance of seven solar systems. The reward is refinement powder for three crystal seeds for whoever kills it."
Mission after mission, they carried on.
Not in haste, not with burning ambition, but with a calm rhythm, like a river flowing to the sea without ever questioning how long it would take, like wind drifting from one star cluster to another without ever feeling tired.
In the fourth star cluster, they killed an interdimensional beast whose body was as large as a volcano and whose eyes resembled two black holes ready to swallow anything that approached—Huan Zheng merely looked at the creature for three seconds, and its head severed itself, just as had happened to twenty-seven Bright Sky Old cultivators in Wuji Cheng before, while Ling Xu gathered the refinement powder for three crystal seeds scattering from its body like rain of light in the darkness of space.
In the seventh star cluster, they saved a planet from being struck by a massive meteor.
Not by destroying the meteor, but by altering its trajectory using the combined power of Ling Xu's four crystals and Huan Zheng's four crystals—because along this journey, they grew together, always balanced, always equal, like two sides of a coin that were never truly separate—causing the meteor to pass the planet at a distance of only a thousand kilometers, close enough to make its inhabitants fall to their knees in gratitude, yet far enough to cause no damage.
To be continued…