The mighty True God Aeliraes doubled over, one hand on his gut, his face green as bruised copper.

He should’ve seen it coming. A moment ago they traded blows; who’d suddenly play good host? He’d only relaxed because Ouyang “ate” too. Then he saw Ouyang laughing, a twisted vortex blooming at his lips like a black whirlpool, and the truth snapped into place.

Ouyang hadn’t eaten a thing. He spun a tiny pocket-space in his mouth; food slid past his tongue and fell into that secret hollow, not his stomach.

For a Sun Ring Level fighter, that trick is brutal. For Ouyang, with a True God’s control, it’s a parlor trick. He set the hook, and Aeliraes bit.

Ouyang and Dufei both sit at the black-table of dark cuisine, but their knives sing different songs. Ouyang’s dishes look vile, yet taste like spring after rain. Dufei’s plates shine like phoenix feathers and smell like wine-soaked nights, but the first bite is poison.

“Bast…ard…”

Aeliraes shoved fingers down his throat and clawed. He vomited hard. A slurry hit the stone with a wet slap; it hissed and ate pits into the rock, white smoke coiling like winter breath.

“Bro, hear me out. Everyone’s got a day they eat shit. Just don’t chew. You? You chewed. I don’t even know what to say.”

Ouyang’s face held mock sorrow, light as willow fluff on a breeze. Aeliraes, emptied out, sprawled on the table like a stranded fish, waiting for his HP to tick back. A True God’s body won’t die from this, but disgust cuts like frost. It’s like a lump of crap—won’t kill most folks, yet the poor idiot who eats it wants to die.

Enough with that image. Point taken.

Ouyang’s bout wound down, victory tucked away like a jade token. Across the field, Glorious Moon’s fight hit the knife-edge. Tilafei fought at Moon Ring Level. Xi and Glorious Moon were only Star Ring Level; they couldn’t match her head-on.

Tilafei pressed like a storm tide. The two retreated step by step, lanterns in a gale.

“Hey, small-minded guy, those two girls are yours, right? Keep this up and they’ll be in trouble. You not going to lift a finger?” Aeliraes lay limp on the table, voice weak as wet ash. He watched Xi and Glorious Moon get driven back while Ouyang sat like a theatergoer, and curiosity pricked him.

“Small-minded? Who you talking about? That me?” Ouyang shot him a side-eye, a blade of chill humor. He didn’t look worried at all. “Listen, bro. In the Stellar Courtyard, even you might not manage to kill them. As for that woman dripping envy and spite—she’s due for a reverse-kill.”

Envy, jealousy, spite—he meant Tilafei. On looks, Xi and Glorious Moon crushed. On aura, their moonlit mystery made Tilafei feel small, like a candle before starlight.

She was Future Stars, a name meant for the chronicles, a hero-to-be on every tongue. She was also a princess, pride coiled like a dragon in her chest. Yet here, in some nameless place, other girls stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

“Common rabble. How could you ever compare to this princess?”

Her chin rose, frosty and bright. Her level could take them, but they refused a straight clash. Killing them fast wouldn’t be easy.

“By the pact of the ancient Star Spirit…”

Before her, a black-robed thing unfurled, sleeves drifting like night fog. No hands. No feet. No head. Empty clothes hung in the air, as if an invisible thing wore them.

“Wraith-kin,” Glorious Moon breathed. “Stealth and assassination.”

She fed the intel to Xi, and the two pressed back to back, moons in the same sky. The Wraith-kin faded, swallowed by shadow. They had to watch the dagger in the dark, and Tilafei’s frontal spells, both at once.

“How long can you hold?”

Tilafei raised a wand. A lance of lightning rushed them like a white river. Xi lifted a rock wall from the ground; it rose roaring and took the bolt, stone char and sparks flying. That tiny lapse opened a vein. The hidden Wraith-kin slid out of shadow and struck for Xi’s throat.

“Move!” Danger thrummed like a struck string in Glorious Moon’s chest. She didn’t think; she shoved Xi aside. The black dagger punched into Glorious Moon’s heart. Black spread from the wound like ink in water; skin darkened in a visible ripple. That blade was painted in venom.

The suddenness stunned the crowd. After Ouyang and Aeliraes’s farce of a fight, everyone expected a laugh-track ending. No one thought Tilafei would go for the kill.

Sade’s Contractor, Aeliraes, looked like a suspected Divine-kin. Glorious Moon’s Contractor—the man in black—also read as a suspected Divine-kin. Two suspected Divine-kin had somehow linked arms. In that beat, Future Stars subconsciously counted Glorious Moon as one of their own, but they forgot to count the weather of the human heart.

Sade saw the fall that couldn’t be undone. He smashed a rock to powder with one punch; rage flashed like summer lightning. When Ouyang clipped that poor bystander earlier, the man merely fainted. No real harm. Tilafei had struck for keeps. She’d laced the dagger too.

Glorious Moon hit the ground, skin blackening under spreading toxin. Tilafei laughed, harsh as broken glass. She’d hated Glorious Moon from first sight; the woman was too beautiful.

Moon-smooth skin. Silver hair like spilled frost. And when those starry eyes met hers, something inside Tilafei flinched—a soul-deep fear, an instinct older than crowns.

She was a princess. A Future Stars prodigy. Yet she’d been outshone by an unknown woman.

“Hey, this plot… that’s off. Where’s the reverse-kill?”

Ouyang sounded puzzled, wind-quiet and utterly unworried. Xi wasn’t. Her grief ripped out, raw as a torn banner. Three people mattered most in her life so far: Ouyang, Xian, and Glorious Moon. And Glorious Moon had died to save her.

Their bodies blurred like mist in sunlight. Without Glorious Moon’s support, the rules of the Star Spirit refused them. They couldn’t remain in the Stellar Courtyard.

“No. I’m not leaving! Ouyang, save Liyue—save Glorious Moon. I know you’re strong. You can do it…”

“Sorry. This is fate’s call. And I can’t break this world’s rules. Its mystery outranks mine.”

Her cries faded with them. They vanished. A single card fluttered down like a leaf.

Sade walked over and picked it up. Chaos Twins stared back at him from the face. He stood, silent as a standing stone. Then Aeliraes yelped; his eyes flew open, huge.

Glorious Moon’s body rose into the air, weightless as dew. Wind surged; the whole forest swayed like a sea of spears.

“That scale of power… Divine-kin?”

As awe rolled through the crowd, a girl with dragonfly wings appeared beside Glorious Moon. Her hair was green as fresh shoots. White ribbons veiled only the vital places, a lotus modesty in a summer pond.

She opened her eyes. Golden pupils blazed like a small sun, and everyone flinched away. Three pairs of transparent wings fanned light. Bare jade feet stepped on air like stepping stones on a river.

The stranger folded Glorious Moon into her arms. Her golden gaze swept down, cold as high wind over winter fields. Black miasma streamed out of Glorious Moon’s wound; her skin faded back to pale, the poison bled away like shadow at dawn.

Tilafei’s jaw clenched; victory had slipped again, a thorn under silk. “Meddler. Who are you?”

The woman’s voice was soft and sovereign, dew on steel. “I am… the Sky Sovereign.”

Wind fell silent, like a crowd holding its breath. Birds and insects in the forest went mute. Behind her, around those three pairs of dragonfly wings, wind elements gathered thick enough to see, a cloud of glassy motes. They fused into two colossal wings, tens of meters long, storm-feathers outspread.

Rip.

The Wraith-kin tore apart as if ripped by invisible hands, a scatter of shreds on the air. A thin, endless scream broke, then died. Across the field, another scream ripped free; Tilafei burst into a red mist.

Time hiccuped. The mist pulled back and knitted her whole again. She shot away, a bloody comet fleeing the horizon.

Someone unknown had snatched her out. The Sky Sovereign watched the distance with winter on her face.

“Heh. Interesting. No wonder that guy never stepped in, just watched the play.”

Aeliraes alone dared talk under that sky. He’d found new questions, and a few answers. “He definitely knows more than I do. Shame I didn’t trade world coordinates.”

“Well then, kid, good luck.”

His body turned transparent, a candle guttering out. He vanished. Sade’s power couldn’t keep him anchored. Without their last trump, Future Stars felt the pressure crush in, like deep water over the head.

Luckily, the Sky Sovereign had no interest in them. She laid Glorious Moon gently on the ground, a petal set on still water. Her form thinned and faded. She was gone.

At the same time, a card drifted down into Glorious Moon’s hand.