"Void Art: Other Shore Blossom!"

Hearing that familiar voice, Glorious Moon let out a breath like dew slipping off a leaf. Ou Xinxue, still a child, tossed all reserve, sprang up like a sparrow, and cheered. "Oh yeah—Dad’s here! Dad’s here! Hmph, that venomous woman—fortune’s wheel turns. My dad’s here, you’re finished!" She pointed at Tilafei and cursed. They’d been hunted by Tilafei’s people for days; her heart was bristling like quills. Now the tide flipped.

Ouyang answered her faith. The instant he arrived, black lightning poured like a storm of spears, striking the earth without aim. Black clouds, black thunder—the land drowned in ink.

"Yo, long time no see…"

Ouyang and Xi walked hand in hand, smiles like warm lanterns as they faced Glorious Moon and Ou Xinxue. "Xiaoxue, did you miss Dad?" He knew Glorious Moon wouldn’t entertain him, so he spoke to his daughter first.

"Mm!" Ou Xinxue nodded like a pecking chick, then let go of Glorious Moon’s hand and rushed into Ouyang’s arms. "Dad, I missed you so much."

She rubbed her head against his chest, like a kitten marking home—her way to voice joy.

Beside her, Glorious Moon stayed cool as moonlight over stone. She and Ouyang were never close, and with Ou Xinxue as a sudden “daughter,” their tie sat between stranger and familiar.

Seeing Ouyang, Glorious Moon went straight for the core. Her pulse tightened like a drawn bow, then her words flew. "Why aren’t you bound by the rules? Even Unoia obeys what the Star Spirit wrote. Or did something change? You or our enemies—are you moving without the rules now?"

Ouyang could slip the rules only by Xi’s power. The Star Spirit’s law could cage him, but to a beyond-spec Third Rung like Xi, the mystery fell away. But the others… how? Were there more who cracked the rules besides Xi and him?

He listened, then learned the world had flipped like a table in a storm. He had missed such a spectacle. He hadn’t even joined it. He looked skyward and sighed, savoring chaos like spice, and Glorious Moon’s fist itched to thump his skull. Seeing him again, she felt oddly lighter, as if a storm lifted.

Before, facing Ouyang felt like standing at the edge of a devouring black hole. In her heart, he wore the tag “extremely dangerous.” Now, she relaxed, breath steady as a lake. She even caught herself thinking, I could punch him once—unthinkable before.

Jokes faded. Ouyang turned solemn, gaze on Xi, voice low as twilight wind. "To ignore rules—must it be that level of being? Could the rules have a hole? Or something whose nature counters the rules, so we see this?"

"Maybe… But from what I observe, the world’s rules are being gnawed by an outside force, like termites in old wood. To eat the rules by force, the culprit must be beyond-spec."

Black thunder still cascaded like a sable waterfall, yet their side sat quiet as snow. Beyond-spec—beings who make the Supreme Law give ground, short of its bottom line. Ouyang knew the terror like a sailor knows deep seas. Ou Xinxue had heard of such beings from her parents; she understood the weight like a stone in the chest.

Only Glorious Moon lacked the map. But seeing Ouyang, Xi, even Ou Xinxue fall into silence, she felt the gravity from their faces, like storm pressure before rain.

"In this age, as far as I know, only two could wield that force. Is it the Ancient Turtle? Or something I don’t know, someone I missed?" Beyond the chart—gods above gods. In Ouyang’s view, only Aurora the Goddess of Aurora and that prehistoric Ancient Turtle qualified now.

Xi’s face shifted like cloud light, mind tracing the enemy’s roots.

"The enemies… should be ancient sleepers from the Divine Realm, the Demon World, and the Underworld." Ouyang knew the Divine Realm formed from shards of the broken Divine Continent, and the Underworld from a fragment of the Nether Ground.

Back then, the Other Shore didn’t erase them, likely wary of beyond-spec sleepers. In the Eighth Epoch, the Other Shore could have flipped their cart completely, but the price would be bone-deep damage. After weighing blood and ruin, they spared them. When the war years ended, Ouyang could ram those three realms to pieces with the Other Shore only because the sleeping beings had been exiled by the Supreme Law.

Xi kept explaining, voice like thin rain. "One in the Divine Continent. One in the Nether Ground. It’s one or both of them stirring. On our side, Litian can briefly wield beyond-spec force, but he’s one of us. The Three Eternal Artifacts together can also reach a similar peak—but those won’t come into play. As for that Turtle… it has no conflict with this world. No reason to strike."

With Xi’s analysis, Ouyang grasped the line. Only the sleepers in the Divine Continent and Nether Ground had motive. To restore the Divine Realm and the Underworld, seizing this world—the strategic heart—was the cleanest move.

"What do we do? If it’s two, can you handle it?" At the word beyond-spec, Ouyang’s caution tightened like armor. He wanted Xi to act, but she gave a wry smile, thin as a knife. "I can’t. Two reasons. First, I’m unstable. That thing is still contesting my body’s control. I can’t draw out my full strength. Second, if I act, those two might strike openly. Then this world gets smashed outright."

If beyond-spec beings brawled, the Stellar Courtyard would blow apart—Ouyang believed it like winter follows fall.

"Then… what do we do?" Glorious Moon’s anxiety hummed like bees as she looked at Xi and Ouyang. She wondered if it was her illusion—Xi felt different now. But that wasn’t the point. "Right—why not leave this to the Star Spirit? The rules were written by the Star Spirit. If the Star Spirit acts, wouldn’t it all be solved?"

She thought she nailed the key. Ouyang and Xi answered with a look that said, You kidding me? Did she miss something? Why did both their faces twist the same way? Even Ou Xinxue wore that look.

"This is beyond what that broken Star Spirit can solve. The one who can solve it now…" Ouyang turned to Glorious Moon. He didn’t speak, but she heard it anyway, like wind through bamboo: Girl, the world-saving task is yours.

Ou Xinxue tugged Glorious Moon’s sleeve, eyes bright as pearls. "Mom, you can do it!"

"Wait… what’s this got to do with me?" Glorious Moon stared at Ouyang and Ou Xinxue, bewilderment fogging her mind like mist over fields. What were this father-daughter pair pulling? Why such perfect sync? Were they hiding something from her? "You two are hiding something, aren’t you?"

Anger rose like a flash fire. She resisted being called Mom and Ouyang Dad, but if she was Mom and he was Dad, why were they hiding from the mother?

Ou Xinxue’s eyes rolled like marbles. She met Ouyang’s gaze and seemed to read a cue there.

"Mom, stop pretending. The Star Spirit… that’s you."

Her words dropped like thunder. Glorious Moon was struck speechless.

"Mom is the greatest being of the Stellar Courtyard! The world’s rules—you wrote them. That so-called Star Spirit is just a puppet body. The soul that truly pilots it—that’s you, Mom."

Glorious Moon’s thoughts turned to paste, sticky and slow. She didn’t understand; the leap was too wild. She was the Star Spirit?

At last she looked to one last person. Xi was the sober one, not fond of jokes. She watched Xi’s face. Xi met her eyes and nodded, slight as falling snow.

…

"What should I do?" Xi’s certainty steadied her like a hand on the shoulder. Ou Xinxue’s claim was likely true. If it had come to this, fretting over why she was the Star Spirit was foolish. Solve the crisis first. Ouyang, Xi, and Ou Xinxue wore faces tight as drumskins; the enemy was strong.

Seeing Glorious Moon drop the identity knot, Ouyang nodded, pleased, like a captain seeing wind fill the sail.

"Simple. You just need to… push open that door."