Become a Star in the Sky! BOOM!

Surging bursts of flame and fiery shadows tore the blue-green torrent to shreds. The deluge tried to surge once more, but in the end it convulsed, plummeted, and collapsed into ruin. "How can this be?!" Van Gogh was utterly shaken. As the lucky first soul to face the New Moon Cinder Holy Oath Slash head-on, he had felt a suffocating, terrifying sharpness within that secret technique. It was unmistakably a top-tier heritage! A secret technique like that was not something an ordinary person could possibly pull out! In truth, Van Gogh was not entirely incapable of accepting that his *The Starry Night* had been shattered by Bai Zhou across ranks. After all, this kid was far too full of surprises. A mere Rank 3 Extraordinary, yet he possessed exceptionally rare Extraordinary weapons—and two of them at that! He commanded a top-tier secret technique heritage, wielded two Extraordinary weapons, and held home-field advantage. God only knew where the kid had picked up such an eclectic mix of skills. A whole mess of flashy rituals that Van Gogh could not even begin to understand had bolstered Bai Zhou while simultaneously weakening Van Gogh. And if his eyes had not deceived him, even the clothes Bai Zhou wore seemed to possess special enchantments! Locked in combat with Bai Zhou, Van Gogh felt as though he had been reduced to Lady Shiji, the impoverished immortal who had toiled in bitter cave seclusion for a thousand years—while Bai Zhou was decked out with almost as much divine gear as Nezha! If not for the Major's ironclad intelligence, Van Gogh would have been convinced Bai Zhou was the pampered son of some untouchable grand figure! A Rank 4 losing to a Rank 3—the fault did not lie with him! Besides, it wasn't as if he had truly lost—or so Van Gogh had initially thought. Yet the problem was that he realized Bai Zhou's secret technique contained only the power of "Heart" and "Body." Moreover, the power of "Heart" had been erratic, clearly wielded with little mastery. —Bai Zhou was a Rank 2 Extraordinary? How could he possibly be a Rank 2 Extraordinary?! He had literally just completed his advancement right in front of him! The master assassin Van Gogh was completely dumbfounded. Everyone had assumed Bai Zhou was a Rank 3 Extraordinary. Only now did Van Gogh finally understand the answers to all those baffling mysteries in the intelligence reports— The reason this kid had been willing to lie low at the base and train relentlessly, the reason he had struggled so hard to kill the Rank 2 Adjutant Han, and the reason he had unexpectedly turned the tables on Second Lieutenant Qian and the Swordbearers—it was all because he had merely been a Rank 1 Extraordinary! He had been continuously growing stronger! Power-leveling like mad! Right up until this very moment, when he broke through to Rank 2 Extraordinary! Yet what kind of Rank 2 Extraordinary possessed spirituality so vast, ferocious, and comparable to a Rank 3— *Pfft—* Spurting a mouthful of old blood, Vincent van Gogh's face went deathly pale, and his emaciated, skeletal frame swayed on the verge of collapse. *Clack.* He struck his walking cane heavily against the floor, only then steadying his footing. Clearly, as the core of *The Starry Night*, the shattering of the mad silver moon had brought a severe backlash upon him. However, Bai Zhou opposite him looked far worse. Like an invalid on death's door, his face was terrifyingly pale, as if every drop of blood in his body had been drained dry. He was gasping heavily for breath, his ragged wheezes like a ruined pair of bellows pumping frantically, drawing in air while hardly letting any out, and fresh blood stained the corners of his mouth. Bearing the overload of so many rituals at once, burning his entire reserve of spirituality in a single strike, and overtaxing his Extraordinary weapons—surviving all that was solely thanks to the thick skin and sheer resilience of an Adventurer. Didn't the stories always say as much? Adventurers loved eleventh-hour breakthroughs and sudden explosive bursts, shouting nonsense about bonds and courage as they minced the great demon king into mincemeat. Being built to take a beating was a class feature in its own right. —Yet reality inevitably drifted from the stories. The seemingly unbreakable cage of *The Starry Night* had indeed been shattered. Yet the demon king still stood. Instead, it was Bai Zhou who leaned against his saber, sitting weakly in the corner of the room. "I understand now..." Van Gogh stared at Bai Zhou, his breath coming in heavy rasps. "—You are a Destined!" "Only a Destined could kill a Rank 2 as a Rank 1, and with Extraordinary weapons in hand, achieve the miracle of slaying Rank 3s at Rank 1!" Van Gogh rasped, then suddenly burst into laughter. "I admit I underestimated you. I should have unleashed my full strength from the start, and I never should have set foot inside this wretched villa under your feet—" "But so what?" "The legend of a Rank 2 killing a Rank 4 has never existed in the past, and it will never exist in the future." "Even if you are—a Destined!" He shook his head and stepped slowly toward Bai Zhou. Piercing the air beneath his feet, sunflowers scrambled forward to crawl toward Bai Zhou, packing every corner of the room until they formed an undulating sea of withered yellow. In contrast, Bai Zhou barely had the strength left to lift his saber. *Hum—* Sensing approaching malice, the purple-gold saber vibrated with a low chime, eager to fight. Yet its drained master could no longer feed it any fresh spirituality. "You burned everything, staked it all—and shattered my *The Starry Night*." "Truly remarkable." "But against these sunflowers, what will you do?" One secret technique had been broken, but Van Gogh possessed far more than one. Beyond the sunflowers, a faint, fiery furnace phantom manifested over his chest. The ambient temperature steadily climbed, and color rushed back into his pale face. "The stamina of an Extraordinary who has unsealed the Gate of Essence surpasses your wildest imagination." Van Gogh tilted his masked face. "I could fight you like this for an entire day." "—And what about you?" "Look at yourself now. How weak, how pitiful, how exhausted, how..." "Lacking in love for life!" Facing Bai Zhou, who sat in the corner "awaiting death," Van Gogh observed him appreciatively at first, but quickly grew bored. "I know that as a Destined, your background must be extraordinary, but I have no interest in finding out—" "I'll leave that headache to the Third Young Master." "To ensure no future trouble for myself—" He stepped closer and bowed solemnly to the weakened young man sitting cross-legged on the floor: "Please, become a star in the sky!" With those words, the sunflowers surging from beneath Van Gogh's feet had already encircled Bai Zhou on all sides. Row upon row of seed-studded faces turned toward him, their dense clusters of sunflower seeds sending chills down the spine. Moonlight fell across their sprawling roots, tendrils, and leaves, filling his entire field of vision. Not even wings could offer an escape. The sensation of being surrounded by living, predatory flora was enough to make anyone's scalp crawl. ... Just then, Bai Zhou blinked. In a weak voice, he asked: "Guess why I staked everything just to break your *The Starry Night*?" "What...?" Van Gogh paused, asking in confusion. "Because it wasn't merely a cage trapping me," Bai Zhou replied, "It was also a thick tortoise shell shielding you." "So—" He lifted his head, gazing across the dense thicket of sunflowers toward Van Gogh, the corners of his mouth curling into a cheerful grin. "You have no defenses left, do you?" If the endless expanse of *The Starry Night* was not severed at its root, it would have continually protected Van Gogh. But now... Bai Zhou incanted the trigger word: "*Iniciar!*" Meaning: initiate. The equivalent of flicking off the safety. ... In an instant, throughout all five floors of the villa, from top to bottom, hidden in every corner behind over a hundred diversionary formations, dormant secret rituals flared with brilliant light. Fiery crimson luminescence erupted from these ritual arrays, painting the entire villa in a blazing red glow. It was as if fifty-five artisans were striking fifty-five molten iron fireworks simultaneously within the building—thoroughly festive and delightfully warm. Van Gogh froze. "This is—" Van Gogh did not understand these elaborate rituals. Yet, relying on his extensive experience as an Extraordinary, judging by the volatile aura radiating from the formations, he recognized what these countless arrays saturating the villa were— "Explosive rituals?!" He shrieked in horror. "Are you out of your mind?! Setting up this many demolition rituals inside your own home?!" Bai Zhou shook his head. "A while back, I started realizing something was off." Bai Zhou had been swindled. Swindled by a certain unscrupulous teacher. "Ever since I first set foot into the Extraordinary world, someone kept telling me that an Extraordinary must know a bit of everything, that only then could one be considered a qualified occultist." Bai Zhou rolled his eyes. "... But recently, I found out that an Extraordinary doesn't necessarily have to be an occultist at all." He had noticed that the personnel at the Special Control Bureau could barely even recognize these ritual arrays, let alone draw them. Just as someone who wielded a weapon didn't need to know how to forge one, everyone in the Extraordinary world had their own specialized role. Only Bai Zhou, tutored by Crow, had learned a little bit of everything. Turns out he was the only one who had maxed out an all-around skillset? Of course, he had paid for it with his talent and sleepless nights of grueling effort! "So, what I mean is—" Bai Zhou slowly, unsteadily pushed himself to his feet. Sitting cross-legged and motionless earlier had been solely to gather his strength for this precise moment. "In your next life, study some ritual magic so you can spot them in advance." "And remember: never enter an unfamiliar house, and don't drop in on someone's home uninvited." He locked eyes with this unprecedentedly formidable enemy and enunciated each word: "—Assuming you even have a next life." From the very start, he had never counted on defeating this mighty foe through raw strength alone. When a person got blown up, they died. Without *The Starry Night*, Bai Zhou could think of no reason Van Gogh could survive. —And evidently, neither could Van Gogh. "No, you can't!" Cold sweat broke out across Van Gogh's forehead all at once. If so many boundless, overlapping explosive rituals truly detonated— The mushroom cloud would probably be visible across all of South City! Trying to run now was already far too late. Yet— "If this detonates, you'll die too!" "You're a Destined! Your background must be noble beyond measure! Are you really willing to perish together with me like this?!" Piercing whines converged into a deafening chorus, and light akin to molten magma intertwined, bathing the entire villa in blinding crimson. Fidgeting in sheer panic, Van Gogh felt like a man squatting over an erupting crater with an agonizing bout of constipation. Drenched in sweat, he babbled frantically at Bai Zhou. His frenzied tone had vanished, and his twisted obsession and theatrical grandeur were nowhere to be found. Only his love for his own life remained—under the mortal threat, he rubbed his hands together as frantically as a housefly. "Be sensible! We can talk this through! You have your bright future, I have my art, we—" Bai Zhou said nothing, only shaking his head. What kind of gibberish was that? Who said anything about perishing together with him? The Chen Fate Principle was shining with all its might through every limb and bone of his body. In this brief window, half a unit of spirituality had pooled within him. —More than enough. Enough to cast the second transformation of the Thousand-Faced Moon: [Life-Stealing Spirit Cat]. Thus, he merely fixed his gaze on Van Gogh. Returning the man's earlier words right back to him: "Become a star in the sky—" As the words fell, Bai Zhou's hands snapped into an intricate gesture. His left hand formed an upright triangle, symbolizing Fire; His right hand formed an inverted triangle, signifying Instability. Hands clasped together— "*Florecer!*" The spell was cast. Fifty-five chained explosive rituals detonated! Van Gogh sprang forward, leaping down from the fourth floor with a furious roar as he desperately tried to flee. Of course, it was too late. In the next instant. Transcending tonight's *The Starry Night* and *Sunflowers*— A true "work of art," visible to all of South City, Blossomed into the world! BOOM!!!