Chapter 515: The First Day of Transmigrating into an Interstellar World

Chapter 515: Day One in the Interstellar World

The day An Yi finally cracked the Riftborn's abilities was two hundred and thirty-seven years after he first set foot in this world.

He stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, his fingertip pressed gently to the glass.

—So that was it.

He could finally hear the breathing of those worlds.

And master them.

Outside, the daylight was receding, the sunset setting the whole city ablaze in gold and crimson.

An Yi's profile caught the golden light, his lashes casting soft shadows under his eyes.

His fingertip still rested on the glass, where a faint vibration pulsed—like countless worlds breathing in the distance.

From now on, he could freely go to any world he chose, instead of being swept along by the tide.

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An Yi didn't keep track of time, but someone else did it for him.

An Cheng remembered every single day.

He remembered the first time An Yi walked into the An family living room at age six. It was a late autumn evening. The door creaked open a crack, and there was a kid sitting on the sofa, one lock of hair sticking up, quietly looking up at the only other child his age in the room.

From that moment, eight-year-old An Cheng knew he'd love him for life.

He remembered how An Yi looked when they shared their first kiss.

He also remembered the faint smile An Yi gave him when he stood in the sunset light after finishing grad school, turning back to look at him.

The evening breeze filled An Yi's shirt, and he tilted his head, eyes crinkling, as if to say, "Why are you still standing there?"

An Cheng had walked over to him.

He remembered everything about An Yi.

Two hundred and thirty-seven years.

He had lived from age eight to two hundred and forty-five, growing from an ordinary person who awakened his fire powers into a powerful transcendent.

His lifespan had extended from a finite human span to several times longer.

And now, An Yi had gotten the abilities he wanted.

So would he just up and leave?

Go to other worlds, leaving him behind?

An Cheng didn't voice the question when he hugged An Yi from behind.

An Yi didn't turn around either.

He simply covered An Cheng's hand with his own, his fingertip brushing gently across the knuckles.

Outside, the light was fading, An Yi's profile glowing gold.

An Cheng lowered his head, burying his face in the crook of An Yi's neck.

"I want to know..." he said, his voice barely a whisper: "Xiao Yi, Xiao Yi... how much longer do I get to stay with you?"

An Yi tilted his head, his cheek brushing against An Cheng's hair.

He didn't answer immediately.

The evening breeze slipped through the crack in the window, stirring the loose strands of hair on An Yi's forehead.

An Yi smiled slightly, sensing his unease.

Then he said, "Didn't you say you'd always stay with me?"

He turned around, raised his hand, pressing his palm against An Cheng's cheek, his thumb gently brushing the corner of An Cheng's eye. And kissed him.

"Don't worry," An Yi said. "I'm not leaving."

An Cheng tightened his arms, pulling An Yi close, and thought, forgive me.

Forgive my selfishness.

Forgive me for still wanting to keep you here with me.

Over the years, he'd realized An Yi wasn't from this world—no, An Yi didn't belong to any single world.

He was like the wind, like the clouds, like light flowing freely through the universe, never meant to be held by any one world forever.

Forgive him for wanting An Yi's love in his short life, for asking him to stop and stay.

Oh, An Yi. His An Yi.

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Time kept moving forward.

Until over a thousand years had passed.

From the moment they first met, more than a thousand years had gone by.

An Cheng had fulfilled his promise—he stayed with An Yi, until the end of his life, until his very last breath.

After An Cheng was gone, An Yi lived alone for a long time.

He didn't leave immediately. Instead, he followed human civilization as it ventured into deep space.

Ship after ship left the atmosphere, leaving thin trails of light against the pitch-black backdrop of the cosmos. He traveled to every place humanity could reach.

Over a decade later, he finally returned to Earth.

The little cottage he and An Cheng had shared was still there.

The trees in front of the door had grown taller than he was. The wind blew through, and the leaves rustled softly.

An Yi sat on the threshold for a long time.

Then he closed his eyes and began searching for the coordinates of countless parallel worlds.

He sensed many familiar worlds, felt the pull of familiar souls.

Those places he had been, those worlds and moments where he'd left footprints and memories—they vibrated intensely, as if calling him back.

He passed over them one by one.

Then, he perceived a world.

It was a point in spacetime at an extremely distant set of coordinates, buried deep within countless nested dimensions. Its vibrational frequency was fresh, like a child just finding its voice—raw but full of life.

An Yi listened in silence.

He heard the world's breath—vast and rhythmic, like the hum of colossal machinery.

He saw the shape of that world—countless stars, planets, space stations, and fleets, woven into a vast web against the universe's pitch-black backdrop.

An interstellar civilization.

A future age.

An age when humanity had already reached for the stars.

An Yi opened his eyes.

That was the one.

In this world, humanity was just taking its first steps into the interstellar age.

Ships had left the solar system, colonies had been established on Mars, and space-fold technology was still purely theoretical.

A thousand years had passed, and humanity had already come so far.

Out of countless coordinates, An Yi chose this one.

He rose, then turned around.

Sunlight fell on the house.

The door was half-open, and through the gap he could see the table and chairs inside.

The window was empty.

A thin layer of dust lay on the windowsill, like the evenings long ago when An Cheng stood there waiting for him to come home.

A faint smile crossed An Yi's face.

"I'm leaving now, big brother," he said.

The trees by the door swayed in the wind, their branches rustling as if nodding in agreement.

An Yi let his power flow back into his soul, his body dissolving from his fingertips into countless fine specks of light. In the final second before he vanished, he looked back.

An Cheng seemed to still be there, by the window, against a star-filled sky, silent, just watching him.

When he looked again, there was only the empty twilight by the window.

An Yi stopped thinking and dissolved completely from this world.

When he opened his eyes again, he stood in another world.

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A starry sky.

Boundless, vast, and close enough to touch.

He stood on the observation deck of a massive ring station.

Beyond the transparent alloy dome stretched an overwhelming sea of stars.

Countless planets burned as pinpricks of starlight against the pitch-black sky. Nearby, a massive blue-white planet swirled with vortex-like storm patterns. In the distance, a fleet of warships drifted past, their hulls reflecting starlight.

The air carried a faint metallic tang and the crispness of recycled oxygen.

A low-frequency hum rose from beneath his feet—the sound of the station's core reactor running.