"What are you looking at?"

In the vast constellation, a girl stood in the wilderness gazing towards the farthest north. That is where the【Fallen Abyss】lies.

The boy turned his eyes to where she was looking, only to see stars.【Fallen Abyss】was dim, thereby making the stars that lay above it shine even more brightly.

"I am looking at home."

She murmured, with a distant look that was hard to decipher.

It seemed as if she was looking at an unseen land between the stars and the abyss.

【Alfheim】, the home of all elves from the myths, was the home in her inherited memory.

"Do you see it?"

"Not yet."

......

"Do you see it?"

"Not yet."

......

Her answers to each question was always just like that, unhurriedly, with a soft voice, as if she didn't care much about it at all. But Lu Lin could hear from her words, a subtle hint of nostalgia and loss.

Month after month, the girl would always gaze at the dazzling starry sky on moonless nights. In the night sky, there was nothing but stars, yet in her memory, there should have been a continent.

"Someday, I'll let you see it, Mercedes."

And so, on that day, the girl was watching the moonless sky as usual, and the boy whispered by her side.

"Is that so? Then, I’m counting on you then.” She looked surprised, then a faint smile appeared on her lips, her hair fluttering, as she leaned her head lightly on his shoulder.

She lifted her head from his shoulder playfully, her eyes full of expectation, staring at him.

Those eyes were full of brilliance; the eye color was clear and without a hint of impurity.

To Lu Lin, those eyes outshone everything, even the entire night sky.

......

***

That scene from many years ago seemed to overlap with today.

Mercedes, her sky-colored eyes gazing at the changing starry sky above her head.

The stars reflected in her eyes became her shine, she kept gazing seriously towards the direction of the【Fallen Abyss】, as if even Lu Lin's presence was forgotten.

Just like the expression she wears during those nights gazing at the night sky.

"What are you looking at?"

Lu Lin quietly approached the girl and gently asked her from the side, familiar yet unfamiliar.

"Home."

She answered.

By the time she realized who had asked her, the words had already slipped from her mouth. Her impression of Lu Lin was awful due to his previous behaviour, she was even a little afraid of him.

Yet for some reason, she felt a sense of deja vu doing this with the boy, and her answer was the same as well.

This was clearly the first time since she became a slave that she had been able to look at the stars so freely, but it all felt inexplicably familiar.

"Alfheim?" Lu Lin asked, troubled by the girl's rejection of him.

"Why do... how do you... know the name of... Alfheim...? That place only exists in my ancestral memory; I... never told any human." Mercedes fell into a confusion again.

It was said that in an era when the gods hadn't fallen, the elves were the only race that could communicate with the gods, with their home, Alfheim, floating between the heavens and the land. With the coming of twilight, everything perished, and all disappeared.

In the posterity, Mercedes only told one person about this.

"You know my real name, and also my memory...who exactly are you?"

"Me? I'm... just an ordinary human."

Lu Lin felt a bit of a headache, as he had once again said something he shouldn't have.

"Do you want to see that place?" He turned towards Mercedes and smiled, without answering her doubts.

"...Yes."

In front of Lu Lin, she still appeared timid, she bit her lip and whispered to Lu Lin."As you wish." Lu Lin whispered, his divine consciousness yet to return from the starry sky. Gently, he lifted his hand towards the heavens, the blue and gold circuit on the back of his hand that had just dimmed ignited again. For a moment, the starry sky, his divine consciousness, and his hand were all connected.

He flipped his hand, the stellar energy within him merging with the starlight that descended from the sky again. With polar star intent sweeping through the starry sky, one more time, the silenced stars began to revolve around the "Fallen Abyss".

For the second time, he triggered a stellar maelstrom.

A person's divine consciousness can only enter the starry sky once in a lifetime, as the order dictated. Meaning, the time Lu Lin could manipulate such celestial phenomenons and draw so much stellar energy could only be tonight.

His divine consciousness had subtly sensed a repulsive force before, and now, stirring the starry sky again enhanced the rejective force from this starry realm. He could have chosen not to disturb this starry sky, allowing his body and soul's divine consciousness to break through in succession by absorbing more stellar energy, even potentially reaching the threshold of the spiritual realm according to his trajectory in his previous life.

But he chose otherwise.

The starlight he triggered surpassed his previous life; he wanted this starlight to shine onto the "Fallen Abyss". He wanted the girl who had hoped countless times in his previous life to see her home.

– Tonight, this piece of starry sky lights up just for you.

As he overturned the starry sky once again, the starlight painted the entire "Fallen Abyss". The world became two extremes. Above was the brilliant maelstrom of the starry sky, whilst below, eternal darkness.

It was breathtakingly beautiful yet magnificent.

The girl stared blankly at the starry sky. However, with his wild stirring, the repulsive force from the starry realm rapidly increased.

Finally, Lu Lin's hand movements slowed.

That repulsive force ultimately became unstoppable. His soul was forcibly pulled out of the starry sky by an ancient power, the stars stopped turning, and everything began to return to normal.

Lu Lin was no longer the absolute controller of the stars, and the star origin no longer raged as before. At his will, the radiant stellar energy dispersed to all directions.

With his divine consciousness returning to his body, a glimpse of the polar star and the blizzard star flashed through Lu Lin's eyes.

"I didn't see it ..."

As the stars resume their normal course, a dejected murmur sounded beside his ears.

Upon seeing the dimming in Mercedes's eyes, he noticed her grip on the choker around her neck weaken.

Beneath the night sky, a shade of sorrowful blue fell upon her.

It was heartbreaking.

"I'm sorry." Lu Lin gave a bitter smile, and bowed his head to the dejected girl.

"But ... why?" she raised her head, her voice quivering slightly, "The art you were practising just now... is the ancient stellar mantra, isn't it? One's divine consciousness can only enter the starry sky once in a lifetime, and the power of the first recognized star is the most concentrated and pure. You should have tried your best to draw it.

Why stir the starry sky again with stellar energy, even if it means wasting so much origin, which leads to the starry realm repelling you more?"

"Because you said you want to see home." Lu Lin said with a smile.

"But that's for me...but for you, is it all worth it?"

"Who's to say it's not worth it?"

"Why ... be so nice to me tonight?"

"It might be because...I owe you quite a lot." Lu Lin scratched his head, "Like this morning... I accidentally... violated you, and said something frivolous that led to a misunderstanding...among other things."

"All those...are no problem. I'm just a slave... I'll obediently accept everything the Master does. You don't have to..."

She seemed a little flustered and uneasy, seemingly guilty.

She seems unable to step out of the shadow of being treated as a slave for a year and a half.

"But, I don't want to see you as a slave anyway..." Lu Lin interrupted her."It would only be natural for you to have a bad impression of me, seeing how I was this morning," he thought to himself. He wanted to say "I want you to be my lover," but stopped thinking that way after seeing the girl's flushed face and her helpless posture. He knew he couldn't say those words right now. Even if he did, she might agree, but it would only be out of reluctance, which would add to her psychological burden. The night sky was just as radiant as before. The girl, however, had lost the memories of those years. "So let's call it even and... can we start all over again? Reintroduce ourselves?" He asked, took a deep breath, put on a smile, and extended a hand to her. "Lu Lin." "...Mercedes," she answered softly, hesitating, and then placed her small hand in his. "So, Mercedes - " "Do you have any orders...Master?" "Your home, I'll show it to you one day." "...... Mm." She nodded gently. Her face was somewhat timid, but a small smile was forming at the corner of her mouth. Although it was subtle, it was the first time she had shown her genuine smile in front of Lu Lin.