Luo Feng woke to sunlight streaming through the window—actual, ordinary sunlight, not the curated divine radiance that used to filter through the heavens. It pooled across the bedsheets like spilled honey, warm and uncomplicated.
Then the sun winked out.
One moment it was there, the next—darkness. Distant screams rose from the city below, followed by the sound of someone (probably the Death Queen) cackling.
A familiar weight settled on the edge of the bed. "So," said the Fox Spirit's voice, smug as a cat with a stolen feather, "you're probably wondering about the sun."
Luo Feng groaned into his pillow. "What did you do?"
"Borrowed it." The mattress dipped as she leaned in, her breath tickling his ear. "Just for a little bit. Wanted to see if anyone would notice."
Outside, the distant wail of emergency sirens suggested they had.
The new world had its quirks.
Prayers no longer echoed through celestial halls—they landed in inboxes, neatly categorized by urgency and subject matter. Request for good harvest (Priority: Medium). Complaint about neighbor's noisy livestock (Escalated to Divine Mediation Dept). The former Goddess of Wisdom, now head of Customer Support, had developed a worrying addiction to canned response templates.
The War God's waffle house was thriving, though his Battle of the Breakfast Buffet specials tended to get out of hand.
And the Void Emperor—no, Steve—could be seen most mornings mopping the cosmic breakroom, grumbling about coffee stains on the fabric of reality.
But the sun?
The sun was currently sitting in the Fox Spirit's lap as she lounged on the roof, poking at it like a misbehaving pet. "I think it likes me," she announced as Luo Feng climbed up to join her.
"It's a star, Jiuying."
"And?" She grinned, tossing it from hand to hand like a hot potato. The city below them flickered between daylight and darkness with each pass. "You used to carry an Eclipse Core in your chest. Don't be such a hypocrite."
Somewhere in the distance, a plush demon was selling "I SURVIVED THE GREAT SUN HEIST" commemorative t-shirts.
The Death Queen's voice floated up from below: "Darling, if you don't return that immediately, I'm divorcing you both."
Li Qing, ever practical, had already frozen a replacement sun just in case.
It was, Luo Feng decided, a pretty good first dawn.
END OF CHAPTER 99