The Villain Is Too Popular

At four in the afternoon, on the elevated highway leading to the 'Nearshore District' of Deep Blue Metropolis, a plain-looking business van, yet with an incredibly luxurious interior, drove smoothly.

"Ow, ow, ow, Caroline, easy, easy."

Tendo sat in the back seat of the business van, his ear being vigorously pinched by a grim-faced Caroline. In front of them, Chenxing rested her chin on her hand, gazing blankly out the window, seemingly lost in thought.

As for Chenkong, he sat beside Chenxing, occasionally stealing glances at the Coral Knight, Wolf, who was driving in the front seat. He clearly harbored deep curiosity about him.

In the passenger seat, Yunmeng looked at Tendo, who kept sending her pleading glances from the back, and finally, unable to bear it, spoke up on his behalf. "Alright, Caroline, let Tendo go. I think if you pinch him any harder, his ear will fall off."

Hearing Yunmeng speak, Caroline, though still somewhat displeased with Tendo's earlier deception, finally chose to release his ear.

At that, Tendo instantly came back to life. He glanced at Caroline, who had turned her head away, deliberately giving him the silent treatment. He wisely chose not to provoke her.

He patted Chenkong's shoulder and asked, feigning curiosity, "Kong, your last three shots were quite interesting. How did you manage to integrate your 'Mark of Emptiness' into the bullets?"

Although everyone knew Tendo was deliberately changing the subject to avoid discussing the recent 'prank,' they all pricked up their ears in the car. Because they were indeed very curious about this.

After all, before today, they never expected Chenkong, whom they had always regarded as a 'burden,' to achieve such a feat in this 'test.'

Similarly curious were the viewers outside the dimensional screen. If they remembered correctly, Kong's 'star energy nullification' should only be activated by 'touch.' How could bullets now also carry the effect of 'star energy nullification'?

Seeing everyone's attention on him, the somewhat socially anxious Chenkong, in a stuttering description, explained the whole story.

It turned out that the inspiration for Chenkong's ability to imbue bullets with 'star energy nullification' came entirely from Chenxing's Star Core, Bloodflame. Bloodflame's activation principle was to use one's own or the enemy's blood as fuel to continuously burn with scorching flames.

This activation principle immediately gave Chenkong ample inspiration. He pondered whether his own blood could also serve as a medium for activating 'Mark of Emptiness,' just like Bloodflame used blood.

Because if this hypothesis held true, he would possess the conditions to activate both 'Mark of Emptiness' and 'Idealist' simultaneously.

To that end, Chenkong even proactively approached the Doctor and presented his idea.

However, events did not unfold as smoothly as Chenkong had hoped. After the Doctor's research, it was discovered that the reason Chenkong's 'Mark of Emptiness' could nullify other star energy was because the Mark of Emptiness was a highly infectious 'attribute-less star energy.' Any 'star-trail' that came into contact with 'Mark of Emptiness,' regardless of its inherent structure, could be fundamentally assimilated by 'Mark of Emptiness,' causing its internal 'star energy' to return to its original 'attribute-less' state.

Although this assimilation had a certain limit, meaning that a Mark of Emptiness equivalent to 100 star energy could only assimilate a star-trail with 300 star energy. But no matter what, the power and dominance of the Mark of Emptiness were visibly evident.

As for the relationship between 'star-trail' and 'star energy,' it was similar to the relationship between 'spells' and 'mana' in a magical world.

Therefore, the so-called 'Mark of Emptiness' could be regarded as a powerful mass of 'attribute-less star energy' with terrifying assimilation capabilities.

However, an unavoidable problem arose. While Chenkong's blood could temporarily preserve a portion of 'Mark of Emptiness,' in this Stars world, which was filled with 'star energy,' the influence of Mark of Emptiness was never limited to 'star-trails' cast by Star Emissaries. It would also be affected by the various attributes of unowned star energy in the air. Therefore, although the Doctor, after some research, finally found a way to allow bullets to temporarily carry Chenkong's 'Mark of Emptiness,' three very strict conditions still existed:

Condition 1: Specialized bullet casings. Due to the Mark of Emptiness's extremely strong assimilation power, only certain rare, specific materials could temporarily avoid being assimilated by the Mark of Emptiness, making production very troublesome.

Condition 2: Mark of Emptiness bullets could only be preserved for a maximum of ten minutes. Exceeding this time, the Mark of Emptiness bullets would turn into ordinary bullets.

Condition 3: The effective range of Mark of Emptiness bullets was a maximum of ten meters. This was because the rapid movement of the bullets would accelerate the interaction between the Mark of Emptiness inside the bullets and the external star energy, thereby greatly increasing its 'assimilation' speed. Furthermore, the denser the star energy in the surrounding environment, the shorter the effective range of the Mark of Emptiness bullets.

Despite the existence of so many stringent conditions, the Doctor still highly affirmed the role of Mark of Emptiness bullets.

After all, when Mark of Emptiness bullets were combined with his 'low presence' characteristic, Chenkong could completely achieve unexpected results on the battlefield.

For example, in this battle with the Coral Knight, the Coral Knight, who highly trusted his Star Source, Sea Thorn Coral, would have at least suffered a minor or even severe injury if he hadn't dodged immediately upon noticing the anomaly with the shield.

After all, the more powerful a Star Emissary, the more easily they tend to blindly trust their 'Star Source.' In this regard, Chenkong's Mark of Emptiness could be said to be the bane of all Star Emissaries.

It was a BUG-level ability that made it very easy to defeat the strong with the weak and achieve a first-strike kill.

"So the essence of Mark of Emptiness is like cancer cells in star energy! I thought it was more like a rule-based ability."

"Wait a minute, combining the effect of Mark of Emptiness, I think I kind of understand why Chenkong can be the protagonist of Stars. Do you think Chenkong will eventually, for world peace, single-handedly nullify all star energy in the entire world?"

"Damn, feels like there's a prophet here, let's take a group photo in advance!"

"Hey, you, don't say it, you really shouldn't say it, it seems like there really is that possibility!"

"No, if Chenkong really does that, wouldn't he be making enemies of all the Star Emissaries in the world? Setting everything else aside, how would he get past Tendo? Do you really think our Tendo would allow such a situation to occur?"

""Hiss, that's true too. Why do I suddenly feel like Tendo's situation is a bit grim? Could he be holding the villain's script?""

"Tendo is the villain? If that's true, then I'd rather this villain Tendo succeed, after all, who made Tendo more charming than Chenkong!"

Inside the car, Tendo looked at the bullet comments on the dimensional screen, and couldn't help but be slightly surprised.

He hadn't expected that among this group of dimensional viewers, someone would actually be able to essentially guess the general plot direction of the future Stars simply by understanding the principle of Chenkong's 'Mark of Emptiness.' That's right, the future Chenkong was indeed heading in that direction.

And as the audience thought, Tendo was indeed preparing to go against Chenkong.

This wasn't to say that Tendo was intentionally opposing Chenkong for the sake of popularity. Because even without the popularity system, Tendo didn't want a world without 'Star Sources' to appear.

After all, whether the world was peaceful or not had nothing to do with the existence of 'Star Sources.' As a transmigrator, he had personally seen what a world without 'Star Sources' would be like. He also understood that an overly idealized world could only remain an 'ideal' and would not become a true reality.

Chenkong wanted to create what he considered a 'dream utopia.' But Tendo believed that such a utopia was detached from reality from the very beginning and simply could not be realized.

Therefore, in a sense, the biggest difference between Chenkong as the protagonist and other characters in Stars lay in their 'path dispute' with everyone else. However, these basic inclinations hadn't even begun to show in the current Prequel of the Stars: Embers.

It wouldn't be until the start of the second season, Stars: Glimmer, that the conflicts between Chenkong and the other 35 Stars Children would gradually emerge and intensify...

"Alright everyone, we've arrived."

As the Coral Knight, Wolf, drove the car into a detached villa in the Deep Blue Metropolis's Nearshore District, he immediately stopped the car and informed everyone that this would be their short-term base of operations for the foreseeable future.

Tendo was the first to get out of the car, looking at the lavishly decorated, clearly expensive detached villa in front of him with an expression of awe.

"Uncle, this villa wasn't specifically bought by your wealthy master for us to live in, was it?"

Hearing Tendo's words, the Coral Knight, Wolf, thought for a moment and said, "It wasn't specifically prepared for you few, no. The entire villa complex around here belongs to my master, Dorian. He merely took out one of them."

"Huh?"

Tendo lowered his sunglasses with his hand, then looked at the sprawling villa complex around him in disbelief. No way, other people's villas are counted by the building. But Dorian, this richest man, he counts them by the district directly. Is this the life of the rich... it's too enviable!

"Alright everyone, regarding my master Dorian's situation, he will naturally inform you all personally when you meet him tonight."

"For now, please follow me first."

"After all, if you few wish to enter Triland Middle School, you must first have a suitable identity that won't arouse suspicion."

"And no identity is more easily believed than that of an exchange student."

Under the guidance of the Coral Knight, Wolf, Tendo and the others quickly entered the villa. They immediately saw school uniforms held by maids, and... exchange student identification. Seeing this, Tendo couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Long-awaited campus life... was about to begin again.