At the same time, just as General Red Kite launched an attack on Mobius and the other two—
In a certain star region outside the Xianzhou Yuque, an old friend of the Xianzhou Alliance once again stepped into this domain belonging to the Hunt.
In the darkness, a tree was moving.
Wherever it passed, the starlight in that region abruptly dimmed.
That was Nihility.
Nihility was eroding this star region.
And within that flowing blackness, at its very core, a pair of eyes slowly opened.
The Thousand-Faced Strange Tree.
Emanator of Abundance.
Shuhu.
He had died once before.
A little brat with two horns on her head had sent him, along with the body that had only just obtained the power of the Ambrosial Arbor, straight into the abyss of destruction.
Shuhu remembered how that moment had felt.
It was an unprecedented humiliation.
As an Emanator of Abundance, he had survived for who knew how many Amber Eras.
From the moment the first tree took root, he had witnessed the birth and extinction of countless civilizations, harvesting countless faces and souls.
But that had been the first time he had truly experienced death.
Moreover, that little brat had worn such a calm, indifferent expression at the time.
As though dealing with him had merely been the most ordinary, trivial matter.
At the thought, a twisted emotion once again surfaced on Shuhu's face.
Anger, humiliation, resentment.
All kinds of negative emotions now lingered over his heart.
The Xianzhou Alliance.
That little brat came from the Xianzhou Alliance.
Not only that, the reason he had once been sealed away for a thousand years was also because of the Xianzhou Alliance.
In that case, let the entire Xianzhou Alliance bear this price.
Shuhu tightened the roots extending through the void and gathered his consciousness into one place, spreading deeper into the star region.
The Xianzhou Yuque was not far away.
Sensing the life aura coming from that direction, Shuhu's eyes lit up with a glow called hatred.
However, at that moment—
Whoosh!
A sharp whistle suddenly pierced through the dead silence of the void.
Shuhu's movements froze for an instant.
He turned at an unbelievable speed, locking onto the source of that sound in an extremely short time.
A flaming golden-red arrow was flying straight toward him at an astonishing speed.
The Hunt.
Even Shuhu recognized the nature of that power at once.
But Shuhu did not dodge.
He merely curled those densely packed roots inward and raised a thick barrier in front of himself.
Bang!
The arrow collided with the barrier woven from roots and erupted with a dull roar. Golden-red flames burst open in the darkness.
But very quickly, those flames were eroded, swallowed, and extinguished completely by the black mist seeping out from the roots.
Shuhu lowered his head and glanced at the arrow lodged in the roots, already corroded by Nihility until it had lost its luster.
Then he let out a malicious chuckle.
"…The Xianzhou Alliance is still as impatient as ever."
As those words fell, Shuhu slowly raised his head.
In his vision, two figures were hovering in the void not far away.
The figure on the left wore a bright red battle robe and held a bow burning with flames, her eyes filled with sharp fighting intent.
The figure on the right held a long sword horizontally before her chest, its blade radiating the coldness of the Hunt.
Huaiyan and Feixiao.
The two Arbiter-Generals closest to Yuque at this moment were standing side by side at the front line of Yuque's defense.
Feixiao was the first to speak.
"Hmph. I didn't expect there would actually come a day when I'd see you again."
"Shuhu, you are already dead. What you occupy now is nothing more than an empty shell driven by Nihility."
"If you know what's good for you, kill yourself here and spare the common people further harm."
Hearing this, Shuhu merely smiled faintly.
"The generals of the Xianzhou Alliance are as bold as ever."
Before his voice had even faded, the roots extending through the void suddenly tightened, then swept toward the two figures at incredible speed.
Huaiyan drew her bow immediately and loosed three consecutive arrows.
The three arrows carried golden-red flames, shooting toward three different nodes where Shuhu's roots extended, attempting to sever them at the source.
At the same time, Feixiao charged forward. The long sword in her hand carried a fierce sword aura as she struck straight at Shuhu's body.
Boom!
The sound of explosions and the ringing of swords resounded through this star region at the same time.
And so, the battle began.
However, this battle was extremely difficult.
Huaiyan's arrows could indeed scorch Shuhu's roots to a certain degree, but the speed at which those wounds healed was astonishing.
Yet that was no longer regeneration from Abundance.
It was Nihility forcibly maintaining the integrity of this long-dead body in an absurd, heaven-defying way.
And although Feixiao's sword repeatedly cut into Shuhu's trunk, as the blade sank deeper, the black mist seeping out from the wound also began spreading toward Feixiao's arm.
That was Nihility's erosion.
Feixiao frowned. Then, in the shortest time possible, she withdrew her sword and forcibly stripped the mist from her arm with the power of the Hunt.
Even so, that cold, sinister sensation still made her right hand tremble faintly.
Meanwhile, Shuhu's roots closed in around them.
There were so many roots that they seemed endless.
Moreover, unlike when he had been alive, these roots were no longer merely tainted with Abundance.
At the end of every single root was that heart-stopping Nihility.
If touched by that thing, even if one did not immediately lose one's life, one's consciousness would collapse within an extremely short period of time.
"Scatter!"
Huaiyan shouted, drawing the bow in her hands to its limit.
An arrow far larger than before, burning with blazing flames, carried an overwhelming pressure as it shot toward Shuhu's roots all at once.
Boom!
The power of that arrow far surpassed any previous strike.
Blazing flames ignited a large swath of roots, raising a magnificent curtain of fire in the void.
Using the instant that fire curtain blocked the way, Feixiao quickly retreated and widened the distance between herself and Shuhu.
The two regrouped side by side in the void, both of their breathing slightly faster than before.
"…He's stronger than before," Feixiao said first.
Huaiyan did not speak. She merely drew her bow once more, her gaze locked firmly onto the black body writhing within the flames.
However, they both understood.
In their current state, a frontal assault would not work.
The Nihility power on Shuhu was canceling out all their attacks in an almost unsolvable way.
Meanwhile, the enemy's offensive would only grow stronger as time passed.
But this was not because Shuhu's power itself was increasing.
It was because this star region was gradually being eroded by Nihility.
As the eroded area expanded, the power Shuhu could draw from it would also continuously increase.
If this continued…
"What a pity."
Shuhu's voice came from within the flames and black mist.
It carried an effortless leisure, as though this battle before him was only a boring pastime.
"Generals of the Xianzhou Alliance, is this all you are capable of?"
"I thought the Xianzhou Alliance would at least give me some decent resistance."
"But now it seems…"
"Destroying the Xianzhou Alliance will be even simpler than I expected."
"Even without that so-called Mobius, you still—"
Whoosh!
Just as Shuhu was about to open the champagne halfway through the match, a second arrow came.
But this time, it was completely different from Huaiyan's earlier attack.
The instant Shuhu sensed that approaching aura, he instinctively gathered all his roots together and constructed a barrier several times thicker than before.
Boom!
The instant that arrow struck the barrier, the force it unleashed made the entire star region tremble.
Shuhu's entire body was blasted backward dozens of kilometers by the impact.
And the carefully constructed root barrier was likewise pierced straight through by that single strike, leaving a gaping hole.
Through that hole, the remains of an arrow were lodged in the very center of Shuhu's trunk.
After steadying himself, Shuhu's gaze turned at great speed toward the origin of that arrow.
Then he saw a figure.
That figure stood extremely far away, so far that it was almost impossible to make out their outline.
But Shuhu was no ordinary existence. His perception far surpassed that of ordinary beings.
Thus, even from such a great distance, he could still clearly see that figure's face.
A plain white battle robe.
An ancient and heavy longbow in hand.
It was a woman who looked extremely similar to Red Kite.
Marshal Hua of the Xianzhou Alliance.
At that moment, Shuhu's gaze erupted with an unprecedented chill.
He finally realized something.
The battle before him might not be as easy as he had imagined.
At the same time, in another patch of deep space wrapped in Nihility—
In this region, even the starlight was exceedingly thin.
The surrounding void was shrouded in a gray-white mist of unclear origin. Within that mist was a pressure that made all living beings instinctively uncomfortable.
That was the aura of Destruction.
And also the aura of Nihility.
At the center of this deep space, an enormous figure was hovering in the void.
That figure's size far exceeded that of an ordinary person, and its whole body burned with antimatter flames.
But beneath that brilliant surface, the core of the flames was a dead, deep gray.
That deep gray was the color of Nihility.
Emanator of Destruction.
Zulo.
At this moment, Zulo was quietly floating in the depths of space, motionless, as though asleep.
But he was not sleeping. He was merely thinking about certain things.
More accurately, he was feeling them.
Feeling the silent tearing and contest between the two completely different powers inside his body.
Destruction.
That was the Path Zulo had walked in life, the foundation integrated into his existence.
Under that Path, he had unleashed countless calamities of annihilation.
In the name of Destruction, the civilizations and star regions he had erased with his own hands filled his memories like countless stars.
As for Nihility, that was the shackle the woman called Kallen had imposed on him when she dragged him back from death into the present world.
However, perhaps calling it a shackle was not accurate.
Because Zulo did not feel it was a restraint.
He simply had not yet decided how he should regard this new power.
Destruction and Nihility.
On the surface, the two seemed to share similarities.
After all, from Zulo's current perspective, there was not much difference between Destruction and Nihility.
When everything was destroyed, when all existence in the universe came to an end, would what remained not be void and silence?
What essential difference was there between that and Nihility?
And yet…
Zulo slowly opened those eyes burning with flames.
Destruction was magnificent.
It was a grand and vigorous ending, the vastness of flames burning the heavens and mountains and seas collapsing.
Nihility, however, was silent.
Between the two, there was indeed an unbridgeable gulf in essence.
Zulo remained silent and sensed the struggle between those two powers within him more clearly.
Then, he let out a soft laugh.
What was there to struggle over?
Whether Destruction or Nihility, were they not both, in essence, ways to bring this galaxy toward its end?
And right now, the chess game designed by that woman named Kallen could happen to make the galaxy reach that end even faster.
If he obeyed Destruction…
There would still be far too much time required before that conclusion arrived.
But if he obeyed Nihility…
Zulo's eyes narrowed faintly.
Perhaps this time would be a little more interesting.
Then it was settled.
He decided.
In this universe-level game launched by the Witch of Nihility, he chose Nihility.
"…Have you thought it through?"
At that moment, a voice suddenly sounded behind Zulo.
That voice carried a bone-chilling high temperature. Even separated by the endless void, one could feel the scorching heat baking one's skin.
Zulo's eyes shifted slightly.
"It's you."
The owner of that voice slowly walked out from the void behind him.
It was a comparatively small figure.
His body was a mixture of black and white, and the aura emanating from him was extremely similar to Zulo's.
A Lord Ravager.
Phantylia? No—
Celenova? No.
It was another Lord Ravager.
Fengfeng.
Like Zulo in this moment, Fengfeng possessed both Nihility and Destruction.
As a fellow Lord Ravager, Fengfeng now slowly stood before Zulo.
"Zulo, I saw the choice you just made."
"You decided to obey Nihility."
Zulo did not deny it.
"Yes."
"What, Fengfeng? Are you planning to kill me? I thought we had already become a more thorough kind of kin."
Hearing this, Fengfeng was silent for a moment.
Then he looked straight at Zulo and spoke calmly.
"You have betrayed Destruction."
"You should understand what that means."
Zulo did not speak immediately. He merely looked back at Fengfeng with those eyes already eroded by Nihility's deep gray.
"Betrayal?"
"I am merely pursuing the ultimate form of Destruction in my own way."
"What right do you have to define what betrayal is?"
Fengfeng was not shaken by Zulo's counterquestion. He merely declared his judgment to his colleague before him.
"Lord Ravager Zulo, if you truly choose Nihility…"
"Then, as your colleague, I shall deliver the judgment you deserve in place of the Ruin Author."
The instant Fengfeng's words fell, the temperature of this deep space abruptly soared.
That was pure Destruction power being deliberately released outward by Fengfeng.
There was no Nihility corrosion within that power, not the slightest impurity. There was only the most primitive instinct of destruction.
That was right. As a Lord Ravager positioned against Nihility, Fengfeng would absolutely not allow everything the Witch of Nihility was doing now.
As Zulo sensed that power, the Nihility and Destruction within his body once again began shaking more violently.
But this time, Zulo's expression no longer held the hesitation from before.
"Then come, Fengfeng."
"Let me see whether your judgment is faster, or whether this Nihility will extinguish your flames first."
And so, in that deep space, two figures stood facing one another.
Battle was about to erupt at any moment.
Elsewhere, in an even more distant place—
It was a planet that had once belonged to machines.
But that planet had long since died.
At this moment, all that remained on the planet was endless ruin.
And atop that thick layer of metallic wreckage stood a figure.
That figure was not particularly tall.
He wore a set of ancient and intricate armor, and atop his head was a crown that had survived who knew how many ages.
That was the Emperor.
Rubert II.
As the great enemy of all organic life, Emperor Rubert had, while alive, bestowed a grand mission upon the spirits of the machines.
Clear out all organic life and cast the stars into precisely operating machinery.
In Rubert's view, the evolution of organic life was full of errors and riddled with flaws. No matter how long they could prosper, they would always spontaneously generate an "anti-life" program that led life toward extinction.
In contrast, mechanical life was rigorous, precise, and perfect.
Thus, the former Rubert gathered intelligent machines, proclaimed himself Emperor, and spread the "anti-life" program throughout the universe. Many worlds suffered devastation because of him.
Rubert II's gaze fell upon the ruins beneath his feet as he slowly swept his eyes across everything around him.
Those collapsed spires.
Those shattered domes.
All were remnants left behind by his former empire.
The Emperor's War.
That was the calamity Rubert II had unleashed in life, a war that swept through an entire star region.
The scale of that war, even in the history of the entire galaxy, was enough to be remembered for all time.
Not because it had created any great achievement, but because it had nearly dragged an entire civilization into the abyss of destruction.
Rubert II remembered every datum from that war.
The number of planets annihilated, the tonnage of starships destroyed, and the final casualty ratio.
Those numbers were preserved with perfect clarity in his core processor, accurate to countless decimal places.
But Rubert II remembered more than just those numbers.
He also remembered the reason that war had ultimately failed.
In the end, the reason for failure was only one thing.
Those beings of flesh and blood were ultimately more capable of enduring loss than he was.
They would cry, they would fear, and in the moments of deepest despair, they would erupt with a power that no precise calculation could predict.
That was the variable of emotion, the chaotic factor that Rubert II could never incorporate into his algorithms.
This had been the greatest miscalculation of his life.
And yet now, Rubert II stood atop these ruins and looked at the rusted remains beneath his feet. In the depths of his consciousness, a strange clarity surfaced.
That clarity came from the Nihility Kallen had injected into him.
He began to reexamine that problem.
The variables of those fleshly bodies came from emotion.
And emotion came from attachment to life.
As for Nihility…
Nihility represented the end.
It represented the dissipation of attachment to life.
Rubert II slowly deduced this logical chain.
If the entire galaxy were eroded by Nihility, those emotional variables would gradually return to zero.
Fear would disappear.
Attachment would disappear.
All meaning would dissolve into Nihility.
Then there would be no variables left.
Everything would once again become precisely calculable.
He had failed before because he faced fleshly existences filled with emotional variables.
But in a galaxy soaked through with Nihility, such variables would no longer exist.
Rubert II's processing core completed a thorough deduction at extreme speed in that moment.
The conclusion was clear and concise.
Help Kallen spread Nihility.
This greatly aligned with the interests of intelligent machines.
When all emotions returned to Nihility, order could truly be established.
The variables of those fleshly existences—fear, hope, attachment, despair—would all be buried beneath the ashes of Nihility.
At that time, precise and rigorous mechanical order would cover the entire galaxy.
Rubert II raised his head, and that ancient crown flickered faintly in the dim light of the ruins.
"My subjects, intelligent machines slumbering in the abyss of data."
"Awaken."
The instant those words fell, an invisible signal spread wildly through the entire star region, using this dead planet as its core.
That was right. At this moment, Rubert II intended to use the Anti-Organic Equation to summon his mechanical empire once more and drag the entire galaxy into Nihility.
However, the instant Rubert II's voice fell, a strange aura descended from the heavens and firmly locked onto the entire dead planet.
The signal Rubert II was sending outward was crushed then and there.
Rubert II's movements froze.
He reacted immediately, mobilizing all available sensors to scan toward the source of that aura.
Then, he saw a strange mist.
And within that mist, the figure of a woman was slowly emerging.
Her face was blurred, as though covered by a hazy mosaic. No matter what, her specific features could not be seen clearly.
But her figure was slender, her posture elegant, and she wore a candy-colored long dress. Upon that dead and silent ruin, she appeared especially glaring.
Rubert II suddenly shook.
Clearly, he recognized this woman.
Polka Kakamond.
Member #4 of the Genius Society.
The Lord of Silence.
The woman who once killed Rubert I.
here to read ahead.
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 180)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl 285
"Is this chat group even serious?" 150
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (This matter is completely finished.)
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 255
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 210
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/20
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 305
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer (This matter is completely finished.)
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/40
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 130
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 155
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 120
I Can Copy Unique Skills 120
Summoning an Evil God, but the 75
Supernatural Multiverse 155
My Harem Is Indescribable 105
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 110
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 110
Still playing traditional Honk 96
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 95
What Should I Do After Switchi 51
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 80
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 105
Checking In in Demon Slayer 95
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 105
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 95
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 80
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel (This matter is completely finished.)
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 95
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 90
Why did they assign me to Uma 80
MYGO Beauties 75
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 80
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 100
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 120
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 65
The Uma Musume Who Became 70
I'm Definitely Not the King of 105
After Maxing Out Every Class 110
Honkai: World Modulation Mode 95
I, the Elden Sword Saint 60
Dio Brando Is Challenging FGO 60
No One Knows Pokémon Better 60
I, Sakazuki, Won't Go Down Tha 69
From Trilobites to Titans 57
Chainsaw Man: Contracted with 75
DanMachi: My Party Members Are 86
An Anime Heroine Darkened 60
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Links 70
Honkai: The Fire Devil 70
Honkai Transformation Cards Volume2/30
Age of Heroes, I'm Just a Back 60
Uma Musume Has No Weird Fan Le 74
At age 8, she co-starred with 45
Honkai: Schicksal Media 53
An Extremist in a Slice-of-Lif 30
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