"Hmph!"
"This beautiful girl isn't falling on her very first voyage!"
"Dream on, you ugly monster!"
"Emanator or whatever—you're going down!" March confidently nocked three arrows simultaneously onto Guinsoo's Rageblade and fired.
Shuhu reacted instantly.
He raised a massive, wooden hand. Dozens of towering, golden trees erupted violently from the scorched ground.
They weren't normal flora. Their thick trunks, twisting branches, and broad leaves—all were forged of pure, glowing gold.
Their terrifying vitality surged outward. Flora across a radius of millions of kilometers abruptly bloomed and grew at a hyper-accelerated rate. Injured animals in the wild were instantly healed. Long-dead corpses twitched and revived as mindless husks. Withered, ancient flowers bloomed brighter and larger than ever before.
And with this horrific resurgence came another, parasitic growth: golden-petaled vines rapidly sprouted, tightly entwining everything in their path—trees, animals, and ruined buildings alike.
The Denizens of Abundance across the battlefield fell to their knees in absolute ecstasy, chanting Yaoshi's sacred name.
On the front lines, Jingliu dropped her energy barrier.
"March! I'll clear the way!"
She launched her absolute strongest strike—a massive, glacial blade of sword qi. Then another. Twenty more followed in blinding succession, one after another, slashing furiously at the golden trees blocking March's arrows.
They struck true. But the divine trees barely even trembled.
Boing.
A strange, soft ripple spread outward from each golden trunk, meeting Jingliu's razor-sharp sword qi. Her devastating, City-tier attacks dissolved harmlessly upon impact, like wet paper striking solid steel.
"Tch." Jingliu clicked her tongue, her profound disappointment plain.
"Girl. Your swordsmanship is undeniably impressive."
"For someone so remarkably skilled to be an unknown exile from the Luofu..." Shuhu's distorted, layered tone dripped with supreme contempt.
"You must be Jingliu. The legendary Sword Champion of the Luofu."
Jingliu's brief, rigid freeze confirmed his deduction.
"Heh. I guessed right."
"One of the vaunted High-Cloud Quintet. A great hero of the Xianzhou."
"Fascinating, meeting you here of all places. I've heard so much about you, of course."
"After all... I am the one who fell to your hands."
At the explicit mention of his own name—Shuhu—Jingliu completely froze.
The ancient, suffocating memories violently surged to the forefront of her mind. She trembled uncontrollably. The horrific, bloody traumas of the past played before her eyes like phantom films. The death of Baiheng. The madness of Blade. The shattering of their oaths.
Her crystalline ice sword slipped from her trembling grip, clattering loudly against the scorched ground.
"Miss Jingliu?!" Himeko called out in alarm.
Jingliu stood completely paralyzed, unhearing, lost in her waking nightmare.
Shuhu noticed her severe mental distress. But before he could press his psychological advantage and crush her, a sharp crack split the air.
He spun his massive form around. A dozen golden trees rapidly rose to shield his core.
An arrow of condensed Imaginary Energy raced directly toward his heart.
Fwoosh.
Thwack.
It pierced the golden trees as if they didn't exist. Their absolute, divine defenses meant absolutely nothing against the conceptual damage of the Rageblade.
It punched through a dozen layers of sacred wood, straight deep into Shuhu's colossal body.
"AAAAHHHH—!!!"
He screamed in genuine agony, blinding golden light flaring wildly around him as the Abundance's supreme power desperately tried to heal the conceptual soul wound.
But it wasn't over.
Fwoosh. Fwoosh.
Two more arrows arrived a split-second later, striking him from each flank.
Gritting his massive, wooden teeth in pain, Shuhu summoned the absolute totality of his stolen power. A colossal, divine figure began to form in the sky directly behind him.
It was a seated humanoid figure, possessing six arms arranged in different, sacred mudras (gestures). A great, glowing wheel framed its back, its center shaped like a sprawling, branching tree.
No mortal could discern its true facial features, but all who gazed upon it felt a sudden, overwhelming swell of unnatural reverence and love.
The Denizens of Abundance prostrated themselves completely in the dirt, weeping with joy.
Yuki lounged comfortably on his crystalline throne, watching the grand apparition with mild, analytical interest.
He recognized the entity instantly: an avatar of Yaoshi, the Aeon of Abundance.
Across the planet, in the distant trading city where the Express was safely docked, Aha's mask grinned widely from the train's grill.
"Heehee haha! This Abundance Emanator is actually interesting! Summoning an Aeon's avatar just to deal with a little girl!"
"Too bad it's not Yaoshi Themselves showing up. If it were..."
"Heehee haha—!!!"
The Mask of Elation's chaotic laughter echoed across the dark, empty platform.
At the very edge of the battlefield, Kafka watched the divine manifestation.
Silver Wolf's urgent, panicked voice crackled loudly in her earpiece.
"Kafka! Are you okay?! I'm picking up a massive, completely off-the-charts energy signature right near your coordinates!"
Kafka remained entirely unruffled. Her pink eyes were perfectly still, fixed intently on the looming, multi-armed figure in the sky.
"Silver Wolf. I'm fine."
"Good. So what exactly is happening on the battlefield?!" Silver Wolf pressed, her relief palpable.
"Nothing much. Just this Abundance Emanator calling upon their Aeon."
Silver Wolf went dead silent over the comms for a full three seconds.
"That's 'nothing much'?!"
"A literal Aeon just showed up!" Silver Wolf's voice spiked an octave with absolute disbelief.
"Not the real one. An avatar, probably," Kafka shared her calm, calculated guess.
It didn't calm the hacker down in the slightest. An avatar of an Aeon was still an extension of an Aeon. It was a conceptual force of nature, completely untouchable by mere mortals.
Kafka knew this perfectly well. She fully expected what came next—the complete annihilation of the resistance and the Nameless.
But then—the scene on the battlefield shifted in a way that defied all logic.