Facing Phantylia's provocation, Herta didn't even bother to raise an eyelid, still twirling a lock of her brown hair with a slender finger, seemingly bored, as if the person being tested wasn't herself.
"A cage?"
Her tone was as flat as stating the most basic law of physics in the universe, carrying an indifference that took everything for granted.
"You think too highly of yourself. This place just needs to remain quiet, and you..."
She finally glanced at the Phantylia, her eyes like looking at an old, noisy machine.
"You're too loud. You're interfering with the tranquility here."
The Phantylia's heart slightly tensed. The other party's attitude—completely ignoring her, even disdaining to defend—made her seem all the more unfathomable.
But the seductive smile on her face remained unchanged, and she was about to try another clever verbal probe, seeking to find a flaw in Herta.
Just then, Herta, sitting on the throne, seemed to have completely exhausted the last shred of her minimal patience.
"Forget it. This kind of low-efficiency verbal interaction with you is meaningless."
She muttered to herself, sounding annoyed as if she couldn't stand the noise.
"Fortunately, that brat is reliable. He anticipated that you'd find your way here like a fly drawn to a smell and prepared a grand surprise gift for you in advance."
With that, she made no exaggerated or complex movement, merely lightly tapping the armrest of the throne with a finger tipped with purple nail polish.
There were no earth-shattering light effects, no soul-shaking force.
But in the very next instant, the fundamental operating rules of the entire Stellar Sea seemed to have a line of code silently rewritten.
The surrounding brilliant currents of life force still surged, but within that vast sea of energy, a small domain of absolute reality was quietly carved out and defined, like an anchor point. Ignoring all illusions and energy interference in this place, it firmly pegged itself onto the foundation of reality.
Immediately afterward, reflected in the Phantylia's suddenly constricted pupils, a tall figure stepped slowly out from that anchor point of reality.
She had a graceful posture, dressed in a sweeping purple outfit, with an ancient long tachi (Japanese long sword) suspended at her waist.
Her slightly curled purple hair cascaded like a waterfall, interspersed with strands of crimson highlights, like dried, congealed bloodstains.
Her face was an almost non-human, translucent pallor, exquisitely beautiful but permeated with an unsettling dead silence. A pair of deep purple eyes were hollow, as if they could swallow all light sources, seemingly reflecting countless cosmic remnants that had reached the endpoint of heat death, utterly returning to cold nothingness.
She merely stood there quietly; her very existence was like an ultimate paradox, a walking, living null hypothesis.
There was no form of energy fluctuation emanating from her body, only an boundless, terrifying stillness that made all beings instinctively hold their breath.
This was by no means ordinary serenity; it was the ultimate state of nothingness, a deeper level where even emptiness and non-being would be further negated and completely zeroed out.
The Phantylia's pupils instantly contracted to the size of pinpricks. An uncontrollable shudder, originating from the most primal instinct of life, swept over her soul, nearly freezing it.
As a great monarch who walked the path of Destruction, had witnessed, and personally ushered in the end of countless civilizations, she had seen all kinds of apocalyptic scenes. Yet, rarely had she ever felt such pure, absolute, and… hopeless sense of non-being.
This even surpassed the scope of Destruction.
This was the ultimate void that sought to deny and utterly erase the concept of Destruction itself.
"Allow me to introduce you."
Herta's nylon-stocking-clad, crossed leg gently swung, and she snapped her fingers, looking expectantly at the Phantylia, whose expression had finally changed drastically. A playful smile, like showcasing a new toy, curved her lips.
"Her name is Acheron, an… well, a Nihility Emanator who shouldn't theoretically exist. Tsk, sounds quite paradoxical, doesn't it? But setting aside these philosophical problems, as a newcomer, she's actually quite capable in a fight. So, how about it? Do you like this gift?"
Truth be told, when Herta first learned from Lu Jingming that one of the trump cards he prepared for the worst-case scenario was actually a Nihility Emanator, even the widely knowledgeable Herta was genuinely surprised.
A Nihility Emanator who shouldn't exist—her very existence was a huge contradiction, a being capable of overturning most people's cognition, and it equally attracted Herta's infinite curiosity.
If the timing and occasion weren't so wrong, she would genuinely want to drag Acheron into the lab immediately and properly study the form, composition, and method of maintaining her existence.
And at this moment, the Phantylia's usual, seductive smile—the one that suggested everything was under control—had completely vanished.
A premonition screamed wildly in her mind, originating from her instinct—this time, she might genuinely face the risk of a disastrous defeat.
She indeed possessed terrifying immortality. Enhanced by the essence of the Heliobus and multiple overlays with her newly acquired Golden Tree body, her survival capability was comparable to Emanators who received direct blessings from the Aeon of Abundance, Yaoshi.
The power or method that could truly and completely kill her was exceedingly rare in the entire vast Star Sea.
But unfortunately, this Acheron, who walked the path of Nihility, happened to be one of those very few.
And she was the most extreme, most unreasonable kind among them.
Nihility denies all existence. Its power itself is nearly unaffected or countered by any other attribute power. Conversely, it can erode, disintegrate, and even completely obliterate all other forms of existence in the most direct and fundamental way.
The Phantylia instantly raised her vigilance to the highest level. All pretense and relaxed posture vanished, and she stared at Acheron with full concentration, facing a formidable enemy.
She clearly knew that if she failed to respond carefully today, she, the Monarch of Destruction, might very well meet an unexpected end here.
Acheron's eyes, hollow as if they could swallow everything, slowly moved and finally landed on the heavily prepared Phantylia.
There was no hostility in that gaze, no assessment, and not even anything that could be called an emotion. It was as placid as looking at a common roadside stone or a withered leaf about to dissipate in the wind.
The Phantylia felt that everything she possessed—her proud strength, her carefully laid out schemes, and even the foundation of her own existence—seemed incredibly ridiculous, pale, and futile under the gaze of that pure, hollow stare.
She almost subconsciously forced herself to gather her power, and the emerald and pitch-black lights, merging life and destruction, radiated from within her again, attempting to construct a defense to resist this sense of Nihility erosion that was nearly driving her mind insane.
"Hss…"
The Phantylia's lips twitched uncontrollably. Forcibly suppressing the internal turmoil, she attempted one last communication.
"Perhaps… there is some kind of… misunderstanding between us? Is there a possibility to momentarily cease hostilities and seek a… hmm… a peaceful solution?"
Facing such a highly restrictive opponent, even she felt an unprecedented degree of difficulty.
But Acheron responded with action.
There was no warning, no drawing of the sword, not even a trace of killing intent or energy fluctuation.
The Phantylia merely perceived an extremely slight ripple in the other party's will.
However, the next moment, a clear boundary appeared out of thin air.
It was neither an energy barrier nor a spatial partition, but a pure slash composed of Non-Being, which denied all existence, precisely crossing between the Phantylia and the luminous halo of the Plane Will behind her.
It did not directly attack the Phantylia, yet it absolutely and undeniably severed any possibility for her to reach out to or even perceive the Plane Will.
The surging, dual-attribute protective energy of life and destruction around the Phantylia instantly evaporated a portion, just like morning dew exposed to the scorching sun, upon contact with that boundary of Non-Being.
There was no violent explosion, no energy impact, and not even an observable process. That portion of energy, along with the existence it represented, was directly erased from the plane of reality, turning into the most primitive void.
"Ugh!"
The Phantylia couldn't help but let out a short groan. Startled and horrified, she abruptly stepped backward, looking at Acheron in disbelief.
The opponent hadn't even attacked her directly; merely by using her very existence as a foundation to draw a warning boundary, she had genuinely sustained damage.
Acheron still stood quietly in place, her eyes as hollow as before, as if she had just performed a trivial, instinctive act that didn't even require thought.
She slowly, again, placed that pale hand hovering over the hilt of the tachi at her waist.
Just this simple, rudimentary posture, which could hardly be considered a preparatory move, made the Phantylia feel an unprecedented, bone-chilling sense of deadly threat.
She understood with absolute clarity that the next time, the slash originating from Nihility would surely be far more than just a boundary line.
The Phantylia stared at the boundary of Non-Being lying across her path, which seemed to cleave reality itself, and the purple figure standing silently behind it, hand on the hilt. The pride and reserve belonging to the Monarch of Destruction burned fiercely within her like karmic fire, growing uncontrollably.
To retreat just like this?
As a Monarch of Destruction who received the gaze of the afflicted god Nanook and executed the path of Destruction.
If she were to be scared off, scrambling away shamefully by a few words from a Nihility Emanator who popped out of nowhere and a Emanator of Erudition, wouldn't she, the Phantylia, become the laughing stock and gossip material within the Antimatter Legion, and even across the entire universe?
Especially that cold and taciturn Celenova, she would probably record this incident as material to mock her, preserving it for several Amber Eras.
Even if this was an alien world and few people knew her, the dignity and face of a Monarch of Destruction absolutely could not be so lightly trampled upon.
Therefore, she absolutely could not retreat without a fight.
At the very least, she needed to truly test the depth and reality of this so-called Nihility Emanator, and glimpse the pattern and limit of her power.
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