The Trial proceeded according to plan. However, just as the colossal sword was about to fall, shattering the Divine Throne and utterly obliterating Focalors' Divinity, Fidelle's soul had burned to the point of no return.
Suddenly, the opera house's space was violently torn apart. The Intellitron had forced its way in!
Unlike the Abyss's mindless brutes, the Intellitron bypassed Neuvillette's perception and infiltrated the opera house from behind the audience seats.
As a being of the Abyss, wielding its immense power, the Intellitron's sudden intrusion unleashed a catastrophic surge of energy and chaos. This instantly disrupted the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale's precise execution of the death sentence, momentarily halting the annihilation of the Divine Throne.
The colossal sword's descent faltered by the barest fraction of a degree, its downward momentum slowed by an infinitesimal margin.
In that chaotic moment, with the Laws of the Heavenly Principles destabilized, Fidelle channeled all her consciousness and the remaining power of her burning soul into an invisible, gentle net. She hurled it toward the core fragments of Focalors' consciousness, which were rapidly dissolving into nothingness.
Using herself as a "vessel," she forcibly contained and enveloped Focalors' most crucial wisp of consciousness, a fragment carrying the god's memories, emotions, and core identity.
It was like shielding Focalors' last spark of fire with her fragile lampshade amidst a raging storm.
Long before, upon learning of Focalors' plan and realizing she was the Pure Soul the Abyss had sought all along, Fidelle had conceived this strategy.
To test its feasibility, she had previously attempted to burn a portion of her soul in the shallows of Focalors' consciousness, using the resulting soul energy to carry the Hydro Archon's awareness.
The experiment proved the plan viable!
The agony of soul-burning was indescribable. Even the earlier partial combustion had led to Fidelle's defeat in her duel against Furina.
This time, to ensure absolute success, Fidelle burned nearly ninety percent of her soul in a single instant!
The unbearable agony caused her to repeatedly lose consciousness, but each time she rallied, managing to capture Focalors' consciousness at the critical moment.
-
[ Player World. ]
Just as Neuvillette declared absolution for all of Fontaine's sins, and before players could fully recover from the grief of Focalors' death and Furina's five-hundred-year ordeal, a new quest refreshed on the game screen: Unceasing Thunder!
Seeing this eerily familiar quest title, Chen Xiyao's hand, which had been wiping away tears with a tissue, froze mid-motion. Her eyes widened as she stared in disbelief at the refreshed quest on the screen.
[ Unceasing Thunder... Unceasing... Thunder... ]
"Heh, ha ha ha... So it's not over yet? No, this isn't just not over—it hasn't even begun!"
Chen Xiyao's laughter was tinged with hysteria.
"Furina has already suffered so much! Focalors sacrificed herself on the guillotine for Fontaine! And now you're going to kill Fidelle, Furina's only true friend for five centuries?!"
"You fucking deserve to die, Mihoyo!"
Chen Xiyao wasn't alone in her fury. Across the internet, streamers were going berserk. Yet none dared to quit the game entirely; at most, they paused for a long moment before reluctantly clicking back in.
The comments section erupted in a fresh wave of anger, dragging Furina and Focalors into the vitriol as well.
After filtering out the comments that violated censorship rules or couldn't even be displayed, the remaining messages still overflowed with resentment.
[ Ha ha ha! I knew it! I always knew no Pure Soul ever gets a happy ending! Damn them all! ]
[ So, the flower Venti gave us really never gets used? ]
[ No, no, no! It's about to be used! Everyone knows Pure Soul moments are always epic showdowns! Now that Fontaine's been saved, the Traveler can finally act without restraint! ]
[ Is the Hexenzirkel finally going to show up? ]
[ With this many people, they should be able to save Fidelle, right? The quest title is "Unceasing Thunder," after all... Unceasing... ]
Chen Xiyao clicked the quest interface, and the game screen began to transition. She rubbed her red-rimmed eyes and sniffled.
The game screen finally settled back on the Execution Site.
-
Within that space, Focalors looked up and saw the nearly transparent Fidelle, and... her incredibly heavy, ragged breathing on the verge of fading away!
Fidelle, you...
Focalors tried to call out, but having just lost her Divinity, she was in no better shape than Fidelle. She couldn't even speak, only stubbornly emit faint blue light over and over.
Fidelle lowered her gaze with difficulty to the small sphere in her hand, then looked up at the Intellitron standing before her, briefly confined by the space.
This was Focalors' execution chamber. Though the Divine Throne had shattered, some of its power remained because Focalors had not completely died.
It was this remnant that gave Fidelle a chance to negotiate with the Intellitron.
"Take me away... along with this fragment! My soul is yours to do with as you please... but you must prevent this fragment from being completely annihilated by the Laws here and take it out of this place! Otherwise, I will immediately self-destruct my soul, and you will gain nothing!"
With that, Fidelle began burning her soul once more.
Live Stream
[ Is that orb in Fidelle's hand Focalors? How... how did she manage that? ]
[ Every Person of Pure Soul... is extraordinary! ]
[ That guy really came from the Abyss. But it seems like Fidelle is using him? ]
-
Fidelle's desperate gambit was her last resort.
As mentioned earlier, this space was the Hydro Archon Focalors' Execution Site. If Focalors didn't die, the space wouldn't dissipate, and conversely, Focalors couldn't escape—not even a wisp of her core consciousness.
Only the power of the Abyss, a force on par with the Laws of the Heavenly Principles, could shatter the constraints of those Laws.
The Abyss's true target wasn't the Hydro Archon, but Fidelle herself.
Even if Focalors ultimately fell into the Abyss's hands, it would be as good as falling into Jiang Mumu's hands. They could simply engineer an opportunity for another God to seize her.
The Intellitron's optical sensors flickered:
[ Analysis: Final target Fidelle, soul state, weakened condition; estimated success rate of forcibly extracting her before soul combustion: 80%; risk assessment: low, forcible extraction not recommended; analysis of her request: reasonable; recommended action: grant her request. ]
"I agree to your terms," the Intellitron declared.
To the Abyss, the Focalors fragment was merely a trivial "minor nuisance." Once they escaped the Trial site and the core region of the Laws, it could be discarded, studied, or traded away.
With this in mind, the Intellitron channeled the Abyss Power, forcibly tearing a rift in space, and carried Fidelle and the Focalors fragment out of that dimension.
In Fidelle's hand, the Focalors fragment—that small blue orb—now pulsed wildly with frantic flashes.