Fenghuo's form wasn't so much a body as it was a humanoid mass of ash.
Where his gaze fell, everything turned gray-white.
His face was indistinct—blurred by a heat that made the soul shiver and a hollowness that made meaning collapse. Simply standing there, the very structure of matter seemed to wail as it marched toward disintegration.
His eyes pierced straight through the cavern, locking onto Granholm—and the one standing in front of Granholm.
Acheron.
"Heh…"
A low laugh, devoid of any clear emotion.
"Familiar 'nothing.' Acheron—Emanator of Nihility. As expected, you're here."
Acheron didn't answer.
Faced with Fenghuo, she had no interest in dialogue—only the decision to draw her blade.
A clear, resonant chime rang out.
The air around her thinned into something emptier, her plain haori fluttering as if it might at any moment soak into that terrifying blood-red cloak.
"Leave," she said.
Fenghuo didn't respond. He merely raised a hand.
A black blade appeared in his grip.
No light. No howl.
Only a quiet withering spread from its tip; space itself looked scorched into warped scars wherever that edge passed.
But Acheron moved first.
Nihility unfurled around her.
One slash—blade-light scattered like spilled ink.
That cut wasn't aimed at Fenghuo.
It severed the connection between Fenghuo and this reality.
Everyone in the starsea knew this: before Qingzhou ever appeared, Fenghuo was the acknowledged strongest among the Annihilation Lords. He was obsessed with the "beauty" of the instant all things broke.
In simple terms—
He loved opening with a finisher. He loved instant kills. He loved bullying.
Some even said: among all the Annihilation Lords, meeting Fenghuo was "the best possible bad luck," because you'd be deleted before you could even feel pain.
For Acheron now, that "best bad luck" was the worst kind.
In raw combat power, she stood at the apex even among Emanators. Nihility did not forbid others from drawing upon it, and she had walked that road farther than most minds could imagine.
In their past brief clash, she and Fenghuo had traded blows without a clear victor.
Not because either lacked the ability to kill—
But because neither had a reason to commit to mutual annihilation.
Acheron wasn't a slaughterer.
And Fenghuo… was Fenghuo.
Yet back then, the situation had been different.
Now Fenghuo's gaze slid past Acheron, landing on the weakened Granholm behind her.
"What a… pure 'nothing.'"
His voice was calm—too calm.
"A soul walking toward void, yet still carrying such vivid will."
"Acheron," he asked softly, "you feel it too, don't you?"
Acheron's blade shifted a fraction.
"I said. Leave."
"Acheron. Still stubborn."
"But you can't stop me from appreciating this ending."
He tilted his head slightly, like an artist examining the final stroke.
"The annihilation of that soul will be more… magnificent than anything else on this planet."
Then he moved.
His body scattered into countless gray-white sparks that slipped around Acheron's blade line, rushing for Granholm.
Acheron's eyes sharpened.
The blood-red cloak bled through her haori in an instant. Her sword traced a flawless arc.
"I weep for the departed."
Her slash opened a clean fissure in reality itself—an invisible wall formed where the cut passed, and the ash-sparks collided and vanished, snuffed into nothing.
She tried to do what she'd done before—
Pull Fenghuo into her domain.
At their level, any exchange of blows was a disaster to bystanders. And against Fenghuo—who loved turning "disaster" into performance—she couldn't allow their fight to spill onto Qilan Star.
In that split second, the planet's sky was torn by two incompatible forces.
On one side, Acheron's "nothing," soaking reality into a gray-white stillness that consumed color and meaning.
On the other, Fenghuo's "ash," seemingly dim but violently intent on dragging all things toward an ending.
Acheron tightened her grip.
She could feel it—
Fenghuo's power was more condensed than last time. More targeted.
He had been studying ways to crack her methods.
No—perhaps not just her.
Perhaps what he learned from her last display was a way to strike at Nihility itself.
Just as Acheron's domain was about to seal—severing the battlefield from reality—
Fenghuo's gray-white sparks suddenly burst outward.
Not as an attack.
They spread like billions of tiny seeds, latching onto the conceptual edges of her domain.
They burned not matter—
They burned the rules holding her domain together.
Sss—
Like magma poured onto ice, Acheron's near-absolute emptiness rippled, its perfect closure scorched into instability.
Not broken.
But no longer flawless.
Acheron's eyes finally carried a hint of weight.
"…You."
"Surprised?" Fenghuo's blurred face seemed to sketch a faint smile.
"Pure 'nothing' is terrifying."
"But Destruction is the end of all forms."
"Including the form 'nothing' takes."
He raised his hand again—this time not at Granholm, but at the collision point where their powers gnawed each other.
"Let me show you," he murmured, "what it looks like when annihilation is ignited."
No sound.
Yet in Acheron's perception, everything in that region—matter, space, even the clashing concepts of Nihility and Destruction—began to collapse inward.
As if a gray-white hand clenched the world.
Then—
It shattered into an extremity-point and broke.
This was Fenghuo pushing his authority to the brink, triggering a conceptual kill designed for Acheron's domain.
Acheron's blood cloak flared. Her blade braced.
Nihility condensed harder than ever, trying to stabilize the collapsing core.
To cancel out that kind of "break" at the level of concept—
Even for her, the burden was enormous.
And Fenghuo wanted exactly this.
This brief stalemate.
Because his target never changed.
Granholm.
To Fenghuo's eyes, a being that contained a planet's Nihility while still retaining bright will—
The moment of that soul's collapse would be the greatest artwork he could ask for.
So while Acheron held the core together—
Fenghuo moved again.
His form became a line of gray-white fire and he swung a single blade-cut belonging to Destruction.
A strike so fast Acheron couldn't intercept in time.
He meant to take Granholm—
And everything behind him: the ruined tower, the continent, the civilization—
All in one cut.
And then—
At the moment that gray-white flow was about to touch Granholm—
The old navigator, who had been sitting with his eyes closed like a candle about to go out…
Opened his eyes.
Those eyes, once dulled by dust and struggle, flared with a brilliance that didn't belong in a dying man.
He didn't dodge.
He didn't defend.
Granholm only lifted his withered right hand and, toward Fenghuo's incoming blaze—
He brushed lightly.
Like dust off a shoulder.
A gesture so gentle it bordered on ridiculous.
Yet Fenghuo's guaranteed strike—capable of burning down a planet—
Stopped.
Not blocked.
Not canceled.
It congealed as if swallowed by a bottomless bog with no footing, no "place" for Destruction to land.
The fire still burned—
But the concept of burning was being extracted, stripped away at terrifying speed.
For the first time, Fenghuo's indistinct face showed a truly clear fluctuation.
Not shock.
Not rage.
Appreciation.
The same kind of interest he held for Acheron.
"…Unexpected," he said, almost pleased.
And in that frozen instant—
Acheron's domain, the gray-white world whose edges Fenghuo had forced to ripple—
Finally sealed shut.
Shhk—
Reality was severed.
The cavern, the ruined tower, Qilan Star's pale sky—
All vanished.
The three of them stood inside an absolute gray-white space.
Acheron held her blade, blood cloak vivid against the monochrome.
She looked at Granholm, expression complicated.
She hadn't expected it—this old navigator, at the last second, had created the opening she needed to close the domain.
Of course.
He was an Astral Express navigator.
A name known in the starsea didn't survive on sentiment alone.
Fenghuo's body condensed within the gray-white field. He looked around, expression unreadable—only pure evaluation.
"You turned yourself into a Nihility node… and used it to dissolve my Destruction."
"A refined response, old Nameless."
Granholm lowered his hand.
His aura grew even weaker, as if that single brush had spent the last coin of his strength.
Yet his back remained straight—like a watchman who refused to fall until the bell rang.
Then, in the same hoarse voice, he spoke to the Annihilation Lord as if speaking to a reckless youth:
"Don't underestimate an old man like me, Annihilation Lord."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
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Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 155)
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TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
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I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter230)
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Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
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Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 230
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Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
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The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 120
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 135
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 110
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Checking In in Demon Slayer 80
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 85
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 70
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A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 70
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Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 45
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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