Even though Hoolay had already spread the battlefield wide to divide the Xianzhou Alliance's attention, that fox's cry still rang clearly in people's ears.
No matter how vast the cosmic distance between them, no matter how far apart they were—so long as they remained within this star region, every living being could hear that cry echo through the universe.
And it did not merely resound beside their ears. It also sent ripples through the formerly still Imaginary Space.
Some beings, sensing something, turned their gazes toward this stretch of the cosmos.
The figure holding a giant hammer quickly withdrew ITS gaze, having lost interest. Better to spend that attention forging the bulwark before IT instead.
The faceless shadow draped in strings of beads and steeped in countless memories abruptly vanished from where IT stood; when IT reappeared, IT was already within a certain domain.
And IT was not alone there.
That mask bouncing madly up and down nearby looked painfully familiar.
FULI could not help but wonder—had this one really never left?
Unfortunately, the figure who cared only for fresh amusement had no interest in what anyone else might be thinking.
Right now, the novel thing appearing over there had already filled THEM with boundless delight.
"SEE THAT? SEE THAT? HE'S STILL GOT THE TRACE HE LEFT HERE!"
It seemed AHA had noticed that quite a few familiar old friends had shown up nearby, and immediately started shaking THEIR backside nonstop like a fan proudly showing off an idol's autograph.
And on THAT backside, the mark that had yet to fade seemed to prove AHA's claim.
Of course, no one had come this time to look at AHA's backside.
Some figures drawn here by the fluctuations in Imaginary Energy took one look at the scene and simply left again.
To THEM, this was surely just another prank AHA had cooked up.
After all, any sort of disturbance was possible with that one.
AHA only stopped when THEY saw another being carrying the same kind of mark.
Because the "signature" the newcomer displayed was far more obvious, far more complete, than AHA's own.
And the one who had arrived was the AEON of EQUILIBRIUM—HOOH.
As before, HOOH's hands were still joined together, but the footprint stamped onto THAT stone-carved forehead was impossible to ignore.
That such a disharmonious feature could appear on HOOH at all was astonishing in itself.
And because of that, everyone's gaze inevitably shifted to HOOH as well.
HOOH naturally had nothing to say about it. HOOH had never been talkative, and had even less interest in arguing over something like that.
But the moment AHA saw everyone's attention gather on HOOH, THERE was no way THEY were going to accept it.
[OLD BLOCKHEAD, YOU BASTARD!]
AHA's voice was thick with resentment as THEY lunged over and began tangling with HOOH.
Unfortunately, HOOH could not be bothered with AHA at all right now.
HOOH simply kept watching the figure ahead in silence, observing Hoshigaki Sora's every move.
This time, the threat Sora posed felt even greater than before. That was why HOOH had come here in person, to guard against whatever he might do.
This time, HOOH could clearly sense that Sora was now capable, to a certain extent, of rewriting the universe's fundamental laws.
And once the laws of the universe changed, who knew how many lives would suffer, how much balance would be broken.
That was why HOOH had come here as insurance.
If Sora tried anything like that, HOOH would stop him at once.
As for why HOOH was not simply preventing it all beforehand and snuffing out that possibility in advance—that question had to be directed toward the AHA who was currently pestering HOOH nonstop at THEIR side.
Though AHA looked to be merely fooling around and causing trouble, THEIRS was in fact a very effective move.
Because of AHA's antics, quite a few AEONs had already chosen to leave.
In their eyes, this whole spectacle was simply another absurd trap AHA had laid out for fun.
And so, by carrying on like this, AHA was actually concealing the fact of Sora's existence.
As for THEIR motive... wasn't it simple enough?
The fact that AHA had gone to the the graveyard of the AEONs and brought back part of that Larva of Propagation already made it obvious.
AHA only wanted to see how Sora might affect the balance of the universe. AHA only wanted to see what consequences Sora's actions would produce.
AHA did not care how many lives this might affect, nor whether innocent beings were dragged into it.
The only thing AHA cared about was fun.
And HOOH had come here to confine that impact within a certain range.
It could be said that HOOH had come here specifically to keep AHA in check.
As for why HOOH was not going to keep Sora in check instead...
HOOH silently felt the footprint still imprinted on ITS forehead, one that still could not be erased, and chose silence.
...
The fox's cry did not merely draw the attention of beings far beyond mortal awareness.
It also stirred the spirits of the Foxians within the Xianzhou.
Though the various races of the Xianzhou all lived side by side, Foxians were, in truth, somewhat less forceful than the others.
Foxians had originally held the status of Borisin slaves—war thralls.
Though they had joined the Xianzhou Alliance and gained peace, every one of them still carried a breath of pent-up resentment within them.
Because the other races of the Xianzhou Alliance were simply too strong, too dazzling.
Leaving aside the Xianzhou natives, who had the Marshal and numerous generals, even the Vidyadhara had the all-important High Elders on every Xianzhou ship.
Did the Foxians have anything like that?
If not for Feixiao's sudden rise as the General of the Xianzhou Yaoqing, then aside from Ahri, the Foxians truly would have had hardly any names worth mentioning at all.
That alone made the importance of those two to the Foxians self-evident.
And that was also why Hoolay had risked so much to infiltrate this deep, all for the sake of turning Feixiao and Ahri.
Because once he turned the two of them, the Foxians would be the first to lose heart. Some of them might even collapse without a fight.
Yet the defection Hoolay had dreamed of failed to happen.
Instead, it drew out an even greater fox.
The tails sweeping across the galaxy were so enormous that Hoolay felt even a single strand of fur from one might dwarf his own already massive body.
A single tail alone was already comparable to a planet.
Then just how vast would the fox's true body have to be?
That question echoed through Hoolay's heart.
What he had not expected, however, was that those tails would gather one by one like a cloak behind the man before him.
Starlight dotted the tails, as though the universe itself had been folded within them, while touches of gold and red interwove to trace the lines of his body.
The armor looked sleek and close-fitting, yet within that pure white there was also a sense of nobility.
Everyone who saw that armor—simple and efficient, yet still noble and immaculate—could not help but widen their eyes.
No matter how much time passed, they believed they would never forget the unforgettable impression that figure left on them today.
And at that moment, countless Foxians were already overjoyed.
Not merely because of Sora's entrance.
But because of Hoolay's astonishment.
The Foxians of old would never have dreamed that a Borisin might one day look at a fox with shock and disbelief.
The exhilaration of finally turning the tables on their old masters surged through their hearts, and some Foxians had already begun worshipping Sora in silence as an idol.
GO! CRUSH THOSE BORISINS!!
That was the roar inside the hearts of many Foxians at that very moment.
Yet none of them shouted it aloud.
Instead, they stared fixedly at the scene before them without even blinking, afraid that missing even a single second would become a lifelong regret.
Sora had no idea what the Foxians were thinking.
Once the transformation was complete, he too felt the power flowing through his body.
On the surface, it seemed very similar to the power of the Man of the Beginning he had used before, but fundamentally, it was completely different.
The Man of the Beginning could also create planets, but that consumed the Golden Fruit. Once the Golden Fruit ran dry, that power would vanish as well.
But now, for the power of creation flowing through him, creating worlds was naturally no difficult task at all.
So long as there were still people who believed in him, that power would continue to exist.
Though the process of randomly obtaining this power had run into a few twists and turns, now that he felt it for real, it all seemed worth it.
"All right, it's time to bring this farce to an end!"
This cosmic farce had gone on for long enough.
It was time to end it.
And after being shaken just now, Hoolay quickly recovered and turned a wary gaze toward Sora.
After all, he was a Warhead who had already crossed countless battlefields and started countless wars. His ability to steady himself far surpassed that of ordinary people.
More importantly, he had long since been prepared to die here.
"Enough with the tricks and theatrics!"
Pitch-black flames blazed across Hoolay's body, and the Blessings of Abundance floating before him resonated together beneath that power.
The Crimson Moon in his chest, serving as the core, immediately began blazing with brilliant light.
Blood-like radiance spilled over the ground, and before long, disturbances were breaking out around the perimeter.
Though Hoolay had infiltrated here alone, he had also stationed people outside to come to his aid.
The light released from the Crimson Moon in his chest was the signal for them to attack.
"Foxians will forever be the slaves of our race! They were in the past, they are now, and they will remain so in the future!"
As the blood-red moonlight spilled down, Borisin wrapped in black flames charged in from all directions.
With the Darkflame of Jealousy bolstering them, their strength rose in geometric leaps.
The Borisin of old, relying on their speed and agility, could at most keep four or five Cloud Knight soldiers tied down.
But now, under Hoolay's power, they could hold off ten or more—and with the claws in their hands, tear straight through their enemies' throats.
Titania's believers were numerous, but in overall strength they still fell short of the Xianzhou's Cloud Knights.
Because of that, the Borisin empowered by Hoolay's Darkflame of Jealousy were able to tie down even more opponents.
Beneath that blood-colored moonlight, Hoolay's face looked utterly savage, utterly confident.
So what if he had been outplayed for a moment?
Hadn't he still clawed the situation back?
And yet, just as his confidence peaked, darkness suddenly fell.
DONG—CLANG—!
It was as though someone had pulled the main breaker on a bank of lights. In an instant, Hoolay's entire world plunged into pitch-black darkness.
The Crimson Moon was still there in the sky, yet not a shred of that blood-colored radiance spilled out anymore.
And confusion immediately rose from all around.
"What's going on?"
"Where did the light go? Why can't I see anyone?"
The one who instantly knew who had done it was Titania.
"Sora, turn the lights back on!"
"Sorry, sorry. First time using this power—I didn't quite control the output right."
Along with that apologetic voice, an azure tail swept across the heavens, restoring every color to the world.
Only now, the Crimson Moon in the sky had become a small sphere resting in someone's hand.
The sight sent a wave of horror through Hoolay's heart.
He could still feel a clear connection to the Crimson Moon, which meant its present state was entirely normal.
And the physical laws around them were normal as well.
Yet even so, that perfectly normal Crimson Moon had somehow become a toy marble imprisoned between Sora's fingers, unable to spill even the faintest ray of light.
Could it be...
"You—do you actually have the power to compress space?!"
Through his connection to it, Hoolay sensed exactly what Sora had done.
The Crimson Moon was still functioning normally. The reason it had become a tiny marble in Sora's hand was that both it and the entire space its light covered had all been compressed together.
Sora had used space compression itself to completely ruin Hoolay's calculations.
Without the Crimson Moon's enhancement, the Borisin threat immediately dropped by more than twenty percent.
And more than that, it was the nature of the power itself—that power in Sora's hands.
The ability to compress space with such precision was overwhelming no matter where it appeared.
And now Hoolay was seeing it in the body of his current enemy.
That made things troublesome...
"Oh? So you could tell. I really did underestimate you."
Hoolay was right. What Sora had used was indeed space compression.
At first, what he had really wanted to do was simply strip the Crimson Moon of its light.
But he had overdone it by accident and snuffed out every light source in the area.
In order to prevent friendly forces from accidentally hurting one another in the dark, he restored the light and instead used the safer method to deal with the Crimson Moon.
A weight sank into Hoolay's heart. He had not expected Sora to truly be capable of such a thing.
"But if you think a trick like that is enough to make me shrink back and surrender, then you're mistaken!"
The Blessings of Abundance resonating around his heart seemed to answer a summons and all surged at once into his chest cavity.
His original heart instantly swelled to several times its size, and the flames he had inherited from the Sui Emperor flared even more violently, as though fresh fuel had been added.
"I TAKE MY OWN BODY AS KINDLING TO FEED THE FIRE IN MY HEART!"
The ground around him gradually cracked beneath the rising heat, and the temperature in the air warped everyone's vision.
"This is bad. Get back from here!"
Titania immediately sensed the heat coming off Hoolay's body.
At a temperature like this, even Denizens of the Abundance with extraordinary regenerative power would likely turn to ash the instant they came into contact with it.
She had no intention of letting her believers be harmed, so naturally she ordered them to fall back.
And once Titania issued the order, her believers obediently cleared out of the area.
Only Feixiao, eager to fight, and Ahri, clearly worried, refused to leave.
"His target's the two of you. Are you really insisting on throwing yourselves into this?"
"No need to worry. I've been wanting to trade blows with him for a while now—"
Feixiao answered with bright enthusiasm, but before she could finish, she heard Sora's quiet voice beside her ear.
"I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about Ahri."
A snap sounded.
And the next instant, she was suddenly outside, in the midst of the battlefield where the ordinary Borisin were clashing.
Sora and Hoolay were both gone.
"Hey! You bastard!"
Feixiao immediately jumped to her feet and shouted, but there was no way Sora was about to let her back in.
Even when she tried to return, she found that no matter how long she flew, the distance between herself and that place never closed in the slightest.
Though it looked close enough to touch, the true distance had already been stretched impossibly far.
Ahri and Feixiao were Hoolay's targets.
They were the very two people he had risked infiltrating deep into enemy lines to abduct.
Naturally, Sora had no intention of allowing either of them to remain in danger.
After all, Hoolay had already been cornered beyond hope.
At that point, anything was possible for him, and even the slightest possibility needed to be completely snuffed out.
The instant Feixiao and Ahri disappeared from Sora's side, Hoolay's gaze turned dangerous.
"Where did you send them?"
He had come here prepared to take both of them.
Now that they had vanished, he naturally felt a surge of urgency.
"Somewhere safe."
Sora spoke calmly. "I know what you're after. But before that, you'll have to defeat me."
The moment Hoolay heard that, scarlet light blazed in his eyes.
He attacked at once.
The black flames condensed into twin short blades as he rushed straight for Sora's throat.
"Though..."
Faced with Hoolay's attack, Sora showed not the slightest panic.
Hoolay's figure was as swift as the wind and as unpredictable as a shadow.
Where he passed, only trails of searing heat remained behind.
In that single brief instant, he had already closed in on Sora.
"You have no possibility of defeating me," Sora said.
"Save that nonsense for after you die!"
In the next heartbeat, Hoolay was already at Sora's side, and the black-flame blades in his hands chopped savagely toward his neck.
Screech!
The blades sliced through the air with a harsh, piercing shriek.
And then stopped, unable to move forward even the slightest bit more.
Because before them stood a single raised finger.
Like an iron barrier, that finger left Hoolay utterly unable to advance.
Faced with Hoolay's attack, Sora answered with nothing more than one finger.
And that one finger was like an uncrossable chasm. It could not be shaken in the slightest.
Hoolay gritted his teeth. Humiliated by such contempt, he gave up on the short blades.
The black flames rewrapped themselves around his fists, and he launched wave after wave of attacks at Sora.
Hoolay's fists slammed forward so quickly that the black flames became a dense rainstorm.
Every punch carried scorching heat and crushing force.
The recoil kicked up dust and debris from the ground itself.
Yet Sora remained perfectly calm. He stood there without moving, and Hoolay simply could not touch him.
Those fists all stopped one inch in front of Sora, as though blocked by an invisible wall.
All Hoolay's blows could do was stir rings of ripples, but none could break through Sora's defense.
And failure did not crush Hoolay's confidence.
It only drove him deeper into frenzy.
His wolfish eyes burned red, as though endless fury blazed within them.
"I WILL NOT FAIL LIKE THIS! I AM THE BORISIN WARHEAD! I WILL BRING GLORY TO MY PEOPLE!"
As Hoolay's emotions surged, the flames on his body burned ever more wildly.
At last, after that relentless barrage of attacks, his fist finally managed to press a little farther forward.
Had he succeeded?
No.
"I've gotten pretty used to the power in this body now."
What had happened was simply that Sora had finished getting used to the power flowing inside him.
In an instant, two of the tail-like cloak-streamers behind Sora lashed out and swept through the space around them.
Before Hoolay could even react, his body suffered a violent impact.
His throat turned sweet as blood surged into his mouth.
But Hoolay forcibly swallowed it back down, using it to trigger his bloodthirsty instinct instead.
Every hair on his body stood up, and his already massive frame swelled yet another notch.
"With something like this, you still won't make me—"
He was about to keep talking, but a suffocating sensation suddenly came over him.
When he looked around again, he realized that at some point, the battlefield had shifted into outer space.
Sora flicked a finger, and several meteors smashed toward Hoolay.
Though startled by the abrupt change of battlefield, Hoolay recovered almost immediately.
"You think changing the battlefield will let you defeat me?!"
The meteors came crashing down, but he forcibly burned his way straight through them with the scorching black flames engulfing his body.
Freshly formed magma dripped off the broken stone, only to cool almost instantly beneath the bitter cold of space.
Yet the blood coursing through Hoolay's body showed not the slightest sign of cooling.
"Pathetic attacks like this will never bring me down!"
With every beat of Hoolay's heart, his body continued swelling larger and larger.
That burning werewolf body looked like a demon clawing its way up from hell itself.
His heart had fused with those Blessings of Abundance, and together with the black flames tempering him, he had now become almost equivalent to an immortal being.
Of course, this was also burning away his life.
A mortal body was being used to contain that many blessings as kindling for the Sui Emperor's fire. His flesh was being burned and healed over and over again, and his lifespan was plummeting at a terrifying rate.
In exchange, Hoolay's will only grew firmer, and his strength continued to rise.
Hoolay believed that if his power continued to rise like this, he would surely be able to defeat Sora.
So what if Sora could compress space?
Did he not know that the heat within Hoolay's heart could now rival a star, to a certain degree?
A star could give birth to a black hole.
Could Sora's compressed space compress a black hole too?
That was the basis of Hoolay's confidence.
"With tricks like yours, you can never kill—me!!!"
Sora actually found himself growing a little interested.
"If you're going to put it that way..."
One of the tails behind Sora reached out into the dark depths of space.
"Then I'd be a terrible host if I didn't entertain you properly."
Hoolay stared at him with gritted teeth, his will as hard as iron.
He was going to prove to the man before him that no matter what kind of fox he was, he still could never defeat the Borisin!
One day a slave, forever a—
Hoolay's eyes suddenly widened.
Because he abruptly saw something moving in the darkness behind him.
Wh-What was that?!
At first Hoolay thought his eyes were deceiving him.
But very quickly he realized they weren't.
Because there really was something flying toward him through the starry dark.
That was... a planet?!
Hoolay's eyes went wide as he watched a planet being dragged straight toward him by an azure tail.
The planet's surface was covered in hard stone, looking unimaginably solid.
In front of something that massive, Hoolay was no bigger than a speck of dust.
What kind of sight was this?!
Hoolay had never seen anything like it.
He threw every ounce of his power into trying to dodge.
But the contact surface of an entire planet was not something he could evade just because he wanted to.
All he could do was watch helplessly as that planet came closer and closer, and then—
Even in the vacuum of space, a cloud of dust visibly exploded across the rocky planet's surface.
And Hoolay himself had been driven deep into an enormous crater.
The surroundings had already melted into slowly flowing magma under the heat pouring off him, and his consciousness had yet to recover from the violent impact.
At that moment, Sora descended from the sky, stepping down one invisible stair after another until he came before him.
Sensing the footsteps, Hoolay tried to force himself upright.
Unfortunately, the dizziness sent him lurching from side to side, and no matter what he did, he could not fully lift his body.
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, only to instantly vaporize in the heat.
Hoolay felt unbearable pain throughout his body. There was not a single place where blood was not pouring out.
The Blessings of Abundance were still working nonstop, and branches filled his wounds as they repaired him.
But the pain of that growth also cleared Hoolay's mind a little.
He raised his head to look at Sora descending from above like a god, and in the end, he could not help but laugh.
If someone could directly attack him with an entire planet, then losing like this was not shameful at all.
"You are the victor. Do with me as you like."
Hoolay lowered his head, then went on, "But before I die, could you listen to a few words from me, the loser?"
That last attack had not merely shattered his pride.
It had also completely crushed his delusions.
Before Sora's transcendent power, he could no longer find even the faintest trace of a path to victory.
So at this point, he chose to cast everything aside—his face, his dignity, even the arrogance bound up in his bloodline.
"I only want to know..."
Hoolay struggled to lift his head. "Why are you this strong?"
Just what method had given him strength like this?
"Even with the end already upon you, you're still thinking about that?"
Looking at the Hoolay before him, Sora's voice actually held a trace of disappointment.
Hoolay was now as large as a small giant. Sora did not look imposing standing in front of him, yet he had still reduced Hoolay to this state.
"Because I need to know..."
Hoolay bared his teeth in a grin.
"Which race is going to gallop and hunt across the battlefields of the universe from now on?"
In Hoolay's view, the universe was always ruled by the law of the strong devouring the weak.
Someone with power like Sora's could not possibly leave it unused forever.
"In the end, you'll all do the same as you did today—driving defeated losers like us to our deaths, then turning around and driving the races of the universe the same way."
Now that today's Abundance coalition had been utterly crushed, many of them would surely be executed by the Xianzhou Alliance.
And with a supreme powerhouse like Sora now standing on the Alliance's side, the other races of the universe would one day be hunted down the same way the Abundance coalition had been.
"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
Sora answered calmly, "The Xianzhou will not become something like you."
"You say it won't, and that makes it true?!"
Hoolay pushed his enormous wolf's head closer, a ferocious light in his eyes. "After being provoked by the Abundance Coalition like this, when the Xianzhou Alliance faces Abundance races again, its punishment won't stay light."
Because their hand had been too soft and their response too slow, the races that held grudges against the Xianzhou had been able to join together and cause this unrest.
Hoolay was convinced that no matter what power it was—whether the Xianzhou or any other faction in the universe—once it had suffered such a loss, it would inevitably strike more ruthlessly the next time, eradicating the roots completely.
One round of unrest was more than enough to sound the warning bell.
Even now, the Xianzhou's ceaseless pursuit of the Abundance coalition was already proving that its way of doing things had begun to change.
So once all these Abundance races had been completely surrounded and crushed, and the Xianzhou became the dominant force roaming these battlefields of the cosmos—there was a very high chance it would become exactly that kind of existence.
And as for why...
Hoolay gave his own answer.
"Because races that have accepted YAOSHI's blessing have long since, to a certain extent, grown numb toward life itself."
The Xianzhou natives' indifference toward time. The Vidyadhara's fallback of scale-shedding rebirth...
All of those things, in Hoolay's eyes, spoke of a disregard for life.
And once that disregard for life combined with the postwar hunt for other Abundance races, those weaker Abundance races would surely end up trembling as they attached themselves to the Xianzhou Alliance.
That was something Hoolay believed was bound to happen.
"Can you stop it?"
Hoolay stared at Sora.
And that stare itself seemed to carry an answer.
You can't.
Every Path had two sides.
Just as ABUNDANCE healed others while also giving birth to Denizens of the Abundance, the HUNT brought enemies down while also creating fresh hatred.
AEONs would fall.
The Xianzhou Alliance would fall.
Everything would one day be replaced by something else.
This was a spiral no one could ever escape.
Sora met Hoolay's gaze.
And then, under the pressure of Hoolay's relentless stare, he smiled.
"I kept feeling like there was something I still hadn't done. So that was it. Thank you for the reminder."
If the Denizens of the Abundance who waged this war were sinners, then punishment alone could not be the only answer.
A system of forgiveness had to be built as well—one that clearly laid out what sinners had to do before the time of forgiveness could come.
Every living being had a duty to atone for the wrongs it had committed.
"Hoolay, you're right. But the sins on you can no longer be forgiven."
Sora raised a hand.
The next instant, the countless tails behind him plunged straight through Hoolay's heart without the slightest regard for the black flames burning there.
And when those tails emerged again, each one held an object hovering above it.
Fruit pits.
Branches.
Stones...
All of them were Blessings of Abundance Hoolay had absorbed.
And now Sora had drawn them all back out.
"With the blessings inside your body, I'll forge a place where atonement may be made."
DONG—CLANG—!
The bell tolled again.
The things Sora had extracted from Hoolay's body dissolved into streams of power that flowed into his palm.
NINE BLESSINGS.
NINE REALMS.
NINE TRIALS.
On the foundation of the power of creation, he mixed in the rules of the Knights of Beauty.
The standard the Knights of Beauty recognized was the most basic, most unadorned kindness of all.
Sora looked at the thing taking shape in his hand.
This was something that could be used for atonement by those who still retained even a sliver of life.
"The spiral of hatred should not be allowed to continue forever..."
Sora released the sphere in his hand like someone releasing a dove.
The instant it entered the universe, it began to swell, growing larger and larger.
---
T/N: HOW BROKEN IS GEATS??????????? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT IS BRO CHANGING THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE???? ALSO HE BE THROWING PLANETS??? okay mydei move aside