Beneath the reflection of the starry sky that had stopped flowing, above the shattered land broken into floating islands, that intense light, radiating astonishing heat and bursting with destructive energy, vanished the moment it was swallowed by the boy.
Nero thought, the essence of this thing was the reflection of a neutron star explosion recorded within a fragment of a mirror. He had already "eaten" quite a few mirror fragments.
Maybe by devouring this tiny piece, he could stop the disaster from happening, or at least restrain the spread of the explosion's energy.
Once he completely dissolved that mirror fragment, the reflection of the explosion would only develop within his own body, without spreading its terrifying power outward.
It would be like using the mirrors that made up his divine body to forge another mirror world, one that imprisoned the explosion.
From how things looked now, everything was going smoothly. The shockwaves from the neutron star explosion reflection could no longer affect this side.
Seeing the situation stabilize, the tense expressions on everyone's faces began to ease.
———
"Damn, that scared me! It's great that it ended normally."
In the livestream, Siberian Duck let out a long breath, then patted her flat chest with lingering fear. "When I saw Nero rush straight into the center of the explosion and swallow that thing, I thought miHoYo had picked up that blade that's killed countless characters again…"
[Unromantic: Yeah, that gave me a scare.]
[Saint Diablo: It's a space comedy after all, how could they just hand out tragic endings to players so casually?]
[Dan-heart Eternal: Heh.]
[Pom Pom: Kids, you're celebrating too early.]
[Wind-Boy Solo-stan: I won't say much, but the big scene is still coming.]
At this moment, Siberian Duck was focused on the story and had no time to look at what the chat was saying.
Very soon, the calm she had just regained was stirred up again. The moment the game screen changed, her heart sank, and she immediately shouted:
"Holy shit! miHoYo, what are you doing?!"
———
Although Nero successfully swallowed the fragment that recorded the neutron star explosion, he failed to stop the explosion from happening.
And for certain reasons, he also failed to prevent it from spreading into the real world.
With a rumble, Nero's divine body trembled. Then the light in his eyes faded. Terrifying heat and blinding light, along with waves of shock that spread outward from within him, burst out from the cracks across his body.
Almost instantly, a surging stream of scorching energy blasted into Phantylia, tearing apart the divine body formed by the Ambrosial Arbour's power right down the middle.
The sudden eruption of such terrifying energy forced everyone to start building defenses again. At the same time, changes began to occur.
The shattered sky and land started to draw back together. The complex starry sky kept flickering as it shifted positions.
The floating fragments of islands around them began to slowly gather, merging and reconnecting, forming beneath everyone's feet a vast, mirror-smooth surface.
The interference and changes to the mirror world's spatial structure caused by the sword move "Heavenfall" were now being altered at the very moment the explosion erupted.
This clearly showed that Nero's condition was not good. The best-case scenario was that he had lost consciousness instantly due to the explosion inside his body, cutting off his influence over the surrounding space.
As for the worst-case scenario, it was hard to say whether any physical part of Nero still remained in this world under such circumstances.
"Nero!"
March shouted, her eyes nearly splitting as she tried to rush forward into the radiant blast to see Nero's condition with her own eyes, but her hand was tightly grabbed by Stelle.
The others didn't look much better either, but the reason they still had left kept them in place instead of charging forward blindly into the flames.
After the space Nero had constructed disappeared, the energy waves of the neutron star explosion continued to spread.
Along with deafening roars and storm-like impacts, the mirror world began to tremble violently under the assault of that energy.
White light appeared along the edges of the mirror world, flowing through winding cracks and casting blinding brilliance onto the ground.
Those were fractures caused by the explosion's impact. The mirror world was approaching the brink of collapse under the neutron star explosion.
Kneeling nearby, Aemdo widened his eyes slightly, staring blankly toward the center of the explosion. It seemed to him as though he could see the ashes of a young boy forming a faint outline within the light.
As the mirror world fractured, numerous cracks and wounds began appearing on his own body. Aemdo gritted his teeth, ignoring the blood spurting from his wounds, and began to take control of the mirror world.
This was a world he had constructed, so he could clearly sense that under such a terrifying impact, the mirror world would soon shatter.
And when it collapsed into the real world, it would carry the devastating energy of the neutron star explosion straight to the Luofu.
Perhaps because the explosion was now happening within that boy who was so close to Him, the mirror fragment that recorded the reflection had transformed from a thumb-sized piece into a living being formed from a divine body.
The power of the explosion had grown, far beyond what Aemdo's mirror world could contain.
At this moment, Aemdo fully immersed himself into the mirror world. This allowed him to control it in the most perfect state, but in return, all the damage to the mirror world would be reflected onto his own body.
The moment the mirror world completely shattered would also be the moment his life came to an end.
Regardless of whether this disaster was caused by his own extremism, regardless of whether he had a way to preserve himself, Aemdo had his own principles.
Since at the beginning of the duel he had declared that he would never allow its impact to threaten the Luofu, then at this moment, even if he could leave the mirror world and escape, abandoning everyone here to die, he still chose to do everything he could.
He forced the mirror world to rise upward in space while compressing it into a plane, hoping that when it shattered, the explosion would occur as far above the Luofu as possible, so that not even a fraction of its force would affect the Xianzhou vessel.
Feeling the terrifying heat of the explosion, Phantylia decisively abandoned her current body. Though she felt it was a pity, losing this body would only trouble her for a while. Staying here, however, might cost her life.
After passing through that white-haired brat's divine body, the nature of the explosion had become strange.
When she had been split in half earlier, the intense pain had hit her so hard that for a moment she almost lost consciousness.
A mass of emerald-green flame slowly floated out from the massive divine body formed by Ambrosial Arbour, then rushed at top speed toward the nearest crack.
Before passing through the crack and leaving the mirror world, Phantylia glanced back one more time.
Her gaze lingered briefly on the center of the explosion and on Aemdo, her emotions complicated.
'One swallowed the fragment directly to stop the explosion, the other was willing to die to keep his promise instead of leaving… how is it that people connected to Pure Beauty are even crazier than someone like me, an Emanator of destruction?'