"How is that possible?"
"Why would the Aeon of Preservation help the Witch of Nihility?"
For a time, everyone was plunged into shock.
This was no ordinary strange tale one heard in passing. This was the kind of revelation that could devour a person's sanity.
Especially for the people of the IPC and the Xianzhou Alliance.
Not long ago, Kallen had openly rebelled against Qlipoth, yet after suppressing her, Qlipoth had chosen to let her go.
They had already thought that was astonishing enough, but now something even more terrifying had come to light.
Still, once those at the level of Emanators, or those with sufficiently powerful command over their Paths, took a closer look, they noticed something.
Those two divine figures did not seem to be the true bodies of Preservation and The Hunt.
They recalled Herta's earlier assessment of the Red Kite General:
"The divine might she wielded was the true might of The Hunt itself—the direct manifestation of that Path."
Could this be the Hunt-star god's divine authority made into a weapon and bestowed upon the Red Kite General?
Lan had condensed Its power, Its will, a part of Its very being, into a form that another could wield, and handed it over to Fu Hua.
That was a grace beyond the level of an Emanator. It was the deepest possible bond between an Aeon and its Emanator.
And if that was true, then what the Witch of Nihility was using must be something similar—a divine authority of Preservation.
At that thought, no one knew what to say anymore.
Looking at Kallen, so deeply blessed by both Preservation and Nihility, people no longer knew whether they ought to call her the Witch of Nihility or the Witch of Preservation.
But all of that was secondary.
What mattered was the battle unfolding before them.
Within the image, the auras of the two divine authorities collided above Yuanqiao.
And within that clash, the figures of Kallen and Fu Hua shone against each other.
No one knew how long the battle had lasted.
The screen showed no exact passage of time, but from the wounds accumulating on both of them, and from the ebb and flare of the divine lights they wielded, everyone could sense the suffocating attrition of that struggle.
In the end, it seemed Fu Hua had drawn the greater favor of The Hunt.
At grievous cost, she finally drove Kallen away.
Inside the Divination Commission, the expressions of the Arbiter-Generals had never been more severe.
The Ten-Direction All-Reflecting Dharma Realm still glowed. The heavenly curtain Aha had constructed was still playing the scenes of that lost past.
But a silence beyond words had settled over everyone present.
"So… this is how it was." Huaiyan was the first to speak.
The hand stroking his beard trembled slightly, and something complicated flashed through his clouded eyes.
As the Arbiter-General of the Zhuming Xianzhou, he had lived longer than the other generals present combined.
And yet now, as he watched everything playing across the sky, he suddenly felt that his thousands of years of life amounted to little more than shallow experience before that past erased by Enigmata.
"A dual Emanator of Preservation and Nihility, with a star god's divine authority on top of that… that Witch of Nihility is even more terrifying than we imagined."
Jing Yuan did not answer immediately.
His gaze remained fixed on the figure on the screen—the one facing Kallen down.
Fu Hua.
The Red Kite General.
A being whose name barely appeared in the records of the Xianzhou Alliance, a figure the world had forgotten because of Enigmata.
Her outline in the image was somewhat indistinct, but the aura of The Hunt around her was so clear it felt as if it might pierce through the screen.
"With her own strength alone, she fought a dual Emanator of Preservation and Nihility…" Jing Yuan said at last, his voice low.
"And under conditions where the other side also wielded a star god's divine authority, she still managed to drive her away…"
He paused, a bitter smile touching his lips.
"This Red Kite General really was absurdly strong."
"Absurd doesn't even begin to cover it," Feixiao said, picking up where he left off. A complicated light flickered in her sharp eyes.
As Yaoqing's Arbiter-General, she had always been confident in her own strength.
But now, watching Fu Hua in the image, she was feeling the meaning of the word gap for the first time.
"'The strongest Emanator of The Hunt'… that title really wasn't given for nothing."
She took a slow breath and looked back toward the image.
"And did you all notice? Doesn't the bow she uses resemble the one wielded by the Reignbow Arbiter?"
The others naturally had noticed the same thing.
"As an emissary of the Reignbow, that means the trust Lan placed in her had already reached an unbelievable level."
"After all, the Reignbow is not an Aeon that grants intimacy easily," Huaiyan said with a nod, a trace of emotion in his tone.
"We Arbiter-Generals can borrow the power of The Hunt, yes—but in the end, it is still borrowed. Yet that Red Kite General…"
He left the sentence unfinished, but every person present understood what he meant.
Fu Hua's divine authority was the true authority of The Hunt, something capable of directly representing the Path itself.
Such a distinction, throughout the entire history of the Xianzhou Alliance, had no equal.
"At least… the Red Kite General won." Feixiao spoke suddenly, relief in her voice.
"If the one who had lost had been her, then the last spark of the Xianzhou Alliance would have been extinguished by the Witch of Nihility too."
She raised her head and looked at the other generals.
"Though that past no longer exists, just imagining that the Alliance nearly got wiped out by a single person makes me…"
"You're celebrating too early," Yaoguang interrupted.
"General Yaoguang?" Feixiao frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean exactly what I said," Yaoguang repeated.
"General Feixiao, you just said that thankfully the Red Kite General won and left a spark for the Xianzhou Alliance."
"Wasn't that the case?"
"Yes, and no." Yaoguang shook her head and turned back toward the still-playing image in the sky.
"Have none of you thought of one question?"
"What question?"
Instead of answering immediately, Yaoguang raised a hand and pointed at the curtain overhead.
In the image, the confrontation between Fu Hua and Kallen had ended.
The embodiment of The Hunt still stood proudly above Yuanqiao. Though the light around her had dimmed, the aura of a victor remained unmistakable.
"The Red Kite General won. She successfully drove away the Witch of Nihility and preserved Yuanqiao."
Yaoguang's voice was soft, as though she were merely stating a fact.
"But—"
Her tone shifted, becoming suddenly heavy.
"If everything had ended there—if Yuanqiao had truly survived that catastrophe…"
"Then why, in our memories, did Yuanqiao still crash and disappear?"
The entire hall went silent.
Jing Yuan's brow furrowed more deeply. Feixiao's expression froze. Huaiyan's hand stopped in mid-stroke over his beard.
Even Fu Xuan, who had remained quiet to the side, arched her brows.
"General Yaoguang means…" Jing Yuan began slowly, his voice turning grave.
"What I mean," Yaoguang said, turning around and sweeping her gaze over the assembled generals, "is this."
"If the Red Kite General really won, if Yuanqiao truly survived, then it should not have crashed. It should not have vanished. It should never have become that eternal wound in the Alliance's memory."
"But the reality is that Yuanqiao did crash. It did disappear. In our history, it did not survive."
She paused, a bitter smile appearing on her face.
"And what does that tell us? It tells us that in the past before Enigmata rewrote everything, Yuanqiao still failed to escape destruction in the end."
"Even though the Red Kite General won. Even though she drove away the Witch of Nihility. Yuanqiao still walked toward ruin."
"This…" Feixiao's face changed.
She opened her mouth, wanting to argue, but no words came out.
"And don't forget one more thing," Yaoguang continued, her voice growing even heavier.
"Herta already said that in the galaxy before Enigmata's rewrite, The Hunt was one of the Four Ends."
"If the Red Kite General won, if Yuanqiao survived… then why did The Hunt become one of those Ends?"
At that, the others fell silent as well.
Because there was no answer.
At least, not until the image continued.
And continue it did.
Yuanqiao Xianzhou. The General's Hall.
The great hall was ablaze with light.
And yet that place, seat of Yuanqiao's highest authority, was drowned in a silence so heavy it suffocated.
Dozens of figures stood in the hall.
They wore ancient Xianzhou military uniforms, their armor stained with soot and blood. Some had shattered helmets. Others had blood-soaked bandages wrapped around their arms. A few were standing only by leaning on the weapons in their hands.
These were Yuanqiao's commanders.
The finest officers under Fu Hua's banner.
And yet every face carried the same expression—sorrow, numbness, and disbelief.
At the top of the raised platform sat a single figure.
Fu Hua.
She sat as straight as ever, her back like a spear.
Her ash-white hair fell over the pauldrons of her armor. The collar of her uniform was slightly open, revealing a stretch of neck wrapped in bandages.
But everyone could tell she was enduring something.
"General!"
A voice came from the hall entrance.
Every eye turned in that direction at once.
A middle-aged officer in uniform strode quickly in.
Fu Hua raised her chin ever so slightly and let her eyes rest on him.
"Report."
The man reached the foot of the platform and dropped to one knee.
"By confirmation of Lady Xianyu, the other six Xianzhou ships of the Alliance have been confirmed utterly destroyed."
"The Luofu, the Yaoqing, the Zhuming, the Yuque, the Fanghu, the Xuling…"
He named them one by one, and with each name his voice grew lower.
"No survivors."
The instant those four words landed, something in the hall seemed to break.
Six Xianzhou ships.
Brothers-in-arms they had fought alongside for thousands of years.
Family who had watched over one another across the sea of stars.
The full meaning of the word Alliance itself.
Now all of them were gone.
The Luofu was gone. The Yaoqing was gone. The Zhuming was gone. The Yuque was gone. The Fanghu was gone. The Xuling was gone.
Those familiar names.
Those familiar comrades.
Those figures who had once passed them in the sea of stars.
All gone to nothing.
No survivors.
Four light words, yet so heavy they were like a mountain crushing the chest of everyone present.
"General…" the man kneeling below said, his voice trembling.
"This subordinate was incompetent. I failed to—"
"Stand."
Fu Hua's voice cut him off.
Then she said, "You were not incompetent."
"None of you here were incompetent."
"You held Yuanqiao."
"You protected the last spark of the Xianzhou Alliance."
Her voice was not loud, but every word seemed squeezed out from deep in her chest with all her strength.
"This is not incompetence. This is honor."
And yet, amidst that atmosphere of grief and stern resolve, the sound of light footsteps came from outside the hall.
Fu Hua's brow twitched faintly.
At the entrance, a figure slowly stepped inside.
Every eye focused on her.
It was a woman.
She wore a long green dress whose hem trailed over the floor without the slightest wrinkle.
Long teal-green hair cascaded down her back.
But the most striking thing was atop her head.
A pair of crystalline blue-green dragon horns emerged from her hair.
At that moment, in the present, inside the Luofu Divination Commission, several generals reflexively turned their gazes toward Mobius.
Yes.
The woman in the image looked remarkably like her.
If there was no mistake, then that woman must have been Mobius's past self—
the one that officer had just referred to as…
Lady Xianyu.
The image continued.
Fu Hua's voice came from the dais.
"Xianyu. How are things outside?"
Lady Xianyu did not answer immediately.
She only stood in the center of the hall, her blue-green eyes lowered.
And once more the atmosphere in the hall grew tense.
The commanders who had only just been steadied by Fu Hua's words could now sense that something was wrong.
Lady Xianyu's expression was off.
Fu Hua let out a faint sigh.
"Xianyu. Speak. I can bear it."
Only then did Xianyu raise her head and meet Fu Hua's gaze.
"General, the situation outside is even worse than we imagined. Though the Witch of Nihility has already been driven away by you, what she left behind has infected us all."
"Lady Xianyu!" one of the commanders burst out. "What do you mean?"
Xianyu ignored him, keeping her eyes on Fu Hua.
"Fu Hua… are you already on the verge of mara-struck collapse?"
The hall exploded.
"What?!"
"Impossible!"
"Lady Xianyu, what nonsense are you spouting?!"
The commanders' voices overlapped, every face filled with disbelief.
Mara.
The final destination of every Xianzhou native.
The curse engraved into their blood.
The fate long-life species could never escape.
But that was supposed to be something that came centuries later, only after a Xianzhou native had lived too long, accumulated too many memories, and borne too much weight.
"How can that be?!" a younger commander stepped forward, his voice shaking.
"The General is only three hundred years old—three hundred! How could she possibly become mara-struck?!"
He turned toward the platform, pleading in his eyes.
And he was not alone. Every person in the hall was looking toward Fu Hua.
All they wanted was for her to deny it.
Because by now, the Xianzhou Alliance had only one Arbiter-General left.
"General, say something! Lady Xianyu has to be joking, right?"
Fu Hua said nothing.
But her silence was the loudest answer of all.
And Xianyu had not finished.
She turned her words on everyone else present.
"Not only her. All of you are on the verge of becoming mara-struck as well."
The hall fell into instant silence.
Those who had just been objecting most fiercely now looked as though someone had seized them by the throat.
In truth, they could feel it too.
But most of them were already advanced in years, and after the Xianzhou Alliance had suffered such a catastrophe, none of them had yet realized anything was wrong.
Xianyu continued mercilessly, "Not just you. Everyone outside as well. Old and young alike. Cloud Knights and ordinary citizens alike… everyone is showing signs of mara."
No one answered.
"Xianyu."
Fu Hua spoke again from the platform.
This time, weariness weighed on her voice like never before.
"What do you suggest?"
Xianyu lifted her head and met those deep eyes.
She was silent for a moment before speaking slowly.
"The Xuling once established a precedent."
At those words, several of the older commanders reacted.
"Xuling…" one veteran muttered. "You mean…"
"To seal the ship," Xianyu said.
"The Xuling once suffered a disastrous incident and was forced to cut itself off entirely for three hundred years. During those three centuries, it severed all contact with the outside world. Only once the internal threat had been completely eradicated did it reopen."
She paused, then looked at Fu Hua again.
"I suggest that Yuanqiao do the same."
"Seal the ship for centuries—or millennia—until we discover a way to suppress this Nihility."
The hall went quiet again.
The commanders glanced at one another, and at last every gaze returned to Fu Hua on the platform.
Fu Hua closed her eyes.
She sat there, still perfectly straight-backed, but it was obvious to everyone that she was enduring something terrible.
That emptiness.
That void.
That power slowly eating away at her consciousness.
She herself could feel the strength of Nihility within her.
A long time passed.
So long that the candle flames in the hall flickered and swayed again and again.
Then at last Fu Hua opened her eyes once more.
"Seal the ship," she said.
"Otherwise, Yuanqiao's today will become the galaxy's tomorrow."
Join here to read ahead.
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