Lia's breath hitched. The air around Fang Yuan was not just cold; it was empty. Her alchemical knowledge, her memories of the future—everything felt like brittle glass against the dark obsidian of his presence.
"You speak of 'liberation'," Lia hissed, her staff trembling in her grip. "But I see only a thief. You are stealing the one chance we have to survive the Void!"
Fang Yuan's lips curled into a faint, mocking smile. He didn't attack. Instead, he raised a finger, and a ripple of indigo light expanded from his touch. "Survival? You call being a well-fed herd 'survival'?"
Suddenly, Lia's vision blurred. The forest disappeared. She found herself standing in a cosmic void, looking down at the Twelve Moons. But they didn't look like planets. They looked like ripening fruit on a branch. Above them, a massive, shadowy figure—the Galactic Overlord—was holding a sickle, waiting for the "Hero" to reach his peak so he could harvest the entire system's energy.
"This is your 'Victory', Lia," Fang Yuan's voice echoed in the void. "The Hero defeats the Night-Stalkers, gathers all the destiny of the moons into his sword, and then... he is consumed. Your future was never about saving people. It was about preparing a meal."
Lia fell to her knees, her mind screaming. The "Prophecy" she had died for was a lie. A farming manual.
"Now," Fang Yuan whispered, the vision snapping back to the forest. "The Hero is about to touch the blade I've rewritten. Do you want to run and stop him? Or do you want to watch the farm burn?"