Phantylia's figure still lingered in the sky, but several clear cracks now marred the Profound Lotus behind her, and the light orbiting her body was visibly disordered.
Her gaze, cold and sharp, locked onto Jing Yuan and Feixiao, killing intent surging. Yet she also clearly feared the combined threat they posed and did not rush to attack again.
For the moment, the three were locked in a tense stalemate.
However, a deadlock between apex beings could not reverse the absolute disadvantage on the ground.
Deprived of support from their peak powerhouses, the Heaven Soul Empire, the Body Sect remnants, and the Qingqiu Army were finally and completely crushed under the combined encirclement of the Sun Moon Empire's fleet of floating battleships, its relentless mecha legions, and its seemingly endless anti-matter army.
The defensive lines were torn apart. Soldiers fell scattered across the battlefield. Formations collapsed entirely, and the command system was rendered completely inoperative.
Rout spread like a plague.
Under desperate protection, Princess Weina finally found the dying Du Busi and managed to recover his body with the help of sect disciples.
Gazing at the hellish scene before her—watching the empire's elites, people who had devoted their entire lives, fall one after another—the strong princess could no longer hold back her tears of despair.
"General, Your Highness, the overall situation is lost. We must retreat immediately!"
A Qingqiu Army general, his armor soaked in blood, rushed to Jing Yuan and Feixiao and shouted hoarsely.
Jing Yuan and Feixiao exchanged a glance. In each other's eyes, they saw both helplessness and resolve.
Together they had barely managed to block Phantylia for a time, but they could not reverse the overall collapse of the battle.
If they continued to fight here, they would not only die on this field, but also drag down with them Heaven Soul's last remaining seeds of hope.
"Retreat."
Feixiao made the decision without hesitation.
Jing Yuan brandished his saber, cleaving thunder to temporarily drive back several Doomsday Beasts attempting to close in.
Feixiao drew a deep breath and loosed several wind arrows, clearing out the enemies near Princess Weina's position.
Jing Yuan moved to Du Busi's side and lifted him onto his back.
Feixiao shielded Princess Weina.
The two of them led the remaining Body Sect disciples, the remnants of the Qingqiu Army, and a portion of the empire's elites in an extremely difficult strategic withdrawal toward the direction of Heaven Dou City.
Phantylia hovered in the sky, watching their retreat with bored indifference. She did not force a pursuit.
For her, the goal of shattering the Heaven Soul Empire's resistance and spreading despair had already been nearly achieved.
Engaging in a life-and-death struggle with two formidable foes under unknown conditions did not fit her style.
She raised a hand, gently caressing the cracked Profound Lotus behind her, and whispered:
"It's fine… The seeds of destruction have been sown. We only need to wait for them to blossom and bear fruit."
Under higher-level commands, the Sun Moon Empire's army steadily swept the battlefield, consolidated their occupied territory, and then advanced once more like a deadly tide toward Heaven Soul's heart—Heaven Dou City.
The Battle of the Emerald Plains ended with the Heaven Soul Empire coalition suffering a crushing defeat and being forced into a strategic retreat.
This battle not only dealt a tremendous blow to the Heaven Soul Empire's national strength, but also completely upended the strategic balance of the continent, paving the way for the Sun Moon Empire to sweep across the land.
…
Far away, shrouded in distant mists, Haiyuan City watched all of this in silence.
Within the Inner Sea of Star, torrents of information and energy continued to surge incessantly.
Hatsune Miku, the embodiment of the planet's consciousness, projected the thrilling clash that had taken place on the distant Emerald Plains, converting it into the clearest possible data streams and energy spectra before The Herta and Ruan Mei.
As Phantylia, having devoured the Golden Tree, unleashed its grand life force mixed with the power of destruction, violently colliding with Jing Yuan's Lightning-Lord and Feixiao's arrows and nearly reshaping the world itself, Herta's delicate face showed no surprise. Instead, an intrigued, observant expression appeared.
"Interesting."
Herta crossed her arms, lightly tapping one finger against her forearm.
"She's not like us—but she was born from an existence realized by Xiao Ming's memories and cognition, plus the assistance of this world's energy and the Aeon's system. Still, one must admit, she found herself a remarkable foothold."
Ruan Mei's gaze calmly traced the peaks of Phantylia's energy levels in the data stream. Her voice was as gentle and rippling as ever.
"The Golden Tree, the core of life in this world, contains power that surpasses ordinary world-origin forces. She is not only the first of the Aeon's followers to completely unshackle the Aeon's chains and remove the negative energy foundation, she also succeeded in turning this world's foundational power into her own. Both the opportunity and her execution are truly exceptional."
Herta nodded and pulled up a separate comparative dataset: the energy response records of Qian Renxue and Bibi Dong after attaining godhood in a parallel world.
"Look here. Qian Renxue's Angel God seat and Bibi Dong's Rakshasa God seat, according to this world's classification, both fall under the category of first-rank gods. They haven't been gods for long, and their use of divine power is still immature, but the personality of the godhood itself is the real deal."
She then pointed at the energy vortex spectrum generated when Phantylia exploded with power.
"Now compare that to the pure energy level and the depth of influence on the laws that Phantylia displayed. She far exceeds the newly promoted first-rank gods. In other words, after she devoured the Golden Tree, she already possessed the standard combat power of a world-class god. And…"
Herta paused, a glint flashing in her eyes.
"…this clearly isn't her full strength. The essence of the Elimination Master lies in her understanding and practice of the concept of destruction. Right now she's mostly relying on raw energy destruction. Her longest arm—spiritual corrosion and guiding civilizations into self-destruction—has yet to be fully exerted. If she's allowed to completely adapt and integrate with this world's rules, merging her aesthetics of destruction with the characteristics of the lifeforms here…"
She smiled faintly.
"…her threat level will increase exponentially."
Ruan Mei nodded lightly in agreement.
"Indeed. Even if one crosses cosmic walls into a foreign world with entirely different rules and must undergo an initial adaptation, the potential and adaptability symbolized by the Elimination's Master must never be underestimated. Their rate of recovery and extraction of power is astonishingly fast."
By contrast, Jing Yuan and Feixiao's performance seemed dull in the eyes of these two geniuses.
"Now look at Jing Yuan and Feixiao."
Herta curled her lip, her tone faint, almost… vaguely disgusted?
"It seems they still haven't fully broken free from this world system's chains. They're regaining their power in a more compliant way. Their progress is crawling along like a snail. If either one of them faced Phantylia alone, even if they didn't win, it wouldn't be this embarrassing."
Ruan Mei added her own view, which in her mind was the more crucial point.
"The rate of power recovery is tied to the essence of each existence. Destruction itself is a highly aggressive concept, which Phantylia embodies, but Jing Yuan and Feixiao are different."
Yet neither Phantylia's display of overwhelming power nor Jing Yuan and Feixiao's temporary lag stirred up anything like fear or worry in Herta and Ruan Mei.
Those emotions were simply too foreign to them.
"Strong?"
Herta sneered, as if she'd just heard a boring joke.
"When it comes to simple power stacking, this place already has beings who are, frankly, over-spec'd."
Her gaze seemed to pierce straight through the Inner Sea of Star, coming to rest in a quiet corner of Haiyuan City—where a yellow spring shimmered day and night together with nothingness, its blade sharp enough to sever even concepts.
Her vision then shifted outside the city walls, to a martial arena—where a certain sword art had long since stepped into the transformative realm, carrying enough might to cleave the stars.
"Needless to say."
Ruan Mei replied, her tone as calm as still water, yet expressing a shared understanding.
"For true geniuses, combat power is never the most important metric of evaluation. One could even say… it's a relatively inefficient way of solving problems."
In the eyes of Herta and Ruan Mei, it was far more enticing to invest effort in studying laws of the world, the birth of life, and the ultimate answers of the universe than in the effects of destruction.
Battle is a means, a process—never the goal.
With knowledge deep enough and computational ability strong enough, most conflicts can be eliminated before they occur, or guided into directions that are more beneficial to oneself.
So-called powerful people can seem rather clumsy in the face of absolute knowledge and wisdom.
On the projection that Hatsune Miku maintained, Phantylia's figure slowly faded, and the war on the Emerald Plains drew to a temporary close.
The Herta's gaze shifted away into the distance, finally landing on the mischievous expression of Ruan Mei beside her.
"Still," Herta said, her tone tinged with teasing, "I have to say, Ruan Mei, you're really willing to invest capital for your research. You even used yourself as a bargaining chip."
She could still picture it clearly. Not long ago, she had gone to discuss a joint project with Ruan Mei and had happened to glimpse, through a not-entirely-closed lab door, Ruan Mei and Lu Jingming engaged in an exchange of lifeforms that went far, far beyond the scope of ordinary research partners.
The scene had short-circuited the well-informed The Herta for a full 0.3 seconds.
Ruan Mei didn't even bat an eyelash.
Turning her head, she looked at Herta with those calm eyes and answered:
"His lifeform is extremely special—a manifestation and bearer of True Authority, a strange existence that has crossed the walls between worlds. He himself is a rare and unknown research subject. Since he's willing to fully open his life-information domain to me and allow the deepest level of observation and record, I see no reason to refuse paying the necessary interaction cost to build a more stable research trust."
Her tone held no embarrassment or awkwardness; it was as if she were simply describing an experimental procedure.
In Ruan Mei's world, emotional fluctuations were rare to nonexistent. All of her actions were governed by the highest possible standards of research value and efficiency.
"You do you."
Herta curled her lip, but an extremely subtle, almost competitive feeling flickered between her fine brows.
"But he's my find. I was the one who discovered that interesting sample first, and yet you've jumped the queue and dug into him like that. I can't help but feel… slightly displeased."
This sort of displeasure had nothing to do with romance. It was that natural sense of competition between top-tier researchers over priority of discovery and the right to lead deep-dive research.
Like two geniuses who lay eyes on an unprecedented puzzle at the same time—only for one to acquire the core data first via unorthodox means. Perfectly reasonable compensation from one perspective, but to The Herta, it felt like being scooped.
Especially when the one who scooped her was her current closest colleague, Ruan Mei—someone she recognized as a peer.
Ruan Mei didn't quite grasp Herta's subtle competitiveness. She replied calmly:
"The order of research steps does not affect the correctness of the final conclusion. If you're interested, I can share the follow-up data."
Herta snorted softly and did not answer.
Shared data? Of course she wanted it.
But the feeling of being one step late annoyed her.
She was already considering whether she should find an opportunity to conduct some deeper exchanges of her own with Lu Jingming—so that her research progress wouldn't fall behind Ruan Mei's.
…
Once hailed as the strongest fortress of the Star Luo Empire, the Mingdou Mountain Range was now nothing more than a land of scorched earth and rubble, steeped in deathly silence.
The once-magnificent peaks had been completely annihilated. Only ugly cliff faces and rock walls remained, glassified by intense heat. The air was thick with choking smoke, the stench of burning, and a faint tinge of blood.
"Hurry! Keep up! Don't fall behind!"
The White Tiger Duke, Dai Hao, called out hoarsely. His voice was ragged with exhaustion, but it still carried the majesty of command.
His armor was dim and battered, covered in cracks and burn marks. Blood filled his sharp tiger eyes as he stared fixedly at the shadows dogging their heels.
Beside him were the equally battle-worn White Tiger Guards, and the remnants of the empire's most elite First Soul Master Legion, led by Xuanji Douluo.
This corps, once fully staffed and famed for its iron discipline and lofty morale, was reduced to fewer than three thousand men. Every one of them was wounded, their soul power massively depleted. The entire unit was enshrouded in a tragic, despairing atmosphere.
Their retreat route twisted through the shattered mountains, relying on complex terrain to shake off pursuit.
Yet the Sun Moon Empire's Soul Master legions hounded them from behind like the most cunning hunting dogs.
"Swish—!"
Dense soul-guided beams rained out like a storm from behind a distant ridge.
The beams were precise and deadly, aimed especially at the flanks and rear of the Soul Master unit.
"Formation! Defend!"
Xuanji Douluo's beard and hair flew as he bellowed in fury.
The surrounding Soul Douluo-level powerhouses instantly unleashed powerful defensive soul skills. Heavy earthen walls rose up in an instant, just barely withstanding the barrage.
But the booming impact of soul-guided light upon their defenses was ceaseless. Each hit made the defensive light screens shudder violently, as if they might shatter at any moment.