If she could gauge the depth of Acheron's power, even if she ultimately had to retreat, she could bring back information of immense value, rather than simply suffering a meaningless defeat.
At this thought, a glint flashed in Phantylia's eyes.
Although she had decided on a risky move, she wasn't overly concerned about perishing here.
As the most cunning, difficult-to-deal-with Destruction Lord, one who deeply understood the art of survival, she had already set up countless fallback plans; the phrase "a sly rabbit has three burrows" was far from sufficient to describe her preparations.
Even if this golden tree body, meticulously crafted through great effort, were to collapse here, her core consciousness would not be entirely extinguished, leaving her a chance to rise again.
For Phantylia, temporary severe vitality damage was far better than losing face outright.
Having prepared for the worst, Phantylia's enchanting, beautiful smile returned to her pale cheeks, yet it subtly carried a hint of deadly seriousness and cold provocation.
"Emissary of the Nihility... Hehe, a truly... awe-inspiring title."
She lightly fanned the sinister circular fan, and the emerald-green life aura and the pitch-black aura of destruction around her erupted once more.
More turbulent than any previous time, the two diametrically opposed forces, which should naturally repel each other, were forcefully merged by her will, transforming into dark energy torrents that twisted and writhed, capable of corroding stars and annihilating natural laws.
"But to think a mere word is enough to make a Destruction Lord halt? That is... underestimating the might of Destruction."
Before her words had finished, the torrent, a fusion of life and death, creation and termination, did not rush towards Acheron, but sharply turned its direction, savagely slamming into the constantly surging, dazzling life currents of the Star's Inner Sea itself.
Phantylia's intention was glaringly obvious.
By attacking the planet's core, she sought to force Acheron, the guardian of this place, to actively intercept the attack, allowing her to carefully observe the form and intensity of the opponent's power in their reaction.
At the same time, she would create a massive energy disturbance and visual obstruction, forging the best opportunity for her next move or retreat.
However, facing this savage attack, which would make a Tier 1 Deity stand ready and perhaps even sustain severe injury, Acheron's reaction was chillingly calm.
She stood still as an ancient stone, her pale fingers, resting on the purplish-black sword hilt, imperceptibly tightened by a fraction.
There was no earth-shattering energy collision, no spectacular, dazzling explosion of light.
The roaring torrent of destruction, capable of annihilating stars, the instant it encroached within a certain radius of Acheron, its very meaning and foundation of existence seemed to be instantly stripped away and negated by some absolute rule.
The violent energy constituting the torrent seemed to lose all internal logic and external definition, silently and completely dissolving.
It wasn't canceled out or neutralized, but rather, as if it were wiped directly from the record of existence, returning to absolute, eternal nothingness.
The entire process was so silent and smooth that it was unsettling, as if everything was meant to be.
Phantylia's pupils sharply contracted again, but her offensive did not cease because of this unbelievable sight; instead, it became even more savage and cunning.
More condensed, darkly colored rays of destruction shot towards Acheron from all directions and various bizarre angles, among which several extremely insidious, lethal, and lightning-fast beams were separated, stabbing straight towards the cluster of the World Will's faint, trembling light in the distance, attacking the opponent's necessary defense.
This time, the perpetually silent Acheron finally made a more noticeable move.
She gripped the sword hilt.
It was not a lightning-fast draw like that of a common martial artist, but a slow, seemingly weight-laden, ritualistic starting pose.
As she moved, a domain, indescribable and mind-numbingly cold, silently unfolded from her, rapidly spreading.
The surrounding colors visibly receded, turning into a deadly grey-white; everything lost all luster and vitality; all sound was utterly swallowed; even the surging of the energy currents seemed to turn into an absurd, silent pantomime.
All existence was irreversibly heading toward the termination of meaning and the end of being.
"I weep for the departed."
A hollow, ethereal voice, as if transmitted from nothingness, gently sounded, devoid of any joy or sorrow, yet carrying the pity and silence of bidding farewell to all things.
The world utterly lost its color in this instant, sinking into absolute grey and white.
Acheron's originally sleek purple long hair turned the grey-white of death; two streaks of thick, blood-like tears slid from her hollow eye sockets, tragic and uncanny.
Eerie, bloody tattoos rapidly spread like a living thing from her fair neck, covering half her face and body in the blink of an eye, making half of her body look as if it had just bathed in a pool of blood, stained with breathtaking crimson.
In this world of absolute de-saturation and death, Acheron was the only, and the last, trace of bloody color in the vast expanse.
In this instant, Acheron revealed her true form and terror as the Emissary of the Nihility without reservation.
"Twilight rain, will ultimately fall."
Acheron's figure in this grey-white world seemed to become infinitely tall, like a god governing the end, yet also appeared as tiny as dust, herself a part of the Nihility.
The greatsword in her hand was not fully drawn, only exposing a small section of a dark-red blade that seemed capable of swallowing all light and hope.
She seemingly casually, gently, swung it in Phantylia's direction.
There was no magnificent sword light, no fierce spatial turbulence, and not even any ripple of energy.
Phantylia only felt as if her very existence had been directly struck by a concept of absolute negation that transcended all understanding.
Her surrounding protective energy, the indestructible golden tree body containing surging vitality, and even a part of her soul origin and consciousness fragments, became transparent and illusory in this instant, and then, like a sandcastle scattered by the wind, began to collapse, disintegrate, and dissipate from the most fundamental level.
This was not physical or energy-level destruction, but something far more fundamental and despairing—a fall from existence towards non-existence.
"Pfft—!"
Phantylia violently spat out a large mouthful of dark-golden liquid, which was not blood but a mixture of pure destructive energy and life essence. Her body trembled violently, and her aura rapidly plummeted at a terrifying speed, like an avalanche.
Her eyes were filled with unprecedented horror; she could clearly sense that a part of her existence had been permanently and thoroughly erased from the universe.
Were it not for her pre-emptive separation and concealment of a portion of her core origin as a safeguard, and were it not for the golden tree body providing terrifying life force as a buffer, this seemingly effortless strike would have been enough to plunge her, a Destruction Lord, into eternal slumber or even complete nothingness.
"Cannot... withstand!"
This thought hammered like a death knell in the depths of her soul, instantly crushing all remaining hope and hesitation.
Without further delay, and caring little for saving face or dignity, Phantylia let out a sharp shriek filled with pain, instantly and without reservation detonating the escape mechanism and part of the now-irrecoverable body that had been tainted by Nihility, which she had pre-arranged deep within the golden tree body.
Boom!!!
An extremely chaotic, twisted energy storm suddenly erupted. Its bizarre nature actually managed to forcefully interfere with the mercilessly spreading Nihility Domain for an extremely brief moment.
Seizing this insignificant but precious opportunity, a dark, profound spatial rift connecting to a distant, unknown coordinate abruptly tore open. Phantylia's figure, now illusory, dimmed, and riddled with damage, plunged into it like a frightened bird, carrying an overwhelming sense of lingering fear, and vanished.
"Herta, Acheron, I remember you both. Destruction will ultimately arrive."
Even in such a disastrous, near-death retreat, Phantylia's unwilling shriek transmitted through the rapidly closing rift, attempting to salvage the last shred of dignity.
The spatial rift quickly closed, and the Star's Inner Sea slowly returned to calm, leaving behind only the energy area slightly disordered by Phantylia's self-detonation and the residual destructive aura in the air, testifying to the severe and humiliating defeat a Destruction Lord had just experienced here.
Acheron slowly sheathed her greatsword, Naught, and the Nihility Domain that consigned all things to silence quietly dissipated.
Vibrant colors and various subtle sounds returned to this space, but her eyes, still hollow as if capable of swallowing everything, quietly gazed at the void where Phantylia had vanished.
"Yet another... blood debt."
She spoke softly, her voice still ethereal and calm, yet carrying a heart-wrenching weight and indifference.
On the throne, Herta finally recovered from observing the battle. A trace of rare stiffness was visible on her beautiful face, and her eyes, which saw through everything, flashed with strange light, fixed intently on the restored Acheron.
Although she had long known from Lu Jingming that Acheron's power was extremely formidable and was certain she had the ability to suppress or even repel the not-fully-actualized Phantylia Memory.
After all, she was a special entity summoned by Lu Jingming using a massive amount of precious Real-Power; even if not in her peak state, dealing with a Destruction Lord Memory that relied on a golden tree to reconstruct its body should not be a problem.
However, Herta truly had not anticipated that Acheron would win so... cleanly, even crushingly.
From start to finish, Acheron essentially executed only one seemingly gentle slash, but this one strike, imbued with the ultimate principle of Nihility, was enough to make a notorious Destruction Lord genuinely experience the meaning of defeat and fear, and nearly perish entirely.
Especially that terrifying power to de-saturate the world and negate the very foundation of all existence; its priority was frighteningly high, seemingly transcending many conventional cosmic rules.
This undoubtedly provided several crucial and subversive extreme parameters for Herta's Simulated Universe project.
Herta subconsciously glanced at the nearby cluster of the World Will's light, which was still faintly trembling and radiating a strong sense of fear.
From those nascent consciousness fragments, Herta clearly perceived that its level of fear towards Acheron was even greater than its fear towards Phantylia.
This was quite intriguing.
Phantylia's malice towards it was naked—the desire to devour and replace—while Acheron had not shown any malice towards it from beginning to end, and could even be said to have protected it.
Yet, this World Will instinctively feared Acheron more.
The reason was simple: Phantylia's destruction still belonged to a violent change in existence, while the Nihility wielded by Acheron was the absolute negation of existence itself.
Once tainted by the power of Nihility, even the World Will could irreversibly head towards absolute nothingness, with even the trace of its existence being erased. This was more despairing than being destroyed by a Destruction Lord.
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi