"This time, I will make sure you never leave this place alive!"
Phantylia showed none of her usual, mocking composure. Her face was locked in a bitter mask of fury, her eyes burning with pure hatred as she glared directly at Julian.
"Talk is cheap," Julian replied, tossing a casual wave of his hand. "Out here in the real world, big words don't win battles."
The spatial suppression around Yveltal dissolved. Expanding its massive wings, the dark entity surged upward, its shadow casting over the subterranean cavern until its size matched the giant construct standing before them. Its aura flared, equal to Phantylia's mountain-like form.
"Haha! How could I possibly sit back when an enemy threatens the Xianzhou?" Jing Yuan laughed, his voice ringing across the chamber as the golden form of the Lightning-Lord materialized directly behind him.
The three massive entities stood face-to-face in the dim light, their combined pressure radiating outward. Beyond the seals, roaming Abominations and spatial monsters froze in sheer terror, trembling under the sudden surge of power.
Even up on the coastal platforms of the Scalegorge Waterscape, Fu Xuan and her guard felt a sharp, icy chill sweep through the air.
"It's starting," Fu Xuan murmured, staring down into the dark abyss.
"So what if it's two against one?" Phantylia sneered, snapping her giant fan forward. "Allow me to show you the true depth of an Abundance body!"
She struck first. Waves of thick, green energy condensed into razor-sharp tendrils, sweeping outward to ensnare Yveltal, the Lightning-Lord, Julian, and Jing Yuan all at once.
"Wings of Death!" Julian commanded.
Yveltal threw its head back and unleashed a beam of pure, absolute destruction straight into the oncoming wave. The beam swallowed the green light whole, erasing the physical vitality in its path and leaving nothing behind.
Though the surrounding roots immediately pumped fresh vitality back into the area, Phantylia's initial barrage was entirely neutralized. She was forced to raise a wall of thick, wooden boughs just to shield herself from the lingering shockwave.
Jing Yuan didn't waste a second. The moment her defense flickered, he commanded the Lightning-Lord to swing its colossal glaive down upon her shoulder.
Phantylia parried the blow with her fan, simultaneously channeling dark, destructive energy through the root system to strike at Julian and Jing Yuan's position on the ledge.
Yet with Yveltal hovering in front, almost every incoming blast was absorbed or deflected before reaching the platform. The few stray energy needles that made it through were easily swatted away by Julian's spatial fields and Jing Yuan's blade.
"Hmph! Let's see how much you can digest before you burst!" Phantylia mocked.
The divine roots were fed by the lingering authority of the Aeon, a force so resilient that even the Xianzhou's greatest scholars had found no way to permanently sever it. Eons ago, an arrow from The Hunt had withered the trunk, yet the deep roots beneath the sea had survived, pulsing with endless life.
In her eyes, a single summoned beast—no matter how strange its appetite—could never hope to drain an immortal foundation. Though held back for the moment, Phantylia remained entirely unbothered, settling into a battle of attrition.
Both Jing Yuan and Julian knew this all too well. As they exchanged blows, they kept their focus sharp, watching for a single opening to sever her link to the root system.
They would only get one shot. If she realized what they were planning and pulled her core back into the deep network, she wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
Yet they couldn't afford a drawn-out struggle either. While Yveltal could feed on the ambient energy to stay fresh, Jing Yuan was continuously fighting off the lingering effects of the surrounding Abundance aura. A prolonged siege would only drag the General closer to his limits.
I need to give her a reason to rush, Julian thought, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Phantylia was a master of psychological manipulation, constantly probing her opponents' minds for a crack in their composure. As she settled into her defensive posture, her gaze flickered between Jing Yuan and Julian, watching their reactions.
Though Julian maintained a calm exterior, his eyes suddenly lost their sharp focus, drifting slightly as if his mind were elsewhere.
Phantylia caught the slip instantly. Just a child after all. Strong, but lacking focus when pushed.
Seizing the perceived opening, she shifted her stance. Using the roots to pin the Lightning-Lord's weapon, she fused a dense sphere of Destruction and Abundance energy above her palm, hurling a burning, star-like projectile straight at Julian.
At the same time, thick wooden tendrils erupted from the floor, wrapping around Yveltal's talons to keep the creature from intercepting the strike.
"Julian, look out!" Jing Yuan called out, pushing his blade forward. But the Lightning-Lord was temporarily tangled in the dense boughs, preventing him from swinging around to cover his ally.
Julian merely curled his lips into a faint, satisfied smile.
She had taken the bait.
"Caw!"
Yveltal let out a piercing shriek. A wave of dark, spatial energy burst outward from its body, instantly shattering the wooden tendrils holding its feet.
Raising its wings once more, it unleashed Wings of Death at point-blank range. The beam smashed straight into the falling star, grinding the energy sphere into dust in a fraction of a second.
The raw pressure radiating from the dark entity surged exponentially, locking the cavern in an absolute, crushing grip.
Both Phantylia and Jing Yuan froze, their eyes widening in shock.
"This energy signature... an Emanator?!"
Neither of them had expected Julian to wield power on par with an Emanator.
It had been so little time since Phantylia first encountered him. Crossing the divide from an ordinary practitioner to an Emanator without a direct blessing was supposed to be impossible.
Jing Yuan was equally stunned; the reports he had received suggested Julian could briefly stand his ground against high-tier threats, not that he commanded this level of raw authority himself.
"I really ought to thank you for the extra energy, Phantylia," Julian said softly.
The comment left both of them baffled. To everyone else, Yveltal was a summoned entity, and a summoned creature's strength was naturally capped by its master's limits. If the creature stood at this level, its master had to hold the same foundation.
None of them could have guessed that Julian's summoned entities operated on their own distinct, ancient rules, independent of his personal growth.
"Jing Yuan, now!" Julian's voice echoed directly in the General's mind.
The mental message snapped Jing Yuan back to reality. Recognizing the split-second window Julian had created, he didn't hesitate.
Gold light gathered in his grip, condensing into a heavy, shimmering halberd. With a fierce turn of his shoulders, he hurled the weapon with all his strength.
Phantylia felt the incoming threat and tried to pull her fan back to shield her chest, but Yveltal's dark aura slammed down on her, pinning her arms in place.
The golden halberd struck her chest squarely, severing her connection to the root system in a single, violent shockwave.
The link broken, her giant construct shuddered. Before she could regain her footing, the Lightning-Lord broke free from the vines, bringing its massive blade down in a sweeping arc that shattered the golden body into fragments, forcing her true spirit-flame out into the open.
Julian had no intention of letting her spirit escape.
"You might be a clone, but you're still paying the bill!"
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf, Lunala, and Marshadow into the cavern. A storm of Psychic and Ghost-type energy locked onto the floating spirit-flame.
Psychic force tore through her thoughts, while Ghost-type energy lashed directly at her spiritual foundation. The three lake guardians focused their combined authority straight onto her mental will.
A clone could reform elsewhere, but it wouldn't escape without feeling every shred of pain first.
"AAAAGH!"
Phantylia's spirit-flame writhed wildly in the air. As a Heliobus, her essence was pure spirit; mental and spiritual attacks were the absolute worst nightmare for her kind. Hit by both forces at once, even a Lord Ravager couldn't hold back a agonizing shriek.
Without her giant body to absorb the shock, her temporary spirit possessed zero defense against the barrage, slowly unraveling under the onslaught.
"Julian...! I will destroy you...!"
With one final, resentful cry, the burning spirit-flame shattered into faint sparks, vanishing entirely from the root realm.
Jing Yuan lowered his blade, a rare, genuinely satisfied smile breaking across his face. "A fine finish. That felt remarkably good."
Phantylia had brought immense chaos to the Luofu; seeing her proxy suffer before being erased was a welcome sight.
Still, this was merely a prelude. The true reckoning would come when they tracked down her real body, showing her what it meant to face the full wrath of The Hunt.
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