Kanzaki lowered his gaze. A low, chilling laugh slipped from his lips.
"Yaoshi grants supreme power, but there is always a price. Just as the Mara-Struck state is the cost of the Xianzhou's longevity…"
He let the words trail off, the rest hanging in the air like a blade.
Shuhu drew in a slow breath, then burst into wild laughter, his expression twisting with manic delight.
"I am a divine miracle, an envoy of Yaoshi. What you call an Emanator. The blessing of the Self-Actualization Aspect you three possess is far too weak to stand against me."
"In my eyes, you are nothing more than lumps of flesh saturated with the power of Abundance."
"Soon my upper half will slaughter the Luofu, seize the Ambrosial Arbor, and claim true eternal life!"
"Tell me—how do you plan to kill me?"
Kanzaki's sneer was cold.
"You and I are the same. Both of us are nothing but thieves who plundered countless blessings of Abundance and crammed them into a single body. At our core, we are lowly existences who trample upon Yaoshi's true will."
He stepped closer, mockery clear in his eyes.
"Immortal? You don't deserve the word."
His figure vanished.
He reappeared in the heart of the writhing root mass, his right arm now a blade of pitch-black bone that reeked of rot and venom. The power had been torn from an abomination known as the Night-Mad Bone Spider.
The blade slammed into a thick, dragon-coiled root. Purple-black venom flooded inward.
The root convulsed violently. Its bark blackened, split, and dissolved into sludge.
Shuhu's roar exploded through their minds like shattering glass.
Roots surged from every direction, weaving into a crushing net.
"Sister!"
Hanya and Xueyi moved together, wings dissolving into translucent, dragonfly-like pairs that beat with a piercing, hair-raising buzz. They slipped through the narrowing gaps at terrifying speed.
Xueyi's palms met. A torrent of eerie bluish-white flames erupted and clung to the roots like living parasites that refused to die. Gray thunder followed in its wake, striking in unison.
Hanya's hands scaled over. Her fingertips launched countless hair-thin water blades, the technique stolen from some deep-sea abomination. Water and fire intertwined. Thunder roared.
The battle collapsed into raw, vicious exchanges—wounds traded for wounds with no thought of defense.
A colossal root swept across the field and smashed half of Kanzaki's body into pulp.
Flesh and blood sprayed outward, then writhed and knitted itself back together in seconds. Kanzaki's expression never changed. He counterattacked at once, his arm swelling into a massive, keratin-plated limb that tore the attacking root apart with brutal force.
Shuhu's voice rolled across the battlefield, thick with contempt.
"Is this the power of your Self-Actualization Aspect?"
Shuhu's own injuries were far worse. Countless roots lay severed, charred, and corroded. Yet as an Emanator of Yaoshi, life refused to stay down. Fresh sprouts burst from every wound before the severed pieces even touched the ground. In the middle of the slaughter, delicate flowers bloomed from the cuts.
Distorted faces of Kanzaki, Hanya, and Xueyi appeared within the petals, their voices rising in sharp, mocking unison.
"You cannot kill us… We are eternal…"
"Join us… Pain is meaningless…"
Kanzaki's face remained expressionless. He stamped down. His body swelled with the wind, expanding until he stood ten thousand feet tall. The cracks scarring the earth became nothing more than fine lines beneath his feet.
With a thought, his acupoints flared wide. Tens of thousands of bone-and-keratin swords erupted from his body, each a hundred meters long and radiating suffocating killing intent. They streaked toward Shuhu like falling stars.
Shuhu answered without hesitation. Its hidden root network tore free of the ground. Mountains collapsed. Rivers reversed course. Roots twisted and merged as its form swelled to match Kanzaki's colossal scale—a body of wood and stump that still radiated crushing pressure.
Kanzaki's mountain-sized fist slammed into Shuhu's trunk.
The shockwave ripped outward for thousands of miles, splitting the land into bottomless black fissures. Every punch blasted huge holes through Shuhu's body, wood chips and sap exploding into the air.
The holes sealed almost instantly, filled by surging life force.
Shuhu did not simply endure. It counterattacked with savage precision, impaling Kanzaki through the chest, thighs, and skull again and again.
Kanzaki did not dodge. He let the roots drive through him.
As long as he was not instantly reduced to dust, injuries meant nothing.
Hanya and Xueyi could not reach the same towering height, but they fought with equal ferocity. Their bodies grew to over a thousand feet. Their arms transformed into bone blades that carved away the smaller roots trying to bind Kanzaki's limbs.
"Left side!"
Their coordination was seamless. Bone blades flashed like silver wind, severing hundreds of incoming vines with every swing.
The battlefield had become a nightmare of scale and violence. Kanzaki's colossal frame moved with terrifying speed for its size, each step cracking the earth further. The stench of venom and rotting wood mixed with the sweet, cloying scent of the blooming flowers. Every impact sent fresh tremors through the continent.
Shuhu's laughter never stopped. It boomed from the giant tree-like body, trying to drown their will beneath waves of despair.
Yet Kanzaki's eyes stayed cold.
He knew the truth.
This so-called immortality was nothing but an endless cycle of theft and consumption. Shuhu clung to it like a starving beast, but in the end it was still just another abomination wearing the skin of eternity.
Another root thicker than a fortress wall speared toward his head.
Kanzaki caught it with one massive hand. The bone blade of his other arm drove straight through its core, pumping more venom deep into the living wood.
Shuhu howled. The flowers on its body trembled and screamed.
Kanzaki's voice cut through the chaos, low and steady.
"You call this eternal life?"
He twisted the blade.
More roots erupted from the ground, trying to drag him down. Hanya and Xueyi carved through them without pause, their smaller frames darting across his colossal body like protective spirits. Flames and water blades and gray thunder wove together in a relentless storm.
The three of them moved as one against the Emanator.
Wounds opened and closed. Flesh and wood regenerated in endless rhythm.
But the mockery in Kanzaki's heart only grew colder.
Shuhu could heal.
So could he.
And unlike the Emanator, he had no illusions about what this power truly was.
It was not a gift.
It was a curse dressed in the robes of abundance.
And he would make sure Shuhu understood that before the end.