The battlefield, still reeling from the devastating shockwave of March's arrow, shifted its collective focus back to Jingliu.
"Miss Jingliu?" Himeko rushed to her side, quickly re-assessing their primary objective.
Jingliu landed gracefully amidst the settling debris, like a moon goddess descending from the heavens. She said nothing, her crimson eyes fixed intensely on the churning dust cloud where the enemy commander had been standing.
The soldiers and leaders on both sides instinctively did the same. The fighting briefly ceased. Everyone stared at that massive cloud of dust, desperate to know the outcome of the clash.
Some distance away from the vanguard, Yuki had shifted entirely into spectator mode. He sat lounging on a beautifully ornate crystalline throne he had conjured, watching the battle with mild interest.
His golden gaze casually swept the chaotic field, then lingered on a dense treeline at the far edge of the wasteland. A slight, knowing smile curved his lips.
After a minute, he looked away, bringing his attention back to the battlefield.
In those trees, perfectly hidden from the naked eye, a figure stood pressed against a thick trunk.
It was a woman in a crisp, professional suit, draped in a dark coat bearing a distinct spider-web motif—elegant, composed, and effortlessly cool. Her arms were crossed beneath her chest, supporting it as she leaned comfortably against the tree, silently observing the war. Her face was delicate and refined, framed by dark violet hair with a pair of stylish sunglasses perched atop her head. Long legs sheathed in violet stockings completed the picture of mature, lethal grace.
She had been there for a while. She had seen everything.
The catastrophic blast from March's arrow had genuinely shaken her. But what truly unsettled her was that brief, piercing moment when Yuki's golden gaze had swept directly over her hiding spot.
The woman's pink eyes lingered on Yuki, a mix of surprise and deep suspicion flickering in them. She thoroughly studied the man lounging so casually on a throne in the middle of a warzone.
"Good-looking, certainly. But a man this handsome? I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite like him in the cosmos."
"So... who exactly are you? You're not in Elio's script." She murmured to herself, thoroughly intrigued.
A light, synthetic voice crackled in her earpiece.
"Kafka, I found him. That absurdly handsome guy? He's traveling with the Astral Express. I tracked Himeko the Navigator's network—there are some fragmented data traces from her homeworld. He was there."
"I know, Silver Wolf," Kafka nodded slowly. "He seemed to notice me just now. It was almost like he was smiling right at me." Her tone was light, carrying a playful, dangerous lilt.
"No way! How?!" Silver Wolf's voice sharpened with immediate disbelief. "Didn't you use my stealth device?" she pressed.
"I did. But... it didn't work. Well, more precisely, it didn't work on that particular handsome man."
"Impossible! I use Aether Editing to manipulate the local atomic structure and create a near-perfect spatial illusion—it's not some cheap light trick! No one should be able to just see through it!"
"Believe it or not, little Silver Wolf, that's exactly what happened."
"Tch. So he's a pro. Fine. I owe him one. Next time we cross paths, I'm settling the score," Silver Wolf grumbled, her competitive gamer edge flaring up.
Kafka smiled fondly at her partner's annoyance. She looked back at Yuki.
"So... you must be the anomaly Elio mentioned. What to do about you..."
Back on the battlefield.
As the thick dust finally cleared, everyone saw the Abundance commander.
He was still standing. But he didn't look good.
His once-pristine, sacred white robes were now shredded to ribbons. A deep, horrific, frostbitten sword wound cut diagonally across his chest, exposing bone.
"I severely underestimated you," he gasped for breath, steadying his trembling body on his spear. "With that level of skill and that specific attire... You're from the Xianzhou Alliance." He had officially identified Jingliu.
"Abomination. Die!" Jingliu charged forward, raising her blade to finish him.
But just as she closed the distance, a blinding pillar of pure, golden light violently erupted from the ground beneath him. A dense, square energy barrier encased the commander.
Jingliu's ice blade struck the barrier—and the sheer repulsive force threw her violently backward through the air.
"What's happening?!" March shouted in alarm.
Jingliu picked herself up, staring at the golden light. A horrifying, deeply buried memory suddenly violently surfaced in her mind. Her pale face darkened to an absolute, terrifying bleakness.
"No. He's invoking the power of an Emanator."
Her words hit the Express crew like a thunderbolt.
"What?!"
"Impossible!" The native resistance fighters couldn't believe their ears.
An Emanator? A transcendent being directly empowered by the Path of an Aeon? An Emanator stood at the absolute pinnacle of the universe, second only to the Aeons Themselves. They were the strongest beings beneath the divine.
But could their power simply be summoned at will?
Yet, the surviving Abundance soldiers' faces lit up with fanatical ecstasy. They knew exactly what that golden pillar meant.
"Hmph. Good thing I came prepared with this blessing. I almost lost my life to a Xianzhou gutter rat."
Inside the light, the commander's fatal frostbite wounds healed instantly. Golden petals, twisted vines, and pulsing wooden branches began sprouting directly from his flesh in a horrific, organic mutation.
A sickeningly potent, boundless vitality poured from his body. The barren, scorched ground around him suddenly bloomed violently with unnatural grass, alien flowers, and writhing roots.
"Wh-what?! Grass! Flowers!"
"This is insane!" March stared at the sudden verdant landscape. It was too verdant. Massive trees aggressively sprouted and grew beyond their natural height in mere seconds, their roots cracking the bedrock.
"The power of the Abundance," Himeko's face was incredibly grim. She hadn't fully believed it at first. But now?
"Indeed. The power of an Emanator of Abundance," Jingliu's ruby eyes hardened into glacial ice. Her expression was utterly desolate.
She was strong—she was the Sword Champion, one of the Xianzhou's absolute finest warriors. But against the might of an Emanator? The gap was an insurmountable cosmic chasm.
"Correct! Behold the grace of the Abundance Emanator—Shuhu! Blessed by Yaoshi Themselves!" The commander's voice boomed, distorted and layered with a sickeningly divine resonance.
The pillar of light completed its work. The Emanator's power fully flooded into him, using him as a living vessel.
His physical body swelled to ten times its original size, transforming into a towering, twisted monstrosity of flesh and sacred wood. Golden petals and thick vines wrapped around his massive form like armor. His eyes glowed with a blinding, divine light.
Cold, detached, and utterly contemptuous—the avatar of Shuhu looked down upon the battlefield as if they were all mere insects.
The cosmic pressure was absolutely suffocating. An uncontrollable, primal trembling ran through every single mortal present on the wasteland.