Fuli didn't hesitate for a split second. He turned his back on the stairway fight and took the final steps leading to the fortress's highest tier.
The cold stone steps echoed faintly beneath his feet. With every step upward, the oppressive atmosphere—a suffocating mixture of blood, gunpowder, and raw, primal savagery—grew tangibly thicker. The moment he emerged onto the rooftop, a sharp, biting gale smashed into his face.
His eyes instantly locked onto the edge of the platform. There, facing away from him and gazing out into the starless void beyond the fortress, stood a hulking, mountainous figure.
The afterglow of the setting sun painted a dark crimson halo around him. His hideous, metallic wolf-head visor gleamed with a frigid, merciless luster. Heavy iron chains coiled around his bulging, tree-trunk arms like living serpents, radiating a world-tearing savagery.
This was the Brood Lord of the Borisin, Hoolay.
At least in terms of appearance, build, and the unique, overwhelming aura forged through countless massacres, this behemoth was entirely identical to the intelligence files Fuli had read on the Taixu Frontline.
Sensing the disturbance behind him, Hoolay slowly turned around. The eyes glaring out from beneath the metallic visor were like the coldest glaciers. He scanned Fuli from head to toe, a look brimming with sheer scrutiny and absolute disdain. The gaze was so sharp it felt as if he wanted to grind the boy's bones into dust on the spot.
"You don't look like her disciple," Hoolay rumbled. His voice, filtered through the visor, was deep, raspy, and carried the grating texture of grinding metal.
Though he didn't specify who "she" was, both of them knew exactly who he meant.
"My master said the exact same thing," Fuli replied, his tone entirely relaxed, as if they were just shooting the breeze. "She said my style is a lot more like my Senior Brother, Jing Yuan—slippery, silver-tongued, and allergic to honest work. She even secretly complained to others, wondering if there was a fundamental flaw in her teaching methods."
Then, his casual tone vanished, replaced by a razor-sharp edge. "But hey, even an unfilial disciple like me is more than enough to deal with a cheap knockoff like you."
The real Hoolay had been slain in front of a massive crowd during the Luminary Wardance rebellion seven years ago. Even the Crimson Moon Heart—the sacred artifact symbolizing the inheritance of the Borisin Brood Lords—had been extracted and devoured by General Feixiao to cure her chronic afflictions.
But in this universe, death didn't always mean the end.
The Chrysalis Ritual. It was a forbidden, esoteric art developed by Phantylia. By combining the Vidyadhara's arcane molting rebirth mechanism, the innate soul-usurping abilities of the Heliobi, and her own profound understanding of life and souls, she had created a miracle.
She could extract a target's life essence and memory imprint in advance, sealing them within a special chrysalis. Once the original body died, the chrysalis would hatch into a perfect replica—possessing all the strength, memories, and even partial personality traits of the original.
The horrifying apex predator exuding monstrous bloodlust before Fuli was the byproduct of that very ritual. And unlike his emaciated, weakened state after breaking out of the Shackling Prison seven years ago, this Hoolay had spent years recovering and slaughtering. His power had not only returned, but seemingly surpassed his historical peak.
"My master captured you alive. General Feixiao defeated you." Fuli raised his Plasma Kagehide, pointing its glowing blue edge directly at the behemoth. "This time, it's my turn to kill you and end this twisted karmic cycle once and for all."
A Phantylia-crafted Hoolay clone versus Jingliu's rebellious disciple. It was a perfectly fitting matchup.
"Just you, brat?" Hoolay let out a contemptuous sneer, his rough voice practically dripping with mockery. "You're merely at the Critical-Class. I have no idea how that woman managed to train you so poorly."
Ultimately, surviving an encounter with Jingliu was the ultimate proof of Hoolay's terrifying strength. After all, "Capturing the Borisin Brood Lord Hoolay alive" was recorded in the history books right alongside "The High-Cloud Quintet crushing the Living Planet Ketu Mirage" as one of the Alliance's Thirteen Miraculous Deeds.
"What can I say? My master genuinely wanted to teach me swordplay, but she pushed too hard," the boy shrugged helplessly. "Since I'm such a rebellious disciple, I fought back and argued with her every single day. In the end, she usually exhausted herself to the point where she didn't even have the stamina left to hold a blade and spar with me."
Everything has its kryptonite. The mighty boss Hoolay could never defeat in his life had been reduced to a weeping mess of exhaustion by Fuli on a daily basis.
"But seriously, what's your excuse?" Fuli mocked. "You chose to live a second life through this pathetic ritual, only to spend the last seven years hiding like a rat, too terrified to show your true face. Has the grand Borisin Brood Lord lost his nerve? Have you really sunk this low?"
"Save the cheap provocations, brat."
Hoolay reached over his shoulder and slowly drew his colossal broadsword. The friction between the blade and the scabbard produced a nerve-grating screech. "I am a warrior who pursues absolute victory, not a mindless brute who only knows how to blindly slaughter!"
Suddenly, the muscles on his back bulged grotesquely. With a series of scalp-numbing tearing sounds, four thick, muscular arms covered in dark red chitin erupted from his spine!
Scorching, magma-like red energy surged around Hoolay's body, emitting a terrifying heat wave that violently distorted the air. The temperature on the entire rooftop skyrocketed in an instant.
Thanks to Prometheus's occasional lore-dumps about the Previous Era, Fuli immediately recognized this transformation technique.
Wheel-Breaker: Asura.
It was derived from "Wrath of Asura," the systemic martial art created by Kalpas, the 6th Flame-Chaser. It allowed the user to temporarily transform into a six-armed demonic Asura, granting them explosive power that far shattered their biological limits.
Logically, techniques tied to the Flame-Chasers were supposed to be locked deep within the Stigmata gene database encoded by Dr. MEI, waiting for modern successors to dig them out and refine them.
However, since the Eclipse Pack possessed the biological trait of devouring alien DNA to infinitely optimize themselves, Hoolay had likely eaten some poor soul from the Proper World who possessed those specific Stigmata genes, subsequently unlocking the hidden data.
Realizing this, Fuli looked amused. "According to our files, this definitely wasn't your specialty back in the day, Mr. Hoolay... Don't tell me my master's freezing sword aura gave you such severe PTSD that you completely swapped your build to stack Fire and Ice-Resistance?"
Hoolay didn't bother answering. He took a heavy step forward, bearing down on the boy like a moving volcano.
His six hands clenched. Honkai energy coalesced into five blazing energy broadswords, matching the physical one in his primary hand. All six radiated a destructive, suffocating aura.
SWISH—!
Six crude but ruthlessly efficient slashes descended like an inescapable net, attacking Fuli simultaneously from every conceivable blind spot! The sheer heat of the blade winds felt as if they were going to ignite the very fabric of space.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Six crisp, rapid-fire impacts rang out, practically overlapping into a single sound. Six crystalline-blue sword lights flashed in retaliation, perfectly parrying every single descending blade. The resulting shockwave exploded outward as a visible ring of kinetic force, sweeping all the accumulated dust off the rooftop.
Exploiting the brief opening, Fuli swiftly retrieved a drop of liquid sapphire that pulsed with astonishing energy from his spatial storage ring. Without hesitation, he swallowed it.
Raiden Mei called it "Primary Concentration Fuli Essence"—the purest, most potent core water from the Fuli Well. It contained an ocean of pristine energy comparable to an S-Rank core.
Consuming it outright could instantly heal a mortally wounded S-Rank combatant back to their absolute peak.
Obviously, popping an ultimate heal right now made no sense. Fuli wasn't even injured. Besides, no matter how strong his regeneration was, unless he was utterly immortal, Hoolay could still chop him into mincemeat.
No, Fuli wasn't using it to heal. He was using it as the ignition fuel for his ultimate trump card.
"Alright! You transform, I transform!"
Feeling the volcanic surge of energy exploding within his chest, Fuli roared at the top of his lungs:
"Yuan-Shen, Launch!"
In an instant, an indescribable, blinding brilliance erupted from the boy's body, wrapping him in a dazzling cocoon of pure light.
SWOOSH!
Sensing a massive threat, Hoolay didn't hesitate to slash again. But before his blade could connect, a pristine white hand burst through the outer shell of the cocoon. Amidst a shower of starlight, it effortlessly caught Hoolay's death-infused blade between its fingers.
"Heh." A soft chuckle drifted from the center of the boiling energy storm.
The clothing on Fuli's upper body dissolved like dust in the wind. His lean, fiercely sculpted torso was now covered in flowing, pale-gold circuit-like crests. They pulsed in time with his heartbeat, exuding a non-human beauty that was entirely rational, yet terrifyingly aggressive.
His hair had turned bone-white. His aura became ethereal, abyssal, and unfathomable. Behind his back, a dark crimson solar corona hovered, generating an irresistible gravitational pull.
It violently tore apart and absorbed all the ambient light, heat, energy, and matter in the surrounding space, indiscriminately devouring everything in its path.
Yuan-Shen Mode.
The name "Yuan" was taken from his courtesy name, Yuan-shi, while the inspiration came directly from Mirajane's "Take Over" magic from Fairy Tail.
It was essentially a high-tier transformation that allowed the user to absorb the power of beasts or supernatural entities, storing their essence to fundamentally augment their own body.
Naturally, Fuli didn't actually know magic. But he possessed something far more tyrannical: the Outer Path devouring organ.
By forcefully inhaling a massive quantity of external energy or matter that he normally couldn't digest quickly, he used the Outer Path to aggressively dissect and extract its core traits. He then grafted those traits onto himself, achieving a temporary state of supreme evolution.
In this god-like form, not only did his strength, speed, energy output, and reaction time experience an explosive exponential boost, but he also gained the unique traits of whatever he had absorbed.
For instance, right now, Fuli was in Yuan-Shen Mode: Ruin Author Form.
He had temporarily acquired the core characteristic of the Fuli Well: perpetual, omni-directional energy absorption.
The ambient light, thermal heat, microscopic particles, and even the free-floating quantum tides in the environment were all being ruthlessly sucked into the dark corona behind him like rivers flowing into the sea. This energy was instantly converted into the purest nutrients, endlessly replenishing whatever stamina he burned.
"Trying to jump a tier and fight a genuine S-Rank combatant while only at the Critical-Class? Honestly, unless you handed me the Judgment of Shamash or the Seven Thunders of Retribution, I wouldn't touch this job with a ten-foot pole."
Fuli cracked his wrists, casually flicking a solar-flare-like sword aura that severed several visible bands of hyper-condensed energy floating near him.
"But right now... this rule-breaking state practically makes me a true S-Rank. And when it comes to same-tier battles..."
The pure-blooded dragon's majesty from Setsuna Blade Arts: Tyrant's Barricade descended upon him once more. His irises shifted into a molten gold that symbolized pure destruction.
"Whether in the past life or this one, I have never lost!"
(Somewhere in the multiverse, a certain Herrscher of Thunder manipulating electromagnetism, a certain celestial super-computer, and a certain usurping Mongolian supreme god silently hit the 'dislike' button on that statement.)
Facing Fuli's explosively rising aura, Hoolay wasn't disappointed or intimidated that he had failed to interrupt the transformation. Instead, he threw his head back and let out a roaring, euphoric laugh!
"HAHAHA! Good! This is it! Now you're finally looking the part, brat!"
Hoolay bared his bone-white fangs. Monstrous battlelust burned in his eyes like literal fire.
"Only by crushing you at your absolute best will you be worthy of becoming the stepping stone for me, Hoolay, to trample over the corpses of you and your master and reclaim my ultimate glory!"
"Save your sleep-talking for the grave!"
Both of them let out earth-shattering roars at the exact same time. Like two meteors on a collision course, they launched themselves into the sky!
The resulting collision of their blades erupted into a cataclysmic shockwave, a Heaven-cleaving force that looked as if it were trying to split the very firmament in two!
---||---
At the exact moment the apocalyptic duel erupted on the roof, another battle was on the verge of breaking out at the stairwell entrance.
Listening to the heart-palpitating thunder of energy colliding just above their heads, Batu rested his massive greatsword on his shoulder and looked at the purple-haired girl blocking his path.
"The main event upstairs has started," Batu remarked. His voice was no longer muffled or mechanical; instead, it carried a tone of genuine intrigue. "Are we just gonna stand here and watch?"
Castorice didn't reply. Pitch-black waters of the Dead Sea silently seeped from the blade of her scythe, trickling down the cold metal and emanating a dense aura of absolute death.
"Seer Mangus mentioned you to me," Batu continued, revealing himself to be somewhat of a chatterbox. Even with a battle imminent, he casually kept talking. "She said that ever since you were a child, you've possessed a very special ability. The power to grant death to any living thing."
He paused, a strange sense of camaraderie lacing his words. "Seems like you and I are pretty similar, then."
"Hm?" Castorice's expression shifted slightly. Her elf-like ears twitched as a hint of wariness and confusion leaked through her calm facade.
"My codename is 'Destructor in the Palm'."
Batu stabbed his door-sized greatsword into the floor and sighed dramatically. "Compared to your one-touch-insta-kill ability, mine might be a bit lacking. But anything I touch—whether it's living or inanimate—decays at an unimaginable speed."
"Wood warps and rots. Metal rusts into slag. Stone crumbles into sand. Glazed glass loses its luster and shatters. Even living beings age into withered bones in a matter of seconds once my hands are on them."
"And all I can do is watch it happen. I can't stop it."
Castorice's delicate eyebrows furrowed. She felt a brief pang of sympathy, almost opening her mouth to offer words of comfort for his seemingly tragic curse.
"So, little girl..."
Then, she heard Batu ask with an attitude of pure, morbid curiosity: "How many people did you kill with your power today?"
Castorice froze. What?
"How many?" the man repeated, as if asking about the weather. "The heavens gifted us with such uniquely terrifying powers for a reason. Isn't it obvious? It's a clear sign that we were born to stand above all those inferior lifeforms!"
Noticing the stunned expression on the girl's face, he assumed she just didn't understand the appeal, and eagerly began to share his twisted philosophy.
"Let me tell you, when those dying, inferior scums—whether they're Foxian slaves, Xianzhou merchants, IPC traders, or even other Borisin—realize they're irreversibly aging to death, the looks on their faces are absolutely priceless!"
"They look so terrified, so unwilling to accept it! So many of them drop to their knees, crying and snotting all over the place, begging me to change them back!"
Batu let out a cruel, mocking laugh. "As if I could! It's not like I know any time-reversal magic! And even if I did, I definitely wouldn't use it to save them. Well... actually, maybe I would. I'd turn them young again, just so I could rot them to death a second time and enjoy that sweet despair all over again..."
"Shut up!"
A cold, wrath-filled rebuke severed his nauseating fantasies.
Castorice reached down and slipped the Energy Conversion Ring off her left ring finger, carefully stowing it away. Her breathtakingly beautiful face—usually serene, ethereal, and slightly melancholic—was now covered in a layer of biting frost.
It was an unprecedented fury.
In that instant, the scythe in her hands seemed to come alive. It morphed into the bending, extending tentacles of the underworld itself, unleashing a soul-tearing shriek as she launched a furious flurry of slashes directly at him!
"Whoa, whoa, swinging just 'cause we disagreed? Are you the Borisin here, or am I?"
Batu grumbled in dissatisfaction as he casually parried the spectral blades. Then, as if suddenly struck by an epiphany, he slapped his forehead.
"Wait... don't tell me. Are you one of those types who feels inferior because of your innate power? Did those weak little bugs brainwash you with their bullshit about 'the sanctity of life' and 'learning restraint'? Is that why you refuse to hurt people?"
Castorice said nothing. She simply pressed her attack, her strikes growing exponentially more vicious.
"This won't do. This won't do at all."
Treating her lethal assault like the harmless swiping of an angry kitten, Batu earnestly tried to "educate" her. "Those people are just terrified of our power! They polluted your mind with their flawed logic! Listen to me, you shouldn't side with those inferior creatures. We're the same kind, we're the ones who should—urk?"
Pfft.
A slicing sound so faint it was almost negligible echoed in the stairwell.
Batu hadn't dodged fast enough. The spectral edge of the scythe had grazed him, leaving a cut no thicker than a single strand of hair.
He didn't care in the slightest, opening his mouth to continue preaching his twisted doctrine.
Thud.
Without warning, the giant, muscular Borisin collapsed forward, hitting the floor like a puppet whose strings had just been violently severed.
"W-Why...?"
Feeling the undeniable reality of his own rapidly approaching death, Batu's eyes went wide. His pupils dilated with sheer, unadulterated terror and absolute bewilderment. "You... you didn't even touch me..."
Where Sweet Dreams Die Scythe.
It was Castorice's Divine Raiment. Outwardly, it appeared as a massive scythe etched with purple and white patterns.
But it wasn't forged from physical matter. It was the absolute, conceptual manifestation of Death itself. Even without being actively channeled, merely swinging it carried the terrifying, conceptual weight of mortality.
More importantly, it was the only known vessel capable of perfectly containing and extending Castorice's innate "Death-bringing Blessing."
In a sense, this scythe was simply an extension of the girl's own limbs. When Castorice actively resolved to strip a life away, the Where Sweet Dreams Die Scythe became the ultimate, fatal conductor. The moment it broke skin, her power—symbolizing eternal, irreversible rest—would instantly trigger, dragging the victim into permanent slumber.
Normally, Castorice practically never activated this impossibly cheap, instant-death effect. As stated before, the kind-hearted girl was deeply averse to directly ripping lives away with her power.
But right now, Castorice merely cast a freezing, indifferent glance at the rapidly cooling corpse on the floor.
Once she confirmed he was dead, she silently slipped her ring back onto her finger, turned around without a second's hesitation, and sprinted toward the rooftop.
Some existences were a blatant blasphemy to life itself.
He deserved to die.
Not to mention, her companion was still waiting for backup above. Even if Fuli had previously claimed he could handle Hoolay on his own, there was no way she was just going to sit back and watch.