"HAHAHA! What's wrong, brat? Still suckling at your mother's teat? Again! Let me see just how much that woman Jingliu actually taught you!"
Hoolay's maniacal laughter shook the atmosphere. In his Wheel-Breaker: Asura mode, his six bulging, muscle-bound arms continuously swung colossal blades wreathed in roaring flames. Every single cleave carried the world-tearing momentum of a falling sky.
Scorching blade-light skimmed across the ocean, instantly vaporizing a trench miles long. The sheer kinetic force sheared off mountain peaks, turning them to ash, while the residual heat and explosive shockwaves ignited the foothills below.
"My master already has a boyfriend! Stop obsessing over her with that dog-brain of yours, people might get the wrong idea!"
Fuli's figure darted through the torrential rain of blade-light. The phantom broadsword and the Plasma Kagehide traced countless precise arcs, parrying or deflecting the berserk onslaught.
The explosive clash of their blades sounded like a continuous string of thunderclaps. The resulting shockwaves not only shredded the cloud layer but gouged horrifying scars into the planet's surface.
In just a few short minutes, the two had fought from the rooftop of Dulan Fortress up into the stratosphere, only to crash back down into the deep sea like twin meteorites. Wherever they passed, hurricanes raged, tsunamis surged, and the planet's crust fractured. It was a literal apocalyptic portrait of Doomsday.
This was exactly why the various major factions of the Proper World had established the S-Class Restriction Treaty. If S-Class powerhouses were allowed to unleash their full strength without anyone stopping them, and without them deliberately holding back, these walking natural disasters could entirely reshape a continent's ecosystem in minutes, bringing an extinction-level catastrophe to civilization itself!
And for the two currently causing said catastrophe, the battle was a bloody, brutal meat grinder.
Relying on the hyper-regeneration granted by the Garuda genes within his body, Fuli was like an unextinguishable ember; his wounds rapidly stitched themselves back together amidst a blaze of fiery light.
On the flip side, relying on his monstrous Borisin constitution and some eerie, unknown power, Hoolay's mangled flesh writhed and regenerated at a visible rate. Shattered bones snapped back into place with teeth-grating crunches.
For a time, blood and flesh flew across the battlefield, only to be fully restored a second later. It looked like an endless, eternal war of attrition.
Until Fuli noticed something was deeply wrong.
He had activated the Second Rated Power of the Jizo Mitama: Forbidden Brand. Wounds inflicted by this power were supposed to be impossible to heal, actually expanding and worsening over time.
Having seen its terrifying effects firsthand on the Death Knight and Princess Tribios in the past, Fuli generally avoided using this highly troublesome ability unless it was absolutely life-or-death.
The problem was, this was a life-or-death situation, and Fuli had successfully applied the Forbidden Crest to expand the wounds he dealt.
And the result?
Hoolay's injuries were still regenerating at a visible, rapid pace. The healing hadn't been visibly affected at all!
Something's fishy... Is it because of that blade?
Fuli's mind raced. He quietly activated Jizo Mitama's Third Rated Power, locking his gaze onto the colossal, ominous greatsword in Hoolay's primary hand.
[Name: Myriad Deaths Soul-Devouring Vile Blade]
[Rank: A]
[Classification: Armament / Broadsword]
[Effect: A vile blade forged from the Yin-iron of resentful spirits and various occult materials. It can bind vengeful souls to strike at enemies. The blade cleaves the physical body, while the ghosts devour the soul. When used to slay an opponent, their soul is absorbed into the blade's dim light, assisting the wielder by biting at and eroding the minds of future enemies. The souls are permanently imprisoned within the blade, becoming a part of its power.]
[Note: Current Soul Capacity: 20,000,000.]
Seeing that horrifying number in the notes, Fuli's eyes narrowed slightly before returning to normal.
No, he thought.
If the information was correct, the sword's effect was purely storing and utilizing souls. It had no direct relation to hyper-regeneration.
[Host! It's 'Fanaticism, Madman, Raving' from the Wrath of Asura!]
Prometheus's grave voice chimed into his mind at the perfect time.
[The effect of Kalpas's technique allows him to temporarily massively boost his physical parameters by using souls as fuel! Theoretically, the higher the quality of the burning soul, the greater the enhancement. With a sufficient supply, it can even achieve literal resurrection from death!]
This was exactly how Kalpas, the 6th Flame-Chaser of the Previous Era, had attained his near-immortal body.
However, Kalpas's immortality had natural limits. Mainly because when he was active, there were very few humans left alive, and even fewer souls he felt morally justified in killing and utilizing.
Everyone knew that despite his terrifying appearance and unhinged temper, Kalpas was fundamentally a good person.
Unfortunately, Hoolay was the exact opposite.
Wandering the Sea of Quanta for seven years, he had spent his time slaughtering through various worlds, hoarding a staggering stockpile of nearly twenty million souls.
Even if the conversion efficiency of the technique was only one percent, thoroughly killing him would require...
"Two hundred thousand confirmed kills..."
Parrying a heavy downward cleave, Fuli used the momentum to leap back a hundred meters. "For a brainless brute who relies on raw stats, you're actually abusing a revive mechanic? What, did my master and my wife Feixiao kill you so hard you got PTSD?"
(Feixiao obviously wasn't his wife—at least, not yet. But mid-battle, Fuli had no qualms about using psychological warfare to tilt his enemy.)
"Heh. You've got a sharp nose, brat!"
Despite his slight surprise that Fuli had instantly seen through his mechanics, Hoolay's bloodlust only surged higher. "But so what if you saw through it?! Can you kill me two hundred thousand times? Or rather, do you even have the qualifications to reproduce the sword strike your master used against me back then?!"
Laughing maniacally, he aimed his palm directly at Fuli.
"Null Delusion! Null Heart! Null Return!"
A gravitational pull massive enough to drag entire bubble universes out of orbit materialized, centering on Hoolay's open palm. The colossal vortex of gravity threatened to suck Fuli into an inescapable singularity.
Setsuna Blade Arts: Lethe Ward!
Fuli swung his blade without hesitation. A pitch-black sun that devoured all light manifested in front of him. Bolstered by the Stigmata of Rock, it stubbornly resisted the terrifying suction.
But in the very next fraction of a second, a blade flashed!
Thanks to his vastly superior S-Rank physical specs, Hoolay's attack arrived a step faster!
"Sword Peak! Sword Tomb! Sword Scar!"
The five energy greatswords wielded by his extra arms merged into a single, heaven-cleaving, scorching blade aura. It ruthlessly shattered both the pitch-black sun and the gravitational vortex in one go!
The explosive shockwave slammed into Fuli, making the blood in his chest roil.
"You can't even compare to that little whelp Yanqing! Seven years ago, even he managed to execute the sword art that woman used to imprison me, yet you can't even mimic it?!!"
Hoolay roared in fury. Exploiting the microsecond gap where Fuli's old force was spent and his new force had yet to generate, five massive hands shot out at the speed of light. Using the most unglamorous but reliable physical method, he firmly pinned the boy's arms and legs in mid-air.
Then, the final arm holding the Vile Blade descended, carrying a berserk will that sought to crush everything in its path.
"Not Human!"
"Not Ghost!"
"Not God!"
"Not Heaven!!!"
One slash! Two slashes! Three slashes! Four slashes!
The sheer violence of the force, the tyrannical burst of kinetic energy, was so overwhelming that it forced Hoolay's other five arms to relinquish their grip on Fuli!
BOOOOOM!!!
The boy's pale figure drew a meteor-like arc across the shattered sky, crashing into a mountain thousands of meters high and snapping it entirely in half.
Though Fuli had barely managed to raise his blade to block at the absolute last microsecond, the four near-overlapping strikes still carved a bone-deep, grisly wound across his chest. Boiling golden blood sprayed into the air.
The Flames of Garuda violently flickered, desperately trying to knit the flesh back together, but an eerie, chilling energy lingering on the wound viciously suppressed his regeneration!
Simultaneously, a flood of murderous, maddening illusions crashed into Fuli's sea of consciousness. Fortunately, they were forcefully suppressed by the Stigmata of Death, then utterly devoured by the Outer Path.
Sole God. Sole Self. Sole Being.
The attack carried an extreme martial intent capable of obliterating matter, mind, and soul alike. It possessed the innate trait to erode basic physical structures and negate self-healing. Simultaneously, it released a tangible aura field that inflicted dual physical and mental damage.
In terms of sheer complexity, it was slightly inferior to Fuli's Setsuna Blade Arts: Tyrant's Barricade. However, Hoolay's overwhelming S-Rank raw power more than made up for the gap.
"Host!" Prometheus warned again.
Yeah, I know!
Fuli fully understood what Hoolay's taunt meant.
That bastard was deliberately trying to force him to use the exact same move Jingliu had used to capture him all those years ago—the very same move a young Yanqing had used to restrain him during the Luminary Wardance seven years prior!
Hoolay was trying to shatter his own Heart Demon!
Fuli struggled to his feet amidst the rubble, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. He stared at the rapidly approaching Hoolay, his eyes sharp as scalpels.
The problem was, Fuli did actually need that exact move to permanently immobilize Hoolay and rapidly burn through his massive stockpile of souls.
"Fine! Since you're so desperate to relive your past nightmares, I'll oblige you!"
A flash of absolute resolve crossed Fuli's face. He suddenly raised the Plasma Kagehide. Bringing his fingers together like a sword, he gently brushed them across the humming blade.
"Sorry, old friend," he whispered softly, as if bidding farewell to an old comrade. "Time, halt... for you are more beautiful than anyone else!"
The howling gales tearing across the heavens suddenly paused. The moment the wind neared the two of them, it fractured into disjointed, motionless scales of air.
Light distorted. Sound vanished. Everything, absolutely everything, plunged into a deathly, sluggish stillness.
---||---
Years ago, when Raiden Ryoma begged Welt Yang to use the Gem of Conquest to save a young Raiden Mei, Welt had given him a harsh truth:
As a father, Ryoma, you have the guts to sacrifice everything to save your daughter. But as an Executive of Anti-Entropy and a frontline leader in the war against the Honkai, you are completely unqualified!
The reason was simple. The Gem of Conquest plus the Stigmata of Thunder meant Raiden Mei was destined to become the 3rd Herrscher, the Herrscher of Thunder. That was an ironclad fact—a truth as flat and undeniable as the Celestial Fu Hua's chest.
Ryoma knew this. He possessed the painful resolve that, when that day came, no matter how much his heart bled, he would have to personally fix his mistake and suppress the newly born Herrscher of Thunder.
And so, pooling all his resources, technology, and blood, sweat, and tears, he forged an unprecedented, cutting-edge weapon: the Super cannon Genesis, a weapon packing enough firepower to outright kill a Herrscher.
After the Third Eruption concluded, Genesis was retrofitted as the Hyperion's main cannon, serving as a nuclear deterrent against anyone foolish enough to mess with them.
But logically, there was a glaring flaw in Ryoma's plan.
At the end of the day, Genesis was an artillery strike. Against the Herrscher of Thunder—who moved at the speed of lightning—landing a guaranteed hit was practically impossible.
Accounting for this, Ryoma designed and forged his true magnum opus: a blade supposedly capable of freezing even a Herrscher in their tracks—the Plasma Kagehide.
At first glance, it sounded like a joke.
Freeze a Herrscher? Hilarious. With what specs?
But right here, right now, Fuli was using his own actions to vindicate his father-in-law's genius—Damn right it can!
In Hoolay's eyes, the entire world suddenly went completely, utterly silent.
He stared blankly at the scene before him, watching the young boy slowly walk toward him. His brain throbbed intensely, a heavy, dizzying sensation trapping him in a world-tilting spiral.
Hoolay tried to gasp for air, even though his biology no longer strictly required it. It was only then that he realized his breathing was terrifyingly slow.
It was as if the entire world had plunged into a time-dilation field slowed down hundreds of millions of times. The only thing moving normally was the boy approaching him with a sword.
In front of Fuli, time stopped.
Behind Fuli, time flowed normally.
The surging river of time used Fuli's footsteps as the dividing line, severing reality into two distinct halves, cutting out a perfect Tai Chi diagram of Eternity and the Instant.
The Plasma Kagehide was officially ranked as a mere B-Class weapon. For the supreme masterpiece of Raiden Ryoma, the head of Massive Electric, that rating was entirely unreasonable.
But what if... its true purpose wasn't for slashing at all? What if it was designed as a... one-time consumable?
Winter's Absolute Prison. As previously mentioned, this was one of the blade's primary traits. Upon activation, it drastically reduced the kinetic motion of all matter within a certain radius.
But the Plasma Kagehide's secondary, hidden trait pushed that effect to its absolute, conceptual limit—at the cost of its own destruction.
Avici Great Crimson Lotus Hell (Also Sprach Zarathustra).
This was the ultimate, one-time time-space freezing ability Raiden Ryoma had engineered solely to control the Herrscher of Thunder.
When activated in combat, it completely halted all time and space within a specific radius, allowing the user to deliver a devastating, uncontested strike.
It bypassed all power disparities, though the stronger the target, the weaker the freeze duration. And once used, the Plasma Kagehide would permanently shatter.
As everyone in the gaming world knew, the effect of a one-time consumable item was always vastly superior to a permanent item of the same tier.
And when unleashed by Fuli, it was powerful enough to completely freeze even a genuine S-Rank powerhouse!
The battle—was decided!
"BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!"
The exact microsecond the blade touched Hoolay's forehead, a wave of sheer, unadulterated madness and martial intent erupted from the very depths of his soul!
He had been waiting for this exact moment! He had been waiting for this for so, so long!
"Crimson Bone! Crimson Blood! Crimson Chain!"
Crimson veins erupted across Hoolay's skin. The twenty million souls he had hoarded were thrown into a boiling furnace, merging entirely with his physical form.
"It's not the exact same technique... but it doesn't matter!"
"Because—YOU'RE STRONGER THAN THEY WERE!!!"
CRACK!
In that impossible instant, by forcibly burning an ocean of souls and combining it with his terrifying, tempered strength, Hoolay shattered the absolute shackles of the Avici Great Crimson Lotus Hell!
The frozen space-time shattered into drifting fragments like broken glass. The Plasma Kagehide shattered inch by inch, ultimately dissolving into countless specks of icy dust, leaving only a freezing hilt in Fuli's hand.
"HAHAHA! It broke! It finally broke!"
"I won! I WON!"
Feeling the overwhelming surge of power coursing through his veins from the burning souls, the newly freed Hoolay threw his head back and unleashed a maniacal, euphoric laugh of survival. It was a laugh brimming with decades of repressed madness and ambition. "So what if you're Jingliu's disciple?! So what if you have a sword that freezes time?! In the end, I'm still the—"
"Oh? Is that so?"
The maniacal laughter violently choked to a halt.
Fuli's voice reached Hoolay's ears, perfectly calm, laced with a faint, unmistakable edge of mockery.
Hoolay stiffly turned his head. He saw the boy casually reforming the phantom Guanming Glazed Sword, crafted entirely of pure energy, in his hand.
But what sent a primal shudder down Hoolay's soul was the aura now seeping from the boy. It was infinitely deeper, infinitely more deathly still, like the arrival of the absolute end of the boundless universe itself.
"You managed to tank one Avici Great Crimson Lotus Hell. Very impressive," Fuli's light, airy voice was terrifyingly clear on the battlefield. "So, what about a second one?"
Hoolay's thoughts slammed to a complete and utter halt.
---||---
An ancient proverb stated: Life lies in motion.
This was meant to advise people to exercise and boost their metabolism. But applied to physics, it was accidentally profound.
From the exact moment that infinitely small, infinitely massive singularity exploded, the universe itself had always been in motion—it was constantly expanding. It expanded outward into the unknown void faster than the speed of light.
After over fourteen billion years of this pioneering expansion, it finally formed the starry canopy humanity called the "Observable Universe."
So, in this perpetually expanding universe, what was the one thing that could never occur naturally, and could only be artificially manufactured by highly advanced, intelligent life?
The answer: Absolute Zero.
Absolute Zero does not exist naturally in the universe. All objects in the cosmos exist in states of relative rest and absolute motion, meaning there can only ever be temperatures infinitely approaching Absolute Zero.
Because everything in the universe is constantly changing, Absolute Zero represents complete, conceptual stillness. It is the one parameter the universe absolutely forbids.
It represents sheer destruction. Despair. The absolute End—when the increase of entropy reaches its maximum, evaporating all usable energy. It is the final destiny and inevitable death of the universe.
Among the thirteen Sequence Herrschers, the Herrscher of Fire and the Herrscher of Ice were uniquely similar, yet fundamentally opposites.
The Herrscher of Fire manipulated molecular motion. The very essence of temperature is simply the kinetic speed of elementary particles.
But at the end of the day, ice is merely one of the three states of water. And not just water—any liquid will freeze into a solid state as long as the kinetic motion of its microscopic particles drops below its corresponding freezing point.
If the Herrscher of Fire wanted to, she could easily create ice just by forcibly slowing down the kinetic motion of the elementary particles in the atmospheric moisture.
Her Authority merely manifested as explosive flames because the destructive output of extreme heat was far more dazzling.
But that begs the question: if the Authority of Fire technically encompasses the creation of ice, then what exactly is the Authority of the Herrscher of Ice?
Was she just some budget-tier Herrscher included as a free login bonus?
No. The Authority of the Herrscher of Ice was, at its core, devastatingly simple:
Heat Death. Or, in scientific terms, Thermal Equilibrium.
All thirteen Sequence Herrschers were different facets of the Herrscher of Finality, embodying specific aspects of the abstract concept of "Time."
Among them, the Herrscher of Fire symbolized "Motion"—the outward, dynamic expansion of time and space.
The Herrscher of Ice, however, symbolized the ultimate end of the universe's evolution: the Heat Death state of absolute thermal equilibrium.
When all usable energy is converted into uniform ambient heat, when there is no longer any internal or external conversion or interaction, when everything ceases to function and exists eternally in a dead, unmoving void.
Under that ultimate end, even the concept of "Death" itself ceases to exist.
This is why the Herrscher of Ice was always surrounded by impossibly low temperatures.
Just as explosive fire was merely a byproduct of the Fire Authority, the extreme cold and soul-piercing frost were merely byproducts of the process leading to Heat Death—a manifestation of the rapid depletion of effective energy.
Ironically, the Herrscher representing the universe's endless expansion ultimately leading to a cold, dead state (The Big Freeze) was called the Herrscher of Fire.
Meanwhile, the Herrscher representing the universe ceasing all change (The Big Stasis/Heat Death) was the Herrscher of Ice.
Naturally, the current Fuli was nowhere near capable of destroying the universe.
But by combining his profound mastery of the Stigmata of Ice, the absolute essence of Jingliu's swordplay, the conceptual time-space freezing of the Plasma Kagehide, and the Yuan-Shen: Ruin Author Form which perfectly aligned with the concept of "Entropy," he had finally forged a path entirely his own.
A single slash that halted all motion within its range, forging an absolute stasis domain that transcended the macro-thermodynamic endpoint. A realm of ultimate finality where space, time, energy, gravity, and even cause-and-effect were completely frozen.
Within this domain, matter, energy, motion, and change were completely silenced. Light could not travel. Sound and information vanished. The flow of energy was severed.
Even the quantum fluctuations and vacuum decay that could theoretically still occur in a true Heat Death state were utterly stopped.
Setsuna Blade Arts, Form of Frost and Stasis — Omnipresent Void.
It was a kingdom of absolute silence where only the one who drew the blade was permitted to move freely.
"Did you just say... I couldn't compare to Yanqing?"
Fuli stepped right in front of Hoolay. The phantom broadsword in his hand radiated an aura that heralded the end of all things.
"I simply didn't walk the same path as him. He sought to comprehend our Master's swordplay. But I..."
Fuli raised his sword. Upon its edge, Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind all froze solid.
"...I combined Master's swordplay to create a technique that is solely my own."
To break free from the first Avici Great Crimson Lotus Hell, Hoolay had burned through more than half of his hoarded souls, leaving him with roughly eight million.
But that doesn't matter, Fuli thought coldly.
Inside this absolute stasis domain of localized Heat Death... I'll just kill him another eighty thousand times.
SWISH!
The blade descended.
(Somewhere, Jingliu smiles: "Not bad, you rebellious brat.")