Even though instantly killing Hoolay eighty thousand times sounded incredibly impactful—and theoretically, Fuli was indeed fully capable of pulling off such a feat—he didn't choose the most direct, time-consuming route.
Setsuna Blade Arts: Abyssal Heaven's End!
Within the absolute stasis domain forged by the Omnipresent Void, a burst of purifying power packing boundless, searing light suddenly erupted.
Taking advantage of Hoolay's total inability to resist, this power swept across his body like a raging prairie fire. Its target was the remaining souls serving as the foundation of his regeneration.
Unlike the Might of An-Utu, which entirely discarded all other properties in pursuit of absolute, unadulterated destructive power, Abyssal Heaven's End had been created with the essence of a Buddhist divine art—the Fire Realm Incantation of Acala—woven into its very foundation.
Not only did it possess the supreme might to incinerate three thousand worlds, but it also carried the holy attribute of purifying all impurities in the mortal realm.
This was precisely why, after the Kanas incident concluded, Fuli had converted such a powerful B-Class spell into a Light Cone and gifted it to Kiana.
Firstly, it was compensation for the Radiant Flame sword he had broken just days after she obtained it. Secondly, as the creator of Abyssal Heaven's End, Fuli had no use for a downgraded copy of his own technique. Keeping it would have been a waste.
Under the continuous, agonizing burn of the boundless light-flames, the remaining souls inside Hoolay were finally purified into nothingness.
Fuli immediately followed up with a fatal strike, completely obliterating the target, before finally canceling the Omnipresent Void.
The body of the once insufferably arrogant Borisin Brood Lord shuddered violently. Along with the vile blade that had devoured countless lives, he disintegrated entirely into drifting ash.
But the cost of victory was immense.
The exact moment Hoolay was annihilated, Fuli felt an unprecedented wave of exhaustion crash over him. Utterly drained of all strength, his legs gave out. Gravity took hold, and he slowly collapsed backward.
As the highest-tier, most conceptually profound technique in the entire Setsuna Blade Arts repertoire to date, the Omnipresent Void came with an astronomical energy cost.
Fuli had only managed to execute this super-dreadnought, cosmos-ending sword strike because he had preemptively entered Yuan-Shen: Ruin Author Form, frantically absorbing all ambient energy in the environment to supplement his own entirely depleted Honkai reserves.
By his estimates, theoretically, one needed to be at least a genuine S-Rank to execute the Omnipresent Void with any degree of stability. To deploy and retract it freely required one to be at the absolute pinnacle of S-Rank.
As a side note, before ever coming to Bubble Universe 1025, Fuli had already touched upon the threshold of this technique. It wasn't some miraculous, life-or-death epiphany he had pulled out of his ass mid-battle.
The main reason he hadn't fully mastered it was simply because he couldn't bear to part with the catalyst.
Fuli had known for a long time that if he used the Plasma Kagehide's ultimate move, the Avici Great Crimson Lotus Hell, as a guiding principle, he could completely step over the threshold and perfect the Omnipresent Void.
But putting aside his gag-inducing title of "Weapon Breaker," the Plasma Kagehide was a gift from Raiden Mei. It had accompanied him through countless battles. Unless absolutely pushed to the brink, he simply didn't have the heart to intentionally destroy it.
He had originally planned to slowly grind away at the concept through painstaking meditation, confident he would master it given enough time.
Who could have predicted the sudden emergency of a Living Planet? Forced to confront Hoolay, Fuli had no choice but to prematurely play a trump card that hadn't yet fully matured.
Sigh... I just need to rest...
Physically and mentally shattered, the boy fell backward, his consciousness blurring from the severe overdraft.
But the expected harsh, bone-jarring impact of the cold ground never came. Instead, he was met with a soft, slightly elastic sensation, accompanied by a faint, uniquely elegant fragrance.
"My Lord..."
A soft, profoundly worried call rippled out, pulling Fuli back from the edge of unconsciousness like a gentle current from a distant shore.
Ah, it's Cassie.
Fuli forced his incredibly heavy eyelids open. His blurry vision slowly came into focus.
The first thing he saw was the young girl's breathtakingly beautiful face, currently etched with deep anxiety and concern.
Only then did he realize he was resting his head on her lap.
"You've worked so hard, My Lord."
Obstructed by the generous curve of her chest, Castorice had to lean forward slightly just to properly see the boy she worried for so deeply.
Her long, silver-purple hair, like flowing moonlight, cascaded down. A few soft strands brushed against Fuli's cheek as she breathed somewhat rapidly from nervous tension, eliciting a faint, comforting tickle.
Even though Castorice possessed the conceptual power to instantly kill a Sequence Level combatant, in terms of pure movement speed, she simply couldn't compare to Fuli's Wind-stepping or the S-Rank Hoolay.
The planet-spanning battle had occurred at literal lightning speed. Poor, short-legged Cassie had tried so, so hard to catch up, but unfortunately, she still arrived a step late.
The only thing she managed to do was arrive right before Fuli collapsed from exhaustion, serving as his final safe harbor.
Thinking of this, a fleeting trace of guilt flashed through Castorice's pale purple eyes. She quickly lowered her eyelashes, attempting to hide the emotion, but the subtle shift didn't escape Fuli's sharp perception.
As if trying to dispel the heavy atmosphere, the boy forced a weak, yet cleanly mischievous smile.
Using the tiny sliver of strength he had just recovered, he raised an arm and flashed a 'V' for victory sign right in front of the girl's face.
"Heh. Handled it."
"Pfft!"
Castorice blinked in surprise, then quickly covered her lips, letting out a soft, melodious giggle.
The misty worry clouding her eyes seemed to evaporate under a ray of sunlight, replaced by a gentle, nebula-like radiance. Her rigidly tense shoulders quietly relaxed.
A gentle breeze swept across the devastated ruins, tangling the boy's and girl's hair together and weaving a subtle, incredibly warm atmosphere.
Unfortunately, this fleeting moment of tranquility was as fragile as a soap bubble in the sun.
Especially for the current Little Li. Utterly drained of energy, barely able to twitch a finger, he was functionally equivalent to a freshly washed, deliciously scented, pure white lamb placed right in front of a starving apex predator.
Fortunately, given Castorice's gentle and slightly shy personality, even if her heart was fluttering wildly, there was zero chance she would take advantage of his vulnerability and swallow the freshly cleaned lamb whole.
But someone else had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by.
"Hmph. Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!"
A burst of maniacal laughter, brimming with pure malice and mocking cruelty, simultaneously erupted from every direction, instantly violently tearing the brief moment of warmth to shreds.
"Crychic brats! I must admit, you performed quite admirably!" Phantylia's highly recognizable voice boomed across the heavens. "To actually manage to destroy Hoolay's useless stand-in... you truly put on a spectacular show for me!"
She spoke like a supreme sovereign looking down with immense amusement at the tiny, futile struggles of ants in the palm of her hand.
And she absolutely had the qualifications to say so. As her arrogant words fell, the entire world began to groan under an unbearable weight, like a dying behemoth!
The ground beneath their feet was no longer solid soil and rock. It began to writhe violently, like living flesh. The originally cold, hard strata grew warm and soft. Grotesque, rhythmic pulsations, exactly like the beating of massive subterranean blood vessels, became clearly visible. It was as if they were standing directly on top of the internal organs of a colossal monster!
In the distance, the sprawling mountain ranges were no longer static terrain. They began to twist, warp, and elevate with deafening rumbles, like the spine of an ancient titan suddenly awakening from its slumber!
Massive rifts tore across the planet's surface. What erupted from them wasn't scorching magma, but a thick, corrosive, sickly-green slime that ironically radiated intense life energy. It looked exactly like the planet's own infected pus!
"Careful, My Lord!"
Reacting instantly, Castorice pulled the weakened Fuli tight against her chest. Her slender frame went completely rigid, like a young beast baring its fangs to protect its own.
She violently expanded her formidable perception outward like a tidal wave. But the feedback she received caused her pupils to shrink to pinpricks. Absolute bewilderment and sheer terror flooded her beautiful face.
She couldn't sense a single independent energy source that could be classified as an individual entity!
Or rather...
"Don't waste your effort searching, you detestable, pathetic little creatures!"
The turbid, foul energy coalescing in the zenith of the sky finally condensed into a colossal, enchanting, yet indescribably cruel woman's face.
Looking down from on high, her golden eyes burned like twin stars, sneering at the two insignificant specks of dust on the ground below.
Streaks of sickly-green lightning tore across the sky, but the thunder that followed wasn't the crash of electricity—it was the heavy, heart-stopping thud of a colossal heartbeat.
"This planet is now my body!"
Phantylia grandly declared her ultimate victory.
Under her meticulous orchestration, Bubble Universe 1025 had been transformed from a dead celestial body into a super-massive entity brimming with terrifying biological vitality!
It was no longer a silent stage beneath people's feet. It was a cosmic-level predator radiating boundless hunger!
And this... was Phantylia's new vessel.
At first glance, it was jaw-droppingly absurd. But upon careful consideration, it made terrifying sense.
Phantylia wasn't Shuhu, the Emanator of Abundance who specialized in directly vitalizing planets. She was a Heliobus—an energy lifeform without a fixed physical shape.
Given that, seizing a planet and forcibly re-engineering it into a perfect vessel to house her consciousness was undoubtedly the ultimate method to maximize her power!
"No... that's impossible!"
Far away, amidst the ruins of Dulan Fortress, Hyacine gasped in sheer disbelief.
Riding on the back of the majestic Little Ica, she gritted her teeth. "Heliobi possession and infection can only target living creatures! How is it possible... how could she directly target the celestial body itself?!"
"That is exactly why I needed those Foxian slaves to generously donate their insignificant life forces, my adorable little girl from the Twilight Courtyard," Phantylia mocked playfully.
"That still shouldn't be enough!" Hyacine retorted stubbornly, desperately trying to find a logical flaw. "I'm not looking down on the Foxian Resistance, but even if you gathered the life force of hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of people... compared to an entire planet, it's just a drop in the ocean! How could it possibly sustain a planetary vitalization on this scale?!"
Fun fact: If you gathered all eight billion humans on Earth and compressed them into a single meatball, it would only have a diameter of about 900 meters.
"Hehehe... little girl, don't try to use such simplistic arithmetic to fundamentally misinterpret a divine power you simply cannot comprehend."
Basking in the absolute glory of her impending triumph, Phantylia seemed more than happy to share her brilliance with the soon-to-be-dead:
"Firstly, regarding the bio-technology of extracting, converting, and applying life force... the techniques I possess far exceed your primitive understanding."
"Secondly... who told you I was vitalizing this bulky hunk of rock?"
Hyacine froze, failing to grasp the implication.
But Fuli, sheltered in Castorice's embrace, and Castorice herself, currently fighting with all her might to resist the mutating environment around them, instantly realized the horrifying truth.
"The Ether Anchor..."
According to their files, the Ether Anchor of Bubble Universe 1025 had long been extracted by Kafka and Sam, leaving the world a rootless husk.
But somehow, Phantylia had procured a brand-new Ether Anchor from somewhere else.
Using the brutally squeezed life force of countless Foxian slaves as fuel and a catalyst, she forcefully infused the Ether Anchor with biological vitality. Then, using it as a springboard, she infected and assimilated the planet itself, ultimately completing this world-shattering possession!
The Borisin army, Hoolay, the Four Heavenly Kings... all of it was just bait. A massive smokescreen deployed to conceal the true, unimaginably grand, and utterly vile ritual to hijack an entire planet!
"Well, we're completely fucked."
Fuli muttered to himself.
Faced with an enemy whose physical body was an entire planet, all tactics, skills, and personal combat prowess instantly lost all meaning.
This wasn't a battle anymore. This was declaring war on arbitrarily rewritten laws of physics, fighting against the living, breathing ground beneath their feet!
"My Lord, please do not worry!"
Castorice's voice was unprecedentedly heavy, yet laced with undeniable, absolute resolve.
"As long as I draw breath, as long as I live, I will never let her harm a single hair on your head!"
She took a step forward. The Where Sweet Dreams Die Scythe in her hands emanated a chilling aura of underworld waters. Yet, faced with the apocalyptic, world-crushing pressure bearing down on them, it looked so unimaginably small—like a flickering candle trying to withstand a hurricane.
The fact that she was speaking words that sounded so perilously close to a final farewell meant the girl herself clearly understood this was a battle devoid of all hope.
No matter how terrifying her Death-bringing Blessing was... how could she grant death to an entire star?
"Don't give up!"
Fuli tried to make one final, desperate push, frantically trying to squeeze out any lingering shred of power inside his body.
Unfortunately, neither the Peerless Nine Turns hyper-mutation organs nor any of his other survival skills responded. They were like completely extinguished coals, cold and dead.
Now he finally understood how Yuan Shao felt when, facing Hua Xiong, he had cried out in frustration, "If only my generals Yan Liang and Wen Chou were here!" If they hadn't gone all out in the fight against Hoolay, they might have at least had a sliver of a chance to run away.
But Hoolay was an opponent that demanded 100% of their strength to defeat. And Yunli, who had been completely MIA this entire time, was most likely sealed or banished somewhere. This whole situation was clearly a meticulously orchestrated trap by Phantylia, specifically designed to force an agonizing trade against their core combatants!
"Dammit!"
Frustrated, Fuli tried to clench his fist, only to find even that simple motion excruciatingly difficult.
He instinctively reached for his blade, only to grasp an empty scabbard at his waist. The Plasma Kagehide had been entirely obliterated in the previous clash.
"Excellent! Absolutely wonderful! I just love that expression!"
"The look of pure, utter despair when you can only watch destruction descend, utterly powerless to stop it... I could never tire of seeing it!"
High in the polluted sky, Phantylia's colossal face twisted into an expression of sheer ecstasy, looking exactly like a twisted audience member watching the tragic finale of a grand opera.
"Or... perhaps you could try calling for help?"
Her gaze lingered on Fuli's face—which, despite being pale and exhausted, still couldn't hide its handsome features. She spoke with the mocking cruelty of a cat playing with a cornered mouse. "Who knows? If you scream loud enough, maybe some completely unrealistic miracle will occur! Maybe someone will actually swoop in and save you from the fire and water!"
"And then, you can shed tears of immense gratitude for your heroic savior, and even offer yourself to them in return! Wouldn't that make for a beautiful legend to be sung across the Xianzhou?~"
Such a sick, twisted taunt was undoubtedly the most cruel, soul-crushing mockery a victor could inflict upon the defeated.
However, the exact moment Phantylia's words fell, while the echoes of her mockery were still reverberating across the heavens—
"A beautiful legend? Heh... this is the first time I've ever thought you actually have a sense of humor."
A sharp, pristine voice—so clear and authoritative it felt capable of purging all impurities—suddenly pierced straight through the massive, chaotic noise barrier generated by the Living Planet.
The voice wasn't particularly loud, yet it carried an undeniable, piercing majesty. Like the very first ray of dawn shattering a dense canopy of dark clouds, it echoed directly in the hearts of every survivor.
As the absolute master of the celestial body, Phantylia could rely on her absolute control over the planet's magnetic field to effortlessly suppress and jam the vast majority of spatial teleportation abilities within her domain.
But that was entirely dependent on one condition: the anti-jamming capability of the teleportation skill—or rather, its conceptual tier—not being high enough!
"Gates of a Hundred Worlds, open!"
"Little Red! We're here to save you!"
Multiple young, yet incredibly resolute voices shouted in unison. Countless portals, practically bursting with the radiant light of hope, began tearing open across the planet's surface.
Like holy, pristine flowers aggressively blooming on a thoroughly corrupted, filthy canvas, they forcefully and dominantly manifested directly inside Phantylia's absolute domain!
Almost simultaneously, a warm, gentle beam of pure white light pierced through the corrupted sky, landing with pinpoint accuracy on the weakened Fuli.
It was Miyuki Asakura's Stigmata: Deva Path. It carried a healing and restorative effect that easily rivaled the First Rated Power of the Abyss Flower.
In that instant, the boy felt a torrential flood of warm, life-giving rain surge into his parched limbs and bones. His severely overdrawn body miraculously began to recover a sliver of strength.
He raised his head, looking toward the source of the light, toward the sky that had suddenly grown brilliantly radiant.
From within the hundreds of perfectly stabilized portals, figures—both familiar and new—began stepping out.
Treading on stairways forged from pure, solid light, they resolutely descended into the despair-shrouded hellscape!
"Living Planet, my ass! Hahaha! How about you eat some of the fresh lead I just bought on credit from the Hyperion?!"
Boothill, chewing on a piece of straw, rapidly spun the revolvers in his hands, flashing a wildly manic, shark-toothed grin.
"By the sacred honor of the Goddess of Beauty! I, and my dearest friend Fuli, shall cleanse all filth from this realm with our crossing guns and swords!"
Argenti stood tall, his silver armor gleaming brilliantly. Adorned with unfading roses, he looked both elegant and fiercely solemn.
"To be perfectly honest, this business venture is running at a bit of a loss. Boss, you're definitely going to owe me a massive favor for this."
Topaz gently patted Numby, who was bouncing eagerly on her shoulder. She raised a delicate eyebrow, her eyes flashing with a shrewd, calculating battlelust.
"Where is the bastard who hurt Teacher Fufu?!!!"
The usually angelic Anna Schariac wore a terrifyingly rare expression of absolute, freezing rage. Massive Honkai energy condensed behind her back into dazzling wings of light, radiating a heart-stopping, violent pulse.
The Song of Silent Stars. Dimensional Boundary Break. Guns and Roses. The Future Sword Champion...
One by one, familiar faces made their grand entrances, exactly like stars suddenly igniting the dark night.
But what truly made Fuli's heart skip a beat were the two figures stepping out side-by-side from the squad known as Everlasting Flames.
"Yo! Ah-Li! It hasn't even been that long, how did you manage to get yourself so beat up?"
The white-haired girl moved like an agile elf. Her silky long hair was tied into a sharp ponytail that swayed gently with her movements. She expertly spun dual pistols in her hands, the muzzles crackling faintly with searing lightning.
"Apologies, Little Li. The situation escalated too quickly. The main body from the Proper World is still en route."
Durandal hurled her lance, unleashing a fury-fueled strike that completely shattered the massive, distorted face Phantylia had projected in the sky.
Having accomplished that, the blonde girl's gaze seemingly casually swept past Castorice, who was still protectively shielding Fuli.
In a tone that was completely unreadable, she added coolly:
"Though... we distinctly heard someone mention just now... that if anyone came to save you... you'd be willing to... well, give yourself to her?"
Kiana, who proudly self-proclaimed to be Fuli's fiancée: ???
Anna and the rest of the arriving rescue squad: !!!
Castorice: (Panicked screeching)