Chapter 54: The Great Madman (Aeon) and His Little Madmen (Emanators) (Patreon)

[Paimon: This is way too scary!]

[Keqing: So strong! An attack that could level heaven and earth, and he took it as if it were nothing!]

[Zenless Zone Zero · Belle: The power to destroy a planet, and it's just a casual strike from that side!]

[Hoshimi Miyabi: Is this what a true powerhouse looks like?]

"That's it?"

Gusttave held back the sky-blotting purple-black tide with a single hand. He even had the leisure to tilt his head, his expression somewhere between disappointment and boredom. "You've been scheming Beyond the Heavens for all these years, devouring your own kind, plotting against aliens, and this is the thing you finally squeezed out?"

His fingertip pressed forward slightly.

The golden light suddenly flared.

That tide of energy, strong enough to tear a planet apart, seemed to slam into an invisible wall. It rolled back the way it had come, faster than before.

Phantylia's pupils contracted and she retreated sharply, but the aftershock still caught her left shoulder. The sleeve of her dark-patterned gown vaporized in an instant, and her whole arm turned a little more transparent.

"Impossible!" Phantylia's voice finally cracked. The lazy, silken edge in it was replaced by incredulous shrillness. "How could you... You clearly have no blessing of a Path, how could you possibly—"

"Nothing's impossible." Gusttave shook his head. "Don't forget, this is an instance formed by my golden finger. How could I let an outsider like you meddle in it?

"If any stray cat or dog could seize my System, wouldn't It lose all face?

"In fact, even your recovering your memories was allowed by It. Otherwise you'd still be just Phantylia, the Black Fox Empress, instead of Phantylia, Emanator of Destruction."

Just a moment ago, to be on the safe side, Gusttave had spent a trillion Emotion Points to upgrade his Trait, "The Strictest Father of Aliens."

From gold to red. The maximum multiplier had jumped from a hundredfold straight to ten-thousandfold.

As for whether cheating on the spot was too shameless, too thick-skinned...

Please. Telling a System that practically is a cheat that cheating is bad would be an insult to It.

Other people's systems hand out Star Cups and Simulated Star-Creation Charts the moment they boot up. Gusttave's System was positively restrained by comparison.

[Silver Wolf: Seriously? Cheating mid-match, you just can't stand to lose!]

[Honkai 3rd · Bronya: Correct. Cheating because you can't win is truly despicable!]

[Silver Wolf: You!]

Hearing those words from a Bronya who looked exactly like her, Silver Wolf felt singled out.

Because she was the type who cheated whenever she couldn't win, too.

The livestream continued.

With their base strength nearly even, the boost from his Trait gave Gusttave a leap in power.

Unless Phantylia immediately recovered her strength as Emanator of Destruction, there was no way she could beat him.

But in a world without Paths, all of that was nothing but a pipe dream.

"Impossible... Never..." Phantylia's voice no longer carried that lazy, silken tone. In its place was a shrillness bordering on hysteria. "You're a native who doesn't even have a Path, on what grounds—"

"On the grounds that I have a cheat, obviously." Gusttave cut her off as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "If I can't beat someone who isn't even cheating while I am, wouldn't that make my cheat a waste?

"Or do you think this is some Life-or-Death Sniper world, where the cheaters lose to the big spenders?"

Phantylia's alluring face twisted until it was barely human.

[Silver Wolf: What does "you have no cheat, I have a cheat" even mean? Can this guy have some shame?]

[Honkai 3rd · Bronya: Bronya would love to complain too, but logically speaking, what he said is objective fact.]

[Silver Wolf: Can you stop using my face to whitewash for him with such a straight face?]

Phantylia's eyes, soaked in purple-black energy, were locked on Gusttave as if she were staring at a monster she couldn't comprehend at all.

She had devoured the power of hundreds of strong aliens from Beyond the Heavens. In a world without Paths, she should have been invincible.

Yet this man had ground every one of her advantages to powder with such ease. She could not accept it.

In the end, all she could say, bitterly, was: "If my strength hadn't been weakened, how could I let you be so insolent here—"

"What do you mean, your strength? You're proud of getting strong from outside help?" Gusttave sneered when he heard that. "You people don't cultivate at all. You just go crazy and you get stronger, and you're proud of it?

"In my world, getting stronger means relying on your own talent and effort, or surviving life-and-death hardship, or at the very least using technology to help yourself.

"And you lot? Go crazy, turn into an obsessive, and you can walk a Path and gain tremendous power, then throw the whole universe into chaos. Even your Aeons are nothing but a handful of powerful lunatics.

"And now you actually think the power of a Path is your own power."

"Even with my cheat, I still have to train myself and find my own way to break through. And you're standing here barking at me?"

Phantylia's face contorted completely.

Not from rage. She was certainly enraged. It was because she found she could not refute him.

The power of a Path truly hadn't been cultivated by her.

Everything she had came from Nanook's blessing. Without that blessing, she was nothing more than a slightly stronger Sui Yang.

Her strength was no more removed from her station in this world than that.

And she wasn't the only one. All Emanators were like this.

In fact, all Pathstriders were like this.

The rule of the entire universe was simply this: be mad enough, obsessive enough, fixated enough, and you could grow strong.

Cultivation? Hard work? What were those?

[Silver Wolf: He's analyzed the true nature of the Aeons of the Paths down to the last detail.]

[Kafka: So-called Aeons and Emanators are just one powerful madman and the madmen he happens to like.]

[Aha: Aha got called a big madman! Aha lost so much face!]

[Zenless Zone Zero · Belle: So what he said is true? You can gain tremendous power just by going crazy?]

[Herta: I hate to admit it, but he's not far off.]

Herta didn't consider herself a madwoman, but she knew that by ordinary standards she was certainly eccentric. If pressed, she'd have to admit she was a close cousin of the madmen.

[Kiana Kaslana: There's a world like that? I'm so jealous. I wish I could suddenly get strong too.]

[Welt Yang: No, Kiana. You don't want to become strong that way.]

Welt Yang, who knew something of the Path-obsessed madmen of the universe, was certain that anyone who grew strong this way was far from normal.

[Kiana Kaslana: From your tone, it sounds like you know me, but isn't there already a Teacher Welt Yang in the group?]