DD Black White [355-356] (Patreon)

Chapter 355: Phantylia and The Herta

Celenova had never dared to underestimate any member of the Genius Society, especially The Herta, the widely renowned Erudition Emanator.

Those people are beings who traverse the cosmos on the strength of wisdom and creativity that defy common sense.

Phantylia is also adept at intrigue and mental manipulation, but she relies more on her race's innate talents and formidable power.

If it came down to pure contests of intellect and strategic layout… she might not even be able to securely defeat the Xianzhou Alliance's famed strategist, the Divine Foresight General, Jing Yuan.

Still, letting Phantylia go probe a bit wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

It was a chance to peek at The Herta's hole cards and true intentions, so she could adjust her subsequent plan of action.

Celenova let out a faint hum—almost inaudible, yet carrying an edge of icy chill.

Treating the ominous avatar of Destruction—the Lord Ravager—as a mere chess piece to be moved at will?

 Even one as cool-headed as she was found herself angry at this moment.

Phantylia's figure dissipated from Celenova's pocket space, and in the next instant she penetrated layer upon layer of reality's barriers. Following the guidance from the Golden Tree's source, she precisely descended upon the most mysterious, most core domain of Douluo Star—the Inner Sea of Stars.

This was not an ocean in the ordinary sense, but the confluence of Douluo's life and rule-origin—the cradle where the will of the plane slumbered.

Around her was not seawater, but boundless, flowing streams of radiant light, woven from the purest life energy and the world's primal forces, forming a vast, multicolored ocean of energy.

Within the lightflow, countless silver runes that represented rules and order flickered in and out like breathing.

In the distance, the phantom of a colossal tree—beyond words to describe and composed entirely of pure light—stood quietly rooted at the sea's center. It was the manifestation of Douluo's life core, of the same source as the Golden Tree in the outer world, yet different in aspect.

One could say this was the Golden Tree's true body and root; the Golden Tree outside was merely a projection—an embodiment of its power seeping into the dimension of reality.

Precisely by virtue of this profound unity of origin, Phantylia could trace the subtle resonance across dimensions to find this planetary core—an Inner Sea of Stars that even ordinary gods could hardly detect, reachable only to God-King–class beings.

Phantylia felt the affinity around her overflowing; this body forged from the Golden Tree's core was like a fish in water here, every cell rejoicing as it drank in the boundless life energy around.

She breathed in this pure origin's aura greedily, eyes blazing as they locked onto the deepest part of the sea of light—there, where a halo shone brightest and most intricate, like billions of thoughts intertwined, shifting form without cease.

That was the naive, newborn plane-will of Douluo's world.

"What an intoxicating cradle, nurturing the most beautiful fruit…"

A bewitching smile of absolute certainty curled Phantylia's lips. Her round fan swayed lightly, and the dusky aura of Destruction around her began to mingle and corrode this sanctuary of life's energy in a strange harmony—faintly tending toward usurping it, staining and converting it into a cradle of Destruction.

"Soon, all of this will belong to—"

"—belong to your destruction, is that it?"

A voice, calm and cool, even tinged with the lazy irritability of someone whose nap had been disturbed, cut in abruptly upon this sea of silence where only energy should be flowing, severing Phantylia's ritualistic declaration.

Phantylia froze; even the harmonizing aura around her hiccuped to a halt.

She snapped around, Destruction gathered yet held at her fingertips.

Not far away, the streaming light seemed to possess its own will. It parted to either side and rose, quickly condensing into a magnificent throne of sleek lines and purple-black metallic sheen, brimming with futuristic tech.

Upon the throne sat a tall, elegant woman at her ease.

She wore a strikingly designed dress that fully showcased a witch's enigmatic style. Beneath the brim of a pointed witch's hat fell a few strands of brown hair, framing a delicate face etched with boredom and vexation.

One long leg, wrapped in fine black stockings, crossed elegantly over the other. Slender fingers tapped the armrest idly.

Her purple eyes, placid to the point of indifference, regarded the intruding Phantylia the way one might examine an uninteresting experimental sample.

"The Herta…"

Phantylia's eyes narrowed. The habitual seductive smile she used to mask her emotions vanished completely, replaced by icy vigilance and a trace of affronted anger.

She could clearly feel the difference of the being before her—unlike her own prior projection, unlike Celenova's current state. This was an undeniable, reality-rooted presence.

"Who else would it be?"

The Herta curled her lip, her tone full of unvarnished disdain—how could you ask such a stupid question?

"Did you think I keep a stand-in stationed here every day to cover my shifts?"

"So you were indeed waiting here."

Phantylia pressed down her inner tremor; her voice turned cold.

"What's this, you finally deign to show up—planning to stop me yourself?"

As she spoke, she probed The Herta's state more carefully, seeking any trace of a flaw or weakness.

"Enough. Don't put on that 'I'm going to destroy the world' stock villain face. I'm tired of it."

The Herta waved a hand as if shooing a buzzing mosquito, her impatience nearly overflowing.

"This isn't a zone you should be in. Leave—before I change my mind and decide it'd be more fun to strap you to a lab bench."

She paused, her lazy gaze drifting past the poised Phantylia to the trembling halo of the plane-will behind, and added, uninterested:

"As for that, forget it. It's primitive, a bit dumb—like blank hardware with no OS installed."

"But by a stroke of luck, it has a decent backer. Touch it, and the price is more than you can afford."

She chose a metaphor Phantylia would understand.

The Herta's offhand tone treated the matter like a trifle, taking no account of Phantylia's threat.

On hearing this, Phantylia's suppressed Destruction aura erupted like a volcano lit ablaze.

Emerald light of life intertwined with the abyssal black of Destruction, turning into a raging shockwave that clawed at the pure lightflow all around, determined to rend this suffocating arrogance—and this space—apart.

"Are you underestimating a Lord Ravager?!"

Phantylia's voice turned sharp and menacing.

"You think a few words can handle me, make me retreat without a fight?!"

Sensing Phantylia's seemingly unbridled fury, The Herta on the throne couldn't help rolling her eyes.

"Tch. Give it a rest. Drop the act."

Her voice didn't ripple in the least.

"I don't recall a mind-gaming, spirit-twisting type like you being the sort to get riled by a couple of sentences. Although you do tend to puff up when you get a new toy—yeah, I've logged that data."

The raging aura—enough to put a first-rank deity on full alert—suddenly hitched, then rapidly drew in and subsided as if it had never been.

The dramatic, theatrically angry mask on Phantylia's face melted away in an instant, reverting to that deep, faintly seductive calm—a hint of eerie charm—like the outburst had been a clumsy performance.

The Herta was dead right: seven-tenths of that near–sea-rending fury had indeed been an act.

She was no brawny fool. As an Lord Ravager adept at manipulating minds and spirits, cunning and caution were long ingrained as instinct.

The Herta's composed, even bored waiting here made it clear she'd already set the board and held the winning hand.

Before she fully felt out the other party's hole cards and the truth of this place, Phantylia would never throw herself into unknown peril.

If she slipped and fell into the gutter, that cold, taciturn colleague who treated everything as a tool—Celenova—would probably mock her.

Phantylia's ebbing-and-surging aura of Destruction settled into a dangerous equilibrium. In her strange eyes flickered a deeper, more perilous light than before.

She didn't grow angry at being called out; instead she chuckled behind her hand. The odd round fan in her hand swayed again, stirring wisps of energy full of the semblance of life and the substance of destruction.

"Hehehe… As expected of a Genius Society member famed across the cosmos. That insight truly lives up to your reputation."

Her voice returned to its characteristic lazy cadence, threaded with subtle psychic allure.

"So then, The Herta, could you indulge a lady's paltry curiosity? You waited here with such care—was it merely to deliver a verbal warning and persuade me to withdraw, or…"

Her voice lengthened deliberately, her gaze flowing over the boundless sea of light.

"…has this resplendent Inner Sea of Stars already, without my noticing, become the prison you so thoughtfully prepared for an uninvited guest like me?"

Her words were sweet poison. As she spoke, an exquisitely faint, nearly invisible psychic ripple—bearing both probing and corroding intent—crept outward toward The Herta on her techno-throne, seeking to slip past all defenses and perceive the most authentic situation.

Yet that mental filament, imbued with the Lord Ravager's will, vanished entirely three feet from The Herta—as if it had struck an invisible wall. It wasn't blocked or bounced back. It was erased.

Along with the wisp of Phantylia's will attached to it—wiped out in an instant, without even a ripple to mark its passing.

Chapter 356: Acheron

Faced with Phantylia's probe, The Herta didn't even bother to lift an eyelid, still idly twirling a brown lock of hair around her slender finger, as though she hadn't been the target at all.

"Prison?"

Her tone was as flat as stating a fundamental law of physics, saturated with matter-of-fact indifference.

"You're giving yourself too much credit. This place needs quiet. And you…"

She finally glanced at Phantylia, as if looking at an old machine making noise.

"…are too loud. You're disturbing the peace here."

A faint chill stirred in Phantylia's heart. That complete disregard—for her and for defense—made The Herta feel even more unfathomable.

But the sly smile on her face didn't change. She was about to probe again—by words, by angles—to pry out a flaw.

At that moment, it seemed The Herta on the throne had exhausted the last trace of her already scant patience.

"Enough. Engaging in such low-efficiency verbal interaction with you is pointless."

She muttered as if she couldn't stand the noisy interference, brimming with distaste.

"Good thing Xiao Ming is reliable enough. He figured you'd sniff your way here like a fly, and prepared a surprise gift for you in advance."

With that, she made no grand or elaborate move—just tapped the throne's armrest with a purple-polished fingertip.

There were no earth-shaking effects, no soul-stunning might.

But in the very next instant, it was as if a line of code had been silently rewritten in the Inner Sea of Stars' basic operating rules.

The radiant life currents still surged, but within that vast ocean of energy, a small domain of absolute reality was quietly hewn out and defined—a kind of anchor, ignoring all local illusions and energy interference, nailed into the bedrock of reality.

Then, reflected in Phantylia's abruptly constricted pupils, a tall figure stepped forth from that anchor.

She stood straight, clad in purple, a plain long tachi hanging at her waist.

Her slightly wavy purple hair fell like a waterfall; a few streaks dyed crimson hung like dried, congealed blood.

Her face was an almost inhuman, translucent pallor—stunningly beautiful, yet permeated by an unsettling stillness of death. Her deep violet eyes were so hollow they seemed to swallow all light; within them, it felt as though countless universes, long since sunk into heat death, echoed in cold, empty aftersound.

She merely stood there, yet her very being was like the ultimate paradox of existence—a walking, living thesis of nullity.

No energy leaked from her. Only an infinite stillness, the kind that makes all things hold their breath instinctively.

It was not ordinary calm, but a deeper realm—where even emptiness and nothingness themselves were further negated, reduced to absolute zero.

Phantylia's pupils pinholed. An instinctive shudder, born of life's deepest core and nearly freezing her soul, swept her body.

As one who walked the Path of Destruction, who had witnessed and wrought countless civilizational dooms, she had seen all manner of apocalypses—yet rarely felt such pure, absolute, despairing Nothing.

This even surpassed Destruction's scope.

It was a Nothing that negated even the very concept of destruction.

"Allow me to introduce her."

The Herta lightly swung her crossed, stocking-clad leg and snapped her fingers, looking with leisurely amusement at Phantylia's now-transformed expression, her lips curling in a playful smile—as if displaying a new toy.

"She's called Acheron, a… well, a theoretically impossible Nihility Emanator. Tch—sounds contradictory, doesn't it? Philosophy aside, as a new recruit, she hits pretty hard. Well? Do you like the gift?"

Truth be told, when The Herta first learned from Lu Jingming that one of his worst-case trump cards was a Nihility Emanator, even she—well-traveled and well-versed—was taken aback.

A Nihility Emanator that should not exist—her existence itself was a massive paradox, enough to upend most people's understanding, and equally irresistible to The Herta's boundless curiosity.

If the timing and setting weren't so inconvenient, she would have dragged Acheron straight into a lab to study her mode of existence, composition, and how she maintained selfhood.

As for Phantylia—her usual smile of "everything under control" vanished without a trace.

Instinct blared a shrill alarm in her consciousness—this time, she might really be in danger of overturning.

Her undying nature was indeed terrifyingly strong; with Heliobus's essence as blessing and the newly acquired Golden Tree body, her survivability rivaled those Emanators directly blessed by the Abundance Aeon, Yaoshi.

Methods or powers capable of truly and utterly killing her were vanishingly rare in the vast sea of stars.

Unfortunately, Acheron before her was precisely among that rare few.

And the most extreme, most unreasonable of them.

Nihility negates all existence. Its power is scarcely influenced or countered by other attributes. Conversely, it can erode, collapse, and even erase all other forms of existence in the most direct and essential way.

Phantylia instantly raised her vigilance to the utmost; the mask of ease and pretense evaporated. She fixed her full attention on Acheron, as if facing a mortal foe.

She knew clearly that if she mishandled a single step today, she—the Lord Ravager—might truly meet an unexpected end here.

Acheron's hollow gaze—able to swallow everything—moved slowly and finally settled on Phantylia, who was braced for battle.

There was no hostility within that gaze, no measuring or weighing—no emotion at all. It was as indifferent as looking at a roadside stone or a dead leaf about to scatter in the wind.

Phantylia felt that everything she possessed—her prideful power, her carefully laid schemes, even the foundation of her own existence—appeared laughable, pallid, and futile under that pure, empty stare.

Almost reflexively, she forcibly gathered her strength. The green and black light—life and destruction fused—flared from within her again, trying to build a defense against the sanity-shattering erosion of Nihility.

"Tss…"

The corner of Phantylia's mouth twitched despite herself. She suppressed her trepidation and attempted a last negotiation.

"Perhaps… there's been some… misunderstanding between us? Could we… temporarily cease hostilities and seek a… hmm… peaceful resolution?"

Even she found this opponent unprecedentedly troublesome.

Acheron answered with action.

No warning. No drawing the blade. Not even a ripple of killing intent or energy.

Phantylia merely sensed the faintest fluctuation of the other's will.

In the next instant, a clear boundary appeared from nothing.

It wasn't an energy barrier, nor a spatial partition, but a cut composed purely of Nothing—a stroke that negated all existence—laid with perfect precision between Phantylia and the plane-will's halo behind her.

It did not directly strike Phantylia, yet in an absolute, indisputable manner, it severed any possibility of her advancing toward—or even sensing—the plane-will.

The protective energy around Phantylia—surging with fused Life and Destruction—touched that boundary of Nothing and evaporated silently, like morning dew under a blazing sun.

No violent explosion, no energy shock, not even an observable process. That portion of energy—and the existence it embodied—was erased at the level of reality, returning to primordial nullity.

"Urk!"

Phantylia couldn't help a muted grunt, stepping back in shock, staring at Acheron in disbelief.

Her opponent hadn't even attacked her directly. With the authority of her mere presence, she had drawn a warning line—and Phantylia had been truly wounded.

Acheron still stood quietly where she was, gaze as hollow as before, as if she had performed some trivial, thoughtless reflex.

Slowly, she placed her pale hand again upon the tachi's hilt at her waist.

Such a simple motion—hardly even a preparatory stance—sent a frigid, marrow-deep sense of death lancing through Phantylia.

She knew with absolute clarity: the next stroke from that Nihility would not be merely a boundary.

Phantylia stared at the line of Nothing before her—seeming to cleave reality itself—and at the purple figure standing beyond it, hand on hilt. The pride and self-regard befitting an Lord Ravager burned within her like karmic fire, surging higher.

Retreat now?

 She bore the gaze of the Aeon-Nanook and walked the Path of Destruction.

If she were to be cowed into scurrying away by a Nihility Emanator of unknown origin and a few words from an Erudition Emanator—if word of this spread—wouldn't Phantylia become a laughingstock within the Antimatter Legion and across the cosmos?

Especially that cold, taciturn Celenova, who saw all things as tools—she would record this and use it to taunt Phantylia for several Aeons of Amber.

Even in another world where few knew her, the dignity and face of an Lord Ravager could not be so lightly trampled.

Therefore, she could not retreat without a fight.

At the very least, she had to truly test the depths of this so-called Nihility Emanator, to glimpse the pattern of her power and the limits of her reach.