DD Black White [357-358] (Patreon)

Chapter 357: I Weep for the Departed

So long as she could probe the depths of Acheron, even if she ultimately had to retreat, she could still bring back information of immense value—instead of a meaningless rout.

At that thought, a glint flashed in Phantylia's eyes.

Though she had decided to take a reckless gamble, she felt little worry about perishing here.

As the most cunning and hard-to-deal-with Lord Ravager, a master of survival, she had long paved countless escape routes for herself—"a crafty rabbit with three burrows" was far from enough to describe her contingencies.

Even if this golden-tree body—painstakingly forged—were to collapse here, her core consciousness would not be completely annihilated. She would always have a chance to make a comeback.

For Phantylia, a temporary, severe loss of vitality was far preferable to losing face on the spot.

Having prepared for the worst, her enchanting, peerless smile resurfaced on her pale cheeks, now tinged with a quiet, cold hint of killing intent and provocation.

"Emanator of Nihility… heh, what an awe-inspiring title."

She lightly shook her eerie folding fan, and the emerald radiance of life and the pitch-black aura of destruction around her erupted once more.

More torrential than ever before, the two utterly opposed forces—naturally repulsive to each other—were forcibly blended by her will into writhing, twisting torrents of obscure energy, enough to corrode stars and obliterate laws.

"But to think a single sentence could make an Lord Ravager halt? That is… underestimating the greatness of Destruction."

Before her words had fallen, the flood that fused life and death, creation and end did not rush straight toward Acheron. Instead, it suddenly changed course and slammed brutally into the star's inner sea itself—the surging, resplendent stream of life.

Her intent could not have been clearer.

She would threaten the planet's core to force Acheron to intervene, then closely observe the form and magnitude of the opponent's power in their response.

At the same time, she would create large-scale energetic chaos and visual cover to open the best window for her next move—or her retreat.

Yet before an assault fierce enough to put a first-rank deity on full alert, perhaps even injure them, Acheron's response was so calm it was suffocating.

She still stood as immovable as an ancient monolith. Only her pale fingers, resting lightly on the violet-black hilt, tightened ever so slightly—almost imperceptibly.

No earth-shaking clash of energies, no dazzling bursts of light.

The annihilating torrent that could erase stars, the instant it entered a certain range around Acheron, seemed to have its meaning and foundation of existence stripped away and rejected by some absolute rule.

The raging energy composing the torrent lost all internal logic and external definition, and vanished—utterly and silently.

It was not canceled or neutralized, but erased directly from the ledger of existence, returning to absolute, eternal nothing.

The entire process was so silent and smooth it was hair-raising, as if it had always been meant to be.

Phantylia's pupils contracted sharply again, but her offensive did not cease at this unfathomable scene; instead it grew even more violent and devious.

More supremely condensed, dusky beams of destruction lanced in from every direction at bizarre angles, with several insidiously fast rays stabbing straight toward the shivering halo of planar will in the distance—striking where the foe must defend.

This time, the long-silent Acheron finally made a more overt move.

She gripped the hilt.

Not the lightning-fast draw of a common swordswoman, but a slow, ceremonial opening motion, as if bearing boundless weight.

With that movement, an indescribable domain that froze the mind spread from her, swiftly expanding.

Colors bled away at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into dead gray and white. All things lost their luster and vitality. Every sound was devoured. Even the surging energy flow seemed to become an absurd, silent pantomime.

All existence moved irreversibly toward the end of meaning and the terminus of being.

"I weep for the departed…"

A hollow, ethereal voice—like one carried from the void—sounded softly. It contained no joy, anger, sorrow, or delight, yet bore the compassion and stillness of one who sends off all things.

The world lost all color in that instant, reduced to absolute gray and white.

Acheron's once-smooth purple hair turned lifeless gray-white. Two thick streams of blood-tears slid from her empty eye sockets—ghastly and strange.

Weird blood-red markings crawled like living things up from her pale neck, and in a blink covered half her face and body, as if she had just bathed in a pool of blood, drenched in shocking crimson.

In this absolutely desaturated world of death, only Acheron remained the sole—and final—stain of blood across heaven and earth.

In that moment, Acheron displayed without reservation the true visage and terror of a Nihility Emanator.

"Dusk's rain... it too shall fall."

In this gray and white world, she seemed infinitely tall—like a deity presiding over the end—yet also as small as dust, as if she herself were part of the void.

The ōdachi in her hand did not come fully out of its sheath; only a sliver of a dark-red edge showed, as if it could devour all light and hope.

She seemed to swing casually, gently, toward Phantylia.

No brilliant arc of blade-light. No violent shock tearing space. Not even a ripple of energy.

Phantylia only felt that her very existence had been struck by an absolute, incomprehensible negation.

Her protective energy, her indestructible golden-tree body brimming with life force, even fragments of her soul's origin and consciousness—all became transparent, unreal in that instant, and then, like a sandcastle scattered by wind, began to collapse, crumble, and dissipate from the most fundamental level.

It was not physical or energetic destruction, but something more fundamental, more despairing—a fall from existence into nonexistence.

"Pff—!"

Phantylia spewed a mouthful not of blood, but of dark golden fluid composed of pure destructive energy mingled with the source of life. Her body trembled violently, and her aura withered at a terrifying speed, like an avalanche.

Horror filled her eyes as never before. She could clearly sense that a portion of her existence had been permanently and utterly erased from the cosmos.

Had she not pre-separated and hidden a part of her core origin as a fallback, and had the golden-tree body not provided terrifying life force as a buffer, that casual strike would have been enough to cast this Lord Ravager into eternal slumber—or utter nihility.

"Cannot… be opposed!"

The thought tolled like a death knell in the depths of her soul, shattering all luck and hesitation in an instant.

Without a shred of delay, face and dignity be damned, Phantylia let out a sharp, pained shriek and detonated, at any cost, the emergency escape she had planted deep within the golden-tree body, along with those parts already tainted by nihility and beyond salvation.

Boom!!!

A storm of extremely chaotic, twisted energy exploded, bizarre in nature, forcibly disrupting the mercilessly expanding domain of nihility for the briefest instant.

Seizing that minuscule yet priceless opening, a dark, deep rift of space—linked to a far, unknown coordinate—was suddenly torn open. Phantylia's now translucent, dim, and battered figure bolted into it like a startled bird, vanishing from sight.

"The Herta, Acheron—I will remember you both. Destruction will come."

Even in such a wretched, near-death flight, her resentful shriek came through the closing rift, striving to salvage the last shred of pride.

The rift sealed quickly. The star's inner sea gradually returned to calm, leaving only the chaotic zone of energy left by Phantylia's self-detonation and the lingering scent of destruction—proof of the savage, humiliating defeat an Lord Ravager had just suffered here.

Acheron slowly sheathed her blade and the nihility domain that returned all things to stillness dissipated silently.

Colors and subtle sounds returned to the space, but her eyes—still so hollow they seemed able to swallow all—remained fixed on the void where Phantylia had vanished.

"One more… blood debt."

She spoke softly, her voice still ethereal and calm, yet containing a soul-crushing heaviness and indifference.

On the throne, The Herta finally came back to herself from spectating. A rare stiffness lingered on her flawless face, and her all-seeing eyes flashed with a strange light as she stared intently at Acheron, who had returned to normal.

She had long learned from Lu Jingming that Acheron's strength was terrifying, and she was sure Acheron could suppress or even drive off the incomplete memory-body of Phantylia.

After all, Lu Jingming had spent a vast amount of precious Power of Truth to summon this special existence. Even if not at full strength, dealing with the memory-body of an Lord Ravager rebuilt upon a golden tree should be no problem.

But The Herta had not expected Acheron to win so… cleanly. It was outright a rout.

From start to finish, Acheron had essentially unleashed only a single, seemingly casual strike. Yet that blade—bearing the ultimate principle of nihility—made a notorious Lord Ravager truly experience defeat and fear, nearly leading to complete annihilation.

Especially that power which bleached the world and denied the very basis of existence—the priority was terrifyingly high, as if it stood above many conventional cosmic rules.

This undoubtedly provided several critical, even paradigm-shifting extreme parameters for The Herta's Simulated Universe project.

The Herta instinctively glanced at the nearby halo of planar will, still quivering and exuding a thick aura of fear.

From that nascent shard of consciousness, she clearly sensed that its fear toward Acheron surpassed even its fear of Phantylia.

Curious indeed.

Phantylia's malice toward it was naked—devour and replace—whereas Acheron had never shown it any malice; she had even protected it.

Yet the world's will instinctively feared Acheron more.

For no reason other than this: Phantylia's destruction remained a violent transformation within existence, while the nihility Acheron wielded was a total negation of existence itself.

Once tainted by that power of nihility, even a world's will might irreversibly fall into utter nothingness, with even the traces of its existence erased—a fate more despairing than being destroyed by an Lord Ravager.

Chapter 358: Celenova and Phantylia

"Tsk. She sure runs fast—top-tier survival skills."

The Herta curled her lip, a bit regretful at not collecting more complete data on an Lord Ravager in a near-death state.

Then, as if remembering something, she flipped her wrist and produced an object from nowhere, tossing it toward Acheron who still stood quietly.

"Hey, catch. Xiao Ming specifically told me to give you this when you were done."

It was a plump, dewy peach, radiating a tempting sweetness.

In that moment, a faint yet genuine light rippled through Acheron's formerly hollow, lifeless eyes.

Almost by reflex, she reached out gently and caught the peach as it traced a graceful arc through the air.

"Thank you."

Her voice was soft, the ever-present ethereality seeming to thin, tinged with an almost imperceptible hint of human warmth.

She quite liked peaches.

They held the joy of life's growth and the sweetness of sun and rain, yet were so fragile and fleeting. That contradiction always sent tiny ripples across her long-still heart.

Watching Acheron come alive at a peach, even showing a touch of satisfaction, The Herta couldn't help but purse her lips, a complex look on her face.

For those like them—existences summoned by Lu Jingming through special means—Lu Jingming could be… a bit unfair.

His understanding of them sometimes exceeded their own.

Likes, temperament, hidden wishes, and subtle longings buried deep within—Lu Jingming always seemed to grasp them exactly, and produce the perfect key.

Just like now: though Acheron had only just been summoned into this realm, she had almost immediately become one of Lu Jingming's most reliable enforcers.

And to rekindle the human glow in the eyes of one who walked the Path of Nihility—a being who should scorn all—the cause was not some earth-shaking miracle, but a peach so ordinary it was common across countless worlds.

Who else but Lu Jingming would think of this—or do it?

All her life, Acheron had searched along an endless road for fleeting encounters and the meaning of existence, to resist that ever-gnawing, maddening sense of void.

And Lu Jingming, by chance, gave her a new, unexpected encounter and anchor, letting her slip free of the bottomless nihil long enough to continue her long and lonely quest.

Thus she had chosen, without hesitation, to help Lu Jingming—coming to the star's inner sea to intercept the Lord Ravager Phantylia.

"At last, mission accomplished. This place can be quiet for a while."

The Herta rose from the throne and stretched lazily, the curves of her figure fully on display.

"Alright, we're done."

She clapped her hands. Her figure and the tech-forward throne began to fade, like data being erased.

"Remember to tell Xiao Ming I helped him clean this up. He owes me double for lab consumables—not a gram less."

Before her words fell, she and the throne vanished completely, as if they had never been.

Acheron stood quietly, gazing in the direction The Herta had disappeared, silent for a moment.

She slowly turned to the halo of planar will still trembling and rippling with fear, her empty gaze resting on it for a long time.

"Only oblivion…"

She murmured, her voice as soft as a sigh yet bearing an ageless, chilling weight.

"…is the eternal demise."

In the end, her purple silhouette thinned like ink melting into water, blending into nihility and disappearing from the now-peaceful star's inner sea.

The inner sea's ripples had not fully subsided when, in a pocket dimension adhered to the Douluo plane's wall, cold starlight flowed like a curtain, reflecting Celenova's frost-carved, indifferent profile.

She stood in the void, as if she were part of this silent domain.

Suddenly, the mirror-smooth observational interface before her twisted violently, like glass smashed by a mighty blow, spiderwebbing with cracks.

Next, a dim, dark-green streak—almost one with the void—stumbled out, wrapped in an inexpressible chaos, weakness, and a near-dissipating decay, and crashed heavily onto the formless floor, sending out ripples of unseen energy.

The light faded, revealing the figure within—Phantylia, who only moments ago had been full of confidence.

But now all her enchantment and Lord Ravager majesty had been stripped away.

The perfect body—carefully crafted from the golden tree's core—was laced with countless fine yet horrifying fissures.

These were not ordinary physical wounds, but scars left by the forced erasure of her existential essence—wounds of nihility whose edges still held a chilling aura, continually corroding established rules with the intent of Nothing.

Her body had turned half-transparent. Her aura was withered to the extreme. The emerald life light and pitch-dark destructive energy that once interwove around her now flickered like guttering candles, threatening to go out at any moment and return to stillness.

Wracked with pain, she curled on the ground, trembling uncontrollably. Each shallow breath bled precious life energy; even maintaining a basic form was a struggle.

She struggled to raise her head. In those once world-toppling, seductive eyes, only pain, weakness, and a mix of rage and humiliation remained.

Just then, a cool, steady voice—without a trace of emotion—came from not far ahead.

"It seems your probe… did not go smoothly."

Celenova did not even bother to turn fully, merely tilting her head. Her emotionless eyes gazed down with near-absolute rationality upon her wretched colleague, her tone as flat as if commenting on something unrelated.

"Indeed… I was careless."

Phantylia's voice was hoarse, yet unexpectedly calm—cold clarity forged in extreme pain.

"A Nihility Emanator… heh, what a Nihility Emanator… truly beyond expectations!"

Only then did Celenova stride, unhurried, to stand before her.

Her icy gaze swept over those dreadful wounds—lingering especially on the fissures suffused with the aura of Nothing—as if studying them.

"The power of Nihility—and at Emanator level."

Her voice remained purely factual, emotionless.

"No wonder you're in such a state. I anticipated much, but I didn't expect… you'd lose so miserably."

She knew Phantylia too well.

Though calculating and devious, her greatest flaw was swelling arrogance once she gained the upper hand.

Against the weak, that conceit was effortless sport. Against peers or higher beings, it courted disaster.

Empowered by the golden-tree body, Phantylia had indeed swelled again, just as expected.

Knowing The Herta was likely lying in ambush in the star's inner sea, she still charged in, full of confidence.

Not because she was foolish, but because she trusted absolutely in her immortality and newfound strength—believing she could retreat intact no matter what.

And judging by the outcome… that was barely the case.

Far from intact, but to keep her life and escape from a joint ambush by an Erudition Emanator and a Nihility Emanator—by some measure, that was a success.

"The Herta… did not strike me directly."

Phantylia forced the chaotic energies within to stabilize. As her body's violent ripples calmed, cold light gathered once more in her eyes.

"Otherwise, I might not have made it back alive. At the very least, this hard-won body would be lost."

"I can guess what's going on."

Celenova spoke blandly, unsurprised by this turn.

In her roaming, spreading destruction across the cosmos, she had met too many self-styled schemers who tried to use the antimatter legion as a blade for their own ambitions.

Most who played at that game became cinders along the path of ruin, burned by the very flames they summoned.

"To use two Lord Ravagers as pieces, paving a road or achieving some end…"

Phantylia regained her graceful, bewitching poise. Though her body remained in tatters, she forced herself to sit up. The folding fan reappeared in her hand, and she hid a smile behind it—her earlier wretchedness as if an illusion.

"My interest in The Herta… and the one truly setting the board behind her… only grows."

Though she had taken an unprecedented loss, her anger and humiliation were but temporary fuel.

As an Lord Ravager, what mattered was tangible gain.

At the very least, she had successfully tested a key point: the emergence of a never-before-seen Nihility Emanator, the nature of that terrifying power, and the complex intent—both utilizing and counterbalancing—of the hand behind the scenes.

Information worth a king's ransom.

"How long until you recover?"

Celenova cast a glance at Phantylia's slowly mending body, her tone direct and pragmatic.

With The Herta and a Nihility Emanator guarding the planar will, that matter was now impossible; she had no further hopes there.

But for what came next, Phantylia's strength remained indispensable.

After all, aside from The Herta and the others who let them be, two Hunt Emanator still barred their path.