DD Black White [359-360] (Patreon)

Chapter 359: Feixiao's Return Gift

"Soon—I won't keep you waiting~"

Phantylia let out a soft laugh, her tone once again tinged with that familiar, unfathomable allure.

It wasn't blind optimism, but confidence rooted in her very nature.

Whether as the ancient Heliobus's near-immortal spiritual essence, or now in this body fused with Douluo Star's life core, her regenerative ability was downright bug-like.

Though the power of Nihility was extremely troublesome, its lingering corrosion intense, the destruction she wielded was equally formidable—she was not without countermeasures.

After a brief rest, she had forcefully purged the vast majority of the void-taint still lingering within her.

And once the most troublesome interference was cleared, the terrifying, boundless vitality contained in the golden-tree body began to truly take effect.

Visibly, the ghastly void-cracks across her form were rapidly filled and repaired by surging emerald life energy, and her transparency was swiftly receding.

If not for the need to first expel that thorny void corruption, then in terms of purely physical lethality, with her current reserves of life force she could have restored herself almost instantly.

Celenova watched in silence, a cold gleam flickering in her eyes—calculating something once more.

Crack!

A piercing, abrupt shatter exploded like ice smashed through by brute force.

To Celenova's flank, the void burst like fragile glass, a hole blown open as countless shards of space sprayed outward.

Then a long-hafted battle-axe, wreathed in raging gale-force winds and flashing with cyan-gold cold light along its edge, tore out of the breach like a lancer charge, boiling battle intent surging.

Its target could not have been clearer: Celenova, standing still.

Where the axe passed, even the stable structure of the subspace seemed rended, leaving a twisted trail that would not mend for a long time.

Heh, looks like trouble you brought on yourself~ So… handle it on your own.

Seeing this, Phantylia not only didn't lift a finger—she even let out a gloating chuckle.

She was still gravely wounded, and had no desire to run into the Xianzhou's Arbiter-General Feixiao now and add risk for nothing.

Before her words finished, her figure blurred into a wavering wisp of ghostly green star-flame, melting soundlessly into the surroundings like a specter and vanishing into the turbulent depths of subspace—cleanly slipping away.

Celenova showed no reaction to Phantylia's desertion—not even a flicker in her gaze.

All her focus had gathered on that space-rending, awe-inspiring battle-axe.

Faced with a blow fierce enough to cleave mountains and sunder seas, Celenova's response was simple and direct to the extreme.

She merely raised her right hand—white as jade, seemingly delicate and powerless. At the tip of a slender finger, a point of pitch-dark radiance condensed, absolute and annihilating—as if it could erase all things. It was destruction power compressed to the utmost limit.

She neither dodged nor used any flashy technique. She simply met the axe's edge head-on and tapped it, almost casually.

Boom!!!

Finger-tip and axe-blade—two forces utterly mismatched in size and apparent might—collided with a roar.

The expected energy explosion did not occur. Instead, a ring of silent yet terrifying shock spread from the impact point—a ruinous ripple mixing pure destruction with raging wind element, blasting out in all directions.

Where the ripple passed, space itself twisted and shuddered like water rippled by a thrown stone.

The subspace Celenova had personally opened—supposed to be incomparably stable—was ripped like paper, torn into countless pitch-black fissures by the sheer collision.

Chaotic external void-energy flooded in at once, screeching with a tooth-aching hiss.

A single seemingly casual exchange nearly annihilated this hideout.

The long-hafted axe, trailed by lingering gale, spun back. Its haft dropped perfectly into a white-jade hand brimming with explosive strength, caught steady and sure.

Space was torn wider like a theater curtain, and that magnificent, colossal fox-like celestial steed—Flying Aureus—trampled through the fragile barrier. Its proud head and gale-empowered hooves bespoke the extraordinary.

Beneath it stood a woman general, tall and firm as a pine, battle-axe shouldered in pride: the Xianzhou Yaoqing's Arbiter-General, Feixiao.

"At last, I've got you, Celenova."

Feixiao's mouth curled in a wild, unrestrained grin, as if facing not a mortal enemy but an old friend reunited.

"Courtesy must be returned. I remember your 'hospitality' very well. So—here's my gift in return."

Her tone was light, even teasing, as if she had not been ambushed by Celenova and nearly ended in one wave. Only the blazing battle intent in her eyes showed she wasn't joking.

Celenova stayed silent. She wasn't surprised Feixiao had found her so quickly and barged in.

The ambush had failed to finish the job. With this general's fight-harder-the-tougher-it-gets nature, coming to settle accounts was inevitable.

Feixiao had just stepped forward, axe on shoulder, when the surrounding space violently rippled.

Shk-shk-shk-shk—!
Four figures, steeped in thick destructive aura and at extremely high energy tiers, appeared without warning at the four cardinal points around her, forming a deathtrap that sealed every path of advance and retreat.

To the east, a tall woman held a phoenix longsword burning with ghostly violet flame.

Across her cheeks, neck, and bare arms ran molten-gold destruction sigils. Her aura was violent and blazing, surpassing this world's so-called Limit Douluo—the Fire Phoenix Soul Master Corps leader, Luan Feng.

She had been wholly assimilated by destruction and rejuvenated—restored to her youthful looks—her body back at its peak, no longer aged.

To the south, a giant of a man like a mountain had completed his martial soul embodiment. Cruel black horns sprouted from his head, his whole body swathed in boiling dark-red flames. Each step shook the void—The Evil Lord Soul Master Corps leader, Mad Bull Douluo Wang Yiheng.

To the west, a lean, hard-eyed man gripped a long dark-gold blade. His bare upper body swelled with corded muscle; beneath bronzed skin, streams of destructive golden blood ran like magma—The Terror Claw Soul Master Corps leader, Blade Soul Douluo Liao Mengkai.

To the north stood a silent hulk clad in heavy soul-guiding armor, wielding an extravagant silver warhammer crackling with arcs of lightning that radiated oppressive dread—The Evil Lord Soul Master Corps vice leader, Silver Hammer Douluo Xia Xuancheng.

These four were already top-tier ninth-level soul mentors. After being assimilated by Celenova's destruction, their power surged to terrifying heights. In sheer energy tier, each had broken past this world's limit.

Normally, even joined together, the four would be no match for the battle-hardened Feixiao.

But now was different—because Celenova, once a Harmony Emanator, was present.

Among the Lords Absolute of Extinction, Celenova might not possess the highest individual combat prowess, but her most frightening ability was unification.

She could perfectly synchronize forces that existed as a collective, unleashing a terrifying strength far beyond a simple sum—transmuting quantity into quality.

That was why the Destruction Aeon God, Nanook, so often sent her as a vanguard general—she maximized the efficiency of destruction's flood.

At this moment, though Celenova hadn't struck directly, her invisible harmonizing field had already unfolded.

She not only linked and stacked the power of the four, but also, in some uncanny way, drew upon, infused, and overlaid the destructive energy of countless antimatter legion shades in the distance onto them.

With Celenova's bug-tier support, Luan Feng, Wang Yiheng, Liao Mengkai, and Xia Xuancheng were forcibly pushed to an unbelievable height—the threshold of demigod.

Given sufficient antimatter legions as a base, Celenova could even briefly shove them into true godhood.

Even so, four demigod-class assailants would have been enough to sweep all before them and overturn heaven and earth on the Douluo Continent.

Surrounded by four monstrous demigods, Feixiao not only showed no fear—battle-light burned brighter in her heroic eyes.

She grinned, baring white teeth. Her overwhelming aura climbed higher; the axe on her shoulder thrummed as if thirsty for blood.

"Whoa, that's some overenthusiastic hospitality."

Feixiao laughed aloud.

"Perfect to limber up—let's have ourselves… a proper brawl."

Before her voice fell, azure gale-force power exploded from her, and Flying Aureus screamed skyward.

Her posture and presence made it seem not that she was surrounded, but that she alone would fight the multitude and encircle them instead.

This was the Arbiter-General—no worry, no regret, unbeatable.

Chapter 360: The Unbeatable General

Before the words finished, Feixiao became a streak of azure gale and struck first.

Her battle-axe raised a storm of wind that tore all before it, cleaving straight for the seemingly clumsiest Xia Xuancheng.

Boom!

Xia Xuancheng roared. His giant hammer, wrapped in thunder and destruction, slammed up to meet her.

A clangor to shatter mountains erupted at the moment hammer met axe.

The Silver Hammer Douluo staggered back, arm-armor cracking to splinters and exposing muscle coursing with destructive golden blood—yet he took the blow head-on.

Meanwhile, the other three attacks arrived.

Luan Feng's phoenix sword swept in from the left, unleashing a sea of violet flame imbued with a soul-scorching will of annihilation.

Wang Yiheng charged like a primordial beast, head lowered, cruel horns first. Space warped where he ran, dark-red flames scorching all.

Liao Mengkai moved like a wraith. His long blade cut for Feixiao's back without a sound, the edge so sharp it left fine black lines in the air.

Facing the quartet's assault, Feixiao neither dodged nor flinched. Her fighting spirit only flared hotter.

She cried out. Flying Aureus loosed a sky-shaking scream, and a mighty gale erupted from her, forming a heaven-piercing, earth-rending azure tornado.

Boom-boom-boom!
Swordlight, flame, and blade all struck the tornado almost at once, spawning an unending chain of terrifying explosions.

The entire subspace shook violently. Its edges began to collapse, exposing the outside's chaotic void.

At the tornado's heart, Feixiao danced her axe—each strike simple, direct, and savage.

As the axe sang, she split her focus to condense wind-lances and hurl them, using her lone strength to suppress four demigods at once.

Her style was wide-open and fierce—unyielding forward momentum and iron-blooded battlefield ferocity, turning defense into offense and forcing the four to guard instead.

Luan Feng's flames were scattered by the gale. Wang Yiheng's soul-guide high-heat beam was cleaved in half by a casual axe. Liao Mengkai's razor slashes were blocked or narrowly evaded.

Xia Xuancheng tried to press in with his hammer, but Feixiao reversed her grip and smashed the hammerhead with the back of her axe. The terrifying force split his tiger's mouth and nearly tore the weapon from his hands.

"Not enough. Is that all you've got?"

Feixiao fought fiercer the longer it went. Her axe thrummed in excitement. She swept aside the four-pronged assault, and her wild laughter echoed across the turbulent space.

"Put your backs into it."

Celenova, until then watching in stillness, flashed a sliver of cold light in her eyes.

She slowly raised her hand, a deeper, darker destruction gathering at her fingertip—ready to intervene personally and deliver a killing blow.

Yet in that instant, the unexpected happened.

Feixiao's and the four demigods' reckless, all-out clashes had already piled up energy beyond what the subspace could bear.

On top of that, Celenova, constantly siphoning legion-power to buff the four, was radiating energy far beyond this realm's tolerances.

Crack—rumble!
At last, the space could no longer hold, and shattered like a broken mirror.

The world spun. Underfoot fell away. The surroundings changed in a blink.

The cold star-glow and twisted void vanished, replaced by a dim sky and the endless, deathly silence of Mingdu's ruins below.

Broken soul-guide towers, collapsed grand edifices, vast craters… They had fallen out of subspace back into the Douluo primary plane, right above the ruins of Mingdu.

Almost the instant they appeared—

An invisible yet vast pressure—carrying the weight of the entire Douluo plane—swept in from every direction and pressed down heavily on Celenova and Feixiao.

This was not any living will, but the planet's own instinctive rejection of foreign powers that threatened its core existence.

Celenova and Feixiao's might had long exceeded what the plane could tolerate. Feixiao had been suppressing herself before, avoiding the plane's instinctive rejection.

But in fighting four demigods, she had unconsciously exceeded the limit, drawing the plane's backlash.

Against Phantylia and Archeron, the plane's will could only tremble. But facing Celenova and Feixiao, who had yet to ascend as gods, it finally dared to stand up.

The sky dimmed like ink. Clouds boiled in from every quarter, churning madly.

Colossal thunder-dragons, hued in ominous dark red and deep violet, raced through the cloudbanks, roaring like heaven's wrath—divine punishment descending.

The air turned heavy and viscous. Space itself tightened and hardened.

Feixiao's heroic face still burned with battle-heat, but her brows drew slightly together.

She could feel it clearly: her tempered, transhuman body felt shackled. Every breath, every surge of blood, every call on the ocean of power within was like opposing heaven and earth themselves—crushed beneath an omnipresent suppression from the world's fabric.

If she forced her full power, even leaving aside whether she could beat Celenova, she might first trigger the plane's most savage backlash upon herself.

Her long-hafted axe thrummed in frustration. The specter of Flying Aureus circled her restlessly, its azure glow flickering under the unseen weight.

On the other side, Celenova felt the same colossal plane-pressure.

Her perfect face remained impassive, but the abyssal, all-devouring destruction around her involuntarily drew in a few degrees.

Cold light flickered rapidly in her eyes as she computed the consequences and cost-benefit of deploying different power tiers under this suppression.

The four demigod-class soul mentors empowered by Celenova, however, were less affected.

Though their power's source was Celenova, their bodies and souls still belonged to this plane. And their output hadn't crossed the plane's limit, so they didn't trigger such a brutal backlash.

Seeing Feixiao constrained, the four's eyes flashed red—and they attacked again.

"Ha! Good—like a little shackling could bind me, Feixiao?"

Facing both the encirclement and the plane's suppression, Feixiao did not retreat. She laughed long, her eyes flaring even wilder.

In her right hand appeared a strange weapon—long-bladed, a gun-knife hybrid suited to both thrusting like a spear and slashing like a sword—while her left still gripped the heavy axe.

The axe was dominant; the gun-blade was nimble. She would dual-wield two distinct forms at once.

With the axe shearing all in its path in the simplest, roughest fashion, she hacked at Xia Xuancheng and Wang Yiheng.

No flourish—only extreme power and speed.

Where her blade passed, space itself groaned. The plane's heavy suppression seemed momentarily split by raw force.

Boom!
Hammer met axe again. Xia Xuancheng felt an irresistible force—his tiger's mouth fully tore, and the silver hammer flew from his hand.

Wang Yiheng was cleaved away, his flames guttering as he tumbled thousands of meters.

At the same time, the gun-blade in Feixiao's right hand moved as if alive.

Her wrist turned; the blade snapped forward, popping Luan Feng's flaming phoenix. Then, with precision, she caught Liao Mengkai's killing edge.

Ding-ding-dang-dang—impacts pattered like rain on plantain leaves, urgent and bright.

Her style was grand and sweeping—yet subtle to the finest detail.

Under the axe: the unmatched ferocity of a battlefield titan. In the dancing blade: the profound mastery of many martial ways.

Eighteen weapons—she'd long fused them into one, making every motion a killing stroke.

More terrifying still was her tempered body.

Stray flames licked her bare arm, and residual blade-qi scored her body, but left only pale marks—unable even to make her waver.

Her body itself was the strongest weapon.

Under plane-suppression and siege by four demigods, Feixiao still pressed the attack, growing fiercer by the breath.

Axe and gun-blade wove a storm of death, pinning the four.

Above, the dark-red thunderstorm raged stronger. Bolts of heavenly punishment began striking indiscriminately around the field, forcing Celenova to divert and evade.

Staring at Feixiao—rampaging through the encirclement with unstoppable momentum—Celenova's icy eyes finally rippled by a fraction.

This Arbiter-General was even more troublesome than she had calculated.

….

"Well now, since Celenova has taken the field herself, Great-Victory General's side must be going nicely."

Lu Jingming stood upon the ravaged ruins, gazing up into the ten-thousand-meter sky.

Within the layered thunderclouds, violet-black destruction clashed with azure gale, each exchange making the firmament tremble. Were the battle lower, even the spillover would have ploughed the ruins again.

His eyes were deep, as if they pierced the clouds to see the world-shocking duel.

"But this drama over Mingdu should be nearing its curtain."

His gaze fell back nearby—to a brilliant golden light shooting from Tang Wutong's brow and swiftly taking shape.

It became a majestic, awe-inspiring azure figure wreathed in endless ocean waves and holy radiance.

A tidal divine might surged, as if to overawe all creation.

Sea God Tang San—his long-hidden wisp of divine sense was finally forced to appear.

Lu Jingming drew a deep breath. His eyes turned keen as blades. He murmured, "So you finally appear… Fine—come. Let's see where our limit lies."

"As you wish, Xiao Ming."

A gentle, resolute voice sounded behind him.

Raiden Makoto had appeared without notice. She gazed at Lu Jingming's profile, eyes filled with unreserved trust and devotion.

As one who should have died, it was Lu Jingming who gave her a second life. For that, she would repay him in full.