Inside the Seat of Divine Foresight, everyone fell silent at the sight before them.
At this very moment, that silver-white figure floated in midair, the image on display perfectly clear.
Kallen Kaslana stood at the center of the wreckage field, gray-black mist coiling around her body.
She seemed to sense something. Raising her head, she glanced in the direction of the mirror.
There was no expression on her face at all—only indifference, as though she were looking at a completely irrelevant landscape.
Then she moved. Her slender fingers made a light slicing motion through the air.
And just like that, the image cut out.
Once more, the Seat of Divine Foresight sank into a deathly stillness.
No one spoke. No one moved. Even breathing seemed deliberately suppressed to the faintest degree, as though the slightest carelessness might disturb something that should never be disturbed.
"She's got some nerve," Jing Yuan said first, breaking the silence and giving his verdict on the Nihility Witch's actions.
After all, it had only been three days since Aha's broadcast. The entire galaxy knew what she had done. Everyone knew the blood feud between her and the Xianzhou Alliance.
And yet she still dared to come to the Luofu—especially now, when they were about to hold a welcoming celebration for Mobius.
At that, the expressions of all four Arbiter-Generals turned grave to the extreme.
Much as they wanted to settle things with Kallen here and now, they also had to admit one fact:
The Witch of Nihility was terrifyingly powerful.
Even with four Emanators on the Luofu now, plus one dragon sovereign who had surpassed the level of an ordinary Emanator, they still could not claim with confidence that victory was assured.
At the same time, Diamond's mood was hardly any better.
The composed expression he had worn all this time finally cracked a little.
That sample… that was the company's one and only sample!
That fragment of Nihility, painstakingly grafted from the Amber Lord by Taravan at tremendous cost, had been the only specimen in the entire galaxy that could be studied, analyzed, and used to search for weaknesses.
It was a miracle that could never be replicated.
Originally, it was meant to be the company's show of sincerity—the proof of its determination to cooperate with the Xianzhou Alliance.
And now it was gone, destroyed by the witch right in front of them.
Diamond's fist clenched tightly.
Still, he had been in the company for more years than anyone cared to count, and he adjusted his thinking quickly enough.
Perhaps… this, too, pointed toward a direction.
After all, if even the Nihility Witch herself had come personally to destroy the fragment, did that not, in turn, prove that the Nihility contained within it posed a threat to her?
The situation had already turned out like this. Diamond could only console himself as best he could with that interpretation.
"…General Jing Yuan."
He turned, fixing his gaze squarely on the man seated at the head of the hall.
"That fragment of Nihility was the company's hard-earned achievement, purchased with Director Taravan's life on the line."
"It has now been destroyed. But the company will not hold the Xianzhou Alliance responsible, because this was not the Alliance's doing."
"As for that witch…"
"She is currently just outside the Luofu."
"With four Arbiter-Generals of the Reignbow gathered here, the strongest forces of the Xianzhou Alliance assembled in one place, and with me personally lending support—"
"If even a lineup like this cannot suppress that witch, then who in the entire galaxy can?"
"So…"
He bowed slightly, his posture respectful to the utmost degree.
"I ask the generals to accompany me."
"With the addition of this little Dragon Sovereign, the six of us can join forces and suppress the witch directly!"
Jing Yuan did not answer at once.
Seated at the head of the hall, he appeared to sink into thought.
Although, after witnessing Cangcheng's past, he too felt the urge to throw everything aside and fight Kallen to the death, he was still the Divine Foresight General of the Luofu.
More often than not, reason won out over impulse.
With the Nihility Witch's abilities, if a battle truly broke out near the Luofu…
To be honest, Jing Yuan had no confidence in capturing her. Worse, he had to worry whether the Luofu might end up following in Cangcheng's footsteps.
That was the real dilemma before him.
At this point, Huaiyan spoke up to ease the pressure.
"General Jing Yuan, this old man understands your concerns."
"The Luofu is in the midst of a grand occasion. If that witch were to strike the Luofu directly, the consequences would be unthinkable."
"But since she has already appeared outside Luofu territory, we must still go and confirm the situation."
Hearing that, Jing Yuan—who had already more or less made up his mind—naturally followed Huaiyan's lead.
"Elder Huaiyan, you are right."
"With four Arbiter-Generals gathered here, we truly ought not miss this chance."
"In that case, let us accompany Mr. Diamond and properly meet that Witch of Nihility."
As he finished speaking, Jing Yuan's gaze shifted to Yaoguang.
"General Yaoguang, I'll have to trouble you to remain behind on the Luofu in my place, and ensure Miss Mobius's safety."
Yaoguang's lips moved slightly, as though she wanted to say something.
Then she lowered her head, glanced at the expressionless Mobius in her arms, raised her eyes again, and nodded to Jing Yuan.
"Understood."
At the same time, deep inside the Luofu's Shackling Prison, a mysterious six-character ID quietly slipped in.
"Oh-ho, looks like the Luofu's pretty empty right now."
Feeling what Mobius was seeing on her end, Kallen muttered to herself.
That's right. At this very moment, the Kallen stationed outside Luofu territory was only one of her split bodies—a decoy used as bait.
The real her had something much more important to do.
Kallen moved through the prison corridors, making straight for the deepest level.
That said, the Shackling Prison was far quieter than she had expected.
By her original estimate, as the Luofu's prison for its most dangerous criminals, it ought to have been guarded heavily—even if not literally every few steps, then at least with rotating patrols of Cloud Knights.
Yet the whole way down, she had seen not a single sentry, not so much as a patrol shadow.
"Looks like the scale of that welcoming celebration is really huge," Kallen muttered inwardly.
Most of the Luofu's available forces had likely been reassigned to maintaining order for the festivities. With four generals gathered and nearly all of the Alliance's upper echelon present, the pressure on security was obvious.
As for the Shackling Prison, after the riot Cecilia had caused earlier, the inmate population had, in a sense, already been "reduced."
And whatever rabble remained inside, they were unlikely to stir up trouble anytime soon.
Kallen did not stop walking. She continued deeper.
Dim lamps were embedded into the corridor walls every several dozen paces.
Their yellow light stretched her shadow long and thin, as though it might dissolve into the air at any moment.
The power of Nihility flowed around her soundlessly.
As naturally as breathing. No thought required, no effort required. So long as she existed, Nihility wrapped itself around her automatically.
Unnoticed. Unseen. Unremembered.
This was the new skill she had unlocked after the truth behind the "Mystery" had been exposed.
While it wouldn't work on anyone with even slightly stronger spiritual perception, and was generally only marginally useful, it had been a freebie, so she took it gladly.
Just then—
Tap, tap, tap…
A synchronized series of footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor.
Kallen slowed ever so slightly and lifted her head, her gaze piercing through the dim light toward the squad making its way closer.
It was a patrol of Cloud Knights.
Twelve or thirteen of them. Leading them was a centurion with a sword at his waist and steady, measured steps. Behind him, the soldiers were fully armed, their spears gleaming coldly beneath the lamps.
Kallen did not hide.
She did not even stop walking. She simply kept moving forward, same pace, same speed, same expression.
That squad of Cloud Knights passed right by her.
The nearest man came within three feet of her.
No one looked at her. No one sensed anything wrong.
The centurion's gaze swept right over the space she occupied, those watchful eyes passing through her as though through a patch of transparent air before settling on the corridor behind her.
"Patrol frequency doubles during the celebration. Stay sharp," the centurion's voice echoed down the passage.
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers answered in unison and kept going. Soon their footsteps receded into the distance and vanished down the corridor.
Kallen did not even lift an eyelid. She kept walking.
That was Nihility.
Not invisibility. Not illusion. Not concealment in any ordinary sense.
Rather—
she simply did not exist there.
Their eyes had seen her, but their cognition had rejected her existence.
It wasn't that they lacked vigilance. It wasn't that they had relaxed.
It was simply that Nihility itself was not something meant to be remembered.
Thinking about it now, although the skill looked a bit underwhelming—effective only against minions and maybe elite mobs—it really did feel appropriately "on brand."
Kallen descended the final step and entered the deepest region of the Shackling Prison.
Very quickly, she sensed countless auras of Abundance.
Which made sense. This was the bottommost level of the Shackling Prison—where the most dangerous followers of Abundance were locked away.
And among them, one aura in particular caught her attention immediately.
With that thought, Kallen walked to a sealed prison gate.
Judging from the aura inside… that should be Hoolay, right?
According to the original script of the martial event, this should have been where his part really began.
But unfortunately for him, the Borisin had already been wiped out in one go. There was probably no one left to come rescue him now.
So—should she free him?
No, better not.
She didn't keep freeloaders around, and Hoolay was honestly a bit too weak. Getting him out wouldn't help at all.
With the level of combat power gathered on the Luofu right now, even without Mobius making a move, there were still four Hunt Emanators and company envoys present.
What exactly was Hoolay supposed to do in that situation? Throw himself at them and die with style?
The meta was changing faster than anyone imagined, and a player at Hoolay's level—other than having a bit of a racial advantage against Foxians—was basically useless.
Very obviously, he was of no use at all.
After all, even Jingliu in her normal state a thousand years ago had been able to capture him alive. So what was Hoolay worth now?
So Kallen passed by Hoolay's seal and moved on to another location.
And this time, she had truly arrived at her destination.
She lowered her eyes and looked at the metal beneath her feet.
"Pyro-gold," Kallen recognized the material.
This was the Xianzhou Alliance's specially crafted alloy for sealing top-tier prisoners, mixed with fragments of the Hunt and extremely suppressive toward powers of the Abundance.
Here, although the Abundance aura inside was far weaker than Hoolay's…
the sheer number of seals was several times greater.
Kallen raised her head and fixed her gaze on the massive gate before her.
It stood nearly ten feet tall, forged entirely from Pyro-gold, its surface covered in dense sealing inscriptions.
She didn't recognize the exact technique, but she could tell what kind of system it was.
One layer. Two. Three…
Kallen counted.
Seven layers. A full seven seals stacked over one another on that door.
According to rumor, this was the highest-grade seal in the Xianzhou Alliance.
A cage meant for beings so dangerous that even death itself could not be trusted to contain them.
Kallen raised her right hand and placed her palm against the cold metal surface.
Gray-black mist seeped from her fingertips like some living thing, spreading slowly through the cracks in the sealing inscriptions.
Very quickly, Nihility infiltrated every seam in the pattern, and the inscriptions began to dim.
Then Kallen's brow twitched faintly—but she neither spoke nor stopped.
The gray-black mist continued to spread, forcing its way deeper through the unraveling layers.
Only when it touched the very innermost layer did Kallen's gaze sharpen slightly.
Deep within the seals, she sensed something that did not belong to the seals themselves.
It was the aura of the Hunt.
And it was astonishingly dense.
Oh-ho. The Xianzhou Alliance really was guarding Shuhu seriously.
With restraints like these, even Hunt Emanators like Jing Yuan would probably have trouble breaking through them quickly.
But that had nothing to do with her fully maxed-out Nihility build.
The gray-black mist suddenly thickened severalfold, as though enraged, rushing madly at the final layer.
With a loud crash, the Hunt seal finally collapsed completely.
"Okay, done. Job finished!"
Kallen clapped her hands.
Then, as the seal vanished, the gate released a deep, resonant groan, like some slumbering beast being awakened at last.
Slowly, it opened.
Kallen lifted her foot, crossed the threshold, and entered.
Then she saw it.
At the center of the chamber sat a box.
Well… to be honest, it just looked like an ordinary box.
Roughly a foot square. Pitch black all over, without any decoration or distinguishing feature.
It lay there quietly on the floor, as if someone had casually tossed it aside.
Kallen walked over and crouched in front of it.
Then she closed her eyes and tapped it lightly.
Instantly, a surge of Abundance aura rose up.
Pure. Dense. And at the same time, utterly weak.
Like some life-force that had once been so overflowing it could drown all things, but now only retained its final flicker, swaying in the wind, ready to go out at any moment.
Kallen's brow furrowed slightly.
Shuhu was lying in this?
Had she found the wrong target? Why did the thing inside seem this pathetic…?
That was what Kallen thought, but she knew full well that the lump inside this box was probably the notorious Emanator of Abundance who had left such a terrible name in the Xianzhou Alliance's history—
the Thousand-Faced Monstrosity Tree, Shuhu.
Except now, only that little bit was left of him.
Still, there was one thing Kallen found herself curious about.
There were countless theories across the galaxy regarding Shuhu's fate.
The official version of history said that during the Shuhu Rebellion, Dan Feng held him back with the power of the High Elder while Baiheng rammed an entire Xianzhou vessel into him, perishing together.
That was the most widespread and most broadly accepted version in the Xianzhou Alliance.
And from what Kallen knew, the leader of the Galaxy Rangers had also once devoured part of Shuhu.
So what, had the Undying Eater swallowed just a little lump of flesh like this?
Kallen's mouth twitched.
She fell silent for a moment, then reached down and lifted the box from the ground.
It was light—so light it felt almost empty.
But she could still sense it. There really was something inside.
Tsk tsk. The Emanator of Abundance, Shuhu… and this was all that remained of him.
Then, in the next instant, Kallen took a deep breath, and the aura of Nihility around her abruptly vanished.
In its place came a completely different power.
A jade-green radiance welled up from her body.
It was the Path of Abundance.
That's right—Kallen had borrowed a share of the Abundance from Cecilia too.
Not just Kallen. Every public-facing maxed-out identity she had—Kiana, Mobius, Hua—had all gone to Cecilia for a touch of Abundance's blessing.
See? Having the daughter of Yaoshi around really was useful.
Kallen raised her right hand. A soft green light bloomed in her palm.
And she controlled it very carefully.
The bare minimum of Abundance. The bare minimum of life-force.
Then the jade-green glow spilled from her palm and slowly seeped into the black box.
Once. Twice. Three times…
Kallen did not stop, nor did she intensify the flow.
She maintained that tiny output, feeding the life-force of Abundance into the box little by little.
Time passed slowly in the darkness.
No one knew how long.
Eventually…
the lump of flesh inside the box finally reacted.
At first it was only a faint tremor, like some long-slumbering thing having its nerves touched for the first time.
Then the tremor became writhing. The flesh began to stretch slowly, groping through the dark as though searching for something.
Kallen's brow shifted a fraction, but her hand did not stop.
At last, the flesh inside the box completed its transformation.
It was no longer just "a lump."
The flesh began to gather, to take shape, to form around some hazy outline.
After another stretch of time, the movement ceased.
It was no longer just a blob.
It had become a chunk of flesh the size of a human heart, its surface covered by a thin membrane, like a cocoon not yet ready to break open.
Beneath that membrane, something was pulsing.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A heartbeat.
Kallen withdrew her hand. The green light faded from her palm.
She looked down at the beating heart in the box and said nothing.
Then a voice came from within it.
"…Have you come to save me?"
"…My believer… has my believer finally come to save me…?"
The voice was broken and intermittent, as though each word took every ounce of effort.
Kallen still said nothing.
She simply crouched there, gazing at the heart in the box, waiting for it to fully awaken.
After a while longer, the membrane covering the heart began to crack.
A fine split spread from top to bottom, then more fractures branched from it like a spiderweb.
Crack.
The membrane shattered.
An eye appeared beneath the broken shell.
It was enormous, taking up a full third of the entire fleshy mass.
It blinked once.
Then again.
As though adjusting to the light. Or confirming that what it was seeing was not illusion.
Then the pupil contracted sharply.
It saw Kallen.
Saw the expressionless woman crouched before the box, watching it.
And it also saw the traces of jade-green light not yet fully faded from her body.
Abundance.
Emanator-level Abundance.
The pupil shrank to its limit—then expanded violently.
"Y-you… who are you?!"
Shuhu's voice came from that heart, far clearer now than before, and far more frantic.
"You are not one of my believers!"
"No believer of mine could possibly possess Abundance at this level!"
But then, as though realizing something else, Shuhu abruptly changed course.
"Wait… wait a moment! Could it be that while I was dormant, one of my believers actually ascended to become an Emanator?!"
And honestly, the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
Otherwise, why would she have risked so much to come all the way into the Xianzhou Alliance just to save him?
So—had one of his followers really produced an Emanator of Abundance?
"Hey… woman!" Shuhu cried again.
"You are my believer, aren't you?!"
"Hurry and get me out of here. Once this divine envoy restores his power, you shall be richly rewarded!"
After hearing Shuhu out, Kallen just stared at him for a moment.
What was wrong with this guy?
Had being locked up for too long addled his brain?
Then the Path around her shifted again.
In an instant, the same Nihility as before flooded the chamber once more.
The moment Shuhu felt that aura of Nihility—vastly more powerful than the Abundance from a moment ago—his pupil shrank violently.
"W-wait… wait a—!"
He never finished the sentence.
Because Kallen had already stomped him underfoot.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
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TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
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Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
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Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
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Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 280
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Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
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I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/40
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Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 155
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 120
I Can Copy Unique Skills 120
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My Harem Is Indescribable 105
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Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 110
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Transmigrated as Sukuna 90
Checking In in Demon Slayer 95
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 105
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The Gacha Merchant Who Started 90
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 105
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The Uma Musume Who Became 70
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I, the Elden Sword Saint 60
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DanMachi: My Party Members Are 70
An Anime Heroine Darkened 60
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Honkai: The Fire Devil 30
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