[Year 843.
The Hunt’s Path stretched onward without end.
Clad in black robes, your face obscured by swirling, chaotic-hued mist, you shook the cosmos with your exquisite and unparalleled stellar swordplay.]
[The Abominations of Abundance annihilated by you and your followers were beyond all counting.
The entire universe came to know of you—the “Emanator of the Hunt,” Nether Styx.]
[After all, since time immemorial, you were the first Hunt Emanator known to the cosmos beyond the Xianzhou.]
Bai Qiong: Just kidding, I’m a Xianzhou native too!
o＞_＜o
[The planets you saved even enshrined spirit tablets in your honor, worshipping you as a supreme and lofty deity.]
[To those who still knew nothing of the vastness of the cosmos, there was no distinction between an Emanator and an Aeon.]
[But in this very year, you discovered a group conducting the most savage and cruel experiments—no, they could not even be called human.]
The Intelligentsia Guild, Atavism Faction.
In their pursuit of knowledge, they recognized no taboos.
They conducted the most brutal experiments, dragging civilizations back to the primordial dark, treating ethics as nothing more than shackles to be cast aside.
For the first time, you felt genuine revulsion toward a human being.
This was a sensation you had never once felt even when slaughtering the Abominations of Abundance.
(After all, as far as you were concerned, Abominations of Abundance could not be classified as human.)
The Sky Hunters and Flame-Chasing Hunters at your side, witnessing this scene, also felt a fury that surged from the very depths of their souls.
“Lend me a bow.” Your voice was somewhat hoarse as you spoke to the person beside you.
“Yes!” The young man’s eyes blazed with fervent heat.
Draw the bow.
Nock the arrow.
That night, the Sky Hunters and Flame-Chasing Hunters saw only a streaking Hunt star slash across the starry sky, vanishing into the endless horizon of the firmament.
What they did not know was that your arrow traced cause back to its source, delivering annihilation and extinction to the Atavism Faction of the Intelligentsia Guild.
The next day, the total obliteration of the Intelligentsia Guild’s Atavism Faction shook the entire cosmos.
Furthermore, the computing power of the scepter belonging to that faction was also thrown into disruption, rendered inoperable for a long time to come.
That very night, the Intelligentsia Guild issued a death warrant and launched an investigation into the matter.
But not long after, that death warrant was quietly withdrawn, as though it had been nothing more than a joke.
As for the reason?
The beings of the interstellar world did not know.
But it became a subject of idle chatter over many a meal nonetheless.
Intelligentsia Guild: Are you joking?!
Issue a death warrant against a Hunt Emanator?
Us???
[Year 857.
On a calm and quiet night, a visitor arrived in your memories—something that had not happened in a very long time.]
“In the interstellar world of today, truly precious memories are far too few.” A mysterious woman in a violet veil walked into your encampment as though no one else existed.
As a Memokeeper, sneaking and skulking about was simply second nature.
Yet none of them had detected the arrival of this Memokeeper.
This, naturally, bolstered the mysterious veiled woman in violet’s confidence considerably.
“The newly risen Hunt Emanator of the cosmos?” The mysterious veiled woman in violet shook her head, her eyes filled with disbelief.
As all knew, only the Xianzhou possessed Hunt Emanators.
At most, you were merely a Pathstrider who had walked relatively far down the Path of the Hunt.
“But even so…
I imagine your memories are precious enough.” With a gentle stroke of her hand, as though parting a veil, she murmured, “Now, let me take a closer look…
at your memories…”
She successfully entered the space of your memories.
Arms folded across her chest, steps light and unhurried, she strolled about at her leisure.
“So easy to enter…
It seems the identity of Hunt Emanator is indeed false.”
The confidence on the face of the mysterious veiled woman in violet deepened.
“And besides—if you truly were a Hunt Emanator…
then it seems I’ll be able to collect even more precious memories in the future.”
“But this environment here…”
Her brow furrowed.
By all logic, in an ordinary person’s memories, the first thing to appear should be their most cherished or most deeply engraved recollections.
But as she scanned her surroundings, all she could see was a pitch-black, barren wasteland.
At regular intervals, small grave mounds dotted the landscape, adding a layer of eerie strangeness to the scene.
A gust of frigid wind swept past.
She whirled around, startled—but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Though the environment had not changed, she began to tremble uncontrollably.
By all logic, her body had long since transformed into a meme.
She should not be capable of feeling such a sensation anymore…
“Uuu…” The sound of a child’s weeping drifted toward her.
Suppressing the unease rising within her, the mysterious veiled woman in violet walked in the direction from which the cries had come.
It was a black-haired little boy, his features remarkably endearing.
His arms were wrapped around his knees, and he let out sob after muffled sob.
“Uncle, Auntie…
Liuliu…
where are you…
Mom and Dad lied again…
they don’t want me anymore…” The little boy’s voice was so faint that without straining to listen, one could barely make out the words.
The mysterious veiled woman in violet, seeing this, was about to step forward and offer comfort.
But the instant her hand was about to touch his head, the little boy vanished into nothingness.
She froze, stunned for a moment.
Then she heard the sound of digging coming from behind her.
She turned her head. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
There she saw the same little boy from moments ago, now clawing at the soil with his bare hands.
The boy’s hands were covered in a dense web of fine cracks.
Yet, as though under the influence of some force, his hands would restore themselves after every stretch of time.
By all logic, those cracks should have healed as well…
But scars and scabs, once they formed, needed time to fall away…
And if he kept digging without end…
then the state of those fine scars and cracks would, naturally, keep refreshing anew…
“Find Mom and Dad…
find Uncle and Aunt…
find Liuliu…” The little boy’s voice carried not a single thread of emotion—only the hollow repetition of relentless numbness.
A gust of wind blew past.
She closed her eyes on instinct.
When she opened them again, the scene before her had transformed entirely.
Before a grave mound sat a white-haired youth.
Judging from the general shape and features, it should still be the same child from before.
Now, his eyes held not the slightest trace of color.
They were hollow—empty as a soul-devouring black hole.
“Who…
are you?” His voice was impossibly hoarse, like a rusted old cassette tape rasping to life.
He clutched at his own chest, as though trying to still a heart convulsing in agony.
A faint mist of tears welled up in those long-numbed eyes.
Tears poured forth like an unstoppable spring.
He did not know why he was weeping.
He tried to wipe his eyes with those scar-covered hands, only to find that no matter how much he wiped, the tears would not stop.
The mysterious veiled woman in violet pressed her lips together.
She wanted to speak, but something seemed to catch in her throat, refusing to emerge.
The scene before her flickered and shifted again.
It was still this same grave mound—only now, another grave lay beside it.
Now, he had the appearance of a young man.
He held a wooden carving in his hands, one barely recognizable as a human figure.
He sat there in a daze, utterly silent.
But if one looked closely, one could discern a faint trace of confusion in his eyes.
Why am I here?
What is this thing in my hands?
And why…
why does seeing these two graves make me feel so much pain?
“Nihility…” The mysterious veiled woman in violet shook her head.
She had never imagined that this person—one who had walked so far down the Path of the Hunt—would be a Self-Annihilator.