How is a mortal supposed to defeat an Emanator?
The answer is: they can’t.
An Emanator is a special existence favored by an Aeon.
As the executor of an Aeon’s will, their power far surpasses that of any ordinary Pathstrider.
No matter how strong Felutina got, in Shuhu’s eyes she was nothing more than a slightly larger ant.
So how was she supposed to fight this?
The first thing Felutina thought of was her Dynamic Strength — but Dynamic Strength had already been locked the last time she used it to buff herself.
Might as well burn the remaining 100k Popularity Points too.
At least the woman in military dress had done exactly what she’d wanted and turned to run.
Felutina drew a deep breath and tried to work out how to stall for time.
But before she could come up with anything, the thousand-faced monstrosity of a tree spoke first:
“The people of the Xianzhou are dull.
They call eternal life a curse, they call a blessing a calamity.
And yet you have set foot upon the path of Abundance…”
Its voice was as clamorous as ever.
It lashed its vines about, driving its trunks deep into the earth.
Felutina’s head was starting to ache.
She had no idea why Shuhu talked so much nonsense — but nonsense meant time, and time was exactly what she needed.
In the space of that one thought, a grotesque face shoved itself right up to hers.
Not one face, in fact.
Hundreds of lifeless faces closed in a ring around Felutina, each skull opening its mouth to speak a single word on Its behalf, stringing the sentence together between them:
“Join me.
I am Shuhu.
I am the eternity of ages.
From me, you and yours shall receive true immortality.”
Yikes.
Scared me half to death.
“Heh.
I am the Emperor of Heaven, and I shall cut down every last enemy in this world!”
Felutina fired back an answer that had nothing to do with the question.
She had no intention of debating doctrine with Shuhu in good faith.
Strip away the mystique and Shuhu was just a tree that had been elevated into an Emanator.
Its mind didn’t work the way an ordinary intelligent creature’s did.
A tree grows.
It drains everything it can from the soil and the world around it to make itself bigger.
To Shuhu that was simply the natural order of things.
Reasoning with something like that got you nowhere.
“…”
Roots spread outward.
Shuhu seemed, for a moment, to have been left speechless by her.
Felutina ignored It entirely and quietly fed the 100k Popularity Points into the Popularity System.
It stung a little.
She’d been saving those for a Close-Up card or a Special Effects card to use next time.
[Curio acquired for host: Die of Audience: The Hunt]
[Die of Audience: The Hunt: While holding this Curio, the probability of being glanced at by the Aeon of the Hunt is increased.
Host’s CRIT DMG increases by three percent.]
[The arrow pierces the clouds and runs the universe through, gathering the scattered fragments.
Valor long departed rides at your side, and the rampaging evil shall be cut down.]
It sounded impressive in a way she didn’t entirely understand.
On any other day Felutina would have thought it was extremely cool.
Right now she just thought it was insane.
There were countless living things in the universe, and only a handful of mortals had ever been fortunate enough to earn an Aeon’s glance.
Boosting odds of one in tens of billions by a hair got you…
about that much.
Felutina tightened her grip on her sword.
[Current party strength is low.
Dynamic Strength activated.]
So maybe it wasn’t completely hopeless after all.
Felutina raised her head, seized the sharpened vine Shuhu thrust toward her, and without a moment’s hesitation drove it straight into her own throat.
Thud —
Blood sprayed out, blooming like some monstrous flower.
Shuhu went still.
Then the thousand faces twisted all at once into eerie smiles.
“That’s right.
I can save every one of you.
One wave of a single branch among my many, and I will teach flesh to grow back over white bone.”
Felutina pulled the vine free.
The wound in her neck knitted shut fast enough to watch.
“Do you regret it?”
Shuhu was still coaxing, patient as a tutor.
“Sanctus Medicus is merciful, and Jianmu sends forth its shoots.
Let the planters be of one heart, and together we shall ascend to paradise.”
Felutina stabbed the vine into her own throat again.
Then pulled it out.
Shuhu: “?”
Felutina’s plan was to play the fool and pull a fast one on It — get It to ease off first, then grind Shuhu down at her own pace.
With a Celestial body on top of the Path of Abundance, her regeneration was far beyond that of ordinary Denizens of Abundance.
And those two stunts had caught Shuhu off guard, so It hadn’t started draining her life force outright.
A flash of sword light.
Shuhu’s vine was severed mid-air.
Felutina stepped back and carved through the ring of grotesque faces around her without a shred of mercy.
“Ingrate!”
The power of Abundance surged out like a tide.
Golden boughs erupted upward, wrapping Felutina in on all sides until they nearly blotted out the sky.
Felutina gave no ground.
Her Path of Abundance amounted to a single insignificant fruit hanging on Shuhu’s colossal tree, and she still wasn’t afraid.
She twisted, swung, stepped, spun, cut high and low.
She severed Shuhu’s vines a thousand times over.
Shuhu didn’t care.
Its life was inexhaustible.
Every severed vine simply grew back.
To It, Felutina was a flea and nothing more.
“I gave you your chance, and you did not treasure it.
You are not special.
Like the countless lives already fused with me, your flesh is beneath notice — but your suffering may yet amuse me.”
“What’s all that gibberish?
Eat another one of these!”
Felutina blinked.
Her shimmering eyes stung — the side effect, most likely, of using the Spirit Eye too long.
She couldn’t hold out much longer.
The gulf between a mortal and an Emanator was a chasm, and even with Shuhu deliberately holding back to savor her pain, she was nearly finished.
Shuhu seemed to grow bored.
Countless vivid blossoms opened along Its vines, and titanic roots tore up through the ground.
Felutina leapt high.
Shuhu thought her a flea — but even a flea has its temper, and she meant to split this arrogant envoy of a god open with her sword.
Thud…
Countless vines wound together into a single spear-point and drove straight at her.
Felutina hacked down with everything she had.
Blade met spike, and the terrible force behind it hurled the girl’s body skyward.
Crack —
No material, however fine, survives an impact like that.
A single hairline fracture appeared in the girl’s sword, then spread like a spiderweb, fast enough to watch.
In barely an instant, Felutina’s sword snapped, and the sharpened vine punched through her chest.
“There is no need for fear.
Do not resist…”
Countless voices shrieked with laughter.
A thousand grotesque faces circled around Felutina, and more flowers bloomed in the air, as if arranging a funeral for her.
“I can’t be bothered talking to you.
You’re not worth listening to!”
Felutina’s voice had gone thin and breathless, but her glare stayed fixed on Shuhu.
And in the instant those words left her, she felt something looking at her.
A gaze like a drawn blade.
Felutina’s body stiffened.
She lifted her head on instinct and saw nothing but a white light of unbearable brilliance.
Ah…
It came to her all at once.
The odds of the Aeon of the Hunt lowering His gaze for her alone were vanishingly small — but what about for her, plus a planet contaminated by Abundance, plus an Emanator of Abundance?
Lan, the Imperial Bow, leaves only traces behind.
He never speaks to creatures of mortal flesh; He proclaims His decree with arrows of light alone.
“No…
no, no, no!”
Terror seized Shuhu.
The flowers already in bloom flared into even more dazzling color as Its true body fled for the horizon — but how does a mere Emanator escape an Aeon?
“Looks like someone’s coming down to the grave with me~”
The girl pressed her lips together into a faint, exhausted smile.
Behind her, the blazing white light swallowed everything.
Until all sound in the world was gone.
Felutina was buried in a sea of flowers.
Love and justice left no corpse behind.