CHAPTER 105 – The Battle of Roots Begins
Chaos met chaos in a blinding, instantaneous explosion.
It was not a battle of blows, but a collision of fundamental universal forces.
The sky shattered into splinters of light and shadow.
The ground beneath them ripped open as the First Root's presence attempted to reduce matter to pure nothingness.
Mountains formed and collapsed within seconds in the background, byproducts of the warping reality.
Xiao Xi moved with primal fury, fueled by the terrifying realization that if she failed, Gu would vanish forever.
She hurled chaos spears—thick, violet bolts of concentrated narrative will.
She unleashed chaos waves—ripples of energy that threatened to destabilize the monster's form.
She opened chaos vortexes—small black holes that tried to swallow pieces of its darkness.
The First Root devoured each attack.
They hit it and were absorbed like smoke into a bigger fire.
"YOU CANNOT DESTROY THE ORIGINAL.
YOU ARE A COPY.
A FAILURE."
"Watch me," Xiao Xi gritted out, her muscles screaming with effort.
She unleashed a blast so powerful it carved a crater into existence, vaporizing the surrounding debris,
but the First Root simply reformed its shape, coalescing out of the resulting void.
It was immune to her power because it was the thing she wielded, just unrefined and malignant.
Its voice slithered directly through her mind, not sound, but psychic poison.
"YOU ARE NEW.
YOU ARE WEAK.
YOU ARE SOFT.
YOU CHOOSE LOVE OVER PURPOSE.
YOU FAIL."
Xiao Xi's power faltered—just for a crucial, agonizing moment.
The pain of Gu's fading form, the terror of the task, the scope of the enemy—it all slammed into her.
Her breath hitched.
She was fighting a being older than stories.
Older than order.
Older than the Core itself.
The First Root saw the weakness and lunged.
Its darkness expanded, swallowing the world, consuming Xiao Xi in a terrifying, suffocating blackness.
Xiao Xi screamed, the sound echoing within the oppressive void,
and something snapped inside her.
A new thread, brilliant and impossibly warm, ignited within her chaos.
Gold.
Bright.
Warm.
She felt Gu's presence.
Not his fading body, or his pain.
His soul. His narrative truth.
Calling to her from the edge of the void.
Xiao Xi.
I'm here.
I'm with you.
Her chaos surged upward in a violent, explosive burst of light—a light that was no longer just violet, but infused with the solid, protective gold of true devotion.
The golden-violet light exploded the darkness around her.
The First Root staggered back, screeching in surprise and genuine pain, its primordial form scorched by the pure, emotional energy.
Xiao Xi rose from the rubble, glowing with a new, impossible power—
Chaos infused with Love.
Her hair floated like galaxies of violet and gold.
Her eyes burned like twin stars.
Her presence shook the dying world with a new, stronger truth.
She whispered, her voice steady and absolute:
"You're wrong.
You think love is a weakness."
She pointed a finger directly at the staggering First Root.
"He made me stronger.
You are only chaos.
I am the Core, the Chaos, and the Heart."
The darkness recoiled further, unable to comprehend this evolution.
Xiao Xi's voice rang like a final judgment across the ravaged land.
"And now—
I'm ending you.
For all the worlds you tried to devour."
She leapt toward the First Root, her chaos blazing, a perfect fusion of destructive power and generative will—
and the real final battle began.