Douluo: Manifesting the Black Abyss and White Flower at the Start-Chapter 327 - 326: Black Abyss White Flower - First Rated Power

But now, Mingdu had already turned into a hellscape, with war flames sweeping the entire city, yet Phantylia remained motionless, hidden behind the scenes.
And Celenova was only continuously dispatching seemingly endless Anti-Matter Legion forces for mad slaughter. Aside from that abrupt sneak attack on Feixiao earlier, she herself had made no further major moves.
"What... are they waiting for? Or rather, what are they preparing for?"
Lu Jingming frowned slightly, sensing something amiss.
Earlier, he had speculated that Celenova wanted to use the Anti-Matter Legion to destroy Mingdu and harvest massive lives and negative emotions, thereby absorbing vast negative energy to boost her own strength.
But now it seemed that absorbing energy was perhaps just the surface-level, incidental goal. Their true, deeper plot was likely using this massive battlefield and the gathering of countless powerhouses to firmly pin nearly all of the Douluo Continent's top combat forces here.
Mingdu at this moment was like a gigantic quagmire vortex, assembling at least seventy percent of the continent's top-tier forces on the surface.
The Sea God Pavilion elders from Shrek Academy, the top experts from the Body Sect, the elite soul engineers from the Mingde Hall, the titled Douluo from the Heavenly Soul and Star Luo Empires, plus the forces invested by Haiyuan City, and the various Servants summoned by the Holy Grail War.
The core combat power and highest-end might from all factions were almost all trapped in this burning besieged city, mutually restraining and exhausting each other.
Such a bizarre situation boiled down to two major possibilities.
First, they aimed to wipe out the Douluo Star's core resistance forces in one fell swoop here.
As long as they could successfully eliminate these top-tier forces, the entire planet would lack sufficient power to effectively resist the Anti-Matter Legion's advance, making ultimate destruction inevitable.
Second, it was the classic tactic of luring the tiger from the mountain.
With the powerhouses and main forces of the major factions deeply mired in Mingdu's war quagmire, their rear bases, important cities, and heritage sites would inevitably be in an unprecedented state of vulnerability.
This would give the enemy a perfect opportunity to execute some truly fatal plan.
"It looks like ninety-nine percent it's luring the tiger from the mountain."
Lu Jingming calmly analyzed while manipulating the hundreds-of-meters-tall massive wooden figure, once again condensing a earth-shattering giant fist to hammer the stubbornly struggling Titan Giant Ape deeper into the pit below.
A flash of insight crossed his eyes, his thoughts becoming crystal clear—since it was basically confirmed that Xu Tianran's Servant was Phantylia, and this Lord Ravager most adept at stirring up trouble had remained unseen, the answer was simple.
Either she was still in the shadows waiting for the perfect moment, or... she wasn't in Mingdu at all.
Lu Jingming leaned toward the latter.
Phantylia has always loved toying with hearts and destinies, excelling at guiding mortals down paths of self-destruction, dragging civilizations into irredeemable abysses.
And Xu Tianran's current actions—decisively abandoning his Mingdu foundation, coldly sacrificing millions of subjects, making deals with tigers... undoubtedly stepping step by step onto the path of utter self-destruction.
If his Servant truly was Phantylia, all these abnormal, insane behaviors made perfect sense; there must be Phantylia's inducement and push behind it.
According to the basic rules of the Holy Grail War, the Master Xu Tianran's existence is itself the foundation for Servant Phantylia's manifestation and her most obvious weakness.
With Phantylia's wisdom and deep cunning, she couldn't possibly ignore this fatal flaw; she must have made arrangements.
So, where exactly is she now? And what is she doing?
Suddenly, a temporarily overlooked keyword flashed through Lu Jingming's mind like lightning.
He thought of the one thing on this planet that could attract an entity like Phantylia—even possibly help her break free from the Holy Grail's restrictions and completely shed her Servant form.
His expression changed abruptly.
"The plane core, or rather... this world's manifestation of 'life'—the Golden Tree!"
He couldn't help licking his somewhat dry lips, a wave of helplessness and self-reflection rising in his heart.
He had still underestimated these cunning Lord Ravagers who had lived for untold ages.
Whether Celenova or Phantylia, from the very beginning, their target probably wasn't that seemingly wish-granting Holy Grail that could actualize memory bodies at all.
With their pride as Destruction Emanators, they wouldn't believe in something of unknown origin; they only believed in the absolute power they themselves possessed.
So, they must be plotting to use their own methods, exploiting some unique trait or treasure of this world, to break free from the Holy Grail's shackles, completely shedding their Servant identities, and thus more fully enacting their path of Destruction in this universe.
From the start, the greedy and dangerous gazes of these two Lord Ravagers hadn't truly lingered on the "farce" of the Holy Grail War but were cast toward a more distant, more fundamental goal.
"Clashing with these Lord Ravagers is truly full of surprises; you can never guess what they'll do next... Interesting."
A glint of excitement flashed in Lu Jingming's eyes, mixed with a touch of wariness.
The danger and trouble-making ability of these Destruction agents from the Honkai universe lived up to their reputation.
If not for his own special true authority, allowing him to break conventions at any time, call in reinforcements, and mobilize far stronger forces from beyond this world, facing the scheme laid by these two Lord Ravagers might truly risk a wipeout.
Given Phantylia's essence as a Lord Ravager, if she successfully seized this world's Golden Tree and used the Douluo Star's plane core as a foundation to reshape a perfect body, she could at least immediately recover and stably exert terrifying combat power at the level of a first-class deity.
If given more time to freely absorb the massive negative energy from Mingdu and even the entire continent's war and destruction, enacting more destructive acts, her power could soon climb to god-king level without bottlenecks.
Forget god-king; even if Phantylia merely recovered to first-class god level, with the God Realm preoccupied by other matters and unable to intervene, she could single-handedly destroy the entire Douluo Continent with ease, spreading scenes of carnage to every corner of the world.
And if both Phantylia and Celenova achieved their goals, successfully destroying the entire Douluo Continent, the immense energy from a planet's total annihilation would be enough to elevate Celenova as well, causing her strength to surge.
They might even forcibly open the black hole channel connected to the "Tomb of the Gods," absorbing the near-infinite death and negative energy accumulated over eons, truly transforming into cosmic darkness that devours light, bringing thorough, irreversible ultimate destruction to this universe.
In other words, if Lu Jingming messed up here, even if only memory bodies of two Lord Ravagers had arrived, the chain reaction they triggered could topple the first domino, ultimately leading to the complete collapse of this universe.
True powerhouses, even without their true bodies descending and with most of their power restricted, can always find unique ways to grow stronger suited to the world, steadfastly enacting their pure and extreme ideologies.
Lu Jingming could even clearly envision, if he failed this time, how the Anti-Matter Legion would ravage the entire universe in the future, with countless stars extinguishing one after another in despairing destruction.
"Sorry, big guy."
Lu Jingming lowered his head, gazing calmly at the Titan Giant Ape in the deep pit, still roaring defiantly and struggling to rise, his tone indifferent yet laced with killing intent.
"Though there's no personal grudge between us, and I even admire your toughness... unfortunately, our stances differ. For my plans, I must ask you... to meet your end here."
He no longer had spare time to tangle with this thick-skinned Titan Giant Ape.
In his hand, the peculiar holy spear formed from the perfect fusion of the Black Abyss and White Flower martial souls began to emit a low hum.
The ultimate black of decomposition and the pure white of creation intertwined like two coiling dragon-snakes on the spear body, finally merging into a black-and-white stream containing the dual extreme laws of annihilation and birth.
"Roar—!"
The Titan Giant Ape suddenly raised his head, his massive pupils already filled with frenzied bloodshot veins. He glared fixedly at Lu Jingming suspended in mid-air.
Even after being repeatedly pressed into the ground and crushed by the massive wooden figure, with his soul power and vitality continuously eroded by the withering domain, leaving him battered and bruised, he still wore the most ferocious, unyielding expression. With his last strength, he roared, "Come on, kid! If you've got the guts, try it! Killing your Titan Grandpa won't be that easy."
In his view, as a level 98 Super Douluo and a fierce beast, his physical body was unparalleled in toughness, his brute strength could shake mountains, and his defense was top-tier.
Even with his current state greatly diminished, he wasn't someone a young man who hadn't even reached titled Douluo level could easily kill. He still had one last fight in him.
"Declaration—"
Lu Jingming's expression became utterly indifferent and sacred, softly reciting the incantation to unleash the true power of this holy spear.
"I am the black that devours all, I am the white that nurtures all. I was born before creation, I exist after annihilation!"
The increasingly vibrating holy spear in his hand slowly rose, its black-and-white intertwined tip steadily aiming at the mountain-like giant ape in the deep pit.
"Black Abyss White Flower · First Rated Power—Holy Spear, Bloom!"
The moment the words fell, an extreme, pitch-black radiance that seemed capable of devouring all light and matter surged from the spear tip.
Wherever that radiance passed, air was instantly decomposed into basic particles, dust and moisture in the air vanished into thin air, and even the stable space itself rippled with violent distortions, as if torn apart by this terrifying decomposition force.
This black light that erased all existence moved at a speed surpassing thought.