In truth, the planets where Yu Xian and the others were located were not far apart.
All of them were moons orbiting an ultra-massive gas giant akin to Jupiter.
Yu Xian and Hai Liwei were like two shooting stars—one radiating golden light and the other glowing blue—closing in on the Wheel of Evil Blossoms at incredible speed.
The very first thing the Wheel of Evil Blossoms did upon birth was let out a cry, as if heralding its arrival.
Then, it opened the eyes growing inside its blossoms. The moment those eyes opened, the space centered around it was instantly devoured, and even the distant gas giant was swallowed in an instant.
Could anyone imagine it?
Flying at high speeds, only for an ultra-massive planet beside you to abruptly vanish, taking the surrounding space along with it into the creature's belly, leaving the Abyss staring right at you plain as day.
Yu Xian scrambled backward in pure terror. He was only tens of thousands of meters from the Abyss—at his speed, that was genuinely a single stride away.
"Holy crap... so that's what 'World-Devouring Seed' means!" Little Nora cried out in fright.
While the Victorious True King Bird also possessed the ability to devour worlds, it had yet to do so, whereas the Wheel of Evil Blossoms already wielded world-devouring might from the very moment of its birth.
Did that mean the Wheel of Evil Blossoms was even more terrifying than the Victorious True King Bird?
Yu Xian was equally shaken. Recovering his senses, he hurriedly looked toward Hai Liwei. Since his flying speed was slightly faster than Hai Liwei's, Hai Liwei ought to be fine.
Yet when he looked over, only half of Hai Liwei's body remained: a single right leg, a right arm, half a torso, and half a head.
The planet behind Hai Liwei had also been sheared in half, exposing a core bristling with tangled roots.
Further away, the Sea Clan warship had similarly been halved. The crimson Abyss looked like a sword slash cleaving the cosmos in two.
Of course, this had nothing to do with the Abyss itself; it was simply that a chunk of space in this universe had been eaten by the Wheel of Evil Blossoms, laying bare the Abyss that lay beyond the universe.
"Patriarch Hai isn't completely dead yet. Hurry over and save him," Niman spoke up at that moment.
Yu Xian nodded and immediately flew in Hai Liwei's direction. Though the two had flown one after the other, their starting points had differed, leaving quite a distance between them.
It took him a minute to reach Hai Liwei. Sure enough, Hai Liwei's remaining eyeball was trembling wildly, but without treatment, he wasn't far from death's door.
Yu Xian activated his healing ability first, but then frowned. "Patriarch Hai's injuries are bizarre. My ability can't heal them."
"Let me do it," Niman said at once.
Yu Xian nodded, and the two swapped control instantly. Niman examined Hai Liwei's injuries, promptly brought out a syringe swirling with chaotic energy, and jabbed it into his neck. After injecting the medicine, she took out some powder and poured it into Hai Liwei's mouth.
"Patriarch Hai's injuries are extraordinary. It isn't just half his physical body that was eaten—half his soul and half his self-awareness were devoured too. On top of that, after being eaten into, he was exposed directly to the Abyss, so his body has suffered Abyssal contamination.
"I've purged the contamination for now, but a soul halved so cleanly is tricky. I've never dealt with anything like this before," Niman explained to the others as she inscribed runes across Hai Liwei's forehead.
Under normal circumstances, when a soul suffered an overwhelming blow, it simply collapsed.
To be sliced so neatly in half only ever occurred during intentional self-severing. Because one severed their own soul, the soul would not reject the act, making a flawless split possible.
Yet Hai Liwei had clearly not severed his own soul. Half of it had been devoured in an instant by the Wheel of Evil Blossoms, yet it had not collapsed, remaining stably halved. It was exceedingly strange and rare.
Yu Xian couldn't even bring himself to comment. That husky's antics caught him off guard every single time; ending up like this was hardly out of character.
"This isn't the place for treatment. I've stabilized his injuries for now, so let's send him back to the Aska first," Niman told Yu Xian.
Yu Xian nodded, and they switched back. Yu Xian then encased Hai Liwei in a bubble and sent him straight into the Aska.
Having dealt with Hai Liwei, he looked back toward the Wheel of Evil Blossoms. Perhaps having devoured an entire planet, all of its eyes had shut, and its body was pulsing like a gigantic heart, expanding and contracting rhythmically.
"Are we really going to fight it?" Niman asked.
Yu Xian was actually torn. The Wheel of Evil Blossoms was far too powerful; he didn't know if they could win. Besides, it had fallen into a slumber—what if it slept for an eternity?
His original reason for fighting had been simple: competing for resources to consume as many unowned flowers as possible.
If the Wheel of Evil Blossoms remained asleep until they left, he would have no reason to battle it. After all, there was no personal grudge between them.
"If only we could send it into the Aska," Nora mused.
After all, Muse could punch a Hegemon Rank Abyss Emperor to death in a single strike, so disposing of a mere Wheel of Evil Blossoms would pose no problem. But the creature was simply too enormous to cram inside the Aska.
Yet what happened next sent a chill down their spines, sparking an instinctive dread: if they didn't kill the Wheel of Evil Blossoms now, it would sooner or later kill them.
As it slumbered, the Wheel of Evil Blossoms abruptly expanded, locked into its new size, and began another cycle of expanding and contracting.
Its size was now ten times larger than when it had first emerged. If it kept swelling like this—or expanded infinitely—even the Abyss itself might not be enough to feed it.
"Let me try," Nora spoke up.
They swapped places. She manifested the World, promptly chambered a Brave Bullet, and fired a shot directly at it from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
She had already tested it: unobstructed, bullets from the World could travel immense distances and easily strike the Wheel of Evil Blossoms.
Next, exploiting the range, she opened fire relentlessly, intent on giving the Wheel of Evil Blossoms a grand surprise.
In just half an hour, she burned through sixty percent of everyone's combined energy. Every single bullet packed power on the threshold of the Li Rank.
It was equivalent to an army of Li Rank experts concentrating their fire on the creature.
After firing the final bullet, Nora stopped, for the first bullet had already struck home.
The instant it was hit, the Wheel of Evil Blossoms snapped open countless eyes and unleashed an agonizing screech. A cosmic storm formed instantaneously, but before it could launch an attack, a dense hail of bullets rained down upon it.
Many of its blossoms were obliterated on impact, countless eyeballs ruptured on the spot, and green blood sprayed everywhere.
Myriads of surrounding stars abruptly winked out, and more of the Abyss was relentlessly exposed. The creature began devouring the universe in sheer frenzy—its own form of an indiscriminate rampage.
Meanwhile, Yu Xian and the others had long since slipped back aboard the Aska.
The true reason they had dared to take the gamble was that they had a way out. Hit and run—it was an absolute thrill.
Sitting in the bridge and watching the Wheel of Evil Blossoms go berserk on the monitors, everyone sucked in a breath of cold air. Good thing they had run fast; facing that frenzy head-on would have been horrific.
Still, the monster's tantrum proved remarkably effective.
Many of Nora's incoming bullets were swallowed whole during its rampage. Otherwise, had every single bullet landed, it would have been stripped of half its life even if it didn't die outright.
Chapter 311