Chapter 260: Slay All Who Deviate! Cognitive Fu Hua
Yijian Villa.
This was Li Sushang’s home before the age of five, and the location of the third Will Seed.
The once picturesque, serene mountain villa was now reduced to a smoldering, flame-scorched ruin. Walking through the ash-covered grounds where she had once lived with her parents, a deep, depressive melancholy clouded Sushang’s eyes. She even stopped her incessant chatter with Ren.
"Joker, it looks like there’s someone up ahead. Could the third Will Seed be there?" Kiana whispered.
Amidst the desolate, burning ruins, a slender silhouette stood faintly in the distance.
Kiana was the first to spot the figure. Her blue eyes lighting up, she instinctively reached out to enthusiastically shake Ren’s arm. But halfway there, she caught herself, abruptly switching to a far more "refined" and ladylike motion. She gently, almost timidly, tugged on the black sleeve of his phantom coat.
That silhouette... it looks awfully familiar, Mei thought, narrowing her eyes. The curve and posture of the distant figure sparked a sense of intense déjà vu.
"Based on the data scan from Project Bunny, the figure in the Yijian Villa ruins has a 99% structural match with Fu Hua. Preliminary conclusion: the target is a cognitive construct of Fu Hua within Li Sushang’s Palace."
Bronya shifted her gaze from the floating, pale-blue holographic screen, glancing at the real Fu Hua, whose expression had suddenly turned incredibly complex.
"This is indeed the exact location where I fought Li Sushang five hundred years ago," Fu Hua confirmed, letting out a silent sigh.
Her brow furrowed as she turned to Ren, issuing a solemn warning. "Joker, prepare yourself mentally for a brutal battle. Five hundred years ago, I had just resurrected from death. My mental state back then... was nowhere near as lucid as it is now."
"As a cognitive product born from Li Sushang’s Palace, that Cognitive Fu Hua is likely going to be even more unreasonable and absurd than you realize. Careful. She’s coming."
Ren didn’t actually need Fu Hua’s warning. The moment he spotted the cognitive construct, his internal threat radar had already spiked. Thus, the second Cognitive Fu Hua moved, Ren reacted instantly.
BOOM!
The air shrieked as it was violently torn apart.
A hurricane-force gale blasted toward them. Cognitive Fu Hua shattered the ground beneath her feet, launching herself like a fired artillery shell. In the blink of an eye, she crossed the battlefield, warping right into the Phantom Thieves’ faces.
The suffocating, crushing pressure of her aura instantly paralyzed Kiana. It wasn’t until Ren swiftly stepped in front of her, shielding her from the brunt of the shockwave, that the white-haired girl snapped out of it, gasping for air in pure terror.
Faced with her cognitive counterpart’s aggressive aerial assault, the real Fu Hua clenched her fists and stepped forward to intercept.
Her delicate fist, wrapped in a black-and-gold gauntlet, violently collided with an identical, bare fist.
CRACK!
A deafening shockwave erupted. The lingering embers and charred timber of the ruined villa were violently blown away by the blast, instantly clearing a massive, clean circle in the chaotic debris for them to stand in.
Under Kiana’s utterly dumbfounded gaze, hundreds, then thousands of blurred black-and-gold afterimages exploded from Fu Hua. Her fists tore through the air, generating continuous sonic booms as she hammered Cognitive Fu Hua with blinding speed.
Yet, Cognitive Fu Hua matched her blow for blow, throwing punches with equal speed and ferocity. In fact, the cognitive construct was faintly suppressing the original!
The deafening, rapid-fire impacts echoed continuously at point-blank range, leaving Kiana’s brain completely blank and her ears ringing. If Ren hadn’t been shielding her, she was certain the sheer gale-force winds from their punches would have blown her entirely out of the ruins.
With Kiana’s current combat experience, she could only vaguely tell that Fu Hua was gradually losing the brutal slugfest.
But Ren, who had just inherited five hundred years of Cheng Lingshuang’s peak Edge of Taixu mastery, could see far more.
The Cognitive Fu Hua who crashed down from the sky wore a pristine, black-and-white traditional robe resembling a Taijitu. Her waist was wrapped in a cyan sash, and a bronze-jade hairpin held up her long gray ponytail. This archaic, five-hundred-year-old attire instantly distinguished her from the modern Fu Hua.
However, there was one far more glaring difference between them.
Their eyes.
The real Fu Hua’s eyes were a clear, serene jade green, reflecting her calm and cautious nature.
Cognitive Fu Hua’s eyes, however, were entirely devoid of reason. They burned a deranged, bloodshot crimson. The combat style she employed was the polar opposite of the real Fu Hua’s steady, calculated strikes—it was a rabid, relentlessly savage, kill-or-be-killed assault.
Both used the exact same forms of the Edge of Taixu. But because she retained her sanity, the real Fu Hua’s technique and execution were objectively superior.
Yet, the raw physical power displayed by Cognitive Fu Hua overwhelmingly eclipsed the original. Because of that monstrous difference in stats, the real Fu Hua’s technical advantage was slowly being crushed under absolute, unadulterated force.
Finally, her guard was forcefully broken. Cognitive Fu Hua landed a devastating blow, sending the real Fu Hua flying backward like a broken doll.
"This is wrong," Fu Hua gritted her teeth, struggling against the momentum.
"Five hundred years ago, my Blade Eminence was completely shattered. I logically should no longer have been bound by the SWARA. But this version of me... she is clearly enslaved by it! She is entirely consumed by the directive to slay all who deviate!"
"Furthermore, judging by the power she just displayed, that is not the strength I possessed when my shattered body had just resurrected. That is the sheer power I wielded during my absolute peak as the Celestial Jingwei!"
A profound sense of bewilderment and suspicion clouded Fu Hua’s mind.
Just as she braced herself for a brutal crash, fully expecting to plow a deep trench through the scorched earth, a strong, firm hand gently pressed against the center of her back.
The violent kinetic energy throwing her backward instantly dissipated, entirely absorbed and nullified by the person standing behind her.
"There’s nothing to be surprised about, Fu Hua," Ren said calmly, easily catching her with one hand.
He didn’t hesitate to explain the Metaverse’s mechanics to the bewildered immortal.
"This is Li Sushang’s Palace. It is a world built entirely on her cognition, not a perfect historical recreation of reality from five centuries ago. As long as it aligns with Li Sushang’s personal logic, no matter how bizarre or contradictory it is, it can manifest here. In fact, due to the chaotic nature of the subconscious, Palaces frequently birth anomalies that even the Palace Ruler finds utterly baffling."
He casually dismissed the inconsistencies, completely ignoring the fact that the Palace Ruler in question, Sushang, was currently scratching her head in total confusion after hearing his explanation.
Kiana’s heart, which had leaped into her throat, finally settled down. Everything had happened so fast she barely processed it. But after violently blinking and confirming that Ren had merely placed his hand flat on Fu Hua’s back—and absolutely not anywhere else—she let out a long sigh of relief.
"I apologize, Joker," Fu Hua said, her face flushing with guilt.
"That version of me possesses strength bordering on my absolute peak, and our abilities are identical. Suppressed on all fronts, the likelihood of me securing victory against her is extremely low."
Having lived for fifty millennia, Fu Hua was practically an expert on the realm of consciousness. She broadly understood Ren’s explanation. But feeling the increasingly oppressive, monstrous aura radiating from Cognitive Fu Hua, she knew her odds of winning were practically zero.
Cognitive Fu Hua knew every single martial art the real Fu Hua knew. With her physical stats drastically suppressed by the Schariac Blood Covenant, the real Fu Hua could absolutely not defeat this peak-condition replica in close-quarters combat.
While she technically still had the Fenghuang Down as a trump card, her brief clash had already revealed Cognitive Fu Hua’s severe mental abnormality.
She wasn’t just "blinded" by the SWARA directive. It was more accurate to say she was the literal, physical manifestation of the slay all who deviate curse embedded within the Edge of Taixu.
Against an entity whose very existence was a singular, obsessive concept, illusionary mental manipulation would be practically useless. If she wanted to defeat Cognitive Fu Hua, she would have to pay an unfathomably heavy price.
"There is no need to apologize," Ren said, withdrawing his hand from her back.
His red-gloved fingers gently adjusted the white avian mask covering his face.
"Since she knows all your past techniques... you just need to employ a combat style your past self could never comprehend. Don’t forget... you aren’t fighting alone anymore. You are fighting alongside the Phantom Thieves of Hearts."
Mei drew her katana, Raikiri, which had been reforged and upgraded by her Herrscher authority. Her fingertips gently traced the blade—which she had renamed Domain of Sanction—as purple lightning danced across the steel. She flashed Fu Hua a gentle, reassuring smile.
Seele tightly gripped her cerulean Keys of the Void pistols, offering Fu Hua a firm nod. Her ocean-blue eyes were filled with unwavering encouragement.
None of the Phantom Thieves spoke a word, yet every single one of them had flawlessly shifted into combat formation. Even Kiana aggressively aimed her dual pistols forward.
For fifty thousand years, Fu Hua had walked a solitary path. Due to her immortal nature and overwhelming strength, she had almost exclusively fought the Honkai alone.
Feeling the silent, absolute support of Ren and the others standing at her back, Fu Hua firmly bit her lip. Her jade eyes drifted slightly, lost in thought.
A combat style my past self could never comprehend or imagine? I understand.
Fu Hua gently closed her eyes. When she opened them a second later, they burned with absolute, unshakable resolve.
In a duel against an identical opponent, suddenly attempting an unfamiliar, untested combat style was normally tantamount to suicide. But Fu Hua was willing to trust Ren. Because this time, she wasn’t a lone warrior. She was fighting side-by-side with Ren and the Phantom Thieves.
"Grandmaster Jingwei, test whatever you need to! No matter how powerful this inner demon of yours is, Young Master Zhou Ke and I will firmly hold the line!"
A brilliantly radiant, golden sword flower bloomed in the air. Pointing her sword fingers, Sushang stood proudly beside Ren, puffing out her chest as she made a grand promise to the regrouping Fu Hua.
"Miss Sushang. While her physical appearance is that of Miss Fu Hua, at her core, that Cognitive Fu Hua is not Miss Fu Hua’s inner demon. She is your inner demon, as the Ruler of this Palace," Hare interjected.
Having continuously analyzed the cognitive data, the Stigma entity had completely unraveled Cognitive Fu Hua’s true nature. She spoke up in her usual leisurely tone to correct the archaic girl.
The Heart Mantra of the Edge of Taixu was fundamentally built upon the Previous Era’s SWARA technology. Therefore, anyone who successfully cultivated the Heart Mantra inevitably had the ideological directive—Slay All Who Deviate—branded deep into their subconscious. Depending on the individual’s mind and nature, how they acted on that brand varied greatly.
Li Sushang was a practitioner of the Edge of Taixu, and an exceptionally gifted one at that. Naturally, she had undergone the SWARA’s baptism, carving the Slay All Who Deviate brand into the deepest recesses of her soul.
Here, within a Palace where the mind became reality, the SWARA curse lurking in her subconscious had gained a physical form. And because of Sushang’s own cognition, the curse manifested bearing the face of the creator of the Edge of Taixu—the strongest person Sushang had ever known: Celestial Jingwei.
If Ren completely obliterated this Cognitive Fu Hua, he would effectively excise the SWARA’s poison from Sushang’s soul. She would never have to worry about being enslaved by the Slay All Who Deviate directive. She wouldn’t have to follow in Fu Hua’s tragic footsteps and shatter her own Blade Eminence just to break free from the curse.
"What are you saying... I don’t understand a word of that!" Sushang violently shook her head, her brain actively refusing to process the lore drop.
Her eyes, however, cleared up, burning with simple, absolute determination.
"But whatever! As long as we beat up that fake Grandmaster, it’s fine, right?!"
