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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 54
Chapter 54: Shuhu Appears
These past few days, Kagashi had barely closed his eyes. He spent his waking hours running through endless tactical deductions, trying to predict the unpredictable. If Shuhu was lurking in the dark sea of stars, from which angle would the Emanator strike? Which fleet would be the first to burn?
As for how to actually slay the monstrosity, that was a question he refused to entertain. Without General Teng Xiao leading the vanguard, their current military strength was less than dust before Shuhu. A direct confrontation would be nothing more than throwing meat to starving wolves—a one-way march into the abyss.
The Yaoqing Expeditionary Team arrived right on schedule, bearing the latest mandates from the Xianzhou Alliance. Their orders were absolute: strike the remaining Abomination-infested worlds with overwhelming force.
In less than twenty short days, the allied forces of the Cloud Knights swept through the sector, liberating the final two planets choking under the grip of the Abominations of Abundance. The subsequent battle report transmitted back to the high command consisted of only two triumphant words.
Great Victory.
Now, the massive Cloud Knight fleet hovered in the upper atmosphere of a ravaged planet designated as Nus-V. Down on the scarred surface, countless soldiers who had yet to board the transport ships raised their weapons to the sky, their voices merging into a deafening chorus of triumph. The cheers echoed through the bruised clouds, a raw release of tension. The immediate crisis had dissolved, and a collective sigh of relief washed over the ranks.
Logistics dictated that the rear support star skiffs would arrive in roughly a month, allowing them to safely handle this cleared sector. The Yaoqing Xianzhou, boasting superior speed, was already in its deceleration phase and was scheduled to drop anchor here in two days. They were establishing a defensive perimeter, a necessary precaution against the lingering shadow of Shuhu.
Whether the Divination Commission’s dire prophecies were perfectly accurate or merely a glimpse of a possible future, the Alliance dared not lower its guard. It was far better to prepare for a nightmare than to be consumed by one. No one could afford the price of arrogance.
Mo Tingquan released a long, heavy breath and approached Kagashi, who stood silently at the vanguard of the warship’s observation deck.
“Should we initiate the return voyage soon, or hold our position to rendezvous with the Yaoqing and the Cangcheng?”
“The General’s standing order is to hold our ground, but my instincts are screaming at me to sail back,” Kagashi replied, his brow furrowing. “I can’t quite explain it.”
Mo Tingquan offered a helpless, strained smile. It was the first time he had ever heard the usually resolute commander use such uncertain words to describe a tactical situation.
“How many indigenous humans survived on this world?” Kagashi asked, shifting the subject.
“Most were twisted into Abominations by the Borisin Nest Fathers, or simply butchered for food. Less than a million remain,” Mo Tingquan reported, his tone grim.
It was the same tragic end for almost every civilization plundered and enslaved by the Denizens of Abundance.
“Mianxue. Qinghan.” Kagashi called out quietly.
“Your subordinates are here.” The two sisters stepped out from the shadows behind him, dropping to one knee in perfect synchronization. The polished surface of their armor was still marred by the dried, dark blood of the Abominations they had slaughtered.
“Requisition the containment ships. Transfer all the survivors immediately and set their coordinates for the Cangcheng.”
“As you command!”
Mianxue and Qinghan rose and departed without a moment’s hesitation. The native ecology of Nus-V had been thoroughly corrupted by the Power of Abundance; it was a poisoned wasteland where baseline humans could no longer survive. Whenever the Xianzhou Alliance liberated such a world, standard protocol dictated relocating the refugees to a suitable, uncorrupted civilization along their voyage.
The aftermath and recovery operations proceeded with practiced efficiency. They only needed to ignite the containment ships’ engines to begin the long journey back to the Cangcheng. The dust of war had settled, and the allied forces rested in the void, waiting for the flagship’s arrival.
Late into the night cycle, Kagashi stood alone before the viewport, gazing out into the endless starry expanse toward the Cangcheng’s projected coordinates.
His thoughts drifted to his mother. He wondered how she was holding up. The inevitable descent into the Mara-Struck state was looming, likely to claim her mind within the next few years. Yet, a strange calm settled over him. If she reached the point of no return and the Ten-Lords Commission Judges were dispatched to guide her into extinction, Teng Xiao would ensure the news reached him instantly. At the very least, he would be granted the mercy of seeing her one last time.
Slowly, Kagashi drew the longsword resting at his hip. He held it up to the ambient light, the pristine silver blade reflecting his quiet, weary eyes. This was the weapon his mother had once wielded, forged from raw steel by his father’s own hands. Gripping the hilt, he felt the weight of their legacy. He was never truly fighting alone.
“Mother, I will be home soon…”
The words had barely left his lips when the cosmos itself seemed to violently rupture. Kagashi’s expression hardened into absolute horror.
Out in the silent void, several neighboring planets that had hung dead and motionless suddenly lurched. They converged toward a single central point with terrifying, impossible velocity. In the span of a few ragged breaths, the celestial bodies collided with an apocalyptic roar, the sheer gravitational force swallowing the vast majority of the stationed Cloud Knight fleet in an instant.
Space twisted and tore apart like cheap silk.
From the catastrophic wreckage of the shattered planets, a colossal shadow birthed itself into the physical realm. It possessed no fixed geometry. It was a mountainous, writhing mass of hyper-mutated flesh, pulsing with sickening vitality. Before Kagashi’s eyes, the meat expanded and solidified, transforming into a gargantuan tree that walked through the vacuum of space. Its massive branches and buds unfurled, blooming with grotesque, fleshy flowers that bore faces twisted into eerie, mocking smiles.
“Shuhu!!” Kagashi roared, his calm demeanor shattering. “All remaining ships, enter maximum combat readiness! Open a direct line to the Xianzhou flagship and request immediate reinforcement from the General!”
The suffocating dread that had haunted him for days had finally manifested into reality. The Yuque had been right. The Divination Commission had been right.
It was no wonder their scouts had found absolutely no trace of Shuhu’s movements. The Emanator hadn’t been fleeing; it had been gestating deep within the very core of the five worlds the Cloud Knights had just conquered. Kagashi watched the monstrous transformation with a sickening realization. Those five planets had essentially grown into cosmic tumors. Upon colliding, they fused their corrupted biomass to form Shuhu’s physical vessel.
For months, the entire expeditionary force had been blindly marching across the Emanator’s face.
“Commander! Communications are completely jammed! We cannot broadcast any signals!” an officer shouted from the tactical pit, panic bleeding into his voice.
“Cycle the frequencies and flood the channels with our coordinates and distress codes! All weapon batteries, open fire! Helm, push the engines to maximum thrust and pull us back to a safe distance!”
Staring through the viewport at the encroaching horror, Kagashi’s blood ran cold. Embedded within the bark and flesh of Shuhu’s colossal form were faces. Familiar faces. He recognized the agonizing expressions of comrades he had fought alongside just days prior.
The truth hit him like a physical blow. The five worlds occupied by the Abominations, the suspiciously weak resistance they had encountered—it was all an elaborate, sickening snare. Shuhu had fragmented its essence across those planets, using the Power of Abundance to spawn Borisin and other horrors simply to bait the Cloud Knights into a massive expedition. Every soldier who fell, every life extinguished in the mud, was merely nourishment to fuel the Emanator’s resurrection.
And now, fully fed, the monster no longer needed to hide.
“All surviving vessels, heed my command!” Kagashi’s voice cut through the internal comms of the remaining fleet, steady and cold. “Break formation! Scatter and punch through their blockade at full speed!”
But the order came seconds too late.
The giant tree’s branches whipped through the void, slicing across the fabric of space with beyond understanding speed. They coiled around fleeing warships and star skiffs, piercing through reinforced armor and devouring the crews within. advanced energy shields shattered like brittle glass beneath the onslaught. The vacuum remained silent, but the internal comms were a cacophony of screams, secondary explosions, and the agonizing shriek of twisting metal.
Three massive, thorned branches slammed into Kagashi’s warship, impaling the hull through the center. The emergency sirens wailed, a piercing klaxon that drowned out the chaos.
“Guard Kagashi! The main power compartment has been breached! We are—”
“Abandon ship!” Kagashi barked, his decision instantaneous. “All Cloud Knights, evacuate to the emergency pods! Valiant Guards, initiate the Azure Star War Armor and form up on me! We will cover the retreat!”
Including Kagashi, only five Cloud Knight Vanguards remained responsive on the tactical network. By the time they forced their way out of the collapsing command deck, the warship’s superstructure violently disintegrated behind them.
Suspended in the freezing vacuum of space, Kagashi ignited his thrusters. He swung his father’s sword in wide, lethal arcs, severing the writhing branches that lunged toward the fleeing escape pods. He fought a desperate, retreating battle, putting his own armored body between the evacuating soldiers and the encroaching horror.
Through the visor of his helmet, he surveyed the absolute devastation. The pride of the Cloud Knight allied forces had been systematically butchered and consumed by Shuhu. The casualty readouts on his HUD were catastrophic. Even the most hardened, elite warriors of the Xianzhou possessed absolutely no means to resist the raw, conceptual power of an Aeon’s Emanator.
Kagashi had known this truth for centuries. He had witnessed this exact brand of cruelty in lifetimes past. But seeing the slaughter unfold once more, a towering, unquenchable fire of hatred ignited within his chest.
“Oh… is it you?”
A voice echoed directly into his mind, bypassing the vacuum of space. On the surface of a thick, fleshy branch hurtling toward him, a face suddenly bubbled to the surface and manifested clearly.
“My little Kagashi, it’s your father. Do you have any idea how much I have missed you…”
Kagashi’s grip on his sword tightened until his knuckles turned white under his gauntlets.
“Get lost…”