A tremendous, surging power of Elation flowed wildly into Yevenko's body. He found himself incredibly strong.
An endless torrent of delight bubbled ferociously within Aha's core. He felt he could travel even further along the Path of Elation.
Right now, they were frightfully powerful!
Yet, looking at the chaos Tom and Jerry were causing, Yevenko knew that despite his previous repairs, things wouldn't hold together much longer.
He had to quickly stop their fight.
At the moment, Yevenko and Aha's combined strength was enough to match either Tom or Jerry alone.
But! Comic relief characters never played by the rules!
On the ground below, Tom was charging forward violently, wrapped in horrific golden flames of Destruction.
Meanwhile, Jerry, harnessing the power of the Hunt, had conjured an enormous bow beside him, directly piloting the Hunt Aeon Lan into its center.
Then, the Hunt Aeon gathered endless radiant Hunt energy, enveloping himself in dazzling blue brilliance. The swirling aura transformed his entire body into an arrow.
A split second later, he was shot forth.
Whoosh—!!
A piercing sound shattered the air.
In the blink of an eye, Jerry was about to collide head-on with Tom. Yevenko shuddered to think what such a collision might do to Feixiao's inner world, or the terrifying aftershocks that would harm everyone else.
With their current strength, they could stop it!
Yevenko's mind suddenly flashed back to Nero's first Devil Trigger scene in Devil May Cry, effortlessly blocking Dante and Vergil simultaneously—an insanely cool moment that left him deeply impressed.
He also recalled General Feixiao's moment in the original Star Rail storyline, casually deflecting simultaneous attacks from Yanqing and Yunli.
Now, at last, such a badass scene was about to be his.
The powers of Elation and Tuffy surged wildly within him. Yevenko shouted out:
"Aha! Let's do this!"
"Stop them!"
Instantly, Yevenko felt his mind merge perfectly with Aha's. Even without words, they knew exactly what each other was planning.
Red and black feet stomped fiercely against the ground.
Boom—!
Crack…
An awkward snapping sound echoed out.
In the next moment, Yevenko and Aha saw themselves rushing in completely opposite directions—one half of their body racing to the right, the other half hurtling left.
Kamen Rider Elation had split cleanly in two, Yevenko and Aha each controlling half the body, with long black-and-red threads stretching elastically between them.
Clearly, their minds had not merged as seamlessly as they imagined.
Yevenko: "…"
Aha: "…"
There was no time to recombine their bodies, nor the flashy moment Yevenko had pictured. Both decided to simply move forward separately.
Yevenko's half rushed toward Jerry, while Aha's half charged at Tom.
The countless black-red threads between their split bodies stretched to their absolute limit.
Meanwhile, Aha had already grabbed Tom's hand on his side, slowly bringing the rushing Destruction Aeon Tom to a halt.
Yevenko, on his side, tightly gripped a large handful of the Hunt Aeon's long hair, gradually slowing Lan's charge as well.
Things were moving in the right direction. As long as Yevenko and Aha controlled Tom and Jerry separately, they could calm them down.
Yet, at that exact moment—
The overstretched black-red threads suddenly snapped back with unimaginable force.
Under the massive recoil, Yevenko instinctively wrapped both arms around Lan's head.
In that instant, the slightly slowed Hunt Aeon was launched forward at even greater speed, and on the other side, Tom and Aha faced precisely the same fate.
Whoosh—!
The piercing sound filled the air again, vanishing in an instant.
Yevenko hurtled forward, clutching the Hunt Aeon. Aha rushed forth, dragging the Destruction Aeon. All six collided with unprecedented speed and force.
Then came an earth-shattering, deafening roar that shook the very heavens.
BOOOOOOOM—!!!!
In the next instant, Yevenko and Aha's bodies seamlessly recombined, fully accustomed now to their fused form. Gracefully, they stood up from the ground.
Yet Yevenko glanced around, a little puzzled.
"Strange... where are Tom and Jerry? Did we actually succeed in stopping their fight?"
Aha: "…"
Aha didn't speak, but the shoulder on his half of the body trembled uncontrollably. A vast, ever-expanding aura of Elation surged out, flooding Yevenko's own heart with joy and laughter.
Raising the hand from his side, Aha grabbed their shared head and turned it sharply to the left.
A moment later, Tom and Jerry's current state filled Yevenko's vision.
The Aeon of Destruction and the Aeon of the Hunt had achieved a bizarre super-fusion.
Behind the Hunt Aeon, directly above the wheels, the Destruction Aeon was awkwardly stuck there. The two Aeons now occupied a single body, standing back-to-back.
In a sense, Yevenko and Aha really had stopped Jerry and Tom's fight—after all, now that they were fused back-to-back, continuing their battle was impossible.
Seeing this, Yevenko thoughtfully muttered:
"So that's how we resolved it, huh?"
"Everything…"
"—Exactly according to my plan!"
"To stop Tom and Jerry from fighting, such a trivial sacrifice was entirely acceptable."
Yevenko nodded in satisfaction.
Far away, everyone present—be they powerful Pathwalkers or outright Emanators—clearly overheard Yevenko's words.
Yunli stared blankly into space. Suddenly tossing her greatsword onto the ground, she burst out angrily:
"Acceptable, my ass!"
"Why did the Reignbow Arbiter and the Ruin Author become conjoined Aeons?!"
Meanwhile, Feixiao felt her throat choke up. She'd intended to say something calming, but the Xianzhou people around her were quieter than ever. Only Yunli maintained some semblance of liveliness.
Jing Yuan was even lying on the ground, eyes tightly shut, pretending to faint entirely.
Feixiao took a deep breath.
If this battlefield weren't literally inside her own inner world, she too would love nothing more than to fake a faint like Jing Yuan—out of sight, out of mind.
Although a few Xianzhou generals had historically encountered the Reignbow Arbiter, nobody truly knew his personality.
What if—just what if—Reignbow Arbiterwas petty? Jing Yuan's fake fainting showed his stance clearly. But she didn't faint... Would Emperor Bow hold a grudge later?
Thinking about the Hunt Aeon's nature of "vengeance," he really might be the petty type.
Still, Feixiao recalled how she'd been granted Emperor Bow's gaze and received a divine weapon earlier. Clearly, Emperor Bow valued her potential.
Her heart briefly eased.
But then another thought occurred to her: Although Emperor Bow had favored her initially, it was also because of her that he'd been pulled into this chaotic mess, ultimately transformed by Tom and Jerry into his current state.
When viewed this way, the true culprit was actually herself.
The relief she'd just felt instantly vanished. Feixiao began to feel genuinely faint, unlike Jing Yuan's mere pretense.
Of course, Lan himself wasn't thinking that way.
As the Hunt Aeon, he always responded to the prayers of the Xianzhou Alliance, shooting arrows of light to destroy their enemies.
This time, Feixiao's actions had aligned perfectly with the principles of the Hunt, causing him to grant her his gaze. His current predicament had little to do with her.
After all, a mere gaze was only a wisp of his consciousness—not even his true body.
But once Tom's lasso hung around his neck, Lan's true body had involuntarily appeared through that consciousness.
With that kind of bizarre method, Lan suspected that even without his gaze, Tom could easily rope him from anywhere in the universe if he so wished.
From start to finish, Lan hadn't truly been injured. Even his shattered crown had simply returned him to his former horned form—arguably a form of repair, just a change in appearance.
Compared to Lan, the younger Aeon of Destruction had truly suffered.
Although Tom's own cartoon logic had influenced him, the divine blood he'd lost was unquestionably real.
And with his head smashed completely into his body, no one even knew if Nanook was conscious anymore.
—Humm—
At that moment, ripples spread outward like water from high above Feixiao's inner world, faintly revealing a hazy yin-yang symbol endlessly rotating.
It was clearly one being, yet divided itself into two; it governed both sides, yet fused itself into one.
It watched over the balance of time, yet no one could observe its existence…
Having sensed another form of equilibrium, it cast forth a wisp of its will, manifesting itself here.
Emanators failed entirely to detect its arrival, though the Aeons below faintly lifted their heads, sensing something unusual. Its gaze first landed upon Jade Chan, who also embodied another equilibrium.
Yet the instant it noticed Jade, it sensed interference—a mysterious force blocking observation. Upon fully manifesting here, it discovered a chaotic scene beyond imagination.
Memory hidden away, Elation transformed bizarrely, Destruction and Hunt combined.
Most importantly, it spotted Tom.
The eternally flowing yin-yang symbol suddenly froze.
HooH: "…"
A moment later, the ripples vanished without a trace. The Aeon of Equilibrium quickly withdrew its gaze, disappearing entirely.
Though Yevenko's Trailblazing path resonated with the Astral Express, he was still far from sensing a visiting Aeon clearly. Even as Aha gazed skyward, Yevenko felt only the faintest anomaly.
He asked curiously:
"What just happened?"
Aha's mouth curled into a crazed grin, overflowing with boundless amusement, his body glowing with crimson rainbows from sheer delight.
"Nothing special. An old geezer just dropped by, took one look, and decided to bounce."
"So even beings we can't comprehend or observe can feel something like 'fear.' How hilarious."
Of course, there was also another possibility—that Tom's presence alone forced them into experiencing emotions.
In Aha's view, there were two types of Aeons:
Those who retained human nature, and those purely divine.
Naturally, Aha himself belonged to the former category. Not only did he possess human nature, but among Aeons, he would undoubtedly rank within the top three—maybe even number one—in humanity.
As for the purely divine, there was no doubt that the Aeons of Nihility and Equilibrium topped that list.
Aha suspected that Equilibrium had fled so hastily precisely because HooH had sensed the chaotic beating Nihility suffered at Tom and Yevenko's hands earlier. Perhaps HooH had peeked in, realized Tom's true terror, and immediately retreated.
As for how HooH had sensed it—it was simple: the clash had directly touched upon HooH's Path.
When Nihility's power had plummeted thanks to Yevenko and Tom's antics, Equilibrium—balancing Nihility against Existence—would have certainly felt such a drastic shift.
Who was stronger between IX and HooH, though? Even Aha couldn't guess.
Nihility and Existence both fell under Equilibrium's domain, yet Equilibrium itself existed within Existence. The relationship between them was hopelessly tangled.
Too complicated.
Aha had no interest in such tedious matters. Even if he was the Aeon of trickery, his cleverness wasn't meant to be wasted on joyless conundrums.
Meanwhile, Tom was furiously struggling.
He controlled the Ruin Author's hands, gripping himself tightly, desperately pulling upward. The harder he tugged, the more his neck stretched.
Pop—!
Tom stared dumbly as his own hands unexpectedly popped free from the Ruin Author's body.
He blinked twice.
There was no need to pull at the Ruin Author—he just had to pull himself out!
Tom immediately placed his newly freed hands on Nanook's shoulders, pulling upward with all his might. His body stretched higher and higher, spring-like.
Pop——!
Finally, Tom's entire body freed itself, momentum flinging him skyward. After spinning once midair, he crashed back to the ground, landing squarely on his butt.
BAM!
Stars circled Tom's head, and four tiny yellow birds chirped dizzyingly around him.
Tom's departure allowed Nanook's previously embedded head to resurface. His golden pupils were first vacant, numb with confusion.
But gradually, clarity returned, bringing forth endless fury. Nanook's expression twisted viciously as radiant golden blood surged wildly from his chest.
An earth-shattering roar erupted from his mouth:
"I will…"
"Destroy you all!!!"
BOOM—!
The instant his words ceased, the shrinking milk's effects finally dissipated.
Nanook's body swelled dramatically, surging from two meters to four. A monstrous wave of Destruction surged forth, brimming with lifeless rage.
Jerry, piloting the Hunt Aeon, instantly sensed that his "vehicle" couldn't handle such conditions any longer. If things went on like this, damage was inevitable.
Frantically, Jerry operated the controls within Lan's cockpit.
Instantly, an electronic female voice Yevenko found incredibly familiar echoed clearly from inside:
"Reversing. Please be careful. Reversing. Please be careful."
The Hunt Aeon slowly reversed.
In the next moment, Yevenko witnessed something even stranger—a large cargo-truck unloading ramp materialized beneath the Hunt Aeon's horse-body.
Slowly, it tilted downward, forming a slope.
Splat—!
Still roaring with uncontrollable rage, Nanook—whose power had been rapidly gathering—was abruptly dumped off, landing face-first onto the cold ground.