["According to the Ten-Lords Commission's records, Blazing Prairie should have… suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of that general named Teng Xiao?" Huohuo quietly delivered the slap to the face.]
["Hmph." Cirrus was utterly dismissive. "Of course human records would only boast about the general's achievements! Unfortunately, even though the great Heliobus Blazing Prairie absorbed the power of countless kin, it still underestimated human cunning and lost narrowly to the general."]
[After that battle, Blazing Prairie split into countless fragments, which were sealed inside the Creation Furnace.]
["However, there are always exceptions. I thought you'd escaped and were living freely, Mr. Tail… but who would've guessed you'd end up subdued by this little fox girl? Hahaha, that's downright hilarious."]
["Subdued my ass! This great one was down on his luck and ran into this little fox—talk about rotten luck!" Thinking back to his first encounter with Huohuo, Mr. Tail was still annoyed.]
[But the one who regretted it even more was Huohuo. She had met Tail when she was little, back when he was just a dying flicker of flame…]
["I felt sorry for him in the moment and placed him on my tail, but… but then Mr. Tail actually tried to eat me! Luckily the Judges showed up in time, and I escaped."]
["Hey, it was just a tiny snack that wouldn't even fill a mouthful—calling it 'eating you' is way too dramatic, isn't it?" Tail grumbled from the side.]
[Little Huohuo had been soft and squishy like a delicious matcha cake, her eyes reflecting the firelight, clear as a still lake.]
["The tears I've regretted shedding all these years… they must be the water that flooded my brain when I made that decision back then…"]
[After hearing Tail's backstory, Cirrus declared it fascinating. But Stelle had a question of her own about Heliobi: "Why do Heliobi challenge generals?"]
["A reason? Does there have to be one?" Cirrus pondered for a moment. "If you want something grand and noble—the Xianzhou imprisoned the ancestor of Heliobi in a cage to power the ship. Is that reason enough?"]
——
Dragon Raja
"The Luofu Xianzhou actually did something like that? I've never heard General Jing Yuan mention it." Caesar racked her brain trying to recall all the intel that had appeared so far—there'd been no mention at all of this ancestor of Heliobi.
Even a single great Heliobus could fight a Xianzhou general to a fifty-fifty draw. Wouldn't the ancestor of Heliobi be on Emanator level? There was no way the Xianzhou had no records.
"It's not that there are none. Remember the Exodus of the Five Dragons…?" Chu Zihang reminded her in a low voice.
"Aren't those the Dragon Sovereigns of the Xianzhou Alliance? What do they have to do with this?" Caesar recalled the descriptions of the Dragon Sovereigns in the Exodus of the Five Dragons—none of them mentioned anything about Heliobi.
"In Hanya's description, Heliobi are energy parasites from beyond the heavens, Starfire Essence."
Chu Zihang began explaining patiently, his serious tone reminding Caesar of a history teacher back at school: "One of the duties of the Zhu Ming Dragon Sovereign, Lord Yanting, is to wield the Heavenly Fire and guard the Primordial Torch Sovereign. The 'Heavenly Fire' roughly matches the description of Heliobi, so I believe the Torch Sovereign is the 'ancestor of Heliobi' that Cirrus mentioned."
"That does seem possible." Caesar agreed with Chu Zihang's view. "But the problem is—if the ancestor of Heliobi is imprisoned on the Zhu Ming Xianzhou, why would it come challenge a general on the Luofu?"
"…I don't know either. But based on what we know so far, Zhu Ming Xianzhou is a forging holy land with deep ties to fire; their mastery of fire surely surpasses other Xianzhou ships. If Zhu Ming people could imprison the Primordial Torch Sovereign, they could certainly imprison a great Heliobus like Blazing Prairie. In Zhu Ming's domain, beating a general would probably offer not even the slightest chance."
"Then on the Luofu there was a chance?" Caesar suddenly laughed. "The Luofu's general was underestimated, huh."
"General Teng Xiao probably never cared about Blazing Prairie's opinion from start to finish. In the Xianzhou's records, this was just a thoroughly boring battle. Writing a couple extra lines in the history books would already count as acknowledging his strength… unfortunately, there aren't any."
——
["If you want it simple and straightforward—we just wanted to test ourselves against the general and see what the Xianzhou people are made of."]
["Our Heliobi race was originally carefree beings. It was only after contact with humans that we were infected with the [disease of humanity]—all because of humans, with their intense emotions and desires, making it impossible for us to ever return to our pure, unstained state of mind."]
["So, I want to regain my freedom! I want to go back beyond the heavens. Mr. Tail, don't you want to reunite with the fragments? Don't you want to stop being a tail forever? Why not come with us and return beyond the heavens?"]
——
Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child
"Oh~ I get it now. Isn't this basically like someone who's used to eating delicacies from land and sea, can't stomach plain food anymore, and then blames the delicacies for tasting too good? Then just don't eat them! How come they get addicted and then blame humans?"
Nezha scoffed. This Cirrus bastard couldn't even find a decent excuse—completely exposing her true nature.
Ao Bing calmly shook his head: "Heliobi feed on emotions. To them, human joy, anger, sorrow, and joy are like fine wine—once tasted, impossible to quit. But clearly, this Cirrus overestimates herself and overestimates the Heliobi race."
"If Heliobi truly had the power to defeat a general, once they succeeded, how could they bear to abandon the emotionally rich humans and leave the Xianzhou? The first thing they'd probably do is seize control of the Six Chariots' bodies and turn the Luofu upside down."
——
["Heh, sounds nicer than it sings." Tail outright ignored Cirrus's invitation.]
[While they were talking, the door beside Huohuo suddenly opened on its own, startling her badly. This time Stelle pulled Huohuo close, and they soon reached a small courtyard with a mirror.]
[Voices kept coming from inside the mirror, calling Huohuo over. As she approached, Xueyi's voice emerged: "Huohuo, are you inside the mirror? Finally located you!"]
[Xueyi said that Fyxestroll Garden had now been swallowed by an unknown force and was extremely dangerous. She told them to pass through the mirror one by one and get out first.]
[But after following Xueyi's instructions, they didn't return to reality. Instead, they appeared in a space filled with many mirrors. Tail immediately saw that the space was changing rapidly—the master of this space clearly wanted to trap them inside forever.]
[The urgent task was to find the correct mirror.]
[Huohuo planned to check them one by one. She approached one mirror, and the Xueyi inside spoke again: "Huohuo, come quickly, come to big sister's side."]
[Those mushy words gave Tail goosebumps all over: "Would that puppet Judge really say something this gross?"]