The Heliobus race is a long-standing nemesis of the Xianzhou Alliance, a rare type of formless lifeform among the Denizens of Abundance. Their planet of origin remains unidentified to this day.
As their biological classification suggests, Heliobi are pure energy beings with no fixed form. In the records of many civilizations, they are referred to as 'Formless Ones' or 'Spirits of Starfire.' They delight in parasitizing and manipulating flesh-and-blood bodies, feeding on emotions.
In terms of racial ability alone, Phantylia is an extremely powerful individual among the Heliobi, second only to the Flint Emperor suppressed within the Zhuming Xianzhou. She is an entity ranked at the very top of her entire race.
Moreover, Phantylia is an Emanator selected by the Aeon of Destruction, Nanook—an executor of the Will of Destruction.
The seven Lord Ravagers each uphold a unique philosophy of destruction. Phantylia dislikes Zephyro's method of directly destroying planets with violence; she favors spiritual destruction, where the collapse of the mind leads to the demise of the body.
This method usually requires a significant amount of time. Therefore, whenever the Lord Ravagers gather, the moment Phantylia arrives, all the other Lord Ravagers look at her and smile.
Irontomb would call out, "Phantylia, have you been practicing Lord Nanook's will? How many worlds have you destroyed recently?"
Phantylia would not answer. She would bow respectfully to the statue of Nanook and then lay out her recent performance report.
Zephyro would then deliberately shout, "You definitely didn't finish again!"
Phantylia would open her eyes wide and say, "How can you slander my art like this out of thin air..."
"What art? I went over to look the year before last, and it was at the current progress. Slow as molasses, absolutely no efficiency at all."
Phantylia would then flush red, veins popping out on her forehead, arguing, "Spiritual destruction isn't slow... Spiritual destruction! ...Can the affairs of an artist be considered slow?"
What followed would be a string of incomprehensible words—something about triggering internal faith conflicts, something about dismantling the planet's spiritual pillars and the like—causing all the Lord Ravagers to roar with laughter. The air inside and outside the meeting place would be filled with a cheerful atmosphere.
Phantylia knew she couldn't chat with these guys, so she had to talk to the lower-tier Legion officers, testing them and teaching them the four methods of spiritual destruction.
Although her destruction efficiency was often mocked by her colleagues, Phantylia continued to implement her own Way of Destruction. She held a certain arrogance in her heart, much like a scholar's disdain for a brute; guys like Zephyro and Irontomb would never understand the beauty of spiritual destruction in their entire lives.
Of course, Phantylia did not deny that her efficiency was so slow because she wanted to simultaneously enjoy the emotions of the people as the entire world faced destruction.
To push the collapse of trust within a civilization bit by bit, to make people completely abandon hope, and to control everything from behind the scenes like a puppeteer. And then, the feeling when the numbness, pain, and despair of the people brew and thunderously explode as the whole world faces destruction.
Both sensations were wonderful. The latter, for a Heliobus, was simply a peerless delicacy!
Phantylia had always played the role of Tingyun with a playful attitude, sitting in the audience, admiring the guys she was spinning in circles, and listening to them discuss how to deal with the danger right in front of her. This had always been the fun part of Phantylia's destruction process.
Creating this aesthetic of destruction was just like every previous infiltration: no one discovered her, and the process was smooth sailing. Until the Express arrived—or to be precise, until she met those two gray-hairs whose brains seemed to have problems.
Phantylia had played all sorts of roles in the past and was an actor whose skills had reached the realm of perfection. She had a deep understanding of the human heart and human nature. If one said that Stelle and Caelus fell in love with Tingyun at first sight and pursued her passionately, Phantylia could understand that.
But those two gray-hairs were just weird. They frequently glanced at her with bizarre eyes.
Phantylia perfectly enacted Tingyun's personality, treating the benefactors who had saved her well. Before, when she drank that milk tea with the strange taste—suspected to be spoiled—Phantylia hadn't been too suspicious.
First, Caelus's performance throughout was very natural.
Second, even if there was really something in that milk tea, Phantylia didn't care. She was Phantylia, an energy lifeform. Her diet was completely different from humans.
Just like humans can eat chocolate, but animals like cats and hamsters will be poisoned if they eat it, the difference between Heliobi and humans is a hundred times more distinct than that.
But Phantylia never expected that Caelus would actually use Energy Residue to make food! And feed it to her! For an energy lifeform of her magnitude, this stuff was no different from shit!
The key point was, Caelus had made the shit into the flavor of a cake and even covered the surface with crushed peanuts... She hadn't realized it and had eaten it... eaten it down...
This leads to a philosophical question. Does eating a steamed cake made of shit count as eating shit? It seems like a question that requires thought, but in fact, if you just change the phrasing, you can get the answer very quickly.
If someone made shit into a delicious cake and gave it to you to eat, would you eat it?
Phantylia's churning stomach was telling her the answer. She wanted to immediately use her energy to destroy the food she had swallowed, burning it into molecules! But using power at such close range would definitely lead to discovery.
But if she didn't do that, she would have to endure the taste and 'mouthfeel' transmitted by the Energy Residue inside her body.
One must realize, the body of Tingyun she was currently using wasn't Tingyun's actual flesh and blood, but an energy body she created using special means combined with her Heliobus abilities. It looked and functioned just like a flesh body, but its essence was a special energy construct, so she could clearly taste the flavor of the Energy Residue.
Regret. In short, immense regret. Phantylia's intestines were turning green with regret! Literally green...
She shouldn't have come! Why, of all days, did it have to be today? Today was the day of the plan's execution, the day the great curtain was to be raised! The Ambrosial Arbor was about to be revived.
So, should she maintain the status quo and let the shit stay in her body? Or should she expose her identity in advance—at the cost of affecting the plotting up to this point and potentially impacting the birth of her 'new body'—to destroy the Energy Residue inside her and incidentally scatter the ashes of this damned gray-hair?
This was a choice involving the dignity of a Heliobus and a Lord Ravager, weighed against the gravity of life!
Time seemed to stand still; Tingyun's smile was stiff. Her heart was already a devastating storm and tsunami; intense emotion, struggle, conflict, and hesitation wove together, and azure-green flames seemed ready to ignite within her body at any moment!
In the next second, the frozen world was shattered by a gray-hair.
"Come on, don't stand on ceremony. If it tastes good, eat more!"
Like a chef whose carefully prepared dish had received high praise, Caelus picked up a piece of steamed cake laced with energy-shit and pressed it towards Phantylia's mouth.
"Mmph, Benefactor, don't... Mmph."
Phantylia instinctively resisted, but as long as her resistance remained within the character settings of Tingyun, it was meaningless.
Welt and March 7th watched this scene with expressions ranging from astonishment to confusion, wondering what kind of madness Caelus was up to again.
Bang!
The sudden sound of a door opening attracted the attention of the people in the living room. Seizing the split second of Phantylia's paused movement, Caelus successfully stuffed another piece of energy steamed cake into Phantylia's mouth.
A dozen seconds later, Dan Heng and 'White' Seele arrived in the living room, staring in surprise at Caelus, who was enthusiastically feeding 'Tingyun', and fell into confusion. Their rooms were one on the far left and one on the far right, quite far from the large living room; the door opening sound hadn't come from them.
It was Silver Wing who had deliberately made the noise to attract Phantylia's attention.
The beauty with silver-gray curly hair walked out smiling, holding an ultra-high-definition camera, looking like a content creator filming her husband preparing a loving breakfast. When Silver Wing heard Tingyun's voice earlier, she had pushed away the Stellaron spirit who had her head buried in the snowy mountains, quickly got out of bed, dressed, found her equipment, and coordinated with Caelus.
One of the gifts from Asta—the Morning Star Type IV Camera. Automatic recognition, eye-tracking focus, precise capture, and recording of subtle expressions and movements.
Maintaing Tingyun's disguise perfectly under such circumstances without a single flaw—Silver Wing had to admit, Phantylia was truly a dedicated actor! Once she uploaded this video to the TikGalaxy video platform later, she would definitely tag the @GalacticCultureAndArtAssociation to give her a Best Actress award.
This was a System task triggered after Caelus decided to make a meal for Phantylia—[Record the Lord Ravager Eating Shit Famous Scene].
From the very first step of making the Energy Residue steamed cake, Caelus had recorded a video. Adding the current video of Tingyun eating the steamed cake, and the future video of Phantylia exposing her identity—if the three were edited together, it would absolutely be a video that exploded across the Galaxy!
The reward was determined by the view count: 100 to 200 Crystals.
This task wasn't difficult, but Caelus still felt the System was being stingy. A famous scene of a dignified Lord Ravager eating shit, and you only give this many Crystals? Isn't that more or less disrespectful to Phantylia?
The System returned a strained smiling emoji to Caelus. As long as it respects you, that's enough.
"Wait, Benefactor, this little woman hasn't... Mmph!?"
Being stuffed with energy-dregs cake for the third time, Phantylia finally reached the end of her tolerance. She stood up from the chair and backed away repeatedly to avoid Caelus's forceful feeding.
"What's wrong? Don't be such a stranger. I prepared a lot, so eat with peace of mind. There's plenty!"
Looking at the heroic and generous gray-hair, Phantylia ground her teeth in anger until they nearly shattered. After a fierce internal struggle, Phantylia ultimately chose to endure.
"No, this little woman already sought out some fried dough sticks earlier, and now having eaten the pastries meticulously prepared by Benefactor, my stomach is full, and my heart is satisfied."
She was about to die of anger, yet she still had to maintain a smile. That made her even more angry!
But, no! She couldn't expose her identity prematurely and ruin today's plan! Otherwise, wouldn't she have eaten the first two pieces for nothing? The sunk cost was too great.
As for whether Caelus had seen through her disguise? Phantylia felt he probably hadn't. She was very confident in her acting skills. Taking a step back, even if Caelus realized there was a problem with Tingyun, he had absolutely no reason to point his suspicion toward her, Phantylia, right?
"Is that so."
Caelus was rolling on the floor laughing in his heart, but his expression was one of regret: "You, ah, your appetite is just too small. If you ate more, perhaps you could grow to Bronya's scale."
"..."
Phantylia glanced at the silver-haired beauty, then looked down at her own chest, the corner of her mouth twitching for an instant.
"Dan Heng, Seele, come and taste the steamed cake I made."
Caelus casually greeted the two to sit down. Dan Heng, 'White' Seele, and March 7th looked at each other, simply assuming Caelus was having his daily fit of madness.
Only Old Yang, who knew Tingyun's identity, observed the steamed cake Caelus had fed Phantylia. His expression became exceptionally bizarre, but he had undergone professional training and was able to hold it in.
"Benefactor, this little woman came up in a hurry and forgot some things on the Starskiff."
Tingyun forced a smile and left using the excuse of retrieving items. Caelus didn't stop her. Only after confirming Tingyun had walked far away did he slam the table and laugh wildly under the bewildered gazes of Dan Heng, March 7th, and 'White' Seele.
"What happened?"
Lured out by the Caelus-cub's laughter, Stelle poked her head out, wanting to find some amusement.
"Nothing, I just thought of something happy."
"Your wife gave birth?"
Stelle subconsciously completed the meme, but immediately her expression changed wildly, and she covered her lower abdomen in terror: "Wait! Am I pregnant?"
March 7th sputtered with a pffft, and Dan Heng sucked in a breath of cold air with a hiss. Both stared at the gray-haired girl with horrified eyes.
"No, Tingyun gave birth." Caelus gave a side-eye.
"Yours?"
Stelle's face looked even more terrified. Her treasure chests!
The topic was led astray by the two gray-hairs. Not long after, a bang bang knocking sound came from outside the door, followed by a girl's lazy greeting.
"Old Caelus, I'm here!"
"Qingque?"
March 7th recognized the owner of the voice.
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