The Death Queen's laboratory had always been a place of exquisite danger—vials of liquid suffering lining the shelves, cauldrons bubbling with distilled malice, the air thick with the scent of crushed dreams and bergamot. But today's work required something special. Something unprecedented.
She rolled up her sleeves, her usual smirk replaced by terrifying focus. "Ingredients," she announced to no one in particular, "are everything."
First: Luo Feng's starlight. Not the ordinary celestial kind, but the raw, unfiltered essence bleeding from his Eclipse Core—the kind that made black holes nervous. She caught a drifting wisp in a diamond vial, watching as it burned through three separate containment spells before settling into something resembling liquid arrogance.
Second: Her own tears. This required actual effort. She had to mentally revisit the time the Fox Spirit replaced all her poisons with lavender-scented bath salts, the memory still raw enough to summon a single, perfect droplet. It sizzled when it hit the starlight, the mixture turning a dangerous shade of existential purple.
Third: Fox Spirit's snark. This was almost too easy. She simply held out a flask during one of Xiao Jiuying's dramatic monologues, catching phrases like "your face looks like a constipated owl" and "I've seen more intimidating mold" before slamming the stopper shut. The words rattled inside like angry wasps.
The final brew hissed and spat in its crucible, a noxious cloud forming the shapes of dying philosophies overhead. It smelled like bad decisions and tasted like the universe's worst punchline.
Even the Void Emperor's cursor hesitated when she uncorked it.
"Darling," she purred, swirling the vial toward the trembling cosmic interface, "meet concepticide."
The effect was instantaneous.
Where droplets splashed, reality forgot how to reality. The very idea of divine wrath dissolved into confused poetry. The concept of absolute power developed stage fright. And when a stray splash hit the Void Emperor's projection—
—he gagged.
An actual, physical reaction from a being who had transcended bodily functions eons ago. His cursor spasmed, his carefully curated air of menace crumbling like a bad soufflé.
The Death Queen's laughter rang through the crumbling divine realms as she tossed the empty vial over her shoulder. "Oh don't look so betrayed. You wanted to erase everything? I just helped."
Somewhere in the toxic fog, a plush demon coughed and started taking notes for its doctoral thesis: How to Annihilate Abstract Notions Through Sheer Spite.
END OF CHAPTER 9