All of them, except one.
“If you’re that desperate for stimulation… then I’ll give it to you myself.”
“L-Lulune?!”
Without warning, Lulune stepped forward, arms crossed and feet firmly planted between Vitor and the others, shielding them with her imposing presence.
Seeing her stand tall, Vitor stopped in his tracks and sneered.
“Well, well, look who’s found her spine. Didn’t you just finish eating dirt a few minutes ago? You figured it out by now, haven’t you? You’re no match for me. You can’t even entertain me.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Lulune said flatly. “Now that I’ve eaten that unknown food, the only one who could hope to stop me is my Master.”
“You’re oddly self-aware,” Origa muttered, unable to stop herself from commenting on Lulune’s unnervingly calm assessment.
From Vitor’s perspective, she hadn’t changed at all. He let out a snort of derision.
“Hah! Even if those weird flying things were edible somehow, what the hell does that have to do with your strength?”
“By eating those seeds, I have obtained the universe within my body.”
“What is that glutton even rambling about now?” Origa muttered again, this time with obvious concern, as Lulune deliberately placed a hand on her stomach.
Even Vitor looked confused now, a twitch of disbelief pulling at his cheek.
“Did you just say… the universe?”
“I came to a realization,” said Lulune solemnly. “If I want to consume everything I desire, my mouth alone will never be enough. Therefore, the only option is to create a universe within my body.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Vitor replied, narrowing his eyes.
“Same,” Routier muttered, echoing his confusion.
Despite being enemies, Vitor’s reaction was identical to that of Routier and the others. None of them had the slightest clue what Lulune was going on about. Yet Lulune, utterly unfazed by their reactions, spoke with an air of absolute confidence.
“I don’t need you to understand. Enough with the chatter… Come at me.”
“I’ll kill you,” Vitor snarled.
In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance between them. Channeling his magic and the powers granted to him by the Cult of the Wicked One into his fist, he drove a devastating blow into Lulune’s abdomen.
“Die, you damn glutton!”
“Lulune?!” Origa shouted, horrified. She hadn’t expected her to just stand there and take the hit without even trying to dodge. She immediately tried to rush to her aid.
But—
“H-Huh? Lulune doesn’t look hurt at all?”
“You’re kidding,” Zora breathed.
“I-I could’ve sworn that hit landed.”
If even the ones watching up close were this confused, then Vitor, the one who actually delivered the attack, was beyond stunned.
“What the hell? How are you still standing?! That blow was packed with enough power to sink a continent if I’d aimed it at the ground!”
“It tastes awful.”
“Tastes what now?”
Ignoring Vitor’s disbelief, Lulune sounded genuinely disappointed.
“Just now, I consumed all of your energy, every bit of impact, every trace of force. And I’m telling you… it tasted terrible.”
“What… What are you even saying?!”
“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve created a universe inside my body.”
“That’s not an answer at all!”
He was absolutely right. That made no sense whatsoever. But Lulune let out an exaggerated sigh, as if she couldn’t comprehend how someone could fail to understand something so simple.
“Haa… dealing with idiots is exhausting.”
“Are you looking down on me in this situation?!”
“Listen up and listen well. I’ve created a universe inside my body; more precisely, a black hole. Thanks to this, I can now eat endlessly. And not just that. With the power of this black hole, I can now consume food that is far away—as long as I recognize it, I can eat it. I reached this state by eating that mysterious food from earlier.”
“Even hearing that doesn’t make it any clearer!”
Vitor was utterly lost, but if Seiichi had been here, he probably would have instantly thought of a certain round, pink, and extremely popular character.
“And I also realized something else: food doesn’t have to be taken in just through the mouth. That’s why I’ve transformed my entire body to function as a mouth. This way, I can increase how much I can eat at once!”
“That’s disgusting! And I still don’t get it!”
Even her enemy was calling her gross. At this point, no one had any idea where Lulune was headed in life. Hard to believe she had once been a donkey.
“I don’t need you to understand. Just vanish already.”
“Lulune, wait, no—that’s not okay!”
As if declaring that she’d had enough, Lulune casually launched a powerful kick at Vitor. Routier shouted in alarm, trying to stop her, but Lulune’s attack didn’t slow in the slightest; it slammed into Vitor’s abdomen with full force.
At that moment, Vitor felt an incredible impact and began to grin.
“Ha! Now you’ll—ghobah?!”
Before he could finish his smug taunt, Vitor coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed on the spot.
“N-No… way! H-How?!” Vitor clutched his stomach and collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain from injuries that refused to fade, no matter how much time passed. As Origa and the others stared in stunned silence, Lulune alone looked down at him with cold eyes. “W-What the hell did you doooo?!”
“I kicked you. That’s all.”
“J-Just kicked me?! Then why, why are you unharmed?!”
“Don’t say ridiculous things. If I kicked you, then obviously the one who should be hurt is you, isn’t it?”
“N-No! M-My insides are empty! It’s not about organs or anything like that! It’s conceptual. Because I am empty inside, no matter what kind of attack I take, the damage and wounds just revert back to nothing!”
“…”
“And that’s not all! I-I can use this hollow body of mine to resonate any damage I take with the one who attacked me! That’s why… the fact that you’re still standing—”
“You talk too much.”
“Buhela?!”
“Huhh”
With no mercy, Lulune drove a clean kick into Vitor’s face, cutting off his rant just as he was getting to the core of his ability.
She clearly had no interest in what he was saying, but for Origa and the others, it was enough to piece together a rough idea of what Vitor’s power actually was. They still couldn’t quite grasp what he meant by having an “empty body.” Still, they did understand the basics: his hollow form allowed him to force any damage he received to “resonate” back into his attacker, effectively damaging them instead.
While Vitor was known by the moniker Resonant, the explanation suggested that Echo might have been more appropriate. Still, the key difference was that he wasn’t just deflecting attacks; because he had no internal structure, no damage ever accumulated inside him. This allowed him to reflect all incoming harm without any consequence, and that destructive feedback was what earned him the name Resonant.
None of that mattered to Lulune. She had no interest in the intricacies of some enemy’s power. To her, the whole explanation was trivial. She merely looked down her nose at the battered, unconscious Vitor and snorted.
“Hmph. He sure went on about something or other, but to me, someone who has eaten an unknown food from beyond, such things are meaningless.”
“Yeah, the glutton’s seriously messed up.”
At Origa’s words, both Routier and Zora nodded in agreement.