Chapter 89: At This Moment, It Is the Time of the Old God’s Awakening!
Those four monsters, their lower halves were a spider, a scorpion, a venomous snake, and a toad, respectively.
But their upper halves were that of Kamishiro Naraku.
Each of them radiated a terrifying black aura, a dense and strange presence.
And Kamishiro Naraku himself, his strength had dropped slightly, but he still barely maintained peak B-rank.
Tamamo-no-Mae and Kamishiro Hime stood back to back, their faces grim as they looked at the four monsters around them.
Tamamo-no-Mae quickly used her spiritual power to sense Kamishiro Naraku. She pursed her pink lips and said,
“This is troublesome.”
“He’s split into four clones, but his main body’s strength is still at peak B-rank. Otherwise, we could have tried a direct assassination.”
In reality, this was also part of Kamishiro Naraku’s calculations.
To despise the enemy strategically, but to respect them tactically.
He belittled them with his words, but in the previous battle, he had felt the destructive power of their combined attacks.
His main body had to be maintained at peak B-rank. If he had created too many clones and dropped to high B-rank…
He might have been defeated.
That would have been a huge joke.
He had been planning this for over a decade; he couldn’t let such a thing happen.
The only surprise in this operation was the combat power of the Ryūko Shrine, which was much stronger than he had imagined. If not for the Ryūko Shrine’s strength…
He would have already broken through the city.
Of course, it was no big deal.
Kamishiro Naraku watched as his creations clashed with Tamamo-no-Mae and Kamishiro Hime.
His gaze drifted to the distance, where the slaughter was growing more intense. The high wall was covered in bloody handprints.
The blood had pooled into a stream, slowly flowing, forming a thick and viscous lake.
Supernatural users were constantly dying.
The air was filled with a dense, powerful energy.
“Soon, soon.”
“A-rank.”
A look of anticipation appeared in Kamishiro Naraku’s pure black eyes.
“Gag—!”
Suddenly, his mouth opened wide, and the head of a stone statue emerged.
Then, with continuous vomiting and stomach convulsions, the statue emerged, piece by piece.
Finally, mixed with a strange, viscous, turbid liquid, the stone statue appeared in its entirety.
The humanoid statue wore a yellow robe, its face shrouded in shadow and darkness, radiating a dense, evil, chaotic aura.
And where its legs should have been…
Were countless tentacles.
Even though the statue was motionless, the tentacles seemed to writhe and curl.
This was…
—The Statue of the Old God.
Kamishiro Naraku had exchanged several bottles of supernatural blood for a piece of Nightmare-level supernatural being’s skin, no bigger than his palm.
He had used a secret method to wrap and seal the peak Calamity-level Old God with this skin.
And as it was sealed, the Nightmare-level skin would gradually lose its effectiveness, its power being absorbed by the Old God.
Not only that, but Kamishiro Naraku had enshrined it in the Blissful Truth religion.
The faith of the followers nourished it, their lives and blood also nourished it.
And a strange, profound thing was born within this Old God.
Kamishiro Naraku didn’t know what it was.
But if it were Natsuba Hanae, she would understand. It was divinity.
Through long periods of worship and sacrifice, this Old God had given birth to divinity.
This was something even the two Old Gods Natsuba Hanae had killed had not achieved, but Kamishiro Naraku had managed it by a twist of fate.
Kamishiro Naraku looked at it with reverence.
At this moment, it was the time of the Old God’s awakening.
Following his modified blood sacrifice ritual, Kamishiro Naraku slammed his palm against his chest.
A large amount of black blood, mixed with a hint of red, sprayed out, splattering on the Statue of the Old God.
His hands moved continuously, writing countless complicated characters, and he chanted incessantly.
The Statue of the Old God glowed with a black light.
Then, it absorbed all the blood.
“It’s done.”
Seeing this, Kamishiro Naraku’s lips split into a terrifying grin that reached his ears.
He began to kowtow.
The ritual began.
With the Statue of the Old God as the center, a strange radiation spread outwards, covering the area.
On the battlefield, in the city…
Everyone felt an uncontrollable shudder, a sense of impending doom and terror.
Tamamo-no-Mae and Kamishiro Hime, who were in the midst of battle…
Were gradually finding their rhythm.
Five of Tamamo-no-Mae’s fox tails had appeared. While her power was rapidly depleting, she had reached high B-rank.
She had begun to suppress the four clones.
It wouldn’t be long before she could annihilate them all.
She had already made up her mind. After destroying the four clones, she would unleash her last fox tail.
At that point, her combat power would be infinitely close to peak B-rank.
And with Kamishiro Hime, she would kill Kamishiro Naraku.
However, just as they had killed one of the clones, which turned into a black mist and re-entered Kamishiro Naraku’s body…
They saw him take out a statue, and then an invisible wave of power washed over them.
A primal, bone-chilling instinct shot up their spines, and a cold sensation spread through their bodies.
Tamamo-no-Mae’s five fox tails stood on end, as if she had been startled.
Her pupils constricted into slits, and she quickly looked towards Kamishiro Naraku, towards the statue.
“What is… that?!”
“Why does it give me such a feeling of physical revulsion and fear?”
As Kamishiro Naraku’s ritual continued…
The Statue of the Old God began to crack from the head down. A thick, black, sludge-like mist began to emanate from within, filled with an ominous aura.
And within it, a wisp of turbid divine light.
Kamishiro Hime also saw this.
Unlike Kamishiro Naraku, as a representative of the imperial family, she knew what that turbid light was.
“Divinity?!!!”
“How is that possible?! What is Kamishiro Naraku doing?!!”
A look of shock appeared in Kamishiro Hime’s pure white eyes. Divinity was emerging from that statue, which meant it was likely a god.
In reality, until now, everything had been within her expectations.
She thought that as long as she could stall for time, she would win.
But seeing the divinity this time, she was thrown into a state of panic and confusion.
Then Kamishiro Hime made a decisive judgment.
“Saigū, ignore the clones!”
“Quickly, stop Kamishiro Naraku from continuing to worship that statue! If the thing inside gets out, even an A-rank will be helpless!!!”
With that, Kamishiro Hime took a direct hit from the spider-headed monster.
And charged towards Kamishiro Naraku.
Hearing this, Tamamo-no-Mae also understood the gravity of the situation. Her five fox tails trembled, and she gathered foxfire.
And shot it at Kamishiro Naraku and the statue.
However…
The cracks had already spread to the neck. The head of the Statue of the Old God was revealed.
It turned its head with a creaking sound.
From within the empty robe, it looked at the attacking Kamishiro Hime and Tamamo-no-Mae.
In an instant…
Time suddenly stopped—
