The entire World Within the Painting was rapidly collapsing in an irreversible manner.

Space lost its thickness, and all things were being forcibly "dimensionally reduced".

"Roar—!"

Bhadra, having transformed into a twenty-meter golden Buddha, clenched his teeth as blue veins bulged like coiling dragons beneath his golden skin.

The golden barrier he propped open let out an unbearable, groaning shriek under the crushing pressure of the two-dimensional force, its light flickering uncertainly.

"Hurry up!"

Bhadra's voice carried pain and urgency.

"I can't hold on much longer!"

Wada Hirayama turned deathly pale, looking toward the consistently calm Man in White Suit, and urged him anxiously.

"Didn't you say you knew where it was? Where on earth is the Divine Artifact hidden?!"

The Man in White Suit pushed the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, his tone extremely serious.

"Lord Kujo Koji's initial analysis wasn't actually wrong."

"Yasakani no Magatama is very likely hidden on someone's body."

"But that person is not one of the four of us."

The Man in White Suit's gaze swept across a distant area that had long since turned into a flat picture.

"It's on Soma Kosuke himself."

Wada Hirayama wore a puzzled look, his voice changing pitch.

"That's impossible!"

"Soma Kosuke has been killed by us so many times, yet we never found Yasakani no Magatama on him!"

The Man in White Suit shook his head.

"Those Soma Kosukes, although they possess Soma Kosuke's consciousness and his power,"

"are none of them the real Soma Kosuke."

His tone slowed down.

"Do you remember the first Soma Kosuke who was killed?"

"The Soma Kosuke who seemed utterly vulnerable to all of us."

Wada Hirayama's pupils shrank violently.

He remembered.

The first Soma Kosuke to be killed had made almost no effective resistance.

The Man in White Suit's voice continued to ring out, revealing that detail which everyone had ignored.

"The reason he acted so weak is because he had already overdrawn all of his own power to Yasakani no Magatama."

"Therefore, Yasakani no Magatama was on him from start to finish."

"It's just that at the time, all of our minds were shocked by that brand-new Soma Kosuke who kept resurrecting under the blood moon."

"And thus, we overlooked this most fatal detail."

"This is the true counter-logic of Soma Kosuke."

A complex arc curled up the corner of the Man in White Suit's mouth.

"Who would have thought that the one truly trapping us here and intending to completely annihilate all of us would be... a corpse that had long lost any trace of vitality."

Dead silence.

A dead silence where a pin drop could be heard.

Kujo Koji furrowed his brows, instantly grasping the crux of the problem.

"So, where is his corpse?"

The Man in White Suit raised his hand, pointing toward that distant area that had completely become two-dimensional.

There, a pile of Soma Kosuke corpses flattened into a planar picture lay quietly, resembling clumsy graffiti on a piece of drawing paper.

"It should be among them."

At this moment, everyone's complexion became ugly to the extreme.

Once one completely entered the two-dimensional world, they would be assimilated and have all traces of their existence completely erased.

A narrow escape.

Who goes over?

"Make a decision quickly!"

Bhadra's roar rang out once more; his golden Buddha avatar had already begun to show large-scale "flattening", clearly having reached its limit.

"I can't hold out much longer!"

The Man in White Suit's gaze fell upon Wada Hirayama.

"Wada-kun, I will do my utmost to carve out a 'real' path for you."

"But the time will be at most ten seconds."

Wada Hirayama let out a cold snort, his hand gripping the tachi trembling violently with anger.

He was just about to angrily retort, "Why don't you go? You want me to take this risk?"

However, at this moment, a hand suddenly patted his shoulder gently.

It was Kujo Koji.

He looked at Wada Hirayama, his eyes that were usually as deep as an ancient well unexpectedly carrying a hint of sincerity and earnestness at this moment.

"Hirayama-kun, the future of the Wada Family and my future are all entrusted to you."

"You are my most trusted sharp blade."

Wada Hirayama's body stiffened, the anger in his eyes fading slightly.

Kujo Koji's voice was lowered very low, yet it pierced into Wada Hirayama's heart like the sharpest blade.

"I cannot die here. If I die, do you think the Omiya Family will let go of the Wada Family that cooperated with me?"

"You wouldn't want to see the Wada Family buried along with you, would you?"

Wada Hirayama abruptly raised his head, staring fixedly at Kujo Koji, a terrifying fierce light bursting forth from his eyes.

Yet Kujo Koji acted as if he hadn't seen it; the expression on his face remained earnest, even carrying a hint of a promise.

"As long as we can get out, I promise that the Wada Family will become an existence second only to the Kujo Family."

"This is my guarantee."

Coercion and enticement combined.

Favors and awe used in tandem.

Wada Hirayama's chest heaved violently, his heavy breathing sounding like a broken bellows.

He gritted his teeth hard, blood already seeping from his gums.

After a long while.

He squeezed a few words out from between his teeth.

"Remember... the promise you gave me."

A hint of a satisfied smile finally appeared on Kujo Koji's face.

He let go of his hand and took a step back.

The Man in White Suit hesitated no longer; he slammed his hands together in front of his chest.

An intangible, reality-distorting power violently erupted with him at the center.

"Open!"

He shouted sternly.

One could only see that within that rapidly two-dimensionalizing world ahead, a narrow channel maintaining a three-dimensional form had been forcibly torn open.

At the end of the channel was precisely that pile of Soma Kosuke corpses.

"Only ten seconds!"

The Man in White Suit's voice carried a hint of strain.

Before his voice had even faded.

"Swish!"

Wada Hirayama's figure had already transformed into a residual shadow, charging into that narrow channel without an ounce of hesitation.

The moment he stepped into the channel, an assimilation force terrifying to the extreme crazily squeezed in from all directions.

"Ugh ah—!"

Wada Hirayama let out a painful grunt.

He watched helplessly as his left leg, the instant it touched the channel wall, rapidly lost its thickness, turning into a thin decal drawn on the ground.

The excruciating pain and the fear of being "erased" assaulted his nerves like a tidal wave.

But he did not stop.

Enduring the excruciating pain, he poured all of his power into his remaining right leg, his speed increasing instead of decreasing, and like an injured beast, he frantically rushed toward the end point.

Five seconds!

He finally rushed in front of that pile of corpses.

At this moment, more than half of his body had already been assimilated into a planar picture.

He could even feel his vitality being crazily devoured by this eerie world.

There was no time to think more!

Wada Hirayama let out a heaven-shaking roar, gathering all of his remaining power onto the tachi in his hand.

"Get... out!"

He slashed out with the blade in his hand!

The blade light was like a stream of white silk, carrying an indomitable resolution as it fiercely hacked toward that pile of two-dimensionalized corpses.

"Swish!"

With a single slash, several "paper-cut" corpses of Soma Kosuke were instantly chopped to pieces, dispersing into the air like fluttering butterflies.

None!

Wada Hirayama's heart sank, and regardless of the excruciating pain of his arm being assimilated, he slashed his blade once more!

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

He acted like a madman, the tachi in his hand transforming into an all-encompassing shadow of blades as he frantically slashed toward those corpses.

One corpse, two corpses, three corpses...

In the blink of an eye, more than half of that pile of corpses had been hacked away by him.

Yet still, there was nothing to show for it!

"How could this be..."

For the first time, despair leaked from Wada Hirayama's eyes.

Could the Man in White Suit's analysis have been wrong?

In the distance, Bhadra's golden barrier was flickering erratically, on the verge of collapsing at any moment.

The "path of reality" carved out by the Man in White Suit also began to violently twist and shrink.

Time was running out.

"Ahahahaha—!"

Wada Hirayama let out an unreconciled roar, using his very last shred of strength to raise high the tachi that had already begun to "paperize".

This was his final slash!

The blade light flashed.

The world seemed to freeze at this moment.

Just as everyone wore looks of despair,

amongst that unremarkable corpse struck by the final slash,

a jade magatama of emerald green throughout, shaped like a crescent moon and exuding a sacred aura, slowly emerged from that shattered "drawing paper"!

Yasakani no Magatama!