As the entirely emerald-green Yasakani no Magatama slowly emerged, expressions of hard-won survival and excitement appeared on everyone's faces.

"Found it!"

"The Yasakani no Magatama is truly hidden inside Soma Kosuke's initial corpse that everyone ignored!"

There was not a trace of joy on the Man in White Suit's face; instead, he was as pale as a corpse.

He abruptly raised his hand, his palm aiming at the Yasakani no Magatama that was emitting a sacred aura.

"Come over!"

He let out a low growl, formed his palm into a claw, and sucked in fiercely.

An invisible power that distorted reality instantly erupted.

As if guided by some attraction, the emerald-green Yasakani no Magatama turned into a stream of light, instantly crossing the collapsing space, and was firmly sucked into his hand.

The moment the Yasakani no Magatama was grasped,

"Crack—!!!"

A crisp, loud sound resembling shattering glass echoed throughout the entire world.

The World Within the Painting, which was "dimensionally reducing" at an irreversible momentum, shuddered violently.

Following that, amidst everyone's horrified gazes, it shattered with a bang!

The ominous blood moon in the sky exploded silently like a punctured balloon.

The two-dimensionalizing force that was crushing everything came to an abrupt halt.

Space, time, light...

Everything fell into stagnation at this moment.

The next second,

The world fell apart.

Countless black ink dots and broken fragments of the scroll, like fluttering butterflies, filled the entire field of vision.

A suffocatingly powerful tearing force came from all directions.

It felt as if it wanted to forcefully strip their soul out of this shattered world.

...

The sky had already shown the whitish hue of dawn.

A slightly cool morning breeze blew past, carrying a hint of earthy fragrance.

When Kujo Koji regained consciousness again, before his eyes was a desolate wilderness.

Beneath his feet was real land, and above his head was the real firmament.

They had come out.

"Cough... cough cough!"

Violent coughing sounds came from the side.

Kujo Koji turned his head to look, only to see the mysterious Man in White Suit half-kneeling on the ground, his face as pale as paper, his whole person withered and listless.

The Yasakani no Magatama in his hand had lost all its luster, becoming dim and unremarkable like an ordinary object.

Clearly, halting the operation of this Divine Artifact had also drained a lot of his power.

"Thud."

Another muffled sound.

Bhadra, who had transformed into a golden Buddha dharma image and stubbornly resisted most of the damage, had also returned to his original state at this moment.

Covered in blood, he knelt and sat on the ground in a sorry state.

Those six arms that supported the golden barrier were now completely empty; the moment the World Within the Painting shattered, they had been forcefully twisted off by that spatial tearing force.

He panted heavily, his chest rising and falling violently, his eyes filled with lingering fear from surviving a catastrophe.

However, the most miserable one was Wada Hirayama.

He lay quietly on the grass not far away, motionless, like a tattered doll discarded at will.

More than half of his body was missing.

From his left leg to his right shoulder, it was as if a large chunk had been shaved off diagonally by something.

Even half of his head had been cleanly shaved off.

Crimson blood was continuously flowing out from that gruesome wound, quickly staining the grass beneath him into a shocking dark red.

His Health value was already less than one-tenth.

If it weren't for the terrifyingly tenacious vitality of an SS-Rank Professional, anyone else would have been dead beyond dead long ago.

The Man in White Suit struggled to stand up and walked to Wada Hirayama's side.

He reached out, and a faint white light emerged from his palm, covering Wada Hirayama's terrifying wound.

A miraculous scene occurred.

The blood that was originally still gushing out wildly slowly stopped at a speed visible to the naked eye.

After finishing all this, the Man in White Suit's face turned a few shades paler.

He twitched the corners of his mouth.

"This old fellow's vitality is quite tenacious."

"He won't die in a short time."

"After going back, find a top-tier light-element healer; maybe... there's still a cure."

Hearing this, Kujo Koji only nodded indifferently.

He didn't even spare Wada Hirayama an extra glance, as if the person lying on the ground wasn't a companion who had fought side by side with him, but an insignificant tool.

His gaze crossed over everyone and cast towards the distant horizon.

That was the direction of Lake Kawaguchi.

"Let him stay here for now."

"We must hurry to Lake Kawaguchi."

Even though they had just escaped from a certain death desperate situation.

But Kujo Koji's tightly strung nerves did not relax in the slightest.

In his heart, there was always a bad premonition.

From Soma Kosuke launching an ambush to them being trapped in the Yasakani no Magatama's Domain.

For such a long time,

that Insect Master who had been making trouble behind the scenes all along had never appeared.

"Where did he go?"

"What is he doing?"

Meanwhile, Lake Kawaguchi, Fuji City.

"Sizzling—"

The hard ice layer issued a "crack" mournful cry, rapidly dissolving under Polina's precise control.

A few seconds later, Kalen's tall body broke free from the ice block and heavily crashed onto the ground.

"Dammit!"

His lips were frozen purple, his teeth trembled uncontrollably, and gloomy cold air radiated all over his body.

"So cold! It's freezing me to death!"

As he cursed, Kalen struggled to climb up from the ground.

But his large hand gripped tightly onto the Pendulum of Life that had been frozen together and had just been unsealed from start to finish, without any slack.

Looking at Caesar who had rendezvoused with him, his voice trembled somewhat due to the cold.

"Ever-changing Star Lord, what should we do next?"

Zhou Huai, controlling Caesar, spoke in a flat voice.

"I will create an opportunity for you."

"You guys find a way to rush out with the Pendulum of Life."

Right at this moment,

"Jie jie jie jie—"

A sharp, piercing loud laughter resembling metal friction came without warning from high in the sky.

That laughter was filled with malice and mockery, like steel needles piercing fiercely into the eardrums of everyone present.

The three of them raised their heads simultaneously.

They saw a distorted black shadow slowly flying over from the distant skyline while flapping disgusting fleshy wings.

As he approached, a thick aura of death and resentment swept over like a tangible tide.

Finally, that figure hovered above the three of them.

Even the well-informed Polina and Kalen felt their pupils shrink violently the moment they saw the appearance of the newcomer.

The other party's image was extremely ferocious and terrifying.

That was impressively an aggregate formed by the compression and stacking of countless painfully distorted faces.

Those faces included men and women, old and young, each face frozen with the ultimate fear and despair before death.

They slowly crawled under his skin, silently roaring and wailing, as if they would break free at any moment.

He actually had four arms.

One arm was made of gruesome white bones, with eerie green ghost fire burning on the pale claw.

Another was covered in purplish-black scales, ending with sharp barbs that flashed with metallic cold light.

The remaining two arms looked like they were randomly pieced together from countless remains, filled with suture marks and pustules.

The fleshy wings behind his back were even more disgusting; they were clearly forcibly sewn together from countless peeled-off human skins using black threads, still hanging with dried blood and broken flesh.

"King of a Hundred Ghosts, Kujo Masakage."