Hum—!

The sapphire at the tip of the staff suddenly erupted with brilliant light.

An extreme chill swept across the sky and earth for miles around, centered on Gandalf.

The flowing air seemed to have its pause button pressed.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Countless visible ice crystals condensed in the the void.

The dozen or so streams of black smoke fleeing madly crashed headlong into this white Domain of extreme cold before they could even escape the ruins.

"Screech—!!!"

A piercing screech echoed from within the black smoke.

The formless, intangible smoke was actually frozen, its speed plunging instantly.

White frost spread along the smoke, forcibly freezing the originally illusory ghost qi into solid black ice sculptures!

Kujo Masakage felt as if the surrounding space had turned into a giant piece of amber, and he was the bug trapped inside.

The bone-chilling cold seeped into his soul, causing even his thoughts to grow Sluggishness.

"Get off me! Get the hell off me!"

He struggled wildly within the black ice, attempting to break through this damn restraint.

Just then.

A sense of crisis that made his scalp go numb suddenly struck from behind.

It was the feeling of being locked on to by a hunter.

Kujo Masakage strained to turn his head (even though he was currently a mass of smoke).

High upon the ruins of a tall building in the distance,

that burly archer—Da Yi—was watching him coldly.

The simple, ancient longbow in Da Yi's hands was pulled into a full moon.

There was no arrow nocked on the bowstring.

Instead, there was an arrow of light condensed from brilliant starlight!

The terrifying energy contained within that arrow of light caused the surrounding space to distort slightly.

【Starry Sky Vision】 lock-on!

【Starlight Beacon】 triggered!

Da Yi released his fingers.

"Twang!"

A dull, thunderous vibration of the bowstring resounded through heaven and earth.

The arrow of starlight shot forth from the string.

It was too fast.

So fast it exceeded the limits of what the eye could capture.

In everyone's eyes, they only saw a meteor streak across the night sky, piercing through the wind, snow, and ice filling the heavens.

"No—!!!"

Kujo Masakage let out a desperate shriek.

He tried to split, tried to dodge, tried to construct a shield with ghost qi.

But before that fatal arrow, all struggles were in vain.

Pfft!

The arrow of starlight struck the core of the black smoke with absolute precision.

Boom!

Terrifying astral power exploded inside the black smoke.

The giant cloud of black smoke collapsed, and Kujo Masakage was forced out of his elemental state, re-condensing into a physical form.

At this moment, a gaping hole transparent from front to back appeared on his chest!

No blood flowed from the edges of the wound; instead, it had been scorched to charcoal by the starlight.

"AAAAAAH!"

Kujo Masakage clutched his chest, stumbling as he fell from the sky.

Before he even hit the ground,

golden light flared brilliantly above his head.

The figure that terrified him to the point of making his soul tremble descended.

Gabriel appeared above Kujo Masakage as if teleporting.

The Holy Light longsword in his hand possessed no flashy flourishes, merely swinging downward in a simple stroke.

"Judgment."

An indifferent voice sounded.

Swish!

A thin golden line sliced across Kujo Masakage's neck.

Kujo Masakage's hideous, horned head flew high into the air.

His vision spun.

He saw his own headless, massive body spurting black, foul blood as it plunged toward the ground.

Beheaded...?

No!

It wasn't over yet!

I am the Ghost King!

Even with his head severed, Kujo Masakage was still not dead.

The flying head in midair had its eyes wide open, filled with malice and madness.

"Explode! Explode for me!"

Along with his fierce roar,

the falling headless corpse and the head flying through the air unexpectedly exploded at the same time!

Bang! Bang!

The flesh and blood filling the sky didn't fall to the ground; instead, they transformed into thousands of palm-sized vampire bats in midair.

Every single one of these bats carried a fragment of Kujo Masakage's soul.

As long as one escaped!

As long as one survived!

He could achieve Rebirth through a new vessel!

"Squeak squeak squeak—!"

Countless bats emitted ear-splitting screeches, fleeing madly in every direction.

With such an overwhelming quantity, not even Da Yi's rain of arrows could intercept them all!

"Hahaha! You can't kill me! You can't kill me!"

All the bats opened their mouths simultaneously, releasing Kujo Masakage's smug and unhinged laughter, reverberating layer upon layer through the air.

"Just wait until I return! I'll definitely tear you all into ten thousand pieces!"

Looking at the bats flying wildly across the sky,

there was no fluctuation of emotion on Gabriel's impeccably handsome face.

He merely hovered quietly in midair, slowly unfolding the six wings of light behind his back.

"God says, filthy things have nowhere to hide."

Skill—【Illuminating Holy Light】!

Boom!

Gabriel's entire body turned into a true blazing sun.

Endless golden Holy Light filled every inch of space with a tyrannical and domineering posture.

This was not an attack.

This was a cleansing.

This was a sweeping, indiscriminate, all-encompassing purification!

The moment those madly fleeing bats came into contact with this golden light,

they didn't even have time to scream.

Like snowflakes tossed into a furnace,

Sizzle sizzle sizzle—

A dense chorus of sizzling and burning sounds rang out.

One after another, patch after patch,

thousands upon thousands of bats spontaneously combusted in this divine radiance, turning into wisps of dark smoke.

"No... NO!!!"

In the air, only Kujo Masakage's final roar, filled with reluctance and despair, remained.

"I'm not resigned! I'm not resigned!"

"Kujo Koji! Save me! Resurrect me one more time!"

"I am your ancestor! You can't just watch me die!"

However,

there was no response.

Only the merciless Holy Light continued to scorch his final soul mark.

Finally,

the last bat turned to ash within the golden light.

The shrill screams came to a sudden halt.

Silence returned to heaven and earth.

The once insufferably arrogant Sakura Country ancestor who viewed all living beings as ants and sought to rebuild the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, SS-Rank Ghost King Kujo Masakage,

completely dissipated!

The Holy Light dispersed, and the dust settled.

In less than half an hour,

two SS-Rank Experts capable of suppressing a nation's Qi Fortune had fallen.

If word of this battle record got out, it would be enough to cause a magnitude-ten earthquake across the entire Blue Star's Classer circle.

However, Zhou Huai, who was controlling Gabriel while floating high above in the sky, knit his brows tighter and tighter.

Something was wrong.

It was too smooth.

So smooth it made one's skin crawl.

Gabriel narrowed his pale golden eyes, his gaze piercing through layers of cloud and mist to lock onto the direction of the Takamagahara Imperial Palace in the center of Tokyo City.

That was the core of power for the Kujo Family, as well as the most heavily fortified place in the whole Sakura Country.

Yet, even until Kujo Masakage suffered soul scattered and spirit dissipated, and until Wada Hirayama was reduced to nothingness with not even bones remaining, the current head of the Kujo Family and instigator of this series of crazy plans—Kujo Koji—had never shown his face.

"His Old Ancestor had his ashes scattered to the winds, yet as a descendant he can still keep his cool?"

Zhou Huai sneered internally, but the vigilance deep in his eyes grew even heavier.

It wasn't just Kujo Koji.

Those two SS-Rank foreign aids from the mysterious "Dawnbreaker Guild"—the man in the white suit with bizarre abilities, and Bhadra, the bald giant with a formidable physical body—seemed to have vanished into thin air as well.

Furthermore, that crucial Divine Artifact—the 【Pendulum of Life】.

All of them had disappeared without a trace.