Zhou Huai wasn't polite in the slightest.

Since Kalen was offering it of his own accord, it would be a waste not to take it.

He reached out and took the heavy black chain, which felt cold to the touch.

The chain's surface wasn't engraved with any intricate magic runes, possessing only an ancient, almost rough texture. Yet as his fingertips brushed across it, he felt an obscure and domineering suppressive force.

It was unclear what this chain was made of, but it seemed naturally born to bind. It had an inherent countering effect against Restrictions, energy flows, and even Divine Artifact fluctuations at the level of the Pendulum of Life.

"Thanks."

Zhou Huai casually stored the chain in his storage space.

At a critical moment, this thing might actually serve as a wildcard to turn the tables.

Those two were gone, but this game of chess was far from over.

Where on earth was Kujo Koji?

Caesar stood in the empty basement, his brows furrowed.

The Soldier Beetles had already chewed the mansion full of holes, even turning over the mouse holes beneath the foundation, yet they still couldn't find any trace of Kujo Koji.

Watching Polina and Kalen recede into the distance, Zhou Huai's vision scanned the empty, dead mansion through Caesar's eyes.

His previously tense nerves loosened, and a realization pierced through the fog.

Wait!

He had been ignoring a location all along.

The Ise Grand Shrine!

Back then, he had heard Nakamura Shinichiro casually mention that deep beneath the Ise Grand Shrine lay the entrance to an ancient ruin—a Forbidden Land that even the Omiya Family didn't dare lightly set foot in.

If there was anywhere in all of Tokyo where performing a sacrificial ritual was safest, where the massive energy required to resurrect a god could be accommodated without being easily interrupted by the outside world...

It had to be inside those ruins!

Damn it! It was right under his nose all along!

Having figured this out, Zhou Huai's heart tightened, a surge of urgency rushing straight to his head.

He had to hurry and get all his Avatars to the Ise Grand Shrine!

However, just as this thought arose—

"Buzz—"

An extremely sharp ringing sound echoed in his main body's mind without warning.

A sharp, piercing pain plunged into his cerebral cortex, churning wildly.

"Ugh..."

Zhou Huai's vision blurred, and the world began to spin out of control.

His soul was dragged out of his body by an invisible giant hand, and his consciousness was severed along with it.

His consciousness was forcefully bounced back into his main body.

In Donghai City, inside the bedroom of the courtyard house left by his mother.

Zhou Huai's body in the wheelchair shook violently, and he fell toward the floor uncontrollably.

Thud!

A heavy sound echoed.

He fell heavily onto the cold floor.

Waves of sharp pain hit his brain, and his soul was cracking inch by inch. His vision was filled with static, and the sounds around his ears grew intermittently distant and close.

He wanted to open his mouth to call Uncle Fu at the door, but he couldn't make a sound, only able to emit faint gasps.

An intense wave of fatigue surged over him, drowning out his sanity.

That was a signal that his soul power had been completely overdrawn.

It seems... I've reached my limit?

Zhou Huai lay weakly on the ground, his fingers scratching powerless at the floor.

Am I going to die?

At this most critical, most fatal moment?

Damn it...

I was so close.

I had already guessed Kujo Koji's location.

Why did it have to be now!

In his mind, he called out the System's name over and over, trying to seek that final ray of hope.

"System! System! Give me a recovery potion! No matter the cost!"

"System! Answer me!"

However, that usually mechanical voice remained completely silent now.

The System interface in his mind also turned grey, crashing along with his blurring consciousness.

Boundless darkness surged from all directions, quickly swallowing what little remained of his vision.

A moment later, Zhou Huai could no longer hold on. His eyelids closed heavily like a thousand catties, and he sank into an endless abyss of darkness.

...

At the same time.

Sakura Country, Tokyo.

It was a picture epic enough to be written into history, yet utterly filled with despair.

The exact second Zhou Huai fell unconscious.

Above the ruins of the West Gate, Yasuo, who had been slaughtering in all directions, raised his longsword. Golden lightning was still dancing on the tip of the blade, but he suddenly froze mid-air.

High in the sky, Gabriel spread his six wings, but his pale gold eyes lost all their luster, becoming hollow and lifeless. He floated there silently, his wings no longer fanning, and though the Holy Light around him remained, it lost its dynamic pressure.

In a corner of the ruins, Gandalf, who was chanting a Forbidden Spell, saw the light at the tip of his staff suddenly extinguish. His whole body maintained the spellcasting posture, frozen in place.

There were also Xiang Yu holding a giant shield, Da Yi drawing a bowstring, Moria lurking in the shadows...

Zhou Huai's seven Avatars stopped all action at the exact same moment.

Their movements froze, turning into marionettes whose strings had been cut.

They just stood there dazed, turning into seven lifelike statues, completely motionless.

And right at that moment.

The greatest mutation in Tokyo was rapidly taking place.

"Ahhh—!!!"

An extremely shrill scream erupted from the evacuating crowd.

Everyone turned their heads in terror.

A running middle-aged man suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He was choked by an invisible hand, clawing frantically at his own throat, his eyes bulging out.

Next, a terrifying scene unfolded.

His previously full and rosy skin began to shrivel, wrinkle, and turn yellow at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The moisture in his skin was rapidly drained, turning completely shriveled.

"Help... help me..."

He reached out a skinny, stick-like hand to grab the person next to him, but the instant he touched the corner of their clothes, he turned into a complete mummified corpse.

Clatter.

The dried corpse fell to the ground, shattering into several fragile pieces.

This was a signal.

Immediately after, the second, the third, the hundredth...

"My hands! What's wrong with my hands?!"

"No! I don't want to die! Save me!"

"Mom! What's wrong with you, Mom?!"

Panic spread wildly through the crowd of tens of thousands.

Whether men, women, young, or old, whether Classer or ordinary people, as long as they were within the boundary of Tokyo, none could escape this terrifying black magic.

Swaths of people fell, turning into mummified corpses.

Their life force turned into tiny, invisible golden specks of light that drifted out from the shriveled corpses, gathering into rivers of gold that ignored physical barriers and rushed wildly toward the exact same direction.

That direction was precisely the Ise Grand Shrine!

The crowd descended into complete chaos.

"Run! Run!"

"This is a sacrifice! The sacrifice has begun!"

Deprived of the Avatars' protection and facing this eerie harvest of death, despair shattered everyone's sanity.

People began pushing, shoving, and trampling each other, their cries shaking heaven and earth.

A Daxia agent, looking at the living hell before him, pressed his communicator with a trembling hand:

"Team Leader, the evacuating crowd is suddenly dying for unknown reasons...?"

"What should we do, Team Leader? What on earth is happening?"

Tang Qi was shocked when he heard the news.

He stood up abruptly from his chair.

His expression was unprecedentedly solemn.

"The Pendulum of Life has been activated!"

"Amaterasu's resurrection ritual... has begun!"