Ise Grand Shrine.

Sakura Country's most sacred Shinto Holy Land, the supreme shrine dedicated to Amaterasu.

Usually, ancient trees towered to the sky here, solemn and dignified, strictly forbidding outsiders from stepping foot inside except for specific Shinto priests and members of the royal family.

But now, this thousand-year-old ancient shrine was shrouded in a thick blood-colored barrier.

The golden torrent of life, endlessly converging from Tokyo City, was frantically pouring deep into the shrine through the vortex at the top of the barrier.

On the outer perimeter of the shrine stood densely packed Shinto priests clad in hunting robes and fully armed Kujo Family death troopers.

"Whoosh—!"

A sharp piercing sound through the air suddenly rang out.

Caesar's black shadow, carrying an overwhelming aura, appeared in the sky above the main gate of the shrine.

"Who is that?!"

"How dare you trespass into the shrine's Forbidden Land!"

The guards below snapped back to reality, and several high-ranking priests on guard duty shouted sternly.

In response to them was only Caesar's cold gaze and his relentless charge without slowing down in the slightest.

Zhou Huai didn't even bother talking nonsense.

With a thought,

A pitch-black chain covered in eerie runes appeared out of thin air in Caesar's hand.

It was precisely the mysterious chain gifted to him by Kalen, once used to Seal the Pendulum of Life.

"Shatter for me!"

Caesar made no fancy moves; his arm muscles bulged as he swung the chain in a wide arc, slamming it brutally down onto the thick golden barrier below!

Wuu—!

The black chain cut a sharp black afterimage through the air, like a streak of black lightning striking down upon the golden eggshell.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Only a crisp, terrifying cracking sound.

"Crack!"

The moment it touched the black chain, the Formation barrier—strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast—shattered like tempered glass hit by a sledgehammer.

Countless cracks spread frantically in all directions, centered around the point of impact.

In less than a second,

Boom—!!!

The layered Formation barriers collapsed into a sky full of golden shards, like a rain of poignant light.

"Enemy attack!!!"

"Baka! The Formation is broken?!"

"Quick! Protect the shrine! Protect the ritual!"

As the barrier shattered, the interior of the shrine exploded into chaos.

Countless Shinto priests in white hunting robes and Kujo Family death troopers in tight black tactical suits poured out of the various halls like startled ants.

Holding Magical Artifacts and sharp blades, faces filled with fanaticism and resolution, they recklessly charged toward the intruders in the sky.

This was Kujo Koji's final line of defense and the core area of the resurrection ritual.

The guard force here was far beyond what anyone outside could imagine.

Looking as far as the eye could see, heads swayed densely; there were no less than several thousand auras reaching high-tier Professional level alone.

Even several high priests in red robes radiated the terrifying pressure of S-Rank Experts, muttering incantations to unleash a forbidden technique together.

"Intruder! Desecrating the gods is a capital offense!"

An S-Rank high priest glared fiercely, violently waving the Gohei in his hand as a thick beam of white light shot into the sky, attempting to blast Caesar to death.

However, Caesar didn't even bat an eye.

"A bunch of ants."

"Clear the field."

As his cold order was issued,

Two figures, long ready for action, fell like meteors, crashing violently into the surging crowd.

A low and resonant soft shout rang out clearly above the noisy battlefield.

Immediately after, a dazzling blue thunderbolt exploded in the thickest part of the crowd!

Yasuo was as fast as lightning, the longsword in his hand already turned into an afterimage invisible to the naked eye.

【Ten Thousand Thunder Attraction】!

Rumble—!

High above in the Nine Heavens, thunderclouds suddenly gathered.

Countless thick pillars of thunder poured down like divine punishment, turning the area within a thousand-meter radius into a marsh of lightning slime.

The death troopers and priests charging at the very front didn't even have time to scream before being turned to charcoal by the violent power of thunder.

Yasuo treaded on lightning, weaving through the crowd. Every swing of his sword was accompanied by a crescent-shaped thunder Sword Qi.

Wherever the Sword Qi passed, severed limbs flew and flesh was ground to pulp.

The S-Rank high priest who had just launched an attack felt a chill at his neck before he could even draw back his wand.

His field of vision spun.

He saw his own headless corpse, spurting blood, slowly collapsing.

On the other side of the battlefield, however, was an even more terrifying scene.

The originally bright daylight eerily darkened in that area.

Moria, like an elegant noble, hovered quietly in the low sky, his pale fingers lightly twitching.

【Eternal Night Domain】!

Black mist rapidly spread outward with him as the center, devouring all light completely.

In that pitch-black mist, countless pairs of crimson eyes lit up.

Those were the Shadow Assassins he summoned, as well as the "shadows" he reanimated.

"Ah! What is this?!"

"My shadow! My shadow is biting me!"

"Help! I can't see... Urgh!"

Desperate screams rose and fell continuously.

Although Moria's method of fighting was not as grand and loud as Yasuo's, its efficiency was not inferior at all.

He was a pitiless reaper, leaving behind only shriveled corpses and aimlessly wandering undead wherever he passed.

Under the crushing power of two SS-Rank combatants, the defensive strength of Ise Grand Shrine was as fragile as paper.

Without an SS-Rank Expert presiding, no matter how large the numbers, it was merely sending them to their deaths.

Zhou Huai ignored the slaughter below.

He had only one task—to find the entrance.

"Go, my children."

Caesar opened his arms, his black cloak billowing behind him.

Buzz buzz buzz—

Countless "Information Bugs," tiny as dust and transparent all over, swarmed out from the Hive Space, turning into an invisible cloud of mist and rapidly infiltrating every corner of the shrine.

They drilled into cracks in the ground, crawled across roof beams, and penetrated barriers, sending back real-time information of everything inside the shrine straight into Zhou Huai's mind.

Main hall... empty.

Side hall... empty.

Treasure pavilion... still empty.

Zhou Huai's brows creased slightly.

That intense sense of unease grew stronger and stronger with the passage of time.

He could feel that his main body was rapidly weakening; that brief period of "terminal lucidity" was like a candle about to burn out, on the verge of being extinguished.

"Where is it? Where on earth is it?!"

Zhou Huai forcibly suppressed the anxiety in his heart, concentrating all his Mental Strength on controlling the Information Bugs.

Suddenly,

An Information Bug that had drilled beneath an unassuming ancient shrine in the deepest part of the complex sent back a strange wave of fluctuation.

The space there was extremely unstable.

Furthermore, the final destination of that golden torrent of life converging from all across the country seemed to be right there!

"Found it!"

Caesar's eyes flashed with a brilliant light.

No longer hesitating, he controlled the armored insect throne, transforming into a black streak of light that shattered several palaces along the way, charging straight toward that ancient shrine.

The remaining Avatars arrived at the same time, following closely behind.

That shrine was situated at the deepest part of the complex, surrounded by a dense forest of thousand-year-old ancient cedars, appearing extraordinarily quiet and secluded.

But at this moment, it was filled with a suffocating sense of pressure.

The doors of the shrine were tightly shut, covered in dense Seal Talismanic Incantations.

In front of the shrine doors stood an emaciated old man wearing black and gold hunting robes.

Leaning on a walking stick with cloudy eyes, he appeared frail and vulnerable.

But the moment Caesar and his two companions descended, the old man abruptly raised his head, and a powerful aura belonging to a top-tier S-Rank burst forth with a roar!

"This is Forbidden Land! Any trespassers..."

The old man's voice was raspy, just as he tried to utter a formal warning.

"Noisy!"

Caesar had no intention of slowing down at all, pointing out a single finger directly.

"Yasuo!"

Clang—!

An extremely swift beam of sword light instantly pierced through heaven and earth.

Before the old man could finish speaking, before he even had time to raise a defensive barrier,

His body froze on the spot.

The next second,

A red line of blood extended from between his eyebrows all the way down to his crotch.

"Splatter!"

The old man's body was cleanly sliced into two, collapsing to both sides.

In front of Zhou Huai, who was pressed for time, any obstacle had only one outcome—instant kill.

Without even casting a glance at the old man's corpse, Caesar directly controlled the Soldier Beetles to violently smash open the shrine's doors.

Boom!

The doors shattered, and the scene inside was finally revealed to everyone.

No statue, no altar table.

The entire interior of the shrine was completely empty.

Except at the center, floating a massive spatial vortex over ten meters in diameter.

The vortex exhibited an eerie purple-black color, slowly rotating while emanating heart-palpitating spatial fluctuations.

The grand, majestic golden torrent of life in the sky was endlessly pouring into this vortex.

Like a greedy black hole, frantically devouring the vitality of this entire country.

"This is... the ruin entrance!"