Kujo Koji knelt prostrate on the cold ground, his forehead pierced by sharp ice shards, and blood trickled down the bridge of his nose, dripping into the snow and blooming like clusters of desolate, bright red plum blossoms.

Yet, he could not feel any pain at all.

His bloodshot eyeballs were almost bursting out of their sockets as he stared at the giant golden cocoon before him, which radiated endless Divine Might, his entire body trembling violently from extreme excitement.

"Ancestor! My name is Kujo Koji!"

"And I am your twenty-third-generation descendant!"

The light on the surface of the golden cocoon flickered, and the thunderous, muffled heartbeat calmed down slightly.

"Twenty-third generation..."

The voice echoed across the empty Peak of the snowy mountain, shaking the surrounding snow down in rustles.

"Did I... not die long ago?"

Hearing this, Kujo Koji wept tears of joy and hurriedly kowtowed heavily, shouting, "The ancestor's heroic soul is undying! In order to let you return to the mortal world and recreate the glory of our Kujo Family from back then, this Junior did not hesitate to use the Divine Artifact 'Pendulum of Life' and sacrifice the lives of the entire country, all to awaken your will!"

"I earnestly implore the ancestor... to bless our Sakura Country for another five hundred years!"

"Is that so..."

The voice inside the golden cocoon fell into a brief silence.

That terrifying pressure also restrained itself by a few fractions. Having slumbered for over five hundred years, the massive amount of memories and the information before him clashed violently, making it momentarily impossible for this expert who once stood at the Peak of the world to digest it.

It was precisely in this brief gap.

Several figures that had been blown away by the golden ripples in the distance wobbled as they stood up from the snowdrifts.

Zhou Huai manipulated Caesar, his expression solemn as never before.

Although he felt the terrifying aura within the golden cocoon, he had not completely given up hope.

"There's still a chance!"

Although Kujo Naruya had already awakened in the golden cocoon and his resurrection was a foregone conclusion, his current state was extremely unstable.

Just like Kujo Masakage who had been resurrected previously, although he possessed the Realm of SS-Level, he appeared in a senile posture, and his strength was greatly discounted.

That was because the sacrificial ritual had been interrupted halfway, causing him to fail to recover to his Peak state.

And the current Kujo Naruya was no exception.

An SSS-Level at their Peak and an SSS-Level just awakened in a weakened state were completely two different concepts!

Once Kujo Naruya completely digested this life energy, reshaped his divine body, and returned to his Peak, this battle would truly have no suspense left.

"We must... interrupt this ritual!"

Zhou Huai's main body consciousness was burning frantically, and the clarity brought by a brief flash of lucidity prompted him to make the most decisive choice.

"All Avatars, cover Caesar!"

Accompanied by a mental command.

Avatars like Yasuo, Moria, and Gabriel suddenly erupted with power.

Disregarding their injuries, they transformed into several streaks of light, launching a desperate charge towards the golden cocoon from different directions, attempting to distract the attention of that terrifying will.

Although Kujo Naruya in the golden cocoon was not completely awake and his consciousness was still in Chaos, his instinct as a powerhouse made him perceive those hostile auras around him.

"Hmm?"

A disdainful light hum came from inside the golden cocoon.

"There is a swarm of annoying bugs."

Kujo Koji, kneeling on the ground, changed his expression drastically. He turned his head and looked at those figures rushing up once again, his eyes filled with venomous malice.

He hurriedly shouted at the golden cocoon, "Lord Naruya! Those are invaders from the Great Xia Nation! They killed your descendants, destroyed your divine shrine, and now they even want to stop your complete resurrection!"

"People of Great Xia?"

These three words touched a certain nerve deep within Kujo Naruya's memory.

A killing intent far more violent and colder than before erupted from inside the golden cocoon.

"No one... can stop me."

Boom——!!!

Before the words fell, a majestic golden power was released from the golden cocoon once again.

This power was no longer the indiscriminate ripples from before, but transformed into a substantial golden storm, mixed with a world-destroying will, crushing outward in all directions.

Yasuo and Moria, who were charging at the very front, were instantly blocked by this powerful force, their figures forcibly frozen in mid-air before being heavily flicked away.

"It's coming!"

Zhou Huai's gaze condensed. For a counterattack of this Level, he had long been mentally prepared.

He did not retreat; instead, he manipulated Caesar, facing that terrifying storm and advancing instead of retreating!

"Since conventional methods cannot break that turtle shell..."

"Then we'll fill it with our lives!"

Caesar's pair of eyes hidden beneath the mask flickered with a crazed light.

He spread his arms, and the the void behind him tore open, revealing that gloomy Hive Space.

"Come out! My children!"

Buzz buzz buzz——

Two spine-chilling low-frequency vibration sounds rang out.

Following that, two giant beetles over fifty meters in size, their bodies entirely covered with dark red magma patterns and exuding a destructive aura, crawled out from the Hive.

Hell-Grade Armored Beetles!

These were the highest-Level troop types Caesar could cultivate at present, with each one compressing terrifying energy equivalent to a small tactical nuclear bomb inside its body.

On ordinary days, Zhou Huai could not bear to use such strategic-level resources at all.

But now, he couldn't care less!

"Go! Blow it up for me!"

The two Hell-Grade Armored Beetles let out a shrill screech, the elytra on their backs vibrating crazily as they transformed into two dark red meteors, ignoring the blockade of the golden storm, and fiercely crashed toward the giant golden cocoon in a posture of mutual destruction.

Kujo Naruya inside the golden cocoon also felt the threat of these two energy masses.

"Scram!"

An angry shout resounded.

The golden light surged greatly, attempting to shred these two dirty bugs.

But Zhou Huai had no intention of letting them crash into it alive.

The moment they were less than a hundred meters away from the golden cocoon.

"Explode!!!"

Rumble——!!!

Two forces that had reached the absolute extreme of tyranny underwent a tragic counter-charge in mid-air.

Time stood still at this moment.

Following that, an incomparably dazzling white sphere of light expanded atop the snowy mountain Peak.

The brilliance of that light instantly overshadowed the sun in the sky, illuminating the heaven and earth within a radius of a hundred miles in a stark white.

Only then came the deafening loud roar.

A giant mushroom cloud thousands of meters high, carrying raging flames and thunder, soared into the sky, piercing straight into the clouds!

The terrifying shockwave swept outward.

For a time, the entire towering snowy mountain began to shake violently, triggering a magnitude-12 mega-earthquake.

The mountain body split apart, and the millennia-old snow vaporized under the high temperature, turning into rolling white fog.

Violent winds howled, blizzards rolled backward, and a doomsday natural disaster descended.

Those members of the Kujo Family on the outer periphery of the snowy mountain who were still lingering on before their deaths did not even let out a single groan under this devastating impact; they were vaporized by the high temperature, leaving no bones remaining.

Except for Kujo Koji, whose protection was intentionally guarded by the power released from the golden cocoon, there was no other living Kujo Family bloodline remaining around.

Even Kujo Koji, who had been clamoring just moments before, was shaken to the point where blood bled from his seven facial orifices. Lying flat on the ground like an ant in a fierce gale, his eyes were filled with terror.

Long afterward.

The aftermath of the explosion gradually dissipated.

Amidst the smoke and snow mist filling the sky, that altar had long since vanished, leaving a huge meteorite crater tens of meters deep in its place.

And at the center of the meteorite crater.

That giant golden cocoon, although its light had dimmed by a few fractions and even some fine cracks had appeared on its surface, still stood tall and unfallen.

The defense of an SSS-Level was truly terrifying to this extent.