"How rare. You're much more willing to listen than the last time we met."
A distinctively mischievous grin appeared on the Monkey Divine Lord's face. In the blink of an eye, he casually rolled over and lay back down on the pile of hay.
"However, my friend, I have no reason whatsoever to answer any of your questions. As for you wanting to fight the me who regains his true nature—that's even more laughable. That version of me would no longer be the current me, so it would have nothing to do with me at all."
"If you had truly recovered the legendary temperament of one who battled heaven and earth, I, Luo Hao, would not look down on you. I might even befriend you." The proud Cult Leader looked at the monkey before her with undisguised disdain. "But now you've reduced yourself to something so petty and base, bowing and scraping before foreign barbarians beyond the pale. You're no different from livestock... spineless beyond measure!"
"Th-This..."
Hikari was stunned that Luo Hao dared to speak such harsh words to a divine lord. Yet even more unexpected was the fact that the Monkey Divine Lord shamelessly nodded in agreement.
"That's right. As you can see, I was livestock to begin with."
Those words caused a flicker of anger to flash across Luo Hao's previously composed face—and at the same time, a subtle ripple passed through Satsuki's gaze.
For some reason, the moment she heard that sentence, an impulse arose within her to kill this monkey. But very quickly, reason suppressed the surge of emotion.
She knew perfectly well why she had felt that way. It was the reverse side of loving the house and its crow—when affection reached a certain extreme, it could turn into hatred of anything that tarnished it.
If the being before her had merely been an ordinary god, entirely unrelated to the land that had once existed within her soul, then no matter how discordant or despicable it seemed, Satsuki would not have cared.
But once it bore that name, anyone deeply influenced by its stories could not tolerate negative labels that clashed with their understanding being attached to it—even if the label was self-imposed, or even if there was no real connection between them at all.
Only now did Satsuki begin to vaguely understand why Luo Hao harbored such intense killing intent toward this monkey.
However, compared to Luo Hao's extremity, Satsuki could take a broader view. She had traversed multiple worlds and knew that the existence before her was not the one she believed it to be—merely a Heretic God with the same name, the same origin, and the same species.
So before Luo Hao could speak again, Satsuki stepped forward from the crowd and asked directly, "If you were to break free from the Bimawen seal now, would you take revenge on those who sealed you?"
"...Huh?"
The Monkey Divine Lord looked at Satsuki in puzzlement. He tilted his head, thought for a moment, then replied, "No idea. Let them wait obediently. As long as they don't do anything strange, I probably won't bother with them."
He really has... fallen into the most abject state imaginable.
Hearing that answer, the peerless beauty dressed in Hanfu had already made her decision of Judgment.
"Then let us begin."
In the next instant, everyone present felt the curse power in the air surge explosively. Its source was the massive amount of power suddenly released from within Luo Hao's body.
She had not invoked her Authority as a Godslayer. Instead, she was using a form of sorcery similar to what Erica and Lily had once employed. Yet the difference between them was like that between a firefly and the bright moon—they were not on the same level at all.
Even setting aside her martial extremity and her Godslayer Authority, Luo Hao herself stood at the very pinnacle of the world's sorcerers.
"The mica screen casts deep candle shadows—"
From the beauty's throat flowed a melodic chant, reminiscent of zithers and lutes, her voice rich and pleasing.
"The long river sinks, the dawn stars fade. Chang'e must regret stealing the elixir; across the blue sea and azure sky, her heart aches night after night."
This was the incantation for her sorcery. Satsuki was no stranger to its content—it came from the Tang dynasty poet Li Shangyin's poem Chang'e. What puzzled her was why Luo Hao's technique was connected to this poem.
Could it be that this Godslayer's cultivation text had been passed down from Chang'e herself? What an absurd world this truly was.
The chanting continued, shifting from Li Shangyin's Chang'e to Li Bai's Tang poem Drinking Alone Under the Moon · Asked by My Old Friend Jia Chun to Inquire, and finally concluded with the line With whom does Chang'e dwell alone? as the closing words of the spell.
In Satsuki's eyes, the vast curse power took on the shape of a dragon, then surged violently into the Dragon-Slaying Blade in Hikari's hands.
Hikari's gaze turned vacant. She drew the Dragon-Slaying Blade from its white wooden scabbard. As Chinese incantations began to spill from her lips, she moved under the blade's guidance, circling the divine stable to begin dismantling the seal.
With clumsy, deliberate steps, she walked around the Monkey Divine Lord—who stood in the center clicking his tongue in amazement—while swinging the blade in all directions and chanting the unknown spell dwelling within it.
The square corridor that once connected the mortal world and the Netherworld suddenly expanded. Even the walls of the stable swelled in size in a single breath.
At some point, the Monkey Divine Lord's entire body turned to stone, leaving him completely immobile—just as that other being had once been born from stone. When the stone encasing him cracked like an eggshell, he too would be reborn into his deviant form.
Yet at this very moment, the divine lord lifted his gaze toward the sky. Within his normally playful eyes, an expression of rare and profound shock emerged.
"Even if dragon-serpent blood and divine power can rouse me, a venom that recalls my savage nature... what kind of outrageous dragon god have you brought here as a sacrifice?"
With those words, the once-azure sky was suddenly overtaken by a strange crimson hue—not the usual vermilion, but a near-blood red. Furious winds howled through the void as an enormous dragon shadow, over a thousand li in length, with stag antlers and a serpentine body, coursed through the clouds.
Its immense body coiled and rolled through the heavens. Though it bore no wings, the dragon traced graceful arcs through the sky, its scales refracting a brilliance like a blood-soaked paradise. Clad in magnificent crimson scales, faintly visible through the clouds, its horns curved around its head like a regal crown.
All light between heaven and earth was eclipsed by that colossal silhouette. Within sight remained only two enormous dragon eyes gleaming from the clouds.
As those eyes closed, the once-bright sky of the Netherworld plunged instantly into darkness. When they opened again, light returned to heaven and earth. Beneath such a phenomenon, it was as though the cosmos itself had been inverted in an instant.
"Th-That's... a dragon god? How is that possible?"
Even as a Godslayer, Erica's voice carried a rare tremor.
It was not as though she had never witnessed powerful Heretic Gods or dragon-kind. Verethragna, Melqart, and the trinity Athena were all formidable among Heretic Gods—nearly without equal even among true deities. The Netherworld Black Dragon summoned by Marquis Voban was likewise a form of dragon god.
Yet compared to the dragon before them—one that eclipsed the sky, whose opened eyes brought day and closed eyes brought night—their divine power and oppressive presence were utterly incomparable. In this moment, those once-arrogant gods seemed no stronger than infants.
At the very moment that the resplendent dragon body manifested in the sky of the Netherworld, Liliana and Yuri outside sensed the anomaly at once.
Liliana could feel an enormous surge of curse power erupting from within the passage. It seemed that someone had invoked an extremely high-tier sorcery. The mere aftershocks of the constructed ritual formula were detectable even from afar. This was no ordinary spell.
The silver-haired Fairy Knight possessed the aptitude of a witch, while Yuri Mariya had the qualification to receive revelation. Both were far more sensitive than ordinary magi, capable of perceiving the flow of curse power and the aura of sorcery with far greater sharpness.
And the changes that followed soon escalated to a level visible even to the naked eye.
Above the open inner courtyard, the clouds in the sky seemed, in an instant, to be drawn by some immense force. They began to swirl and coil, forming a vortex like a raging storm.
"Judging from this level of sorcery and the way it's constructed... if I'm not mistaken, it must be Cult Leader Luo Hao who has invoked some spell."
Liliana swiftly reached her conclusion and turned to Yuri Mariya. "A grand spell that would normally require dozens of high-ranking magi to cast—and she can accomplish it alone... That Luo Hao truly is a monster. Yuri, have you sensed anything unusual?"
Yuri clasped her fingers together and closed her eyes, actively invoking her Spirit Vision.
A violet glow lit up around her. After a moment, she opened her eyes and said, "It's strange. I can sense some hidden observers lurking in the shadows, but I can't make out their actual forms."
"It seems the ones who laid down the formation were just as startled by the disturbance here."
Liliana pondered briefly. "Yuri, can you use Spirit Vision to see what's happening inside that passage?"
"I... I can. But is that really alright?"
Yuri cast a conflicted glance toward the dim lattice of the shrine. In truth, she wanted to see what was happening within. Her younger sister was inside, and she was deeply concerned for Hikari's safety.
Unable to restrain herself any longer, she finally activated her Spirit Vision and peered into the depths of the shadowed corridor.
Her sight crossed the dark passage in an instant. Compared to the dozens of minutes it had taken the others to reach the square pit, Yuri's Spirit Vision chased the immense spiritual power and arrived within that divine domain in a single moment.
Immediately, she perceived the violent transformation unfolding across that world. Crimson light filtered through the clouds, dyeing everything within her field of vision in red.
The phenomenon compelled her to look up at the sky.
And then—she saw the resplendent dragon body within the clouds.
It was impossible to estimate how colossal it truly was. The entire sky seemed filled with the dragon's body and divine power. Its coiling form was clad in scales reflecting red light. Its twin eyes, like sun and moon, radiated the only illumination within that Netherworld space.
"Is that... a dragon god?"
Witnessing such a magnificent divine being, Yuri could only stare in stunned silence. At her ear came Liliana's voice, transmitted through curse power.
"Yuri, you just mentioned a dragon god? Is it the result of the transformation of that peculiar girl beside Satsuki?"
Still immersed in Spirit Vision, Yuri had no time to properly explain the shocking sight before her. She answered blankly, "I did see a dragon. Its divine signature is identical to that girl who called herself Candle Nine Yin. And my Spirit Vision cannot perceive her origin or source either..."
"If that's the case, then it must be the young lady at Satsuki-sama's side. Most likely she's providing dragon god blood to break the Bimawen seal."
"...Providing dragon god blood?"
For a moment, Yuri did not know how to describe what she had seen—because in her perception, the dragon god that eclipsed the sky surpassed every Heretic God she had ever witnessed.
Would such a powerful existence truly be willing to serve as a sacrifice?
The same question surfaced in the mind of the Demonic Cult Leader below.
Under the gaze of that colossal divine dragon, even she—who proclaimed herself peerless beneath heaven and the ultimate pinnacle of martial prowess—felt an unprecedented pressure.
"I say—my friend, if you seek a challenge, wouldn't the one in the sky be more suitable?"
The Monkey Divine Lord was now completely petrified. He could only produce sound through divine power. "The one who built this palace sealed my divine core with sorcery. Thanks to that, the former Heretic God has become nothing more than a monkey who cracks jokes. But compared to my talent for jesting, you outdo me—you've actually thrown someone like the Candle Dragon in here."
"Candle Dragon?!"
Luo Hao's eyes froze as she looked skyward. As a Godslayer of the Chinese region, she was naturally no stranger to that name. She suddenly turned toward the calm-faced Satsuki. "Was this your plan? Were you preparing to make your move against me here?"
Lu Yinghua, Luo Hao's disciple, likewise assumed a battle stance. Yet much of his attention was drawn to the Candle Dragon in the sky.
"It was merely a coincidence."
Satsuki had not known that the divine blood of a dragon-serpent godhead could lift the Bimawen seal. Her original purpose in taking Divine Ancestor Angela had only been the dragon-serpent seal within her.
By using the Authority of the Three Divine Kings' Sacred Wheel to repair the shattered dragon-serpent godhead seal inside Divine Ancestor Angela and further modify it spatially, her body could temporarily host a fragment of Candle Nine Yin's will. If necessary, through spirit invocation, it could even manifest the true body of the Candle Dragon that had once been sealed within the moon in the Inuyasha world.
However, the power and brilliance displayed by this Candle Dragon form still exceeded Satsuki's expectations. Though this dragon body was far inferior to the Star Dragon she manifested in her Sage Mode · Candle Dragon state, it had already far surpassed the power scale of this world.
If such a colossal dragon body were to appear directly in the mortal world, the mere changes caused by its breathing might be enough to trigger an extinction-level calamity.
Just as the atmosphere below grew taut as drawn blades, a clear young girl's voice descended from the sky.
The mysterious girl, Candle Nine Yin, now stood atop the immense Candle Dragon's head. With one hand pressing down her wind-tossed hair, she spoke in a voice imbued with majestic divine authority. "Lady Satsuki, may we begin?"
"You may."
Though separated by a vast distance, Candle Nine Yin easily heard Satsuki's command.
Controlling her original dragon body, she drew a wound at the tip of one dragon claw. From it fell a single drop of golden dragon god blood, within which visible divine power swirled.
If it had been the original Divine Ancestor Angela, she would likely have needed to sacrifice all her power and blood to help the Monkey Divine Lord fully transform into a Heretic God. But for a dragon body as powerful as the Candle Dragon's, a mere insignificant drop of dragon blood and divine power was sufficient.
Though that drop of dragon god blood seemed small in the sky, as it fell under gravity it grew larger and larger. By the time it struck the ground, it had become a massive sphere nearly the size of the stable itself, enveloping the petrified Monkey Divine Lord within.
"To think that I would one day drink deeply of dragon blood. Would this count as breaking a precept?"
Though he spoke lightly, there was now an unmistakable surge of power within the Monkey Divine Lord's tone.
Even in his fully petrified state, his eyes remained flesh. Gradually, they turned red—the whites of his eyes becoming crimson, while his pupils shifted to gold.
These were the spiritual eyes once possessed by that unparalleled hero—eyes capable of seeing through all evil.
Fiery Golden Eyes.