Chapter 761: Kaito Shirogane's Destined Death, The Demon Lord of Absolute Evil
Professor Kento stood within the massive city of Underwood, looking up at the terrifyingly colossal willow tree that defied all real-world logic. A dreamlike sensation lingered in his heart.
This was a breathtaking view that ordinary humans could never see in their entire lifetimes—a "beauty" exclusively enjoyed by Reincarnators and the natives of this world. However, no matter how beautiful something was, the moment it acquired value, it became easily destroyable.
For example, if he currently possessed the power to destroy this massive willow tree and the city of Underwood beneath it, he could probably earn a reward exceeding an S-Rank Singularity Point in one go, unlock a massive number of milestones, and subsequently obtain special titles derived from those milestones.
A Reincarnator didn't need to understand the miracle represented by the birth of this city and this giant willow tree; a Reincarnator only needed to know how to destroy it, and use that destruction to gain power.
[Professor Kento] thought rapidly, trying to understand the mindsets of the Guild Master and his sister.
Before entering this world, the driving force that had always propelled him to enter the Infinite Dimensional Space and various task worlds was the desire to find his sister.
He had originally thought the worst-case scenario was that Ye Zi had been killed in some world and her information wiped.
He never expected the situation to develop beyond his comprehension.
Ye Zi had betrayed the [Infinite Dimensional Space], betrayed the [Reincarnators], and betrayed the [World] they hailed from.
Kento couldn't understand why Ye Zi would go this far, so he tried to empathize.
But the vastness and power of the Little Garden world made it completely impossible for Kento to empathize with it, let alone feel sympathy for it.
Compared to the Little Garden world, their original world was far too fragile. With the previous invasion by the [Void Paradise], Kento also felt a sense of crisis.
We are the weak ones! We Reincarnators are the true weaklings!
It was undeniably true that Reincarnators committed many atrocities, and Kento even agreed that in this generation, Reincarnators like Mercenary Tao were the mainstream.
But so what? Reincarnators were inherently pitiful people passively dragged into the Infinite Dimensions. In order to survive, they were forced into their current states by the behavioral patterns enforced by the Space.
If Reincarnators could survive just by doing good deeds and building good relationships with plot characters, then a massive number of Reincarnators would naturally do so.
Kento's expression calmed. There was no doubt that Ye Zi's ideas were wrong, extreme.
Just like the [King of Miracles], who, because he was too powerful, developed a desire to play in various task worlds, integrate into them, and even make them better.
Ye Zi, too, had developed an arrogance that placed her above ordinary Reincarnators because of her own power.
Thinking of this, Kento smiled bitterly in self-deprecation. Wasn't he exactly the same? It was precisely because of his own weakness that he could stand in the shoes of ordinary Reincarnators to think and justify their actions.
Crack.
A highly pure ruby was crushed. Various illusions instantly appeared before Kento's eyes—a chaotic jumble of images generated from a massive amount of information mixed together, accompanied by various sounds.
The so-called [Tarot Sequence: The High Priestess] required one to find the truth amidst these revelations.
Kento was very skilled at this. He was trying to find a truth, a truth hidden behind the conflict between Ye Zi and the Guild Master.
His brows were tightly knitted as he processed the various premonitions in his mind.
Bang!
More magical fireworks soared and exploded in the sky. It meant another person or Community had initiated a Gift Game with 4-Star authority or higher. Kento knew that right now, two groups were chasing after these dangerous, high-level Gift Games.
Everyone in Azure Sky except him, along with a few members of the No Name Community, and... the group of spirits controlled by Mercenary Tao!
Kento suddenly opened his eyes. He saw a terrifying scene, it was...
The next moment, Kento rushed quickly in a certain direction. He had to warn that person.
The result Ye Zi wants is...
As Kento sprinted rapidly, a certain Gift Game in the sky was breached. Amidst the exploding fireworks, a group of spirits and Hakumen fell from the sky.
Kento had already anticipated where they would appear, so before any of them could speak, he beat them to the punch.
"Quickly, find Mercenary Tao! He's in danger! Ye Zi... Ouroboros's goal isn't for Mercenary Tao to awaken that Demon Lord... she wants to turn Mercenary Tao into a part of the Demon Lord!"
Among the group, only Hakumen understood Kento's words. But her first reaction was to frown in suspicion. She didn't trust the goodwill of others, much less believe that a member of the historically hostile Azure Sky would provide useful information.
Furthermore, turning a Reincarnator into a Demon Lord sounded rather absurd.
But Artoria and Satoru Gojo reacted quickly.
The blackened Artoria, striving to walk the path of a tyrant, highly approved of Mercenary Tao. In his tyrannical, self-centered path, she saw the path of a king uninfluenced by foolish masses.
As for Satoru Gojo, he similarly believed Kaito Shirogane possessed traits akin to his own; both were born outliers. In a sense, they were kindred spirits.
Satoru Gojo vanished instantly. His teleportation via Limitless wasn't entirely perfected yet, but for him now, as long as he knew the rough coordinates, he could teleport there.
Artoria, on the other hand, pointed her holy sword forward, pushing Hakumen aside, her voice cold.
"Move."
Madara Uchiha, who had just returned from a familiar Gift Game, looked at his new body and sneered twice. He hadn't obtained those eyes, but acquiring an "immortal body" wasn't a bad result.
Madara Uchiha didn't follow the others as they left. Instead, he spoke to Hakumen.
"Brat, we should continue pursuing other Gifts."
Within his eyes, the Sharingan spun, and terrifying chakra appeared on the surface of his body. Hakumen realized that Madara Uchiha, having successfully obtained a [Reanimated Body] through a Gift, had developed massive ambitions for this world.
She thought for a moment and didn't stop him. Regardless of what happened between Mercenary Tao and the mastermind behind the scenes, getting involved wouldn't yield very good results for her.
Conversely, taking advantage of this time to continue acquiring power was the most crucial thing!
Madara Uchiha needed her knowledge, and she needed his power.
The two turned and disappeared into the crowd.
...
When Kaito Shirogane walked out of the cave, Artoria, Professor Kento, Satoru Gojo, and Black Face were already waiting outside.
Because of the layers of barriers outside the cave, none of them could enter.
"Ho? To think this kind of lineup is waiting here for me. Let me guess what you want to say..."
"Probably that Ms. Ouroboros hid certain truths, that she used me, and that I'm going to face some terrible fate?"
Kaito Shirogane's expression even carried a hint of a smile.
Kento couldn't understand Mercenary Tao's state of mind at all. Was this him pretending to be strong, or was it pure arrogance?
"Do you even realize the severity of the situation, Lord Mercenary Tao?!"
"Ye Zi wants to wipe out both you and the Guild Master in one fell swoop!"
"Not only that, she's going to use this incident to successfully introduce [Reincarnators] into this world's timeline. Ultimately, Reincarnators and the Infinite Dimensional Space will be directly exposed to the 3-Digit and 2-Digit big shots of this world. She wants to... use the Little Garden world's characteristic of connecting various worlds to unite all [Planar] factions to completely strangle the newly born Space faction in its crib, she..."
Kento's face was pale, his breath ragged. Ye Zi's madness exceeded his imagination; it was a talent and ambition he did not possess.
"So what?"
Kaito Shirogane looked at Kento somewhat strangely. Although the two of them had a bit of history, their relationship certainly wasn't good enough for him to go to such lengths to "help" him.
Their relationship, at best, was that Kaito had helped him complete his trial in the Demon Slayer world, and then almost killed him in the D45 world.
Whether Kento almost died or completed his trial, Kaito Shirogane's actions had nothing to do with him; he slaughtered the Upper Moons in the Demon Slayer world purely for his own sake.
Kento was taken aback, then immediately explained.
"Lord Mercenary Tao, you are no longer just a solitary Reincarnator! The Dimensional War is about to begin. Not even mentioning that, just the foreseeable and unstoppable chaos in the real world will require Reincarnators like you and the Guild Master to..."
"So, what does any of this have to do with you, or with me?"
Kaito Shirogane looked down at Kento condescendingly. This weakling seemed to have developed some extra expectations of him.
No, it was more accurate to say that it was exactly these kinds of weaklings who unconsciously developed reliance and expectations of the strong. Eventually, those reliance and expectations would become a shackle. When the strong couldn't meet their expectations, they would harbor resentment, blaming everything on the strong who shouldered the world.
Artoria also looked at Kaito Shirogane at the right moment. She seemed able to sense the thoughts of this cold-hearted host.
Kento was cut off by Mercenary Tao again, completely failing to understand what the man meant for a moment.
Kaito Shirogane walked past everyone. Behind him, a flag faintly shimmered, as if planted into his back, gleaming with golden light in the air.
Just seeing this thing up close enveloped the group in an intense aura of goodwill.
This made both Satoru Gojo and Artoria feel uncomfortable.
Seeing the item from his revelations appear, the sense of crisis in Kento's heart swelled even further.
"Lord Mercenary Tao! Ye Zi is deceiving you! With the Guild Master and Izayoi Sakamaki around, it's absolutely impossible for her to destroy the [Giant Tree of Life] to release the [Demon Lord of Absolute Evil]. She told you to bear the flag of [Absolute Evil] so you would become the incarnation of the Demon Lord!"
Seeing Mercenary Tao still unreactive, walking forward step by step, Kento's expression twisted in struggle.
Whether Mercenary Tao lived or died didn't actually matter that much to him personally. But after realizing the underlying conflict between the Planes and the Space, Mercenary Tao, a rapidly rising powerful Reincarnator, possessed a different kind of value.
"That is your [Destined Death]!"
"You're going to die, My Lord!"
Screech!
An intense ring of a sword echoed. Black Face's tachi hadn't even left its scabbard, yet a sharp sensation, like a blade piercing skin, was already palpable. Black Face only drew the blade an inch, yet the Professor felt he couldn't even maintain his breathing. The next moment, terrifying spiritual pressure erupted.
BZZT!
Professor Kento instantly fell to his knees. Clutching his heart, his entire body felt drained, as if the world had turned black and white. He was as weak as if he had entered a near-death state.
With a tap of his toes, Kaito Shirogane had already flown away, with Artoria and Black Face immediately following.
Only Satoru Gojo remained. After the Professor recovered slightly, he wanted to continue pleading, but Satoru Gojo shook his head and crouched down.
"It's useless. That guy has already made up his mind, no one can change it. However..."
"Hey there, buddy. Mind telling me about that guy's [Destined Death]?"
"I'm very interested."
Satoru Gojo wore his blindfold, but eyes began to open along his arms, crimson cursed energy spreading from them.
He was thoroughly repulsed by the concept of "Destined Death." Having learned of his own ugly end from that "Millennium Bug," he found the whole concept utterly displeasing~
...
ZZT!
Pitch-black lightning erupted from the sky, and a terrifying aura that instilled fear exploded outwards. Accompanied by that ring of black lightning, it swept across the entirety of Underwood almost instantaneously.
Kaito Shirogane, who had just returned to the city, instinctively unleashed his Conqueror's Haki. His aura, interwoven with crimson and pitch-black, was instantly suppressed by that tyrannical, tragic, almost despair-inducing terrifying pressure.
His Conqueror's Haki was almost entirely pushed back into his body, making Kaito Shirogane realize the user of that Haki just now possessed astonishing strength.
He followed the source and saw Izayoi Sakamaki and Sousuke dropping from the sky together.
Izayoi Sakamaki still had something resembling black lightning wrapped around his body, which he casually waved away.
At this moment, a smile still lingered on Izayoi Sakamaki's face.
"To think there's a guy like that... I'm getting more and more interested in your worlds~"
Sousuke didn't reply. He simply took out another flask of rum and drank by himself.
Through the recording of the Black King, he roughly understood the extent of what Ye Zi could achieve with the Queen's Gift.
The power she could manifest depended on two things:
First, she could only use the power she had seen the target execute; she couldn't record abilities the target hadn't displayed in front of her.
Second, the upper limit of the target's power seemed to be bound by the Queen's own power...
At the very least, purely in terms of destructive capability, the recording of the Black King was identical to when Luffy had first transformed into the Black King.
In that case, the power hidden in Ye Zi's hands was indeed enough to stir up massive trouble.
The descent of that Beast would also become a reality due to the Halloween Queen's status and power.
Even in the Little Garden world, defeating the Mother of Creation from Mesopotamian mythology wouldn't be easy, especially given their current location in the outer gates.
"She actually had a Black King hidden away. Hahaha, not bad, not bad at all!"
Kaito Shirogane appeared before Sousuke and Izayoi Sakamaki, extending an invitation to both of them.
"Want to go try out that 6-Star Gift Game together?"