Shinji was unaware of what happened outside the Sky Dome Mountain Range.
After completely annihilating the insect swarm, Shinji released the genjutsu, and his consciousness, which had retreated into his inner world, took over his body.
With the return of his consciousness, noise reappeared in Shinji's brain.
"Still not eliminated?"
Shinji was slightly stunned.
He thought that annihilating the swarm would make these noises disappear from his brain, but things were not as he expected.
Fortunately, the noise had decreased significantly and was currently within a tolerable limit.
Subsequently, Shinji felt a long-lost sense of exhaustion.
He sighed gently, "How long has it been since I felt this..."
Whether in the duel with Nagato during the Fourth Shinobi World War, the fierce fight with Isshiki Otsutsuki afterward, or the confrontation with the Reproductive Hegemon in the Six Rings World, he had never been this exhausted. So he hadn't experienced this feeling for a very, very long time.
However, this didn't mean the Hegemon behind the 'World Annihilation Society' was stronger than the Reproductive Hegemon. It was just that when he controlled his body in battle, he would assess the situation and generally wouldn't push himself to this extent. But while controlled by genjutsu, he was a ruthless killing machine, lacking nuanced grasp of the situation.
Next, Shinji looked around, his expression darkening.
The fierce battle lasting three days and two nights had almost leveled the entire Sky Dome Mountain Range. This was with Shinji intentionally controlling the combat range. Otherwise, with the power of him and the Hegemon, leveling more than half of World No. 5's surface wouldn't have been difficult.
Even though Shinji had controlled the combat range, such destruction was still somewhat shocking.
What surprised Shinji even more was that his fierce battle with the Hegemon seemed to have affected the spatial barrier of World No. 5.
At this moment, the spatial barrier of World No. 5 was extremely unstable, showing a tendency to collapse.
"Could this be its goal?"
Shinji's heart trembled, then he shook his head.
He didn't think the Hegemon calculated this, because judging from the Hegemon's desperate forced entry into World No. 5 to eliminate him, the Hegemon was clearly determined to solve him directly. It just failed to do so after a fierce battle.
Moreover, although Shinji's consciousness didn't participate in the battle personally, judging from the battlefield and his current consumption, the power the Hegemon risked intruding into the spatial barrier might be less than the Reproductive Hegemon in the Six Rings World back then, but it was definitely the Hegemon's origin power.
In other words, Shinji indeed suffered considerable loss, but the Hegemon eroding World No. 5 also lost a significant amount of origin power after this battle.
Although the spatial barrier of World No. 5 was severely damaged now, seemingly giving the Hegemon an advantage, in reality, the true victor was Shinji, who annihilated the swarm and damaged a part of the Hegemon's origin power.
Flying back to the deepest part of the mountain range and checking the condition of the two God Trees, Shinji ordered the scientific sphere 'Xiao Yuan' to rescan World No. 5.
Not long after, 'Xiao Yuan', having recollected data and run the model again, reported to Shinji: "According to the latest data projection, World No. 5 has only 7 days left until destruction..."
"So fast!?"
Shinji was stunned.
He knew World No. 5 would accelerate towards destruction because of his battle with the Hegemon, but he didn't expect it to accelerate this much, shortening from over a month to a week.
This also gave him a new understanding of the Hegemon, or perhaps his own strength.
"So annoying!"
Thinking about the time being shortened so much, coupled with the ceaseless noise in his brain, Shinji became irritable.
After this battle, he confirmed that the ability of the Hegemon behind the 'World Annihilation Society' was mental bewitchment. The opponent could control and bewitch living beings, playing with the masses at will with its own will.
However, as a 'Kekkei Mora' (Bloodline Encompassing), Shinji's pupil power was too formidable. The Hegemon couldn't control Shinji at will, so it could only instigate Shinji's subconscious, split Shinji's personality, and then bewitch these weaker split personalities.
This was also why, despite annihilating all the insect swarms, Shinji still couldn't make the noise in his brain disappear immediately.
Fortunately, Shinji's mental strength was strong enough. Given some time, he could slowly heal these personalities forcibly split by the Hegemon and reunify his will.
Sitting back on top of the God Tree, Shinji gradually began to adapt to the noise in his brain.
"Truly a terrifying ability!"
He felt lingering fear.
If he hadn't made a prompt decision to take over his body with genjutsu, letting his self-consciousness retreat to his inner world and giving up control of his body, even if he wasn't brainwashed by the swarm and turned into a puppet, he would have been bombarded by massive information and turned into an idiot.
So it can be imagined that any consciousness hostile to the Hegemon behind the 'World Annihilation Society' would suffer unimaginable mental bewitchment. Unless strong enough to be on the same level as the Hegemon, or having deep enough attainment in the mental domain, one simply wouldn't qualify to oppose this Hegemon.
"Let's call it the Bewitching Hegemon!"
Thinking of this, Shinji named the Hegemon behind the 'World Annihilation Society'.
At the same time, he described the various abilities of the Bewitching Hegemon and countermeasures in detail, having the scientific sphere 'Xiao Yuan' record them all.
No one knows how many Hegemons exist in the deep universe, so recording every Hegemon encountered is the only thing 'Lampbearers' can do.
Fear Hegemon, Reproductive Hegemon, Plague Hegemon—these were recorded and named by other 'Lampbearers'. The Bewitching Hegemon was the first Hegemon named by Shinji.
Suddenly, Shinji discovered something, and his expression darkened.
For World No. 5, the Hegemon was pollution, and he, an outsider, was also pollution. And he sensed that for some reason, his pollution of this world seemed to have intensified significantly in just a short moment.
Thinking slightly, Shinji knew the reason.
"It should be those airships..." Pausing, Shinji felt somewhat helpless: "But it's only been a short day; how could it spread so severely?"
At this rate of spread, I'm afraid that within a month, the Shinobi World and World No. 5 would attract and destroy each other.
However, World No. 5 was just a low-magic world after all, with limited means and speed of information transmission. The current spread speed was already the limit. At least in the next week or two, information wouldn't explode further.
And World No. 5 had no future. In at most two or three days, this place would turn into a doomsday scene. By then, not to mention the spread of information, even survival would be an extravagant hope, so Shinji didn't need to worry too much about pollution spreading and affecting the Shinobi World.
Similarly, Shinji only had two or three days left.
Shinji couldn't stay until the last moment because by then, the spatial barrier of World No. 5 would completely collapse, and the Bewitching Hegemon could invade the world without hindrance, so he had to leave a few days in advance.