This was, very likely, the most terrifying day the Lunar Capital had seen since its founding — the day when those self-proclaimed pristine deities felt true, bone-deep horror.
On the white jade plaza, a silver dragon a thousand metres long radiated a killing pressure that made the entire satellite tremble.
"Extermination operation, formally commencing."
Shin stood on the dragon's head, taking in the whole of the Lunar Capital below.
His eyes were fixed on only one thing: the heart of it all — the pivot that maintained the Lunar Capital's barrier.
[Moon Princess]: Shin, that's the one! That tallest white jade palace — that's where I usually get locked up, and that's where the Lunar Barrier Core is!
[Moon Princess]: If you can seize control of it, they'll agree to basically anything you ask!
[Queen of Britain]: And what if they just destroy it themselves rather than hand it over?
[Queen of Britain]: Sigh — if only we could provide support right now. The situation is urgent; I'm concerned Lancelot won't be able to control her strength.
[Moon Princess]: That's fine too — if they destroy it, I never have to go back to prison again.
[Moon Princess]: Does anyone actually think I have a shred of fondness for this place? Lord Tsukuyomi has been dreaming his eternal dream, and yet refuses to sit on the throne himself — I've wanted to flip the table on him for ages!
The group chat's Kaguya had zero attachment to the Lunar Capital — she'd just handed Shin the location of the core on a silver platter without a second thought.
Understandable, really. An existence spent locked in a cage and used as an impurity-scrubbing tool for uncountable ages would kill any affection for the place.
The worst that can happen is sinking the Lunar Capital.
[Spreading Witch Factors (temp account)]: Copy that!
Shin's gaze swept the Lunar Capital thoughtfully. He noticed something: there were no "Moon People" or "Moon Rabbits" to be seen anywhere.
This city had only gods.
The Watatsuki sisters. Kanayamahiko-no-Mikoto. Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto. Lord Tsukuyomi himself… Beyond them, there were no other ordinary beings in sight.
Even the weakest Lunar emissary was a deity of the Eight Million Gods.
This was divine soil. Unequivocally, unmistakably, the land of the gods.
Below, the great dragon Albion let out a resonant cry, its vast wings every time they beat generating hurricane-force winds in the Lunar Capital's atmosphere — gales capable of levelling palaces.
"Stop it! Stop it quickly!"
The emissaries who had been maintaining their solemn composure a moment ago now broke like a fever dream, all of them drawing their divine artifacts and treasures at once, attempting to block the intruder dragon's path.
But before the might of a dragon that could shatter continents, their ordinary artifacts and spells were no more resilient than paper.
Boom!
One sweep of the dragon's tail, and dozens of Lunar emissaries didn't even have time to scream — they were reduced to scattered motes of light by that tail, heavy as a falling star.
On the other side, what should have been the most powerful combatants on scene — the Watatsuki sisters — were behaving in a deeply abnormal way.
"Ugh…"
Watatsuki no Yorihime's hand on the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi was shaking violently. Those originally cool, clear eyes were now swimming with a glazed, distant look.
The lingering mental suggestion Yachiyo had planted through Shin as her [Soul Synchrony] conduit, at the moment of close proximity during the journey, had taken effect.
[Soul Synchrony] — a skill that locked two souls into deep resonance — when combined with Yachiyo's charm that bordered on the Tao itself, could only be described in four words: utterly, absolutely ruthless.
Look — the poor girl was drooling.
This was a testament to the Watatsuki sisters' own formidable mental fortitude; anyone with less resistance, like Melusine before she was a Fairy Knight, would have been outright puppeted.
Watatsuki no Toyohime wasn't much better — her fan opened and closed without purpose, her spatial authority that could effortlessly fold mountains and seas now sluggish and delayed, her thoughts thick as mud.
All they could do was watch, helplessly, as that silver streak tore freely through the Lunar Capital's airspace.
[SCOUNDREL — HOW DARE YOU!]
Just as the great dragon was about to reach the Lunar Capital's central core, a vast and terrible will descended from somewhere above the still, silent sky.
The entire Lunar Capital seemed to freeze in that instant.
A blurred figure materialised in the moonlight — Japanese court robes, an indistinct face, her hairstyle similar to Kaguya's.
The moment she appeared, every Lunar emissary in the vicinity fell prostrate, not daring even to breathe.
The supreme sovereign of the Lunar Capital — a projected avatar of Lord Tsukuyomi.
[DEFILER OF SACRED GROUND — RETURN TO DUST!]
The blurred figure raised one hand, a single finger extended, and the silver dragon met an invisible wall — its advance halted.
Though Lord Tsukuyomi found this a little curious: this had been just a probe, and by rights, as the embodiment of "Great Britain," the dragon's mass shouldn't have been far below the Lunar Capital itself in scale. She hadn't expected a single finger to stop it so easily.
But since the target had been stopped, that was good news — she had been worried she would need to draw more power from her true body, which was locked in a standoff with Junko. This situation appeared to be safer than she'd anticipated.
[My dear, be careful!]
Yachiyo, who had been watching the whole scene through [Soul Synchrony], let out a sharp cry.
The great dragon fell silent, and then — against that divine pressure — charged forward, driving directly into Lord Tsukuyomi's avatar!
BOOM BOOM BOOM——!
God and dragon in collision — each exchange brought cascades of collapsing buildings, dragon's breath and divine light interweaving in the sky, a vision of the Lunar Capital's last days.
Lord Tsukuyomi's avatar frowned.
She had noticed something wrong with this dragon.
Its raw power was below expectations. Yet each time it took damage, its regeneration speed was that of something that had drunk the Hourai Elixir.
Even a severed wing re-grew in the blink of an eye, new flesh writhing back into place.
"Such extraordinary regenerative ability. Then I'll simply erase it entirely in one stroke."
Lord Tsukuyomi's eyes went cold. Her hands came together, and an enormous pillar of pale divine light began to condense in her palms — a strike capable of obliterating all life down to the atomic level.
"Albion, now it's up to you!"
But in the very instant that the divine light was about to take form, Lord Tsukuyomi's avatar froze at the young man's sudden shout —
Because she realised that the human boy who should have been standing atop the dragon's head had vanished.
Not only that — the "great dragon" in front of her, before the divine light fully condensed, had begun to ripple and shift, and in a matter of moments this massive target had simply disappeared.
[This is — ?!]
Lord Tsukuyomi looked down. The thousand-metre dragon had shrunk back to a single young man — now staring up at her with an expression of cool amusement.
Wait. Something was wrong—
Even though her divine perception still registered this young man as "Albion," Lord Tsukuyomi was no fool.
This was like a radar showing "no target" while your own eyes showed "target right there." Which one did you trust?
This wasn't Albion.
Or rather — this was not truly the dragon at all.
That had been a "pseudo-Albion" — Shin using [Soul Synchrony] combined with his Ultimate Being's shapeshifting ability, overlaid with Melusine's True Name resonance, to replicate the appearance and presence of "Albion."
In raw destructive force, he was no match for the Last Dragon — not remotely close.
But as the knight whose gambit is to occupy the queen, he had done more than enough.
[MORTAL — YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF A DEITY?!]
Lord Tsukuyomi, for the first time in an age, felt something she rarely felt: anger.
No — wait!
[Not good—!!]
She was an ancient god. In the space of one instant, she had already understood — and she wheeled around, staring in the direction of the Lunar Capital's barrier pivot:
There, a tiny figure radiating continental-scale explosive force — silver, human-shaped — had already slipped silently past every single line of defence and was bearing down on the core!
The true Last Dragon, wings fully unfurled, True Name released!
"Albion — maximum resonance frequency!"
A clear, cold cry like a judge's hammer — striking down into the silence of the Lunar Capital.
The true dragon form was revealed. In the far northeastern direction, the core structure detonated.
[STOP——!]
Time had run out. Even Lord Tsukuyomi herself was not fast enough.
DONG.
Like the weight of the life-giving continent of Britain itself, delivered from the heavens—
Under Lord Tsukuyomi's furious gaze, that keystone — Teacher Omoikane's legacy, the pivot that sustained the Lunar Capital's barrier — shattered under that terrifying mass and weight like brittle glass, collapsing into a storm of brilliant sparks.
Shhhhhhhh——
Like a vault's ceiling being pried open — the sound of fracturing, cascading through the void.
And following in its wake, a voice that rang through the whole of the Lunar Capital, a sound that reached to the soul-deep terror of every being within it:
[Chang'e — Tsukuyomi—]
[DO YOU SEE THIS——————!]
To be continued…
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