"Roar!"
Kashimo Hajime, embodied as the Amber Thunder God, let out a roar of frustration. The lightning around his body surged once more as he attempted to burn his remaining life force to launch a final charge.
However, Toho Hiroshi, inside the Susanoo, held an indifferent gaze in his Rinnegan.
"It is over."
The Complete Body Susanoo moved, its massive chakra longsword performing a simple horizontal slash forward.
There were no flashy techniques, no complex trajectories—only power and speed pushed to the absolute extreme.
Wherever the blade passed, space seemed to be sliced open, emitting a groan under the unbearable strain.
Miyamoto Musashi's pupils constricted. He crossed his twin blades in front of him, concentrating his lifelong cultivation into a single point in an attempt to block.
Kashimo Hajime also roared, gathering all his lightning power into his claws to meet this destructive blow head-on.
"Clang—"
First came the crisp sound of metal clashing, followed immediately by the roar of a total energy explosion.
The twin blades in Miyamoto Musashi's hands, "blazing phoenix" and "Frost Scale," shattered upon impact.
He was sent flying backward as if struck head-on by a high-speed train, blood spraying wildly. He crashed through countless broken walls and debris, eventually being buried under a pile of ruins, his presence instantly fading to the extreme, his fate unknown.
Kashimo Hajime fared even worse. The defenses of his Mythical Beast Amber form were like paper before the Complete Body Susanoo's slash. His lightning was instantly extinguished, his massive body was nearly cleaved in two, and his amber-like armor shattered inch by inch, revealing the charred, broken flesh beneath.
He crashed into the ground like a meteorite, leaving a massive crater. The lightning around him dissipated as he reverted to his human form, lying at the bottom of the pit, breathing only faintly, his life like a candle in the wind, liable to be extinguished at any moment.
The Complete Body Susanoo slowly dissipated, and Toho Hiroshi's figure reappeared above the ruins, not even a corner of his clothing ruffled.
He walked step by step to the edge of the crater where Kashimo Hajime lay, looking down at the dying powerhouse below.
"Power gained by burning one's life is brilliant, yet fleeting."
Toho Hiroshi stated calmly, manifesting several pitch-black Yin-Yang Release creations in his hand—black rods.
He tossed them casually.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!"
Several black rods precisely pierced key Cursed Energy nodes on Kashimo Hajime's body.
Strangely, as the black rods entered his body, Kashimo Hajime's rapidly fading, near-death presence was forcibly stabilized.
The rampaging power of his Cursed Technique release, which was backfiring on his life, was suppressed and channeled by the peculiar energy contained within the black rods. While it could not heal his severe injuries, it forcibly kept his last breath from escaping, preventing him from dying immediately.
Kashimo Hajime's unfocused eyes flashed with astonishment; he did not understand why Toho Hiroshi would save him.
"Your power still has value; it should not be wasted here."
Toho Hiroshi said indifferently, as if he had merely handled a trivial matter. "In this 'Culling Game,' survive. In the future, you might see an even wider world."
Having said that, he ignored Kashimo Hajime at the bottom of the pit, raised his gaze, and looked toward the Gedo Statue.
At the top of the statue, the fierce battle between Yorozu and Yuki Tsukumo was also nearing its end.
Just as Toho Hiroshi was crushing Kashimo Hajime and Miyamoto Musashi with absolute power, the battle atop the Gedo Statue had also been decided.
The fierce battle between Yuki Tsukumo and Yorozu had already reached its white-hot conclusion.
Both were top-tier experts who fought using taijutsu and their own core Cursed Energy; every collision shook the massive Gedo Statue.
Yorozu's Cursed Technique was bizarre and varied, fusing the characteristics of Cursed Spirits and humans, with attacks that were tricky and vicious.
However, as a veteran powerhouse who had long since entered the Special Grade realm, Yuki Tsukumo's foundation was solid, and her mastery over her body and Cursed Energy was ultimately superior.
"It is over, Yorozu!"
Yuki Tsukumo seized a slight opening in Yorozu's defense. Her Cursed Energy erupted like a volcano, and she unleashed a fierce elbow strike that condensed all her strength, breaking through Yorozu's defense and slamming heavily into her chest.
"Pfft—"
Yorozu spat out a mouthful of blood, her body flying backward like a kite with a broken string. She crashed heavily onto the rough skin of the Gedo Statue, struggled a few times, but could not immediately get up; she had clearly lost the ability to continue fighting.
Yuki Tsukumo panted slightly; the high-intensity taijutsu duel had consumed a significant amount of her energy.
But more importantly, she clearly felt that the "Cursed Technique burnout" period she had fallen into due to her Domain Expansion had finally ended.
The familiar, even more surging sense of power flooded her entire body once again.
"Now is the time!"
She did not hesitate for a moment, her gaze instantly locking onto the massive head of the Gedo Statue beneath her feet.
This bizarre giant statue was constantly extracting vast amounts of natural energy and was the core of the entire Barrier anomaly; it had to be destroyed.
She slammed her hands together, and a terrifying amount of Cursed Energy, far exceeding what she had used before, began to gather frantically. The surrounding air twisted and trembled due to this massive energy.
Golden light shone and compressed in her palms, gradually forming a sphere containing destructive energy—the precursor to her powerful Cursed Technique, "Star Rage."
"Star Rage—"
Yuki Tsukumo let out a sharp cry and shoved the fully formed golden energy sphere fiercely toward the head of the Gedo Statue.
If this strike connected, even if it couldn't completely destroy the Gedo Statue, it would be enough to cause severe damage and interrupt its energy extraction.
However, just as the destructive golden light was about to touch the head of the Gedo Statue—
"Bang!"
A dull, muffled explosion erupted out of thin air.
Yuki Tsukumo's "Star Rage," which she had been certain would hit, seemed to strike an invisible yet indestructible wall. It was forcibly intercepted and deflected, grazing the edge of the Gedo Statue's head and flying off into the distant sky, eventually exploding into a blinding halo of light among the clouds.
"What?"
Yuki Tsukumo's pupils constricted, her face filled with disbelief.
She hadn't seen anything at all that could have blocked her attack.
Almost at the same time, an invisible yet suffocatingly massive force slammed fiercely into her ribs from the side.
"Gah!"
Yuki Tsukumo couldn't react in time. She felt a sharp pain, and her whole body was sent flying by the massive force, tumbling several times in the air before she barely managed to stabilize herself, landing on one knee on the other shoulder of the Gedo Statue.
She clutched her aching ribs, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of her mouth, and looked up in horror.
She saw Toho Hiroshi's figure, which had quietly floated in front of her previous position at some unknown time. His clothes fluttered, and his Rinnegan still held that same indifference, as if looking down upon all living things.
"Limbo: Hengoku."
Toho Hiroshi calmly uttered these four words, resolving the confusion in Yuki Tsukumo's heart.
It was a dojutsu unique to the Rinnegan, capable of summoning invisible shadows that existed in the "Limbo" world to attack and defend.
Ordinary means could not perceive them at all, let alone block them.
Yuki Tsukumo's heart sank.
She finally experienced firsthand just how bizarre and powerful this mysterious man's strength was.
Not only did he crush the combined force of Kashimo Hajime and Miyamoto Musashi in a direct confrontation, but he could also easily neutralize her full-power attack from such a distance in such an invisible manner.
Toho Hiroshi's gaze swept over the defeated Yorozu, returned to the direction of Kashimo Hajime—who was severely injured but kept alive by the black rods—and finally landed on Yuki Tsukumo, who was bracing for an enemy attack.
"Struggling is futile."
He stated calmly, as if describing a settled fact. "The revival of the Gedo Statue cannot be stopped by anyone. This 'Culling Game' is merely a prelude to the arrival of the new world."
Yuki Tsukumo wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, endured the pain in her body and the shock in her heart, and slowly straightened up. Although the situation was dire to the extreme, the fighting spirit in her eyes had not been extinguished.
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