Kamitani would be hunted down until he died if he escaped from here? This basically meant he was admitting that he was also partly responsible for causing this entire incident.

If it was possible, Seiji would definitely kill this bastard without any hesitation!

“Don’t be so scary like that… I’ve already self-reflected on my mistakes. I’m now working to save things.” Kamitani shrugged.

“You don’t even know what the term ‘self-reflect’ means,” Seiji spoke icily.

If this bastard truly knew how to self-reflect, then he wouldn’t be Itsuki Kamitani.

“What exactly is the specific god-slaying plan? What’s the estimated success rate? How much time will be needed?” Seiji forced himself to suppress his anger as he continued asking questions.

“That information isn’t freely available, so I’m sorry to say that I can’t tell you… But since we’re best friends, I suppose I can leak that information to you.” Kamitani chuckled. “The plan is for all the remaining combat strength of all the factions to ally together and break into the Realm of Cherry Blossoms to slay the Catastrophe Goddess. The success rate is estimated to be less than fifty percent, and it will probably take about one day.”

“What will happen if this fails?”

“Then we’ll send a message to outside and have outside spiritual ability users deal with this.”

“I’m asking about what will happen to everyone in the city if this god-slaying plan fails!”

“Of course, they’ll all die.”

Seiji frowned even more at hearing Kamitani answer this so naturally.

“If this god-slaying plan fails, then all the ordinary citizens will basically die. No matter what outside reinforcements come to do later, the several million citizens of this city will all die,” Kamitani explained.

“You won’t be able to live either since you’ve caused this entire tragedy!” Seiji glared at him.

“Hey, I’m working hard right now to fix things in order to prevent that from happening to me. So help me out, my bro Haruta~” Kamitani acted as if he was being spoiled.

And then, his black shadow was instantly sliced in half by Seiji’s White Lotus sword which suddenly appeared!

“You’re so terrible…” One second later, the black shadow reconstructed itself while complaining.

“What does Yakushi have to do with all this?” Seiji changed the topic. “Why did he attack this place?”

“That information truly isn’t something I can freely give out. Don’t be so greedy.” Kamitani sighed. “I don’t have the time to stay here and chat anymore. Will you help me out or not?”

“I could have captured Yakushi, but you intervened and let him go. In exhange, you must tell more more information.” Seiji tried to obtain more information for himself.

“Greedy boys won’t become popular~”

“I never cared about being popular with you in the first place.”

“If you keep being like this, you’ll lose me one day!”

“If I could truly do this, I hope that I could lose you forever!”

After they finished their lines that seemed right out of a comedy skit, both fell silent for a moment.

“It’s truly interesting to chat with you. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more time.” Kamitani chuckled. “Voidfire-kun should be at Kosui Park right now. Feel free to go chat with him.”

Kosui Park… this was the park where Seiji previously went to view cherry blossoms together with Mika and the others. Something flashed in Seiji’s eyes.

He wanted to ask more questions, but Kamitani’s black shadow vanished.

After Seiji confirmed that Kamitani had truly left, he finally relaxed his guard and unsummoned his spirit sword.

“Shika-chan, are you alright?” Seiji turned to look at his adopted younger sister.

“I’m fine,” Shika answered.

Her clothes were slightly tattered, but she was uninjured.

When Seiji rushed over, he saw already at the time that Shika appeared to be alright. That was how he was able to calmly plan an ambush attack against Yakushi’s true body and then discuss things with Kamitani.

The snake monster had also disappeared. Natsuya and the others all walked over to meet up with Seiji. It turned out that everybody was alright.

Thus, the fighting here had ended. Everyone returned to the real world.

……

“Why did you get in my way?” Yakushi asked Kamitani.

“I wasn’t getting in your way. Rather, I was saving you.”

“You believed that I would lose?”

“That’s right. His true power is far beyond what you can imagine, especially when he’s in the dream world.”

“Just who was that person?”

“You should be able to guess his identity as well. He is Seiji Haruta.”

“…I see.”

“It’s good that you understand. You should give up on your ‘god-devouring’ plan and do other things that you’re supposed to do.”

“…”

“As payment for saving you, I’m going to take this new Orochi experimental subject that you’ve created, Yakushi-san.” Kamitani chuckled gleefully. However, a dark shadow extended behind him while giving off an aura of terror.

Something flashed in Yakushi’s eyes as he adjusted his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

…….

When everyone returned from their state of Visualization, they all experienced a much stronger sensation of headache and dizziness compared to last time.

After they all woke up completely, they also felt strong levels of fatigue.

Seiji had everyone rest for a while before he held a meeting to summarize the events of the battle.

First of all, regarding Yakushi and the snake monster who had appeared. There wasn’t much information obtained about Yakushi since he had left so suddenly in the end. All that Seiji learned was that Yakushi was the person who’d developed Ecstasy, along with being the person who developed the “Yamata no Orochi” artificial Awakening project.

That snake monster was evidently another Orochi experimental subject, just like the previous seven people that Seiji’s group had fought at the White Sakura Goddess’s temple. However, this snake monster seemed much stronger than before.

If the experimental subject could use such great power already in the dream world, it was likely that it would also be able to wield great power in the real world, even if it was slightly less.

Yamata no Orochi… In legends, it was rumored to be the most famous evil and vicious monster in Sakura Island! This eight-headed snake often acted as a boss monster or even final boss in many anime, manga, and video games. It was an extremely well-known monster.

Artificially Awakening people to have the power of the Orochi? Or, in other words, intentionally creating such a monster? Anyone could imagine just how frightening this would be.

Right now, this project was still in an experimental stage. But, the subjects were already so powerful! What would happen in the end when this project was completed?

Just thinking about it sent chills down everyone’s spines. Not only might the end results be truly frightening, there also might be dire consequences. The experimental process itself was also likely to be incredibly cruel.

Ecstasy, and the Yamata no Orochi project… Just these two projects alone that Yakushi headed made it certain that he was a highly dangerous individual.

Were all the highest-ranked members of the Messengers like Yakushi?

Seiji didn’t know.

The only other high-ranked member of the Messengers that Seiji knew was Itsuki Kamitani. WIthout a doubt, Kamitani was also highly dangerous. As for how dangerous… it might be possible that he was even more dangerous or higher-ranked than Yakushi because he had convinced Yakushi to leave so easily!

Kamitani also indicated that he was partly responsible for the real world’s current crisis. Although Seiji didn’t know what specifically Kamitani did, the fact that several million people’s lives were now endangered—including Seiji’s and everyone else’s friends and families—was more than enough for everyone to be furious at Kamitani.

Although Kamitani claimed that this wasn’t the Messengers’ intention to lead to such a crisis, who knew if he was lying or not? And even if Kamitani was telling the truth, the fact was still that he was behind causing such a crisis.

According to what Kamitani said, the main person who caused the current incident was the high-ranked Messenger member code-named “Voidfire”.

Kamitani had described Voidfire as a person whose mind was filled with pursuit of justice… Was there truly such a person within the Messengers? This sounded like nothing more than a terrible joke.

But no matter what, Seiji might be able to contact this person if he went to Kosui Park.

“Currently, we have two options. We could go to Soul Society, or we could go to Kosui Park,” Seiji told everyone. “If we go to Soul Society, it’s not certain if anyone’s even awake there, or if we can obtain any information. And if we go to Kosui Park, we might find a high-ranked member of the Messengers there, along with important information. Or, there might be nothing there at all, or it could even be a trap.

“Where should we go first… what do you all think?”

Everyone exchanged glances with each other.

“Seiji, I think you should make the decision,” Natsuya told him.

Seiji faced everyone and felt their expectant gazes. He swiftly and decisively made up his mind.

“I think that we should go to Kosui Park!”