The realization hit Kenjaku like a physical blow.
The Blood God before him wasn't the Blood God he'd heard about. This was something else entirely—roughly twice the size of a normal person, with a single pair of arms and a single head. No three faces. No six arms.
But on that head, a wheel turned.
The Eight-Handed Sword Divergent Sila. Mahoraga's wheel.
Kenjaku's ancient mind reeled. "That's... that's the Zen'in Clan's treasure! How do you have—"
"Oh, you caught on quickly." Kamo Itsuki's voice was almost admiring. "Now, how many slashes do you think my Blood God needs to adapt to your cursed womb's 'inviolable' property?"
Kenjaku watched the wheel turn with each failed strike. The Blood God had already attacked countless times. Adaptation was inevitable.
'I can't let this continue.'
He moved—or tried to. His Leviathan form, built for defense, was ponderous. Slow. By the time he shifted toward the Blood God, Kamo Itsuki was already in his path.
"Leaving so soon?" Kamo's smile held no warmth. "We were just getting acquainted."
"Move aside!"
Kenjaku charged, relying on his massive bulk to simply crush through. Desperation lent him speed, but not enough.
Kamo Itsuki raised his right hand.
"To kill a fish..." He clenched his fist in the void. "...a trident is necessary."
The sky answered.
Clouds churned overhead, boiling with power. Lightning flickered within them, illuminating something massive descending through the layers. The air grew heavy, thick as water.
Then the clouds parted.
A trident emerged—colossal, forged from pure positive energy, its surface crackling with lightning that seemed to rend reality itself. It descended like divine punishment, slow and inevitable, each flash of thunder declaring an unchangeable will.
Kenjaku looked up. And for the first time in a thousand years, he knew true fear.
*「赤血操術・神罰の三叉戟」
Blood Manipulation: Divine Punishment Trident. *
The trident fell.
It struck with the force of a meteor, piercing through Leviathan's massive form as if through tissue paper. Scales exploded outward, raining across the sky like grotesque confetti. Kenjaku's roar of agony shook the city.
But Kamo wasn't finished.
Two more tridents formed in the void, identical to the first. They descended in sequence—one through Kenjaku's head, one through his tail.
The ancient schemer was pinned. Impaled. Broken.
With a final, earth-shaking crash, Leviathan's body slammed into the ground below. The impact leveled buildings for blocks in every direction, sending a tidal wave of dust and debris across the city.
Kamo Itsuki hovered above, watching dispassionately.
"Your chaos ends here, Kenjaku."
Behind him, the Blood God's wheel turned once more. Any moment now, adaptation would complete.
And the cursed womb would become vulnerable.
The tridents held Kenjaku pinned to the earth like a specimen mounted for display, their glowing tips drinking deeply of his life force. Below, the ancient schemer lay broken among the ruins, his massive form slowly stilling.
Kamo Itsuki hovered above, watching without expression as his enemy faded.
Kenjaku's eyes—once blazing with manic ambition—had softened into something unexpected. Calm. Almost peaceful. The murderous madness had burned out, leaving only a strange serenity in its wake.
His mouth moved, voice barely a whisper carried by the wind.
"A thousand years... was quite good." A pause, a rattling breath. "Having you as my final opponent... satisfies me greatly."
Kamo said nothing. Simply watched.
"But the outcome... between us... remains undecided." Kenjaku's lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "I hope my creation... brings you some entertainment."
The words faded. And with them, Kenjaku himself.
His scales—once dark and impenetrable—began to lighten, to thin, to transparent. They flaked away like ash, catching the light in ways that were almost beautiful. Almost melancholy.
Kenjaku's body dissolved into motes of light, scattering on the wind like dandelion seeds. The three tridents, their purpose fulfilled, faded in turn, leaving only three bottomless cracks in the earth where they had stood.
Silence.
Kamo Itsuki hovered in the empty space where his enemy had been, feeling... nothing. No triumph. No regret. Just completion. A task finished.
He looked up.
The super cursed womb pulsed above him, undamaged by the Blood God's endless assault—until now.
Clang.
A sound like metal striking flesh. Different from before.
The Blood God's blade had finally connected. The wheel on its head turned once more, and this time, when the sword fell, it bit deep.
The womb shuddered. Its pulsing accelerated wildly, desperately—a creature fighting to be born before it could be destroyed.
"It won't be that easy."
Kamo Itsuki rose to meet it. His hand touched the womb's surface. Cursed energy flared.
And then—
Nothing.
When he opened his eyes, they stood on the moon.
The Earth hung behind them, blue and beautiful and completely silent. The super cursed womb hovered nearby, still pulsing, still gestating, but now isolated from everything it had been meant to destroy.
Kamo released it, drifting back to observe.
"Let's see what hatches," he murmured. "Without Japan to feed on."
The Blood God stood ready at his side, wheel still turning, patient as death.
On the lunar surface, beneath the light of a distant sun, they waited.