The temple that once stood deep on an isolated island in the South China Sea—a blend of primitive worship and perverted beauty—no longer existed.
In its place were scorched ruins, smoking rubble, and faint arcs of residual energy. The thick beams, carved with blasphemous statues, lay like dry bones trampled by giants, stuck crookedly in the debris. Fragments of murals depicting scenes of "immortality" and "the abyss" were scattered across the ground, curled and blackened by the intense heat. The air was filled with the sharp smell of ozone, the stench of scorched wood and stone, and a deeper, empty aura of violently annihilated cursed energy.
And the "divine punishment" that caused all this had happened only a few minutes ago.
No warning. No signs.
As if the heavens were enraged, a pure, indigo lightning bolt tore through the clouds, like a god's spear, crashing down with pinpoint accuracy onto the temple's main hall!
It was not natural lightning. The cursed energy contained within it was so immense that it distorted space. The rules of "purification" and "destruction" were so absolute that they instantly broke through most of the temple's defensive barriers and cursed energy structures.
One strike.
Just one strike.
The sacred (to believers) temple, the powerful barriers, the pious statues, the hidden mechanisms… everything was destroyed by that magnificent thunderbolt. Only some outbuildings and natural rock formations on the periphery survived, but even they were covered with burn marks and cracks.
In the center of the ruins was the only relatively "intact" area.
The woman in the white haori, with hair as white as snow—the leader of the Naraku Sect, the embodiment of the "Immortal God"—stood there quietly. She slowly raised her head, her gray eyes, seemingly filled with endless death and silence, looked up at the sky.
A figure hovered in the sky.
Zen'in Genji.
He wasn't deliberately exuding coercion, but quietly floated, his indigo hunting robes slightly fluttering in the undissipated energy turbulence, his black hair tied up with a wooden hairpin, his face calm and still, like a thousand-year-old, bottomless ancient pool.
The most striking thing was behind him—a pair of wings slowly flapping.
The light-colored wings had fine silver runes flowing along their edges. Each gentle flap stirred the surrounding air and residual cursed energy, creating a low, humming sound like wind and thunder.
Thus, in an absolute, condescending posture, he looked down at the white-haired woman below and at the place of faith he had turned to ruins with his own hands.
His deep indigo eyes swept over the ruins, and over the Naraku woman. There was no anger or contempt in his gaze, only a cold, scrutinizing look, like a scientist discovering an unexpected variant in an experimental sample, and a faint, almost sighing understanding.
"I didn't expect…" Genji spoke slowly, his voice calm but extremely clear and piercing, the sound of wind between the ruins echoing in every corner. "Besides that clumsy patchwork in the laboratory, there are actually beings like you in this world… appearing in batches."
His gaze seemed to pierce through the woman, seeing the bandaged monks hidden deep within the temple—some perhaps now buried under the rubble, or perhaps having fled long ago—and seeing their twisted yet stable half-human, half-cursed spirit essence.
"A stable state, a half-cursed spirit," Genji's voice held no emotion, only a cold statement. "Here, you've even developed a sect and have believers… This has indeed brought me a bit of surprise."
He shook his head slightly, as if pondering trivial matters:
"It seems the barriers and rules I set a thousand years ago still have oversights. They have indeed allowed beings like you to multiply, spread, and even become a trend in these gaps."
Finally, his gaze settled on the Naraku woman again, his eyes like a god pronouncing the fate of ants—calm, indifferent, and undisputable:
"That's enough."
"It's not too late to deal with you now."
The tone of "god" was full of complete disregard and a natural will to erase, like the coldest ice water pouring over the woman's heart. In his eyes, she, the Naraku Sect, the so-called "immortality" mystery, the thousand-year operation and concealment, seemed merely an "anomaly" that needed to be "cleansed," not worth provoking any more emotion from him.
The woman's cold, calm face finally showed a clear emotional fluctuation for the first time.
It wasn't fear, but rage—a fully ignited rage, a mixture of a thousand years of loneliness and extreme humiliation at this moment! Within her chaotic gray eyes, a vortex of deathly silence churned, nearly bursting forth!
"Ignorant... human!!"
The woman's voice was no longer ethereal, but became sharp and piercing, full of monstrous hatred and madness, touching on her most sensitive scales. The black feathers on her haori rustled without wind, each seeming to come alive, their edges glowing with a cold, space-cutting light.
"You, an ant who just gained power for a while, dare to speak such... ignorant nonsense!"
As the words fell, the woman moved!
No surge of cursed energy, no sign of spatial distortion. Her figure vanished from its spot, seemingly out of nowhere!
This wasn't an afterimage from high-speed movement, but a true, almost distance-ignoring spatial phenomenon—
Teleportation!
The next moment, she suddenly appeared in the air, within three feet of Genji! The distance between them was so close that they could clearly see each other's reflections in the other's eyes!
And in her hand, at some point, she held a long knife.
The blade was thin, with an elegant curve, but its entire body had an ominous, dark gray hue that seemed to absorb light. The blade edge was not sharpened; it was naturally sharpened by the concept of "end" and "decay," existing only to make the surrounding air emit a thin hiss, as if living things were withering.
The hilt was wrapped in a pale, bandage-like substance, and a small, skeleton-shaped black bell hung from its end, but it remained silent.
This knife wasn't forged from metal, but rather a condensation of her own "concept of death" and some extreme resentment.
Appear, draw the sword, and slash!
These three actions were performed instantly, faster than the limit of thought! The dark gray blade tore through the air, filled with the desperate artistic conception that all things eventually return to death, its silent, fierce, and cunning edge aiming straight for Genji's throat! Wherever the blade passed, even the light seemed to dim and slightly decay!
This strike condensed the woman's rage from being looked down upon, contained her understanding of the law of "death," and became her punishment for "blasphemy" as the "Immortal God"! She was absolutely confident that this knife could instantly erode any living being, even a special-grade cursed spirit, with "deathly stillness," robbing it of its life force!
Facing this extremely sharp and dangerous assassination attempt, Genji's face remained utterly still.
He didn't even change his position, didn't summon shikigami, didn't construct a barrier.
In the hundredth of a second before the gray blade was about to touch his skin—
Genji casually raised his right hand from his side.
Simultaneously, the palm he raised underwent a bizarre transformation.
Indigo cursed energy flashed beneath his skin. The bones of his five fingers slightly cracked. Muscle fibers twisted, expanded, and changed at a speed visible to the naked eye! The skin on his palm turned a silver-white. The nails suddenly elongated, thickened, curved, transforming into five hook-like claws, gleaming cold and sharp!
In an instant, his entire palm swelled to a full circle, filled with a wild, powerful beauty, yet still roughly retaining the general outline of a human palm.
Ten Shadows Technique mimicry—Jade Dog's Claws!
Instead of summoning the shikigami, he temporarily borrowed some characteristics of the "Jade Dog" shikigami onto his palm—the ultimate sharpness, tearing power, and natural restraint against curses and evil! This was a delicate operation, achievable only with a maximum understanding of the shikigami's characteristics—lower consumption, faster activation, and customizable transformation!
Clang—!!
The claws met the gray blade with a sharp clash!
No loud, metallic clang, only a low, harsh sound, as if capable of tearing the soul apart.
The silver-white, evil-repelling power flowing on the Jade Dog's claws and the gray-black aura of ending, death, and silence permeating the blade were like water meeting fire, frantically eroding and destroying each other! The point of impact erupted with small, intertwined gray and white electric sparks, making a teeth-grinding hiss!
The Naraku woman's teleportation knife strike, containing her will to "kill," was so confidently and accurately blocked by Genji's beastly claw transformed from mimicry, appearing in mid-air!
The tip of the blade was less than an inch from Genji's throat.
But it couldn't move forward at all.
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