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Ch. 148: Land of Gods: Tsukuyomi
🕑 Added 2024-10-18 13:54:38 +0000 UTCAlthough Guren's limbs were not restrained, she had lost consciousness and was being held up by two cultists, displayed before a crowd of cult followers.
"Great Heavenly Father, our Savior!"
"We, the faithful, call out your sacred name. When our voices reach their peak, the will of God will descend among us!"
"Paise, my people!"
"Paise, servants of God!"
"Let the God of the Seas hear our cries!"
"Cthulhu!"
Led by Kojiro, the cultists below repeatedly chanted the name of their god.
"Cthulhu!"
"Cthulhu!"
"Cthulhu!"
The chanting grew louder and higher until it reached its climax. He then excitedly raised the golden ornament in his hand.
"Great Heavenly Father, accept this offering!"
Kojiro stabbed the ornament into Guren's shoulder. The sharp scorpion-tail pierced through her clothes and skin, and the intense pain instantly brought her back to consciousness with a scream.
"Ahh!"
Hearing her painful scream, he grew even more excited, his expression becoming increasingly frenzied. He released the snake-head scorpion-tail from her shoulder and joined the followers in chanting.
"Cthulhu!"
"Cthulhu!"
At that moment, a shadow suddenly leaped onto the stage, and with two flashes of cold light, the two cultists holding Guren were knocked away.
"Hey, I hate men who bully women the most."
On the stage stood Jūzō, holding Guren by the waist with one arm and resting his giant sword on his back with the other, looking formidable. Beside him, Itachi also appeared like a ghost.
Kojiro looked at the duo without the slightest surprise. "So, you've finally shown yourselves," he said calmly. "I've been waiting for you."
As soon as he finished speaking, several figures dropped from the refinery's rafters, surrounding Itachi, Jūzō, and Guren.
These people also wore the purple robes of the cult, but without any gold embellishments. Judging by their agility, they were clearly shinobis.
At that moment, Guren weakly raised her head, her trembling lips uttering faintly, "There are more ninjas on this island..."
Facing the rapidly deteriorating situation, Jūzō remained expressionless and calmly asked, "Can you still move?"
"Yes."
Guren nodded. Though her shoulder was injured, her willpower allowed her to move.
"Looks like we'll have to use tactic C," Jūzō said as he turned to Itachi.
"I understand."
Just as Itachi finished speaking, he suddenly leaned forward, thrusting a kunai towards Jūzō. The surrounding ninjas were stunned by his sudden move, their mouths slightly agape beneath their hoods.
But Jūzō had already leaped into the air, swinging his sword at Kojiro, who dodged with a slight sidestep. Looking back at the spot where Jūzō had been, the one that Itachi struck was merely a water clone, as was Guren. The real Guren had already leaped across the heads of the cultists, making her way towards the refinery's exit.
While the surrounding ninjas were distracted by the water clones and Guren's escape, Itachi threw several kunai, hitting a few ninjas in the head, causing them to collapse instantly.
"Itachi!" Jūzō called out as he dodged Kojiro's kick.
Itachi immediately turned and unleashed a jutsu on the enemy.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A fireball shot from his mouth, rushing towards Kojiro. Jūzō disengaged just in time, allowing the fireball to strike Kojiro directly. The massive explosion of flames engulfed him, while Jūzō seized the opportunity to strike down the remaining cultist ninjas with a few swift slashes of his sword.
On stage, Kojiro's body was consumed by the fireball, while the other ninjas were either taken down by kunai or by his sword.
"Is it over?"
Jūzō sighed, then looked down at the numerous cultists below.
These cultists, having witnessed their Father God being killed by humans, were momentarily stunned.
"Let's go."
Itachi paid no attention to the cultists, seeing them as nothing more than misguided souls.
"Yo."
As Jūzō was ready to leave with him, a voice called out to them from behind.
"I thought there was only one Executioner's Blade... Ah, the regenerative ability, right? I once had the chance to possess that sword."
"But I found it too useless, so I turned it down. After all, I am the sword itself. Why would I need another?"
Hearing this voice, they quickly turned around, and to their shock, they saw a figure standing up from the flames. At the same time, the ninjas who had been struck down by Jūzō's sword and Itachi's kunai were slowly rising as well.
One of the ninjas, with a kunai still lodged in his head, pulled it out and threw it aside, his hood falling off to reveal his bald head. Their bald heads were pulsating with veins, resembling rippling waves. The wounds from the kunai were no longer bleeding and were healing at a visible rate.
Even Kojiro emerged from the flames unscathed. Though the golden veil had been burned away, his muscular body glistened, as if reborn from the fire. Seeing their Father Dagon walk out of the flames unharmed, the cultists erupted into deafening cheers. To them, Kojiro was now closer than ever to becoming a human-shaped god.
Watching him and the ninjas return from the dead, nearly unharmed, Itachi and Jūzō grew serious. But at that moment, Kojiro waved his hand, instructing the other ninjas, "Go find that kunoichi."
The bald ninjas nodded and leaped onto the rafters, leaving only him on stage.
"Heh, two against one. You're quite arrogant."
Jūzō pointed his blade at Kojiro, while Itachi stood behind him, ready to support with ninjutsu at any moment.
Kojiro chuckled and said, "Two against one?"
"To challenge me with the form of mere mortals, I must admit your bravery. But now, I will show you the difference between me and you."
As he spoke, his body began to transform. Under the watchful eyes of Itachi and Jūzō, his body was visibly swelling.
The once human-shaped head twisted, transforming within a few breaths into a massive whale's head.
Not only that, the skin on his arms turned a deep oceanic blue, resembling that of a marine creature. The bones within underwent some grotesque mutation, and the altered arms now resembled whale fins.
These fins, however, had razor-sharp edges on both sides. Upon closer inspection, they were covered with tightly packed scales, each scale ending in a sharp, backward-facing barb.
Anyone who came into contact with these arms would easily have their flesh ripped off.
Kojiro's body continued to expand, growing larger and uglier until it reached a towering height of six meters. In this form, he had transformed into a nightmare creature. His head had morphed into a twisted whale's head, and his enormous mouth could swallow a grown adult whole.
While his body still retained a somewhat human-like torso and limbs, his arms had become scaled whale fins, and his feet resembled the webbed feet of deep-sea divers. His back was covered in jagged, spine-like protrusions, resembling a series of mountain ridges.
At this moment, it was as if the characteristics of humans, deep-sea creatures, whales, and other known and unknown species had all merged into his body.
Now, Kojiro could no longer be called human but a true monster—a creature that had emerged from the depths of a nightmare.
The sight of this creature would cause any ordinary person to lose their sanity instantly. Yet, instead of fleeing, the cultists below the platform dropped to their knees upon seeing this form of Kojiro, as though they were in the presence of a deity manifesting before them.
Even the usually imposing Jūzō looked like a dwarf compared to the mutated Kojiro.
"This is so ugly," he said.
"Ugh..."
Kojiro lowered his terrifying whale head, emitting a rhythmic, guttural sound before speaking in human language.
"How dare you desecrate this sacred ritual. You have committed an unforgivable sin!"
With those words, Kojiro rushed toward Jūzō, who stood in front of Itachi, razor-sharp fins spread wide. He quickly raised his sword to block. The moment the blade made contact with the scaled arm, he was sent flying against the factory wall. It shattered on impact, and a cloud of dust enveloped him, obscuring Itachi's view of what had happened.
Kojiro did not just have a fearsome appearance and size; his strength was ten times greater than that of a regular ninja, or even more.
He had no intention of giving the duo a chance to breathe. He rushed at Itachi with astonishing speed, spreading his whale fins wide to encircle him, ready to deliver a fatal blow.
However, Itachi reacted quickly, jumping up on the spot and stepping on the scales of Kojiro's arm, then pushing off slightly, placing one foot on the whale-like back, successfully evading the attack.
Yet, as he landed, a sharp pain in his foot made him frown slightly.
When he stepped on the Kojiro's back in midair, his little toe had inadvertently grazed against the sharp spines. These spines were razor-sharp on both the tips and sides, and just that brief contact had nearly sliced off half of Itachi's little toe.
Turning around, Kojiro glanced down at Itachi's wounded toe. The rubber soles of Itachi's ninja boots had provided no protection, and half of the bone and flesh of his toe had been sliced open, leaving a small pool of blood on the ground.
But despite the pain, he did not utter a sound, though beads of sweat continuously formed on his forehead.
"This ends here."
As soon as he finished speaking, Kojiro once again charged toward Itachi, his heavy steps echoing ominously.
But as he sprinted, he noticed that Itachi's eyes were undergoing a rapid transformation. The black pupils had shifted to three tomoe, which then quickly merged into a shape resembling a shuriken.
"What? You are—!"
"That's right, I am of the Uchiha clan."
Tsukuyomi!
In an instant, the world within Kojiro's eyes underwent a dramatic transformation.
The sky and earth changed colors.
Under a sky filled with blood-red and black clouds, he found himself bound by chains to a massive stone pillar, while Itachi stood before him, completely unguarded.
Instinctively, he tried to reach out to grab Itachi, but the chains held him tightly, rendering him immobile. With his strength, he shouldn't have been restrained by chains at all, and he quickly realized his predicament.
"Genjutsu?"
Itachi approached him and calmly said, "In the world of Tsukuyomi, everything—space, time, even physical properties—are under my control."
"No matter how strong your body is or how fast you are, it is all meaningless. Because this is a world I have created, and your mind has simply been pulled into it by me."
As he spoke, Itachi raised his hand, and a katana slowly rose from the ground. He grasped the katana and, without hesitation, thrust it toward Kojiro's heart.
"I forgot to mention, even though this is a genjutsu, the pain your body feels is exactly the same as in the real world."
"So, how long can you endure this now?"
Itachi slowly twisted the katana embedded in Kojiro's heart, seeking to maximize the pain he inflicted.
This pain was not merely a neural signal transmitted to the brain but was projected directly onto the mental plane, making it pure, unrelenting, and impossible to diminish.
Even the most strong-willed ninja would find it impossible to avoid fear or refrain from screaming in agony under such circumstances. Yet, to his surprise, not only did Kojiro not make a sound, but he didn't even let out a pained groan.
He just smiled.
"Is that all you've got? Drawing me into your world? Making me feel pain?"
"A mortal's thoughts are ultimately limited. I have already given my body and soul to the great Cthulhu, far ahead of you!"
With that, Kojiro suddenly lifted his head. The Tsukuyomi world began to change. The originally black and red sky was consumed by darkness as black as ink, shimmering with a green glow.
Within the illusionary space, massive green stones began to rise from the ground. These exaggeratedly large, floating stone pillars quickly piled up and combined, forming a city of massive green stones with a bizarre aesthetic.
Inside this city stood an even larger, more imposing creature.
