"Just try it! They say people can unleash power far beyond their normal limits when they're in mortal danger. What if you can do it?"
Cloud gently patted her shoulder, trying to calm her frantic nerves.
"Idiot! What do you know?!" Even if she could push past her limits, it wouldn't be anything this dramatic. He had no idea what 70% Absolute Domain even meant!
Chizuru Kagura had only developed her Absolute Domain to 65%. If she risked her life, she might approach 68%. But there was no way to push beyond that last 2%. It was like an ant—no matter how hard it tried, it could never lift a human being.
"But what if you succeed? Don't you want to save your sister?" Cloud pressed on.
Chizuru was at her wit's end. Left with no other options, she decided to try.
Absolute Domain 65%!
She released her full power in one explosive burst.
Massive air currents radiated outward from her body, sending debris scattering across the street!
"You can do it! Come on!" Cloud kept encouraging her.
A faint golden stream of energy quietly flowed through his hand, passing from Chizuru's shoulder throughout her entire body.
Absolute Domain 66%! She had suddenly broken through—and her momentum was unstoppable!
Absolute Domain 68%!
Absolute Domain 70%!
"Kagura-Style Ancient Martial Art: Phoenix Manifestation!"
With a fierce cry, she formed a hand seal!
SCREEEEE——!!!
A clear, piercing phoenix cry, brimming with sacred power, echoed across the heavens!
Her slender form transformed in an instant—becoming a fire phoenix with a wingspan exceeding ten meters, its entire body wreathed in pure white purifying flames!
The phoenix let loose a sky-shaking call, spread its wings to sweep Cloud up, and instantly broke the sound barrier. It became a streak of white light, hurtling toward Kagura Shrine at impossible speed!
That velocity was so extreme that even space itself seemed to warp around them!
...
On the outskirts of Kyoto, violent winds raged and darkness shrouded the sky.
Goenitz, this "Apostle of God" who walked among mortals, floated coldly in mid-air like a deity passing judgment on humanity.
Beneath him lay the ruins of what had once been Kagura Shrine—and the last guardian, whose life was fading away.
"It's over, priestess of the Kagura."
Goenitz's voice carried no emotion, as if it were divine decree descending from the heavens themselves.
"Your struggle is meaningless. Surrender. Beneath God's radiance, offer up your life and embrace the return to nothingness."
"Never...!"
Maki Kagura, the priestess who guarded the Yata Mirror, cut a figure both tragic and beautiful in her final stand.
She was drenched in blood, her once-sacred white miko robes so stained with blood and dust that their original color was unrecognizable.
A bitter, sorrowful smile hung at the corner of her lips, but in those bright eyes burned one final, unextinguishable spark of determination!
She knew she had reached her limit.
But she could not retreat!
Behind her stood her sister, her clan's thousand-year destiny, and... the fate of the entire world!
"Even if it kills me..."
She struggled to rise from the ground, her hands forming an ancient, complex seal before her chest.
"I will send you, you wind that brings calamity..."
"...back to the hell from whence you came!"
A sacred power, pure to its very essence and filled with the intent of "sealing" and "purification," began to gather madly within her!
"Foundation of Zero!"
This was the final secret art of the Kagura-style ancient martial arts—activated by sacrificing her life and all her divine power!
"Foolish mortal."
Goenitz watched the increasingly brilliant sphere of sacred light forming before him, his expression unchanged. There was only the contempt one might show an ant trying to topple a tree.
He slowly raised his right hand.
Preparing to deliver "divine" judgment upon this last guardian.
But at that critical moment—
Everything changed!
SCREEEEE——!!!!!!
A clear, piercing phoenix cry, brimming with supreme divine power, echoed across the entire sky without warning!
The next instant, an enormous fire phoenix wreathed in pure white flames—formed from the purest divine power—appeared behind Goenitz like a phantom tearing through space!
Two figures stood upon the phoenix's back.
One was a stunning girl in miko robes, bearing a striking resemblance to Maki Kagura but with a livelier, more mischievous air—Chizuru Kagura!
And the other...
Was a man in casual clothes, a lollipop dangling from his mouth, whose entire vibe was completely at odds with this "clash of gods"... Cloud!
Maki stared at the phoenix that had appeared from nowhere—existing only in her family's legends—and at Chizuru, who was supposed to be shopping right now. Her mind went completely blank.
"Chizuru?! What are you doing here?! And... your power...?!"
She was horrified to realize that the energy radiating from Chizuru had reached...
Absolute Domain 70%!!!
"No time for questions! Sister!" Chizuru's voice was filled with urgency. "We're here to save you! Hurry! Come with us!"
"Leave?" Maki laughed bitterly. "We can't escape... Goenitz's Wind Barrier has sealed off this entire space... You... you shouldn't have come!"
"Who says we can't escape?"
Just then, a lazy, devil-may-care voice spoke up.
Cloud jumped down from the fire phoenix, dusted off his clothes, and stretched.
He glanced at Goenitz floating above them with his "I am God, you are all insignificant" expression, then looked at Maki on the ground, ready to "sacrifice herself to blow up the bunker." Finally, he sighed helplessly.
"Man, I've lived my whole life without worldly ambitions, keeping to myself. All I wanted was to quietly be an ordinary landlord."
"But look at this. Heaven never gives you what you want."
"There's always some chuuni in the terminal stages who just has to throw an apocalypse party right on someone's doorstep."
"Hey..." He looked up at Goenitz, flashing a "friendly" smile.
"You folks from the Divine Tribe of Heaven having your little team-building exercise—could you maybe do it somewhere else? This is a no-fly zone, and besides... you're seriously disrupting the daily lives of us ordinary citizens here."
Goenitz: "..."
The Kagura sisters: "..."
They felt like their brains were about to crash.
...
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