Da-da-dum...
Orochi's primordial self pulsed slowly, its hundreds of frantic, bloodshot eyes glaring with absolute hatred at the descending Yorimitsu.
"No... no! This cannot be how it ends!" the Calamity roared from his grotesque, infant form. "I am a deity! If only I had managed to finalise the ascension... Curse you! Curse you all to the deepest abyss! I refuse to allow it to end like this!"
The sheer, concentrated malice and obsession radiating from Orochi violently disrupted the very structure of the ritual. Those desperate emotions triggered a cataclysmic change.
Across the entire region, the stagnant downpour of the crimson rain ceased instantly, freezing in mid-air before dissolving. Throughout the outer sanctuary villages, every single commoner, noble and warrior who had been mutated into a feral Yokai froze mid-stride. Intricate, glowing sigils burned directly onto their foreheads. With a sickening, collective screech, they all fell to the ground, their lifeforces forcibly ripped from their bodies, manifesting as torrents of luminous energy that rushed across the sky to converge on Orochi.
"Ha...?!"
Far on the perimeter, Mai's eyes widened as the horde before her collapsed simultaneously. 'They all just... dropped dead? What in the heavens name is happening?'
People began looking over, and when one of the nobles looked closer, her stomach turned violently. What remained on the dirt roads were nothing but horrid, defiled slabs of mangled flesh. Every single laceration, every one of the hundreds of cuts the creatures had sustained during the battle but ignored due to their hyper-regeneration, was now completely visible, leaving the ground littered with butchered meat.
"Ohuuuuuu..."
Behind her, several of the accompanying nobles violently gagged, turning their heads away as the stench of instant rot filled the air.
…
High above the mountain void, Yorimitsu's soot-blackened blade was a mere pace away from slicing cleanly through the hundreds-eyed fetus.
But it never connected.
The colossal influx of stolen lifeforces struck Orochi's core like a supernova. A terrifying, shockwave of compressed Reiryoku detonated from the spiritual root, tearing through the airspace and obliterating the floating debris in its path.
"Ahhh—!"
Yorimitsu was violently flung backwards into the sky like a broken doll. The backlash caused his internal energy channels to fracture;
"Ohhho."
He coughed up a thick spray of blood as his transformation forcefully crumbled. The demonic horn protruding from his brow retracted back into his skull, and the glowing, symmetrical lines running across his skin faded, shrinking back into the dormant seals upon his hands. He fell through the empty air, completely spent.
'To think the bastard still had that much latent power remaining...'
Bushido's thoughts were sharply cut short as reality fractured yet again. The mountain void dissolved entirely. In a literal heartbeat, they found themselves standing upon a jagged, desolate beachside. The dark ocean waves crashed relentlessly against the shore, mirroring the violent, roaring vortex of Reiryoku swirling around Orochi.
Directly above the pulsating, hundred-eyed fetus, a massive, translucent seal manifested in the air, glowing with the visage of a smiling Oni.
'He has done it...' The entity thought, watching from his invisible, perceptionless vantage point within Byakuya's flesh. A soft, predatory smile pulled at the vessel's lips. 'He managed to force the ritual's completion. He is ascending to the seat of a Kami.'
The entity dropped into a low, attacking stance, his eyes narrowing. 'I have to be quick.'
The tempest of violent Reiryoku tearing up the coastline finally began to subside, condensing inward as Orochi's physical form underwent its absolute, final rewrite.
This time, the stolen porcelain mask was completely gone, fully absorbed into his new body. The grotesque, mutated features melted away, replaced by a sleek, jade-green skin and stark, wild hair. The monstrous tusks had vanished, replaced by small, razor-sharp fangs, and his gaze settled into piercing, golden snake-like eyes.
"I can feel it..." Orochi murmured.
He stopped breathing. As his lungs stilled, ethereal frost-clouds drifted from his lips, freezing the immediate air.
"This... is the authority of Kami."
As he spoke, a jagged, dark crown solidified directly upon his brow, and celestial Hagoromo clouds began to effortlessly levitate and loop around his shoulders like divine silken sashes.
"Ahhhh... this is exactly the kind of disaster I was trying to avoid," Bushido spoke, his gravelly voice cutting through the roar of the ocean waves.
Stepping forward onto the damp sand, his left leg still weeping with rot, the old master raised two rigid fingers and pointed them directly over his own heart.
'He has become a true monster... I can no longer sense any Reiryoku ripples emitting from his form. He feels exactly like nature itself.'
To Bushido, Orochi no longer felt like a living being; he felt like a great, unyielding mountain, or perhaps the vast, crushing ocean itself. He had truly ascended. He was no longer a Yokai, nor was he human.
"It seems I have no choice but to sacrifice my life to bring him down," Bushido muttered, his voice grim as he placed two rigid fingers firmly against his chest. 'If I release the entirety of my remaining Reiryoku and unlock that taboo technique... I am certain I can erase him.'
The air around the veteran began to crackle and splinter with volatile sparks.
But Orochi simply blipped.
In a fraction of one hundredth of a heartbeat, the ascended deity materialised directly in front of Bushido. With an effortless, fluid motion, Orochi lightly tapped the old master's shoulder. Before Bushido could even spark his forbidden technique, the overwhelming, ambient pressure of the touch caused his entire body to buckle, sending him collapsing heavily onto the wet sand.
"So... heavy..." Bushido wheezed, gritting his teeth as he forced his trembling limbs to prop his frame back up.
"Ohhhh... you can still stand, even with the weight of a thousand mountains pressing down upon you?" Orochi mused. His voice sounded profoundly distant, entirely detached and uninterested in the mortal before him.
Turning his golden, snake-like eyes toward a seemingly empty patch of the beachside, Orochi's expression darkened. "And then... we have a little rat hiding over there."
Orochi simply opened his pale hand and flexed his fingers.
The space fractured. In a flash of distorted light, the invisible, perceptionless form of the possessed Byakuya was violently dragged through reality, materializing instantly with Orochi's hand clamped like an iron vice around his throat.
"Hehehehe..."
Despite being choked, a cold, mocking laugh escaped the lips of the entity occupying Byakuya's flesh. The eyes gleamed with malice as a twisted smile stretched across his face.
"Ah, Orochi... you absolute fool. Right now, in this very moment... You are finally going to learn exactly why there haven't been any Kami born in this world for a very, very long time."