Chapter 155: Ryujin Kazama’s Insanity, Desperately Preparing One Last Trump Card

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Within his great castle, protected by three powerful spiritual barriers and over a thousand yokai and mutant soldiers that he had personally stationed to guard his final fortress, Ryujin groaned in frustration while smashing his fist into the floor. The crimson crow familiars he had sent out, carefully controlled through his spiritual arts, were constantly being shot down by Riven’s long-range psionic attacks. This left him with no reliable way to track their movements. Yet he already knew, more or less, the full extent of the destruction that had already taken place.

Furious that Willheim had abandoned him in this critical moment, he stared into the distance. Where the tower had originally stood, a small portal still remained floating in the sky — the only way out of the Spiritual Realm. He could probably still fly there using a familiar and escape... However...

"Ugh, I can’t do that! I simply cannot!"

He truly could not bring himself to flee. If he escaped now, he would be left with only two terrible options.

He could abandon the Spiritual Realm while Riven remained inside, essentially gifting his most precious treasure — the gift his father had given him to grow stronger — to his enemy. Or...

The second option was to compress the entire Spiritual Realm and take it with him. But even then Riven and the others would still remain wherever he went. If they tried hard enough, they might even attempt to destroy the Spiritual Realm’s core in order to escape!

"No, calm down... calm down..." he muttered to himself, closing his eyes for a brief moment. "I can still salvage this situation! I simply have to...! I have to defend the fortress. Activate all of my Formations. If I can drain him of every last drop of Mana and Spirit Energy that way, and then summon the Spiritual Realm’s Divine Guardian, it should be completely possible to defeat him!"

He forced a smile and walked out of his throne room. There, resting inside its carefully prepared nest, sat a huge egg. This was the Divine Guardian of his Spiritual Realm — the living "core" of the entire domain.

Every Divine Realm possessed a Divine Guardian. These guardians were usually some form of divine spirit beast, an ancient divine spirit, or even gods drawn from old lore and legends.

By defeating and taming them, humans could take full control of a Spiritual Realm. By breeding these beasts with compatible partners, they could produce offspring.

Those offspring would instinctively be able to take a fragment of the Spiritual Realm with them, even while still in egg form.

This was how Spiritual Realms had been slowly distributed across Asia in recent years. However, the creatures were so difficult to breed and separate that only the richest groups, powerful conglomerates, and the governments themselves had ever managed to claim even a small piece of such power. Most of them hoarded what they obtained with extreme greed.

Ryujin’s own Spiritual Realm, however, was still in its infant state. The egg was still developing. It would take a very long time for it to hatch naturally without some form of strong incentive.

Until now he had been patiently gathering Spiritual Herbs and Treasures, cultivating them across his vast Spiritual Realm and carefully feeding them to the egg, which slowly absorbed their energy over time.

But now he was desperate.

"Hurry, go!"

"Please spare me...!"

"No...! Ngaaahhhhh!"

"Uuggh?! I don’t want to die!"

"Noooooo!!!"

Innocents who had been kidnapped over the years were being forcefully injected with Yokai Serum and transformed into Spiritual Creatures. Their bodies mutated rapidly under the unstable formula.

Because these were low-quality serums, the victims turned into amorphous mutants that possessed only faint yokai-like traits. Yet they still oozed dense spiritual energy from every pore.

"Now, throw them!"

The Yokai guards quickly kicked the mutated and agonized people into the large nest where the egg rested.

The entity within the egg responded instantly. Even in their mutated state, the people tried to run away in terror.

FLUOSH!

Dozens of spiritual tentacles erupted from the giant egg’s aura. They pierced straight through the people’s chests and dragged them mercilessly toward the eggshell.

"Gyaaaaahhhhh!"

"Someone save meeeee!"

"Nooooooooo!!!"

The victims were slowly absorbed into the eggshell itself, disappearing completely as they fed the Divine Spirit Beast growing inside.

"This is already the tenth batch. I’ve fed this thing over a hundred mutated people!" Ryujin muttered with growing frustration. "Will it finally work?! It has to work, right?!"

Ryujin grew more and more agitated. He was rapidly running out of "food" for his pet. He had previously hesitated to use these people because they were still valuable workers who could craft items for him to sell. But right now? He no longer cared about any of that.

He had to defeat Riven no matter the cost!

Then...

BA-DUM!

BA-DUM!

BA-DUM!

"Oh?!"

A loud, powerful heartbeat suddenly echoed from deep within the egg. The fetus of the divine spirit beast began squirming violently and rapidly changing form. Yet there was something deeply odd about the shadow it cast.

"Huh?"

It began to sprout far too many extra limbs... along with blinking giant eyes, wings, and thick tentacles.

"W-Wha...?" he muttered in disbelief. "The mother is a beautiful White Fox Divine Spirit... a direct child of the legendary Demon Queen, Tamamo-no-Mae... it cannot possibly... possess this many limbs, right?!"

Ryujin took an involuntary step backward as the once-white egg began changing colors. It turned red, then black, then gray, and finally began shifting through an ever-changing spectrum. Its aura spiraled outward in every direction, becoming heavier and more oppressive... as if it were still demanding more.

"It’s still not enough?!" he asked in pure disbelief. "Tsk! Hurry, throw more in! Use Yokai as well, monsters, anything you can find!"

The Yakuza underlings nodded and quickly began kicking more mutated people toward the nest. The monstrous being inside the egg absorbed them ravenously. A giant jaw formed across the surface of the eggshell and began swallowing the screaming victims whole, viciously licking up every drop of blood.

"Hah..." Ryujin laughed with rising mania. "This level of power... it’s already immense...! Well, it doesn’t matter what form it takes as long as it grows big and strong, right?! W-With this...! That bastard Riven will surely die! Hah...! HAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAH—"

"Master Ryujin!"

"...Huh?"

Suddenly a soldier ran toward him and dropped to one knee in reverence, bringing urgent news. "Master Ryujin... he’s already here!"

"Already?!"

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