Transformed into the leader of an esoteric sect in Japan

The black centipede and the golden sunfish collided, creating a series of sharp explosions. Black bits of flesh and golden bubbles flew everywhere, and the dazzling flames of the sun in the air illuminated almost half of the forest.

Asakura casually raised his left hand, and a pale golden longsword materialized, which was the Dream Shadow Cutter that Asakura Yuki had projected earlier.

The crimson-gold katana, with its serrated blade and flowing lava-like flame patterns, was raised high above Asakura's head as he fiercely slashed at the centipede sage, unleashing a sword light tens of meters long!

The blade, burning with blazing sunlight, spun and danced, burning thousands upon thousands of black centipedes to ashes, clearing a path straight to the centipede sage.

Flame-like black energy surged behind Kurosawa Shizuki, and the shadow girl, wielding the Demon Dance Hand Axe, charged towards the Centipede Sage! In terms of close combat ability alone, the shadow girl might far surpass Kurosawa Shizuki's original body. Even though the will that seemed to belong to the original owner was currently dormant, the shadow girl's fighting instincts had never disappeared. Kurosawa Shizuki directly controlled the shadow girl and could even use the shadow girl's body to perform the Phantom Blade Style!

The earth cracked open with countless fissures, from which emerged countless giant black vines resembling pythons, attacking the shadow girl from all directions in an attempt to halt her offensive.

Behind the shadow girl, black thorns emerged from the shadows, entangled and fought endlessly with the black vines of the centipede sage, creating a chaotic scene.

At the same time, a continuous stream of black centipedes swarmed in from all sides. They seemed completely unafraid of Asakura's blazing heat, and they would not hesitate to use their lives to fill in any gaps, even if it were a mountain of knives or a sea of ​​fire.

Thorns were entwined with countless writhing shadows, all of which were shadow beasts projected by Kurosawa Shizuki. As Kurosawa Shizuki devoured many supernatural creatures such as insect-men and spiders in the forest, the beasts projected by Kurosawa Shizuki have become increasingly lethal. They have also grown black scales, curved claws, and broad wings with thin membranes connecting bone wings, just like the forest creatures.

The dark beasts fought against countless centipedes, maintaining a long and fragile battle line. In the endless tide of centipedes, Kurosawa Shizuki knew very well that her recently recovered dark power would sooner or later be completely consumed by the centipede sages, so this battle had to be ended quickly.

The shadow girl, stepping on rising black thorns and vines, leaped and flew through the air, trying her best to get close to the centipede sage.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Asakura finally finished gathering his strength. As Asakura swung the Dream Shadow Slash, countless golden leaves on the giant tree were shaken off, and each leaf turned into a burning meteor that fell from the sky and crushed the centipede sage.

Among the countless leaves of the Yangyan tree, Asakura Yumekage's seemingly casual swipe was the real killing move. Kurosawa Shizuki could hear the sound of the air being torn apart as a thin line, almost invisible to the naked eye, slashed down at the centipede sage.

The shadow girl nimbly tumbled and climbed among the locust tree branches. Kurosawa Shizuki hadn't expected that she had received this kind of training. Now, the shadow girl was only a few dozen meters away from the centipede sage.

Kurosawa Shizuki herself was lifted up by countless black tentacles, concealing her form behind her as she slipped into a wooden hut. The Falconer's broken spear unfolded in her hand, transforming into a sniper rifle. She aimed the sniper rifle at the centipede sage, her blood flowing into it and turning it into bullets. Kurosawa Shizuki was ready to snipe this enemy who posed a great threat to them at any moment. Since the centipede sage had caused such a huge commotion, his true form should be relatively fragile. If she could successfully snipe him, it might result in a great victory.

"What a nostalgic sight, reminding me of the glorious wars and those old friends who have long since passed away," the Centipede Sage reminisced about the past in a casual tone, as if chatting with friends, even as he faced the full-force attacks of two fourth-tier Sun Apostles. "I didn't expect you two to be Shadowbinders of the Black Sun. It seems your visit to the Woodlands must be for my daughter. If so, I will be even less able to let you go..."

Before the words were even finished, Asakura's first wave of attack had already closed in. Facing countless golden leaves burning with yang flames, each golden leaf shimmered with strange inscriptions. Meanwhile, the many controlled corpses on the locust tree flushed red and began to cough hoarsely, coughing out puffs of red smoke, within which countless blood-red beetles coalesced.

The tiny, blood-red insects fluttered their wings, colliding with Yuki Asakura's golden leaves in mid-air, creating a series of beautiful, romantic bursts of fireworks.

"Having driven you to such a reckless trespass into the woods, it seems we are only one step away from a great achievement. This makes me proud of Muko. It seems that all these years, she has never forgotten our mission. We are truly family forever."

Asakura's Dream Shadow Slash was met with a gust of wind that seemed to go unnoticed by the smiling Centipede Sage, who was about to behead him in the next instant.

“You cannot stop our plan,” the Centipede Sage laughed triumphantly, his smile tinged with hysterical madness, “because we have already given everything.”

However, facing the approaching blade wind, that extremely thin line of blade light, the Centipede Sage simply raised his left hand with extremely gentle movements. Before anyone knew it, Kurosawa Shizuki discovered that his left arm was actually transforming at a speed visible to the naked eye. Layers of dry skin peeled off, and then it became an incomparably fair and delicate arm like an infant's, with dark blue key patterns tattooed on the back of the hand, shimmering with a strange radiance.

"Everything has its door, and every door has a key to open it. Your doors are far too easy for me to open."

With an extremely gentle twist of his arm in mid-air, he actually managed to catch the attack that Asakura had recently used to slay countless insectoids! The invisible blade of light had actually become a tangible entity in the hands of the Centipede Sage, bound by his bizarre left arm!

His left arm is the Open Arm, a universal key that can find the flaws in everything and turn the impossible into the possible. Even intangible illusions can be given substance in his hands. The Open Arm can grasp sharp blades and also hold back the blazing sun.

Meanwhile, numerous shadow beasts were engaged in fierce battles with the black centipedes that were constantly falling from the locust trees. The churning shadows, the corrosive fluids gushing from the centipedes' bodies, and the shattered shells flying everywhere were all part of the battle. Under Kurosawa Shizuki's control, the shadow beasts' battle line was shrinking step by step. Shadow beasts were constantly being submerged and swallowed by the centipede tide, but they had already accomplished their mission.

Because beneath that black locust tree, the shadowy girl stood on the trunk and charged towards the true form of the centipede sage!

Kurosawa Shizuki's sniper rifle was also aimed at the Centipede Sage's forehead. The blood had already congealed into a silvery-white blood bullet. However, at the end of the scope, the Centipede Sage's calm smile never changed.

"Did you know? There is a wild beast called Suanni. It serves the lion, and its fur is a shimmering reddish-gold color. It is forever young and beautiful."

Because his right arm also moved. In the blink of an eye, his right arm was also rapidly transforming and shedding its skin. However, his new right arm looked like it came from some kind of terrifying beast. Every strand of its crimson-gold fur was as strong as metal, and its sharp claws were bent downwards, reminiscent of a falcon.

“There was once a lion that was my friend, and it gave me this arm. You will have a lot of fun playing with it.”

Within a small space, his beast-like right arm engaged in dozens of dazzling exchanges of offense and defense with the approaching shadow girl. The shadow girl wielding the Ghost Axe was indeed a ghost, but the ghost was clashing with the green left arm of a wild beast. It was not just the arm of a wild beast, but rather the arm of a master who had mastered profound martial arts. The close combat skills he displayed with one hand far surpassed those of the shadow girl who was simultaneously wielding the Phantom Blade Style and the Ghost Axe!

The Suanni's Claw clashed head-on with the Ghost Shadow Axe. Under the beast's claws and teeth, the Ghost Shadow Axe's blade was surprisingly vulnerable and snapped in two!

The Suanni's right arm precisely gripped the shadow girl's neck, easily snapping her delicate neck, and then its terrifying claws crushed her body.

The shadow girl's body, caught between the claws and teeth of the Suanni, turned into a black liquid that flowed downwards. After landing, it reformed into a new shadow girl. The shadow girl looked up at the centipede sage with resentment, straightened her broken neck, and glared fiercely at the centipede sage, her breath growing even weaker.

However, just as the Centipede Sage crushed the Shadow Girl's avatar, it was also the opportunity for the Centipede Sage to have both arms restrained at the same time. Kurosawa Shizuki aimed her gun at the Centipede Sage's unsuspecting head, pulled the trigger, and the gunshot rang out. The bullet left the barrel, drawing a straight line sharper and more swift than a blade!

Kurosawa Shizuki didn't believe that the Centipede Sage could completely ignore the bullets of the Destiny Rifle, which had caused her great suffering before.

The bullet pierced through the centipede sage's handsome head without any hindrance, shattering his entire upper half. However, the smile on his remaining lower half remained calm and composed.

"The Purifier's hunting spear, how strange the world is! It's absurd that the Black Sun's servant would actually use the Purifier's power." Half of his head was still talking to himself.

The centipede sage's arm, which belonged only to the lion, rested on the golden branch in front of his chest.

He seemed to want to pull out that golden branch.

P.S. I couldn't quite capture the imagery of the battle in this chapter, so this is the best I can do.

Chapter 110, Section 111: The Divine Power of the Golden Bough

That head, which once belonged to a human, was easily pierced and exploded by the bullets made of mercury.

"You did a good job, really a good job. If this is how you kill me, that's fine too."

Amidst the eerie groans, the centipede sage gradually lost his vitality, his hands fell limp, and his voice grew softer and softer until it was completely inaudible.

The centipede sage's body, which had been fighting the crowd, slumped limply. His headless body turned black and rotted at a visible speed, as if he had really been killed by a single shot.

In his final moments, Kurosawa Shizuki saw that his entire body was covered with terrifying red spots. Then his body began to swell, and countless red mushrooms grew from the horrifying corpse that was nailed to the tree trunk like a giant. They then spread rapidly throughout the old tree, eroding its life force.

Countless centipedes hung from the locust tree, all covered in red markings, as if they were following their common king and dying for him.

Is this also Red Death? The centipede sage was already infected with Red Death? And Red Death can even infect other plants?

The centipede sage's headless "corpse" remained motionless, except for the hand that rested on the golden branch, which never let go for even a moment.

In the blink of an eye, the entire old tree transformed into a gigantic red "mushroom," swirling with rings of red smoke. Kurosawa Shizuki instinctively tried to cover her mouth and nose, but the smoke had no chance to spread.

An incredibly powerful force suppressed everything in an instant. The entire grotesquely deformed tree, the headless corpse of the centipede sage, and the dispersing red smoke all froze in the moment of transformation, like a piece of avant-garde art.

Although the Centipede Sage had been infected with the Red Death in the past, he seemed to have been using some means to suppress its spread. Kurosawa Shizuki suspected that the reason he "grafted" his body onto a tree might be because of the Red Death. However, after his physical body was damaged, the Red Death infected his entire body in the blink of an eye.

Therefore, his time was also frozen forever by the gods of the woodland, and he was forever frozen in the frontier of the woodland's time and space in a posture like that of a martyr.

"How is this possible? We defeated him just like that?" Kurosawa Shizuki looked at everything that was happening in front of her in disbelief. She still couldn't believe that the Centipede Sage could be defeated by them so easily.

Having escaped the control of the centipede sage, hundreds of thousands of centipedes that had sprung from that strange tree struggled and writhed in agony on the ground, all seemingly on the verge of death. Kurosawa Shizuki and his shadow beasts rampaged through the centipede swarm, slaughtering indiscriminately without encountering any obstacles.

However, Sand and Yongzi, who were hiding behind a small wooden house on the edge of Dust Town, showed no intention of approaching them at all. They just cautiously poked their two little heads out, their gazes growing increasingly terrified as they looked in their direction.

“Of course it’s not that simple. That physical body seems to be just a cage for him. I think we’ve actually freed him from his shackles,” Yuki Asakura said with great unease.

The two never lost their sense of danger; on the contrary, it grew stronger.

Because the golden branch that was always inserted in front of the centipede sage's chest, and the arm of the Suanni beast that held the golden branch, never became stained with any color belonging to the Red Death.

Golden Branch was pulled from the Centipede Sage's body, whose time had been frozen forever, by an invisible force. It floated in mid-air, still radiating an incomparably bright light.

The golden branch drifted slowly down from the sky and was caught with remarkable ease by the last remaining hand of the beast.

Then that hand actually swung the golden branch and slashed at the withered tree that had been completely ravaged by the Red Death!

Amidst the mournful strains of the music box, the entire town of Dust trembled and shook. Debris flew everywhere, dust billowed, and the earth shook violently. Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura Yuki watched in astonishment as the ancient tree, which should have stopped in time, was cleanly and decisively chopped down by the golden branch and turned to ashes. From the scattered ashes, another naked, blurry figure slowly coalesced and took shape.

"I'm sorry, although you've tried your best to kill me, it seems this is still beyond your control."

The corpses of countless dead centipedes piled up into a small black mountain. The figure slowly emerged from the sea of ​​centipede corpses, its body as delicate as an infant's, radiating a dark blue fluorescence like a gemstone.

The centipede sage emerged from the dust of history, shaking off the long-dead centipedes from his body, like a moth shedding its skin.

In his left hand he held that incomparably bright golden branch, a slender golden branch with seven forked sections, like a king's scepter.

“Golden branches, black feathers, and red teeth—these are the three treasures needed for the Woodland’s reversal ascension,” the Centipede Sage said, his increasingly androgynous face revealing a somewhat shy smile. “And the golden branch is the most powerful weapon among them, because it can directly sever your destiny. In ancient times, the priests of the Mist Spring used it to bestow the sweetest and most painless death upon their sacrifices. Only those who perish beneath the golden branch will be received by the Mist Spring.”

"Be careful. The golden branch in the Centipede Sage's hand is actually an incomparably sharp blade-like weapon. The Divine Era Society has actually mastered such a powerful secret of martial arts. We absolutely cannot let it strike us." Asakura Yuki looked at the gleaming golden branch in the Centipede Sage's hand with extreme apprehension.

"Didn't you want to kill me and take the Golden Branch from my hands? Then dance again. This time, offer the gods an even more spectacular dance." The Centipede Sage casually raised the Golden Branch, pointing it at Asakura Yuki and Kurosawa Shizuki.

"I want to thank you for freeing me from that long-decayed body. I have regained my freedom, even if it is only for a fleeting moment."

The Centipede Sage had only recently revealed his form when Kurosawa Shizuki could see water-like patterns rippled across his body. He seemed to be nothing more than a phantom, on the verge of collapse at any moment.

Black smoke swirled around the boy's body, which had suddenly appeared like a ghost, and burned like flames.

"Is this the true appearance of the Centipede Sage?" The current boy's face does indeed resemble the person who was previously bound to the locust tree by seven or eight points, except that he is at least ten years younger than before, and every move he makes exudes youthful vitality.

"Rather than a true posture, it's more like he summoned his past at his peak through some ritual, completely abandoning his physical body and forcibly projecting his concepts into this entirely idealistic forest." Kurosawa Shizuki had never seen Asakura Yuki so serious. She had been so relaxed when the battle started, but now Asakura Yuki's whole body was completely tense. The Dream Shadow Slayer in Asakura's hand was transforming once again, this time becoming as clear and transparent as crystal.

“This familiar aura of yang heat... You must be the little girl from the Asakura family. I’ve known your father for so many years, and it seems the relationship between your family is still so morbid,” the Centipede Sage said with a relaxed tone, as if chatting with an acquaintance. “He spared no effort to bring you into this world, but this time, will you kill him, or will he devour you? Perhaps you can follow the example of your predecessors in the Sisterhood and continue to produce new offspring?”

"If we're talking about twistedness and perversion, you and the Asakura family are about the same. For that evil god who is forever indulging in absurd fantasies, you created Fujiwara no Kageko. There are no worse parents in the world than you and Mrs. Fujiwara." Asakura Yuki retorted mercilessly.

“Ha, how can a fly crawling on land understand the thoughts of an eagle soaring in the sky—my time is running out, so there’s no need to waste any more words,” the centipede sage’s smile froze, and he pointed the golden branch directly at Asakura Yuki, “Everything will be over soon. If I can’t get more Water of Oblivion, I’ll at least return the golden branch to Muko. You’re in my way, so please die.”

His voice was so matter-of-fact, as if everything he said was an absolute and certain fact.

He raised the golden branch, which shone brightly and was the most perfect work of art.

Asakura Hei raised the Dream Shadow Slayer, the bright sunlight flowing across its blade.

The next instant, Dream Shadow Slash collided with Golden Branch, emitting a crisp, resonant sound. The burning yang flames and the forked branches of Golden Branch intertwined, drawing countless beautiful curves.

Centipede Sage's movements as he wielded his blade were concise and sharp, yet carried a thunderous rhythm, like waves crashing against the rocks. Although Asakura Yuki tried her best to break free from Centipede Sage's fighting rhythm, anyone could see that there was an insurmountable gap between her and Centipede Sage in close combat skills.

After only a few exchanges, Kurosawa Shizuki realized that Asakura Yuki had completely fallen into a disadvantageous position and was forced to retreat repeatedly, with countless cracks appearing on the crystal-clear Dream Shadow Cutter.

"You can even keep up with my rhythm, little girl from the Asakura family. You're quite good. You've inherited the best bloodline in your family." Although Centipede Sage was praising Asakura Yuki, he didn't stop waving the golden branch at all. Under such an attack, Asakura Yuki could only fight back with all her might and had no mind to respond to Centipede Sage's taunts.

With slashes, upward thrusts, and lunges, he closed in on Asakura Yuki step by step. Asakura Yuki retreated continuously, and with another fierce clash of swords, Asakura Yuki's Dream Shadow Cutter was cleanly shattered. Asakura was directly sent flying into the air by the immense divine power contained in the golden branch, and the surging yang flames were dispersed with a casual wave of his hand.

With the golden branch aimed at Asakura's head, a gentle slash was unleashed, but the resulting blade wind seemed capable of knocking down the Heavenly Palace of Reincarnation. Asakura, whose Yangyan had been shattered, was left defenseless in mid-air. Kurosawa Shizuki quickly spread her five fingers at Asakura, and dozens of black thorns tangled around Asakura's hands and feet, dragging him violently toward the ground.

The golden branch's strike, though failing to decapitate Asakura, affected dozens of winged creatures in the air. The corpses of winged creatures, severed in two, rained down like raindrops. Countless winged creatures let out terrified screams. The winged creatures that had previously relentlessly pursued and intercepted Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura Yuki scattered and fled without hesitation under the threat of the golden branch. The crowded sky above the forest was cleared away in a short time.

P.S., thanks to Jiaojiaojiao for 5000 and Weijiuyanghua for 588.

Chapter 111, Section 112: The Mole Burrows Under the Soil

"Blue-eyed little girl, wouldn't you rather just wait to die?" The centipede sage's emotionless eyes looked at Kurosawa Shizuki, sending a chill down her spine. "I was just exchanging feelings with the Asakura family's little girl, what right do you have to interfere?"

The next second, the face of the centipede sage appeared several meters away from Kurosawa Shizuki, and the golden branch, like the scythe of death, followed closely behind and slashed at Kurosawa Shizuki. There was no sound, but the speed was so fast that the naked eye could not catch its trajectory.

"Get out of the way!" The shrill cry of the shadow girl, awakened by the killing intent, echoed in Kurosawa Shizuki's mind.

There is great terror between life and death. Kurosawa Shizuki was certain that even an immortal could be killed by this golden branch. If she were to be struck, there would probably be no chance of being resurrected.