Transformed into the leader of an esoteric sect in Japan

"Give up, give up, you never had a chance from the beginning." The Centipede Sage laughed unrestrainedly.

The golden branch held high above her head created a suffocating sense of oppression, as if she could see Death wielding an irresistible scythe against her. There was absolutely no chance of struggling. At this distance, she had no chance of winning a close-quarters battle with the Centipede Sage.

However, halfway through the swing of the golden branch, the movement froze in mid-air again. The centipede sage looked down in astonishment, and for the first time, a look of shock appeared on his face.

Because a blade wreathed in pale golden sunlight pierced through his body, and the hand holding that blade was a young girl's delicate arm.

Asakura's Dream Shadow Slash burst forth from the Centipede Sage's body, slicing him open at the chest! Blood and flesh flew everywhere, and the burning yang flames scorched the transformed body. Kurosawa Shizuki smelled the aroma of roasted meat.

"Baka! Where did you stab just now, you perverted man!" Asakura's voice came from inside the centipede sage's body.

"Someone actually survived under the golden branch? Little girl, you've truly given me a tremendous surprise." There was a morbid pleasure in the Centipede Sage's voice, as if the Dream Shadow Slash wasn't tearing open his own body at all.

Kurosawa Shizuki saw Asakura, completely naked, her body wreathed in yang flames, her skin shimmering with a crystalline radiance, like translucent glass, struggling to crawl out of the Centipede Sage's completely dissected body. Her face was incredibly gloomy. The next instant, countless blades formed from translucent yang flames pierced through the Centipede Sage's body, turning the unchanging Centipede Sage into a hedgehog.

“No, you did kill me,” Asakura Yuki crawled out of the centipede sage’s body, landed on the ground, and struggled to her feet. Kurosawa Shizuki saw her body drifting like a phantom, with wandering yang flames forming a new body. At Asakura’s heart, Kurosawa Shizuki seemed to see something like a pocket watch flash by, the hands of the pocket watch rapidly reversing.

"But even Jinzhi couldn't possibly kill me at every stage of my life."

The magnificent robes of the Prince of Yang wrapped around her body on their own, draping over Asakura without her needing to call out. Asakura once again stumbled into the arms of the Centipede Sage. This time, the Dream Shadow Slash pierced through the Centipede Sage's heart and emerged from behind him.

The centipede sage narrowed his eyes, a look of realization appearing on his face: "So you are also a member of the 'nobles'. The power of reversing time, I miscalculated."

“You have already lost. The Golden Branch belongs to me.” Asakura Yuki reached out her hand to the Golden Branch that the Centipede Sage still held tightly in his palm, even after such a fierce battle.

“I admit you did well; you did defeat me,” the Centipede Sage said with a mocking smile, “but you only defeated a false version of me.”

His entire body was engulfed in blazing fire, turning into charcoal in the blink of an eye, yet even in his final moments, an excited smile remained on his face.

The enormous baby girl had crawled out of the deep pit, and a terrifying shadow appeared behind Kurosawa Shizuki. However, Kurosawa Shizuki was horrified to find that the baby girl had now escaped her control.

Another viscous and filthy force began to erode the young girl from within. The black matter was the darkest thing, but that thing could even erode the black matter. It was something that was more ancient, cruel and violent than the black matter.

Without hesitation, Kurosawa Shizuki removed her mimicry of the black matter, and Yushu's body swelled up, about to collapse on its own.

However, in the last moment before the collapse, Yushu looked at Asakura with her eyes. In the depths of her gray eyes, a blurry shadow moved, and it seemed that an insect was crawling in it. The blinding pale light shone on Asakura's back as he reached for the golden branch.

Yushu was actually controlled by that strange thing and launched an attack on Asakura!

Yuki Asakura's entire body was briefly petrified and stiffened. Her hand was only inches away from the golden branch. In the blink of an eye, the radiance of the blazing sun flowed, and she broke free from the petrification.

However, it was as if Jinzhi was taken from the charred upper body of the centipede sage by another invisible hand. A dazzling blade of light flashed, and Asakura only had time to narrowly dodge to the side.

The newly formed Asakura's outstretched left arm was casually severed, with only the blinding glare of the sunbeams flashing with scorching light at the cut.

Asakura turned around and looked at the creature that emerged from the collapsed Yushu's body. It was a tiny worm, less than the size of a thumb, wriggling around. It looked like an ordinary little white maggot, but the white maggot had a purple crystal-like eye on its head that was flashing. The worm was suspended in mid-air, and the golden branch flew toward the black worm, circling around it, as if the worm could still use some kind of incredibly strange power to continue to manipulate the golden branch.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak—" The insect chirped merrily, and the golden branches drew a smooth circle around its small body.

"I've encountered more surprises today than I've in my entire life! Are we just going to stand here and wait to die?!" Asakura lunged at Kurosawa Shizuki, who was completely stunned by the sight. "Damn worms!"

But no matter what, they couldn't dodge the black worm's next strike, the Golden Branch. The brilliance of the Golden Branch, when swung by the worm, actually created a blade of light that was tens of meters long.

However, Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura Yuki were not actually cut in two by the Golden Branch.

"Eiko and...Sago?" Kurosawa Shizuki was incredulous to see two girls she thought had run away standing in front of them, taking the blow head-on from the golden branch, and they were both completely unharmed.

Sha Zi held a dark gold skull in his arms. Between the skull's eyebrows, a hole resembling a third eye shone with an eerie light. Under the gaze of the skull's third eye, the speed of Jin Zhi's blade slowed down countless times.

Yongzi held an arm bone in her hand, which was engraved with intricate esoteric Buddhist inscriptions and flowed with a bright red light. She swung the arm bone like a sharp blade, and Jinzhi's sword light was actually deflected by her as if she were hitting a baseball.

P.S., was this chapter full of twists and turns? I feel like this battle was more interesting than before.

Section 115, Chapter 114: All I crave is red death.

The first time Kurosawa Shizuki heard the word "worm" was from Suzuki Machiko. Worms seem to be a very taboo existence in this world, even possessing the power to destroy the gods. All the gods fear worms. Worms come from the lowest level of the Netherworld, hate everything in this world, and have launched three great wars against the gods in multiple histories, which are known as the Three Worm Wars in the history of mysticism.

The three worm wars all ended in failure, at least in this one timeline, because if they hadn't failed, the entire history would have been overturned. According to the game's world view, there were supposedly seven times history, but the worms won in two of them, so now the mysterious world only has five times history by default.

The worms are destined to relentlessly conquer the remaining five layers of history. Everyone knows that as long as history has not been overturned, there will sooner or later be a fourth, fifth, and sixth worm war, until the worms win or the last worm is destroyed. The worms will never stop their march.

Kurosawa Shizuki once jokingly told the Anti-Epidemic Bureau that she was a worm supporter. It seems that there is indeed a group of people in the Anti-Epidemic Bureau who believe that humans and worms can cooperate to defeat the gods and eventually achieve harmonious coexistence. However, after Kurosawa Shizuki saw the so-called worms with her own eyes, she couldn't help but feel that Suzuki's "worm supporter" idea was incredibly absurd. Could such things really be cooperated with?

It exudes undisguised, pure malice, as if it hates everything in this world. It is just a tiny maggot, but its purple eyes instill a deep-seated fear in everyone who sees it.

"This is truly unexpected. The reason the centipede sage escaped into the forest was because he had a worm inside him? Has the Age of Gods become so depraved?" Asakura Yuki's face was extremely grim. "It seems that in the script arranged by the forest gods, we two are just supporting characters who drive the plot forward."

Asakura Yuki's left arm, which had been severed by the golden branch, failed to regenerate for a long time. So she simply summoned the Dream Shadow Cutter again and cut off the remaining left arm. A new arm grew out. Asakura Yuki clenched her five fingers into a fist without expression, and then relaxed them.

"It seems the true protagonist of the story died here many years ago. Was this a coincidence or an inevitability?" Asakura looked at the dark gold skull lifted high by the sand and gave a strange smile.

The worm, suspended high in the sky, could even speak human language; its voice sounded like that of a child, whose gender was indistinguishable.

"Sand and Yongzi, this is truly unexpected. I never imagined that the traitors hiding in Dust Town were you all along?"

The sand and Yongzi's feet were covered in sticky black soil, and their hands were filthy. Had they been digging for something in Dust Town before they left? Dark gold skulls and arm bones—had they dug up someone's grave?

“Uncle Mayor, we are not traitors. We are simply following Teresa’s last wish and burying her where she wanted to rest. Besides, there is no point in remaining loyal to the incarnation of the worm.” Sand’s voice was soft but quite calm.

Upon closer inspection of the dark gold skull in Sha Zi's arms, Kurosawa Shizuki felt that the hole between its eyebrows, which resembled a third eye, looked like it had been artificially carved out. It was hard to imagine what kind of terrible pain one must have endured to leave such an injury. It seemed that the owner of the skull had lived for a very long time after suffering such a head injury.

Does this skull belong to a girl named Theresa? Was she the first person in Dust Town, where Yongzi and Shazikou lived, to contract the Red Death and die? The so-called "outsider"?

"When did you discover my identity?" the worm murmured hoarsely. "Theresa probably didn't have a chance to tell you the truth before I killed her."

“Uncle Mayor, do you really think Sister Teresa would give you the Golden Branch so casually? Admittedly, the Golden Branch is an incredibly powerful weapon for a creature like you, but it is also a shackle, binding you firmly to the forest, so that you can never be freed,” Sand said with a sneer.

"That girl was plotting against me from the very beginning? Even her death was part of the scheme?" the worm said incredulously.

“Everything is just as Sister Teresa foresaw. You ugly worm have finally revealed your true form. We will avenge Sister Teresa and take back what you took from her.” Yongzi coldly looked at the worm that was once a centipede sage and pointed her arm bone directly at the worm.

Kurosawa Shizuki saw countless gleaming spirals on the strange arm bone, with blood-red smoke swirling around it like flames. Then, the arm bone slowly deformed, transforming into another golden tree branch! This branch was shaped like a deer antler!

"This is so interesting. So the Golden Branch was actually transformed from someone's bones?" Asakura Yuki stared at the Golden Branch with wide eyes. "If even remains possess such power, what level of existence was the original owner of the Golden Branch when they were alive? Could such a terrifying being really die here so casually?"

"We were tricked after all. Sand and Eiko, they were using us from the beginning, weren't they? The talk about the three trials was all a smokescreen." Although Kurosawa Shizuki had suspected something was wrong with the two girls from the start, she never expected them to be so well-hidden.

"Who knows? We'll definitely have to settle accounts with them later. I've wasted my life here, it's a complete loss. At least I should take a gold branch back with me," Asakura Yuki said viciously.

Although Kurosawa Shizuki was also envious of the divine power displayed by the Golden Branch, upon seeing the skull in Sha Zi's arms, she inexplicably felt that possessing a Golden Branch might not be such a good thing.

Both Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura Yuki, who were severely weakened, had no interest in continuing to act. Since Sako and Eiko had their own plans from the beginning, Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura were naturally no longer willing to be their cannon fodder.

"Hahaha... Hahahaha—!" The worm's laughter was initially very soft, then grew louder and louder, as if it had heard the funniest thing in the world. Its laughter contained very complex emotions, sounding both sad and relieved: "Take back what belongs to her? What a joke! Everything belongs to us. It was you traitors who took everything from us! We will return eventually. No matter how you struggle, we will devour you all sooner or later."

“It’s quite convincing to hear such things from a walking corpse that has been lingering in the woods for decades,” Eiko said disdainfully. In Kurosawa Shizuki’s eyes, the two little girls were becoming more and more like another person.

In a daze, Kurosawa Shizuki saw a blurry silhouette of another girl with sea-blue hair behind Eiko and Sako. The girl's clear, blood-red eyes looked at the worm with a sharp and mocking gaze. As she spoke, the two little girls also spoke at the same time, their mouths moving in perfect unison.

Seemingly noticing Kurosawa Shizuki's gaze, she turned her head and looked at Kurosawa Shizuki as well, her eyes filled with a playful light. She licked her pink lips and gave Kurosawa Shizuki a bright smile.

Her gentle and clear smile reminded one of the deep blue sea, but Kurosawa Shizuki felt that there was an unspeakable secret hidden in that smile, a strange longing rising in her heart, like an overly exquisite work of art, making one unable to resist the urge to smash it. Kurosawa Shizuki inexplicably had such an image in her mind: she bit down on the delicate throat of the smiling blue-haired girl, drinking her blood, every drop of her blood was so sweet, like the finest wine.

Under such a peculiar longing, Kurosawa Shizuki was briefly lost in thought, but in the next instant, the sea-blue girl vanished without a trace from Kurosawa Shizuki's eyes.

[Congratulations! You have observed Theresa Aquino's Red Death Shadow. The Dance of the Pleasures is currently 2/7 complete.] The system notification suddenly sounded. Kurosawa Shizuki hadn't expected to inexplicably reach the second stage of this mission here. Theresa Aquino—was that the name of the girl from just now? Like the name of Adela Mendoza, whom she had seen in the video before, it was so familiar that it filled Kurosawa Shizuki with trepidation.

Meanwhile, the battle between Eiko, Sand, and the worm resumes.

"Die, die, die! Theresa, you can't take anything from me!" The worm, fueled by the terrifying power surrounding it, swung the golden branch with unbridled abandon. This time, it held nothing back, and a thunderous roar emanated from the golden branch. The swinging of the branch even created countless afterimages and tore cracks in space itself.

But Eiko simply pointed the golden branch that the bone hand had transformed into at the blade of light slashed by the worm: "I never crave golden immortality." She said slowly, but Kurosawa Shizuki felt as if another person was speaking through Eiko's mouth.

The countless blades of light slashed out by the golden branches all stopped without any suspense before Yongzi's unmoving golden branches. With just a casual swing, Yongzi shattered all the blades of light slashed out by the worm.

"Clang!" A fierce clash broke out between the two golden branches, producing a crisp, resonant sound. This time, it was the golden branch on the worm's side that was effortlessly knocked away.

Yongzi raised her left hand towards the sky, as if responding to a summons. The golden branches of the worm flew back into Yongzi's hand like boomerangs. Yongzi held the two golden branches as if she were holding two deer antlers.

Kurosawa Shizuki and Asakura Yuki had this misconception: that the peculiar golden branch seemed to have only now returned to its true owner.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it—" The golden branch was taken away, and the worm that was floating in the air turned around and ran away without hesitation. Although the worm had no wings, it ran away in the air as fast as lightning. "Why, why, why? Failed again and again, still failed... Our wish is just to go home."

Yongzi waved two golden branches at the worm, and a flash of light passed by.

Golden light shot straight into the sky, freezing the worm's body, which was halfway through its flight, in the light. The tiny worm struggled painfully in the dazzling light, as countless invisible chains bound it tightly.

"All I crave is red death." In the next instant, the worm was forcibly dragged by an incredibly strong force to the skull held high by the sand. She held up the golden skull, which was directly facing the constantly writhing worm. The worm's body was getting closer and closer to the skull. Only then did Kurosawa Shizuki realize that the hole between the skull's eyebrows, which looked like a third eye, was just big enough for a worm to crawl into.

Everyone could hear the faint murmurs, like a young girl whispering softly in their ears, a sweet yet deadly greeting that sounded like both a snake and a bee, as if they were being gnawed by an invisible beast, the worm's plump body visibly shriveling up in the whispers.

"I curse you, Theresa, may you never have the freedom you desire, and may you forever lose everything you cherish. I will wait for you at the end of the Netherworld." The worm uttered this final, piercing curse, and its body finally unfurled, giving up its struggle in the golden light.

In the next instant, hundreds and thousands of red spots appeared all over the worm's body. Bathed in a holy golden light, the red spots spread an extremely dangerous Red Death, which could even infect worms that were capable of consuming everything.

“I never expected freedom from the beginning. My existence is a weapon without freedom. A weapon is not worthy of anything,” Eiko and Sako said in unison, their expressions showing the same sorrow. “Until the last worm is destroyed, no one or no god in this world will be free.”

The centipede sage, transformed into a worm, would no longer respond, for the power of the forest spirits acted upon it indiscriminately. Its time was forever frozen deep within the forest, becoming another eternal fold in forgotten history, folded layer by layer, and finally reduced to particles invisible to the naked eye…

P.S., Teresa, the heroine of the old book, has made her appearance, but her entrance is probably different from what you expected.

PS2, thanks to Jiaojiaojiao for the 5000.

Chapter 115, Section 116: Memories of the Woodlands

Within the crumbling town of Dust, devastation was everywhere. Vast rifts stretched to their bottomless depths, and dilapidated mansions collapsed into ruins. Meanwhile, numerous corpses remained frozen in the cracks of time under the power of the forest spirits. With the arrival of Kurosawa Shizuki and others, the abandoned town finally met its complete demise and would be forever hidden in the dust of the forest.

Neither Kurosawa Shizuki nor Asakura Yuki anticipated that the confrontation with the Centipede Sage would have such an abrupt and absurd ending.

The golden branch that no one could resist was defeated without a doubt by an arm bone and a skull that Yongzi and Shazi had somehow found, making their previous life-or-death battle seem like a joke.

What chilled Kurosawa Shizuki even more was that there seemed to be another incomprehensible entity speaking through the sand and Eiko's mouth. Kurosawa Shizuki suspected that this person was the "Sister Theresa" they had been talking about. Although Theresa seemed to be dead, she was still able to influence the world in another form.

Is it Eiko and Sako who are communicating with them now, or the mysterious "Theresa"? Has "Theresa" been controlling Eiko and Sako from the very beginning? Kurosawa Shizuki couldn't help but have many strange thoughts.

"Hey, you two angel sisters, stop daydreaming! We've just finished one trial, and now we're going to find the forest fairy." Yongzi waved the golden branch at them cheerfully, like a child who had just received their favorite glow stick.

"Before that, shouldn't you explain to us what just happened? Where did the skull and hand bones come from? And who is this Teresa you know?" Even someone as composed as Asakura Yuki seemed to be getting a little frantic in the face of this turn of events.

"These two bones are just toys we picked up from the roadside." The two golden branches in Yongzi's hands turned back into two arm bones. If they were really just two ordinary bones, it would be strange enough that they would pick them up as toys.

"Hey, who's Theresa? That name sounds familiar." Sand tilted her head, her cute smile revealing dimples. Were they trying to get away with being cute?

“Sago and Eiko, if these are still your names, you know that playing dumb is pointless. If you can’t give us a reasonable explanation today, it will be difficult for our cooperation to continue.” Kurosawa Shizuki hated the feeling of being used by others.

Sha Zi and Yong Zi exchanged a glance, conveying a cryptic look. They seemed to have made a decision, and both sighed softly in unison.

“Long ago, Sister Teresa was our only friend in this small town. Like our family, she was an outsider. She gave the Golden Branch to the Centipede Sage in exchange for the right to live in Dust Town. The Centipede Sage then offered the Golden Branch to the gods, and that's how Dust Town received divine favor. Because of her sea-blue hair, she was always ostracized and hated by the townspeople, but she always faced everything with gentleness and kindness. However, in the end, she was also the first person to die of the Red Death in Dust Town. Everyone in the town said that the Red Death was her revenge on Dust Town,” Sand said with a sorrowful look in her eyes.

"So is this her revenge?" Yuki Asakura asked.