As the savior, I only want to play single-player games.

Suzuka Ise looked around for a moment, then followed.

They left the inner palace one after the other and eventually disappeared into the forest.

The shrine is relocated every twenty years, requiring a large amount of timber, which is sourced from this forest, known as the Shrine Forest.

The Shen Gong Forest is extremely vast, with towering ancient trees, and its terrain is so complex that it is impossible to pass through.

But Suzuka Ise followed closely. As she stepped down, she noticed a winding path gradually appearing ahead, stretching out from the void. It was as if she had entered another world, a path leading to the unknown.

She paused for a moment, but chose to continue, and finally saw a torii gate at the end of the road.

May all gods swiftly come to my aid; if anyone disobeys, I will subdue Fengdu. Chapter Sixty-Nine: A Fortuitous Encounter

An empty torii gate stands abruptly here, with nothing else around.

In legend, the torii gate is the entrance to the realm of the gods.

She entered the torii gate. In an instant, she felt as if the world had turned upside down.

The light suddenly brightened, forcing Suzuka Ise to squint and wait for it to fade. What came into view was an extremely dilapidated shrine.

This is a remote, mountainous area. Doors have collapsed, buildings are decaying, and weeds and shrubs grow everywhere, as if it has been abandoned for countless years.

She looked up and saw a clay statue standing on the altar. The statue's outer shell was cracked, but the inside was hollow, as if someone had crawled out of it.

Is this the legendary realm of the gods?

Suzuka Ise was stunned.

creak creak...

A strange noise came from the side. Suzuka Ise turned her head and her pupils suddenly contracted. In the weeds, she saw the spirit of the Shimizu priest being devoured by a humanoid creature crawling there. It had already eaten more than half of the spirit.

The creature looked extremely slovenly and dirty, much like a legendary savage. It was covered with withered grass and vines, tangled together and decaying beyond recognition, making it impossible to discern its human form.

It ate extremely quickly, as if it were eating cookies, and in no time at all, it had devoured the soul of the Water Priest without encountering any resistance.

After finishing his meal, he looked up and stared at Suzuka Ise.

Suzuka Ise took a few steps back, staring at the strange creature and gripping the Yata no Kagami tightly in her hand.

“You are… Suzuka Ise.” It uttered a sentence in a language that was not human and could not be deciphered by ordinary people.

Surprisingly, Suzuka Ise was able to understand the meaning of those words.

"Do you know me?" she asked warily.

"I witnessed your birth."

Suzuka Ise was stunned.

"Later, your grandmother begged me to save your life at the cost of her soul," it continued, its head covered by a layer of weed-like material obscuring its face, whether hair or something else was unclear.

Suzuka Ise could sense that it was smiling at her.

Upon hearing this, she turned sharply and saw the broken statue. Looking around, she vaguely felt a sense of familiarity.

“It’s that nameless shrine…” She was startled. When she was young, her grandmother would often bring her to a shrine to pray for her.

But I never saw him again.

Now she realized that this was the place.

"I never imagined that I still have followers in the human world. I thought they had all died out," it said with a sigh. Suzuka Ise's grandmother was once its follower; otherwise, how could it communicate with her?

"Are you a god?" Suzuka Ise asked.

"Yes." It smiled eerily and said in a low voice, "You've grown up, and that sickly little fawn has actually returned."

It didn't even think Suzuka Ise could survive at first, but as it turns out, even gods can make mistakes.

Human life is as fragile as grass, but there are always some wild grasses that refuse to bow to the raging wind.

“I…” Suzuka Ise’s lips moved, her mind in turmoil.

“You have many questions, you can speak slowly. There is still plenty of time, enough for you to resolve all your doubts.” It crawled over, sending chills down your spine, and came close to Suzuka Ise.

Suzuka was extremely uncomfortable: "You ate the soul of the Shimizu Festival Master."

"This is the most nutritious soul I have ever consumed in a thousand years." The soul of an extraordinary being truly cannot be compared to that of a human.

Suzuka was disheartened by its casual attitude and immediately asked, "Are you planning to eat me too?" If that were the case, even with the Yata Mirror in her hand, she might not be able to escape, and she didn't know how to use this divine artifact.

"Your soul is now extremely beautiful, but if I were to do this, you would develop intense hatred, and the consequences would be severe; it would be a pollution to me." Its words were sinister and filled with terror.

Suzuka Ise remained silent, maintaining a skeptical attitude.

"Your mother died here. She stole Amaterasu's blood in an attempt to gain freedom, but she never expected that this would drag her into the abyss."

“My mother?” Suzuka Ise was taken aback.

"That human named Ise Kiriko, she was truly talented, but unfortunately she had an affair with your father, which ultimately led to her downfall." It spoke of a forgotten past.

At that time, Kiriko Ise arrived at the shrine and became a high-ranking priestess. However, in this cold and solemn shrine, there were only strict rules and regulations. At first, she was extremely devout, praying to the gods, but later, no matter how much she prayed, she never received a response. During her long prayers, despair gradually began to creep into her heart. She was unwilling to be a worthless tool. Just then, her childhood friend came looking for her, and she did something wrong.

The priestess became pregnant, which was a desecration of Amaterasu. She regained her senses afterward, but it was too late to undo the damage. In the end, she disregarded everything and drank the blood of the gods.

"She once asked me, since the gods have long since disappeared, why are there still priestesses who communicate with the gods, and why do we still pray to the gods and try to communicate with them?" At that time, it had not yet climbed out of the statue, so even if it heard her, it would not care. Even if she was a priestess who communicated with the gods, it was not worth it wasting its power to respond, otherwise it would not have been able to hold on until now.

Human society has undergone tremendous changes over the past thousand years.

Gods have become legends, long since becoming ethereal and elusive.

She blasphemed Amaterasu, yet saw no divine punishment, and her despair only deepened. She drank divine blood to prove her future significance, only to find it futile.

The legendary divine blood sealed for a thousand years and the secret medicine that could transform a person could not even allow her to communicate with the gods.

The truth was quickly revealed, and the shrine was furious, wanting to sacrifice her to the gods.

That was an extremely complicated story, too complex to explain in just a few words.

“Ordinary people can’t come here,” it uttered in an eerie voice. “This is the boundary between the spirit world and the human world.”

An ordinary person would not be able to survive here, but Ise Kiriko, having drunk the blood of the gods, did not die.

"I was originally going to eat her, but Amaterasu's blood is very useful to me..." It didn't break any rules; the food simply came to it on its own.

But it didn't appear; it only awakened a wisp of thought and sensed that there was a small life inside her.

Meanwhile, Ise Kiriko's childhood friend lingered in Jingu Forest for a long time, unwilling to leave. His mother came looking for him at that time, and by chance, he finally arrived in front of the torii gate and was able to communicate with Ise Kiriko—and he was the mastermind behind it all.

"That woman was decisive. She didn't hesitate to burn her soul to give birth to you two months early. You inherited extraordinary characteristics from her, but unfortunately, she didn't have the means of a god to transfer all of her extraordinary characteristics into your body."

In the end, after a heartbreaking separation, Kiriko Ise gave away her newborn baby. Having lost most of her extraordinary abilities, she herself was unable to continue and was eventually eaten by it.

Suzuka Ise was lost in thought. This past was extremely complicated and bizarre for her; if there had been a slight mishap, she would have died in the womb.

All gods, come swiftly to aid me! If anyone disobeys, I will subdue Fengdu: Chapter Seventy: The Immortal Valley God and the New Outer God

She was frail and sickly from childhood, and her cardiopulmonary function was not fully developed; this was the root of her illness.

Suzuka Ise quickly realized many things; she was no longer as naive as she used to be.

"My grandma..."

"When the spirit world returned, the gods summoned evil spirits from the human world. She originally had a chance to survive and protect her soul, but over the years, she has consumed too much of her soul to save you and is no longer able to do so. In the end, she chose to dedicate her soul to me in exchange for the extraordinary power within Ise Kiriko."

“I put that extraordinary ability into her body. The extraordinary ability will not disappear, but it will automatically come together.”

“She understands that having all the extraordinary qualities would be a burden for you. Without a strong heart, you would be constantly anxious about facing the reality of the world. But if you are incomplete, it would be a form of protection.”

"What an unfortunate yet lucky child."

Suzuka's nose suddenly stung with tears; it was at her grandmother's grave that she was reborn.

Looking back now, I realize that Grandma made her decision a long time ago.

The extraordinary qualities within her had actually been gradually awakening long ago. Even before the spirit world returned, she could vaguely see the figures of those evil spirits.

When she returned to the spirit world, her body was too weak to protect her soul and she was about to be summoned away. The evil spirit that had been following her tried to interfere with reality and create illusions to wake Hiratsuka Shizuka from her sleep. In the end, she found the woman Yotsuya Miko and Yurikawa Hana saved her life so that she would not become a wandering ghost.

It can be said that being both lucky and unlucky truly reflects the nature of her life.

"Why are you doing this? What good does it do you?" She remained silent for a long time, but her heart calmed down. She just couldn't understand the idea of ​​this person who called himself God.

It devoured its grandmother's soul and its mother's body, as well as the soul of the Shimizu Festival Master, but Suzuka felt no hatred towards it, only a complex mix of emotions.

"I initially ignored it, but eventually I wanted to see if humanity was still as resilient as it was back then."

Its life or death was irrelevant to Kiriko Ise until that unorthodox priestess drank the blood of the gods, which caught its attention.

Suzuka asked hesitantly, "Who exactly are you?"

"I am Toyo no Mikoto," it replied. Suzuka Ise, as a goddess, was undoubtedly very incompetent for not knowing the name of a deity.

The outer shrine of Ise Grand Shrine enshrines Toyo no Meru, while the inner shrine enshrines Amaterasu.

Strictly speaking, the two are of equal status.

But Suzuka Ise never imagined that Toyo no Okami would look like this. It was terrifying in appearance, crawling around, and covered with various unknown substances, like vines or hair, like a thick shell, with only a rough human shape.

Despite its frightening appearance, it treated Suzuka Ise fairly well.

“My grandmother doesn’t believe in the God of Abundance…” Suzuka said softly, as she rarely saw her grandmother talking about gods.

"She believes in another name of my god."

Suzuka asked, "You have many god names?"

"Many years ago, before I came to this island, I was called the God of Grain. After I came here, I was called the God of Food Protection, and now I have the title of Abundance." Strictly speaking, the God of Grain is her original divine name.

She's gotten used to having a different god's name in every new region.

“Even the supreme God has a past; he did not appear out of nowhere,” Ceres revealed some secrets.

Her origins are extremely ancient; she could be considered a deity of an ancient civilization. She later came to this island and fought against the local deities, but eventually integrated into the community. The title of Valley Goddess is not widely known, so her followers are extremely rare. Suzuka's grandmother was one of them.

For humankind, this could be considered a benevolent deity.

“Some people say I am the reincarnation of Amaterasu,” Suzuka said hesitantly, glancing at the Yata no Kagami in her hand.

However, such a statement would undoubtedly be disrespectful to ordinary deities, but it is not an unforgivable crime to the God of Grain.

The Valley Goddess glanced at her subtly. She had witnessed the Yata no Kagami fly away from here and land next to Suzuka in Ise. It did not stop her and said, "Amaterasu has died deep in the Spirit World."