From the shadows of the shattered domain, soone erged. He was a follower of Susanoo. He had been hiding underground with the others, those too weak to join the battle.
Monts later, about fifty more cautiously stepped out, following his lead once they saw it was safe.
What t their eyes struck them with a mix of grief and fury.
The domain — their ho for countless years — was in ruins. The cherry trees, once vibrant and majestic, now lay withered and fallen. The grand palace, once a towering symbol of Susanoo’s divine might, was reduced to rubble and ash.
And more than anything... They could no longer feel his presence.
"Our master is... dead," whispered one follower, her voice trembling, her eyes wide in disbelief. She stood frozen, unable to accept that the god she revered—who had seed untouchable—was truly dead.
The others felt the sa. The absence of Susanoo’s divine aura, once a constant in their world, was now an overwhelming void.
So followers wept. Especially those who had served the god for centuries—his handmaidens and harems, his loyal guards, his devoted acolytes. Among them were won who had spent their lives in his service, so out of reverence, others because they had been taken and given no choice. The grief was not universal.
Those who had been forced to serve, the newer arrivals stolen from their worlds, felt sothing different. It was relief.
They didn’t weep or cry or even feeling too sad. Not for a god who had never seen them as anything but tools or ornants. And now, with their master gone, an uncertain question lood in their head, what now?
Suddenly, a voice cried out. "I hear sothing! Soone’s still alive over there!"
The group rushed toward the source of the sound, crossing the ruined grounds until they reached the front yard of the fallen palace—the place where Asqa had unleashed her deadly storm of venom and fire.
What they found there made so of them recoil in horror. A few fainted imdiately after they see what happened.
The yard was a filled with death and destructions.
Twisted armor and blackened earth bore witness to the massacre. The ground was littered with the corpses of soldiers, their bodies lted into their armor.
So were missing limbs. So had turned into unrecognizable masses of charred flesh and poisoned blood.
A few still barely clung to their life.
"H-help... ..." one of them rasped, voice cracked and wet.
But it was clear that at this point none of them could be saved.
One by one, the survivors stilled. The battlefield grew silent again.
The followers stood among the wreckage, silent and shaken.
For so long, they had believed that no power could rival their master and theyr think that the Celestials stood above all. That stories on the video recording were just exaggerations or myths made by soone to stirr chaos.
But now... They had seen the truth with their own eyes.
A real, terrifying, and unstoppable power existed in this world. A force that could kill a god.
The newer followers exchanged uneasy glances. Only about ten of them had gathered here—just a small fraction. The others remained hidden underground because they were stil too traumatized by the apocalypse of the Selection Stage to co out. The trauma still gripped their minds like a vice.
The small group kept to themselves, huddled together at a distance from the older, long-ti followers. A heavy silence hung between them, broken only by the sound of distant rubble collapsing.
A young woman finally spoke, her voice hesitant.
"What... do you think we should do?"
A man shrugged helplessly. "Is there even anything we can do?"
Another—a boy no older than sixteen—muttered, "Why don’t we just wait here? Maybe soone will co..."
But an older voice, quiet and grim, offered a chilling truth. "Susanoo is dead. And this domain was his. Without its master, it could collapse at any ti."
Silence fell again.
The words made too much sense. The entire domain was sustained by Susanoo’s divine will. If that will was gone, then nothing here was truly stable anymore.
"So... we should leave? But how?" another asked, their voice tinged with rising panic.
The young woman who had spoken first looked toward the crumbling remains of the palace. Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible.
"Maybe... there’s still sothing in there. An artifact. A relic. Sothing that can help us survive—or maybe even open a portal out of here."
The others leaned in, listening closely. They didn’t want the veteran followers to overhear.
Slowly, nods of agreent followed.
There was no guarantee of safety, but waiting around in a dying god’s ruined realm wasn’t a plan either.
If there was even a chance of escape hidden within the wreckage, they would take it.
---
Far from the ruins of Susanoo’s shattered sanctuary, a tear in the fabric of space silently split open across a boundless sky. From the swirling edges of the void, Clyde stepped through.
He erged first. The residual energy of the Ancient One still dancing around his form. His eyes remained pitch black.
Behind him, Asqa followed.
The portal snapped shut behind them with a sharp crack and silence reigned.
They now stood on the edge of another vast domain. The land below stretched out and filled with ornate, majestic, and pristine tapestry.
Towering pagodas, interwoven with winding rivers and trees.
Clyde’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at it all.
"This one is Tsukuyomi’s domain," he said calmly. "The Moon God."
Beneath them, the air shimred with protection — an invisible shield stretching across the domain’s periter.
Clyde raised a hand, feeling the resistance magic, then with a slight push he shattered it like glass.
A ripple echoed out across the land.
Sowhere far below, priests and guards felt it. Alarm bells began to toll across temple complexes.
Clyde descended slowly. Asqa followed beside him.
They landed atop the central temple, a massive structure carved from moonstone and obsidian. The mont they touched down, dozens of guards appeared around them, erging in flashes of light with weapons and skills at the ready.
---
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