Chapter 384: The Grandest Funeral
Outside the spatial storm, the Nine-Tailed Fox waited quietly for Hikigaya Hachiman to escape.
According to common sense, someone unfamiliar with spatial power could not survive a spatial storm. However, after dealing with Hachiman for so long, the Fox was more inclined to believe he would break out with brute force rather than die easily.
Bang!
Just as predicted, after several hours, the spatial storm in front of the Fox disintegrated into powder and vanished into the turbulence. Without hesitation, the Fox triggered the traps set beforehand and lunged at Hachiman as he reappeared.
"What?"
Before Hachiman could exit his focused state, he felt the spiritual flow within his body suddenly stagnate. A sharp wind whistled toward his face. He stepped to the left, intending to leap hundreds of meters away through the turbulence, but he was instantly bounced back by a powerful recoil.
[Ah, a teleportation restriction array was placed here.]
The Intelligent System chimed in mockingly inside his head.
"A teleportation ban?"
Though annoyed by the System's attitude toward his blunders, Hachiman decided not to argue since it had answered his confusion. Spatial power surged from within him again. Following his memory, he fused it with his spiritual energy to form a cubic barrier to intercept the Fox's attack.
Next, three dull thuds echoed from behind, below, and to the upper right of Hachiman.
"You've already noticed?"
The Nine-Tailed Fox grew wary. Normally, a novice fighting in spatial turbulence wouldn't realize that attacks could be warped to different coordinates. Yet Hachiman had anticipated it.
"If tricks don't work, then it's down to raw power!"
Feeling the constant stream of life force from the combination in its belly, the Fox firmly believed it could not lose. It sliced through the void and dove inside. An exit opened behind Hachiman, and the Fox's full-power strike slammed into his rising barrier.
"Coating the surface with spatial power, I see."
Upon contact, the Fox instantly judged Hachiman's proficiency. Seeing that he was still at a basic level of application, it relaxed slightly. It manipulated the surrounding spatial power to peel back Hachiman's defense and lunged again.
Hachiman, sensing the spatial ripples, was ready. As the Fox breached the barrier, he summoned the Ghost-Slaying Blade and swung it with everything he had. The Fox's eyes flickered with wariness at the blade, but looking at their current location, that wariness turned into a cold sneer.
No matter how threatening the blade was, it meant nothing if it didn't land!
The space between them warped. The blade, which should have cleaved through the Fox, passed harmlessly through its body as if it were a ghost.
"What?"
Stunned by this evasion, Hachiman left himself open. In the next second, the Fox's palm slammed directly into his chest over his heart.
Pfft—
A spray of blood, rich with life force, erupted from Hachiman's mouth. He was sent flying dozens of meters, his eyes filled with confusion. Why did the Fox hit him even though he was using "Avalon" for defense?
[Host, use spatial power! Spatial power! The space in this location is overlapping!]
Sensing Hachiman's severe injury, the Intelligent System grew frantic. As his host—and a source of commission—it didn't want to see him die.
"A spatial issue?"
Feeling his shattered heart being forcibly reconstructed by "Avalon," Hachiman endured the agony and observed the surroundings. It was just as the System said. Though the turbulence looked like a void, every point in space was connected to and overlapped with countless others.
"I'm clearly no match for it here."
Hachiman frankly admitted that even with the System, his spatial techniques were inferior to the Fox's. But if he couldn't win here, why fight in an unfavorable environment?
He held his hands out, and his spatial power erupted, enveloping a massive region—including the Nine-Tailed Fox. Then, he tore open a rift to another world and used brute force to drag the entire encapsulated area through!
The Fox, never having seen such a strategy, initially used its power to stabilize the local nodes. By the time it realized Hachiman's true intent, it was too late.
In the crimson sky of an unknown, dying world, a massive rift appeared. The creatures of this world looked up blankly. Sensing the massive life force from the two newcomers, they began to swarm toward the landing site like moths to a flame.
"Is this world already destroyed?"
Hachiman scanned the area. He found no living humans, only creatures covered in the aura of death.
"Moving corpses?"
Looking at the slow-moving hordes, Hachiman felt relieved. His luck held. Since there were only moving corpses here, he could go all out without restraint! He flickered forward and punched the Fox square in the face the moment it emerged.
BOOM!
A shockwave raised dust meters high. A second later, the Fox, eyes crimson with rage, charged back. It dodged Hachiman's swing and retaliated with a punch to his left cheek.
They separated briefly. Hachiman wiped his nose, finding a trickle of blood. The Fox cracked its neck and touched the graze on its face. The dark red Ghost-Slaying Blade and a pitch-black spear appeared in their hands, and the sound of clashing metal filled the sky.
Time passed. Realizing their weapons couldn't breach each other's defenses for a killing blow, they put them away by unspoken agreement and began a brutal fistfight. Each of Hachiman's strikes carried the "anti-evil" attribute of his blade, causing the Fox's body to dissipate upon impact. Meanwhile, the Fox used a technique where every touch caused Hachiman's local life force to stagnate and vanish.
But these wounds were minor. Hachiman had the Holy Grail's mana and "Avalon's" healing; the Fox had the ley line crystals and Hana's life force. In this white-hot stalemate, Hachiman finally understood why the Chief Priestess said gods were hard to kill. At this rate, it would take a year to wear the Fox down!
"Does it have to be a war of attrition?"
Hachiman recalled how he solved the High-Rank Kishin. That had been luck. That Kishin had been restricted by the laws of the otherworld and chose a beam struggle he couldn't win against Hachiman's "cheat" mana source. The Fox was different.
"There must be a way to end this quickly..."
He considered asking the System, but his 300,000 Spirit Coin savings were gone.
[Um, Host, did you forget about me?]
The Intelligent System's voice echoed. If it were physical, Hachiman would have kissed it. Right! The "Dummy" System!
[?] The System sent a question mark. What did he just call it?
"Nothing! Tell me how to end a god-level battle quickly!"
[I can bypass permissions to give you the answer, but it's not free!]
"Whatever it costs, I'll pay!" Hachiman knew he was being fleeced, but he had a promise to Komachi to keep.
[Contract established.]
Information flooded Hachiman's brain. After absorbing it, his aura exploded!
"Hmm?" The Fox frowned but raised its own aura to match.
They clashed fists again, but there was no explosion. The moment their knuckles met, their life forces surged and neutralized each other in the void. A single strike now consumed a hundred times more energy than before.
"Now it's a pure contest of who has more life force!"
Hachiman punched toward the Fox's core. The Fox blocked with one hand and thrust its claws toward Hachiman's heart with the other. Hachiman didn't block; he aimed to trade wounds. With "Avalon," his heart would regrow in seconds.
Squeltch! Thud!
As the Fox's claws pierced his chest, Hachiman's fist buried itself in the Fox's body. Within the Fox, he felt a swarm of violent auras, but among them, he sensed one that was soft—even lazy.
'Yurikawa Hana?'
He remembered her face. Why did the Fox pick her over Yukino or Miko? Then he remembered: Hana could restore her life force just by eating!
"She's a portable battery!"
Realizing this, Hachiman's strikes grew even more ferocious.
"Wait! Hold your fire!" the Intelligent System screamed.
Hachiman instinctively pulled his punch. The sudden loss of momentum left him off-balance. He watched the Fox's fist get closer and closer...
[Time-Space Freeze]
A cold, unfamiliar voice echoed in his head. The world stopped. The Fox was frozen thirty centimeters from his face.
[Go! Are you waiting for the skill to expire?]
The Intelligent System snapped. Hachiman snapped out of it, reached into the Fox's body, and pulled out Yurikawa Hana. He used the Ghost-Slaying Blade to sever her bindings and flickered hundreds of meters away just as the five-second countdown ended.
Whiff—
Time resumed. The Fox's punch hit nothing. It looked at Hana in Hachiman's arms, and its face contorted. Its "battery" was gone. But at least the ley line jade was still in its belly.
"Those two should be done by now," the Fox thought, its battle lust cooling into calculation. It opened rifts to contact the two Kishin in Tokyo.
"Lord Nine-Tails," the Middle-Rank Kishin reported. "The city center hub has been destroyed."
"Good..."
The Fox looked at Hachiman with newfound savagery. Above the hellish Tokyo, a storm of white light gathered. A sea of "Providential Luck" was sucked into a vortex connected to the Fox. It crushed the jade stone in its belly, and white, gold, and black energy lines erupted from its skin. A tri-colored cocoon formed around the Fox and began to hatch.
[Host, should we retreat?] the Intelligent System suggested nervously.
[Why retreat? If it promotes, the Host should promote too.] The cold voice returned.
"Who are you?" Hachiman asked.
[I am also a System. This world was supposed to be my Host's first low-danger mission, but because of you, it's now a high-danger zone.]
"Uh, sorry..."
[I'll deduct the losses from your account later. Do you want to win?]
"Of course!"
[Then form a Soul Contract with the girl in your arms.]
"Hana? She's just a normal person!"
[Idiot. Do you really think a normal person can restore life force indefinitely just by eating? That girl has a natural array in her stomach that converts anything into life force. If you link with her, your world's energy can pass through her and become your life force.]
Hachiman dove into Hana's consciousness. It was a sea of pink hearts. He found her sitting on a marshmallow cloud, eating a cream cake.
"Hikigaya-kun!" she waved.
"Hana-san, this is an emergency. Will you sign a contract with me?"
Splat. The cake fell.
"A contract? Does that mean...?" She blushed. "But you're with Miko-chan... well, if you make me good food every day, I guess..."
Chop! Hachiman hit her head. "It's a partner contract, not a marriage contract!"
"What's the difference..." she muttered. "Fine, but you have to give me half of Miko's lunches. And make me a cake every day."
"Deal."
"And... never bully Miko!"
Hachiman's irritation vanished. "That's a given."
They touched hands. A silver light erupted.
Back in reality, Hana levitated. A formation formed under them and split into their foreheads.
[Don't panic. Your partner is now 'inside' you. Think of it as a fusion.] the cold System explained.
A titanic surge of life force erupted in Hachiman.
The dying world fell silent. A tri-colored cocoon and a golden sphere hovered in the air. Finally, the cocoon cracked. A beautiful, bewitching man stepped out—the Nine-Tailed Fox's ultimate form.
At the same time, the golden sphere shattered. Hachiman emerged, now at the rank of a High Deity.
The Fox, now a Great God (Main Deity), attacked instantly. But Hachiman, filled with life force, parried the blow with a silver sword light. Space shattered, and turbulence leaked in.
Hachiman didn't try to trap the Fox. His goal was to keep it in this dying world as long as possible.
To bury it with the world!
This was his plan. Under his relentless assault, the Fox didn't notice his power seep into the planet's core.
"Are you sure I won't die?" Hachiman asked the cold System.
[Confirmed.]
Hachiman took a deep breath. He triggered the detonation.
The core of the planet exploded.
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