155: Zigui's Rampage VS The Great Serpent

The Lord of Dark Power. That strange, Sanskrit-like chanting echoed through the air. It was Orochi.

"You are wrong. I am a god. I encompass all human emotions: kindness, benevolence, cruelty, and baseness. My power comes from humanity itself, and from nature. While possessing the dark power, I also possess the power of light."

"Then why do you wish to destroy humanity and the world?" Chizuru Kagura demanded, though shaken by the entity's overwhelming majesty.

"It is because of you humans yourselves. As a god, I am like a vessel, accumulating all the spiritual emotions of this world. To my great regret, the negative elements within the emotions I have gathered are growing ever more numerous—wars, slaughter, destruction, and decay. Human actions are driving this world step by step toward crisis. If humanity is not purified, this world will sooner or later perish at human hands."

Orochi's tone was identical to Shermie's. It seemed the Orochi clan already viewed humanity as an enemy threatening the world. It was truly difficult to tell who was right and who was wrong. Orochi appeared to be purging humanity for the future of the world, yet humanity sealed Orochi away for the sake of its own survival.

"I understand. Orochi is actually the consciousness of Gaia," Lu Daoxuan suddenly said.

"What?" Mutou, Gu Feng, and Baldy all turned to look at Lu Daoxuan.

"Or it could be called the collective unconscious. In this theory, every existing world possesses a great collective consciousness. This aggregate consciousness is Gaia. As long as the living beings inhabiting this world do not threaten the world itself and the survival of the majority of life upon it, this consciousness remains in a deep slumber.

"According to this theory, natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes within the world system are actually subtle adjustments made by the Gaia consciousness. But once life forms or phenomena arise that threaten the entire world, the Gaia consciousness awakens from its slumber and uses every natural disaster at its disposal to destroy those life forms..."

Hearing Lu Daoxuan say this, Mutou suddenly recalled a similar concept on Earth concerning Gaia, the great Mother of Earth in mythology. She constantly manufactured a state of equilibrium and would counterattack any actions that disrupted that stability, such as desertification and dust storms—all of which were punishments inflicted upon humanity. Therefore, some believed that the Earth or the universe possessed a grand will, which was the Gaia consciousness.

Mutou knew very little about the Gaia consciousness and usually paid no attention to it. Hearing Lu Daoxuan bring it up now, he realized that Orochi truly seemed to be the awakening of the Gaia consciousness, a punishment for humanity's destruction of nature and slaughter of living creatures.

Chizuru Kagura was slightly startled by Orochi's reply. She did not know how to respond, but Kyo Kusanagi suddenly roared in anger, "I don't care about your fallacious sophistry. You want to destroy us... but we will never sit back and await our doom."

Chizuru Kagura regained her composure, turned to Iori Yagami, and said, "Let us act. Cast aside past grievances; we descendants of the Three Sacred Treasures must follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and seal Orochi."

"Awoo! Awoo! Hahaha!" Ever since losing his purple flames, Iori Yagami, who had been standing blankly in place, suddenly went berserk. Mutou suddenly remembered: "When Orochi awakens, Iori will go berserk, unable to distinguish friend from foe."

However, the situation was better than Mutou had imagined. Having lost his sanity, Iori did not attack wildly. After letting out a long howl toward the sky, his pupils turned blood-red, fixed entirely upon Orochi. His arms hung down like an ape's, and white foam dripped from the corners of his grinning mouth.

"Iori?" Chizuru Kagura cried out in alarm, her concern evident.

Iori swung his right arm, and countless sparks of purple fire skimmed across the ground, shooting toward Orochi. After going berserk, his pyrokinesis had returned.

Orochi, a young man who looked no more than twenty years old, floated about a dozen centimeters above the ground, his face wearing only a look of disdain. His athletic physique looked like a reflection in water, with subtle, ripple-like distortions constantly playing around his body—this was the Wind Power of the Heavenly Kings, the Wind Barrier. Iori's purple flames vanished without a trace before the wind barrier. *Crack.* A bolt of lightning suddenly materialized out of the void, shattering the wind barrier.

"Give Shermie back to me!" A figure also floated in mid-air like Orochi; it was Zigui, the weakest among the five companions. At this moment, however, his combat armor was activated, and anti-gravity devices kept him suspended. His eyes were blood-red, locked onto Orochi. He then raised both hands above his head and pulled downward, hurling a bolt of purple lightning at Orochi.

Before his lightning could strike, however, Orochi vanished from the spot, instantly reappearing right in front of Zigui, moving with the speed of Gu Feng's teleportation.

"Strange power," Orochi's strange tone sounded. "It even contains the power of my Orochi clan. But to use it against me is wishful thinking."

Orochi's gaze lifted slightly, binding Zigui in place, and he prepared to unleash a mental attack.

"Zigui!" Everyone cried out in shock. The Zhuxian Formation diagram beneath Mutou's feet expanded, ready to envelop them both.

With a cold snort from Zigui, a white sphere suddenly appeared in the void, and an armored humanoid figure several meters tall materialized.

"EVA! This is Unit 2!" Mutou finally recognized Zigui's trump card.

The white radiance enveloped Zigui, quickly pulling him out of Orochi's control and into the interior of the mecha. Shortly after, Zigui, operating from within the mecha and aided by its capabilities, unleashed a lightning force far surpassing Shermie's.

"Such miraculous power," Orochi muttered in his peculiar tone.

"Now is the time!" Chizuru Kagura called out. Borrowing the power of the Yata Mirror, her body split into multiple phantoms, dancing like flowing clouds and moving water as she launched an assault on Orochi. At the same time, Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami temporarily set aside their age-old feud to jointly attack Orochi. Faced with Orochi's heaven-shaking might, they had no choice but to unite.

For a time, flames danced wildly across the Kof arena, the sound of the wind grew sharp, and bolts of lightning struck down one after another. The descendants of the Three Sacred Treasures and Zigui engaged in a fierce battle against Orochi. The rest of the fighters had already been heavily injured by Orochi's "Sun Halo" upon his entrance, and could only watch helplessly, unable to offer any assistance.

Watching the fierce battle, Lu Daoxuan stopped Mutou, who was eager to join the fray. "Wait. I want to see just what level Orochi's strength has reached."

Surrounded by the four of them, Orochi seemed to display a flicker of annoyance. He extended a hand flat in the air, and a dark particle bearing visible ripples flew rapidly and straight toward the four combatants.

"Be careful!" The descendants of the Three Sacred Treasures all leaped away hastily. Only Zigui ignored the danger; a ball of purple lightning condensed before him, utterly neutralizing the dark particle.

"That's Orochi Shermie's Dark Thunder Light Fist! How did Zigui suddenly learn this move?" Mutou was greatly astonished. He had already found it strange earlier when seeing him wield lightning power, but then he realized: Zigui's efforts had not been in vain. Before perishing, Shermie had passed her lightning power on to him.

Lu Daoxuan pushed up his glasses. "Zigui acquiring such an ability is beyond my expectations. Well then, it's time to execute our plan." With that, he looked toward Baldy.

Baldy nodded, reached into his spatial bracelet, and produced a swarm of robotic bees. Mutou recognized them immediately—he was the one who had given them away: silicon-based lifeforms, robotic bees, information collection and analysis devices. Purpose: eavesdropping, surveillance, collection, and analysis.

"We just need to immobilize Orochi for a few dozen seconds. I need the robotic bees to collect Orochi's blood," Lu Daoxuan said, directing his words at Gu Feng.

Gu Feng sensed the situation slightly and replied, "Orochi's strength far exceeds mine. My spatial binding can restrain him for three seconds at most."

"Three seconds? Not enough," Lu Daoxuan shook his head. "Let's wait. We'll see how the situation develops before making a move."

At this moment, Orochi unleashed his might once more. The Sanskrit chanting rang out again, and the Kof arena was once more filled with blinding white light—it was Orochi's ultimate technique, "Sun Halo."

The descendants of the Three Sacred Treasures managed to block this lethal move with the aid of their sacred artifacts, but their mental states were significantly weakened. Zigui, inside the EVA, suffered no major harm. Taking advantage of the recovery time after Orochi's execution of an S-class skill, Iori lunged forward fiercely, pinning him down with a "Yue-Yin" and raining heavy punches upon him.

However, his power-filled punch struck solid ice; Orochi's form flickered like a ghost, reappearing behind him, and a spectral hand lifted him high into the air before hurling him far away. Seeing Iori in peril, Chizuru Kagura swept her sleeves in a dance, sending her phantom clones to attack Orochi. This was her family's arcane technique, the ultimate art that had once defeated Chris, embodying the formation of the Three Destinies.

Yet Orochi's power defied mortal might. Just as Chizuru was about to strike, Orochi vanished without a trace once more. Before Chizuru could even feel surprised, Orochi's towering figure flashed before her again, his cruel gaze locked tightly upon her. As Chizuru tried to make a move, she saw brilliant light erupting across Orochi's body, completely binding her hands and feet.

Orochi delivered a single punch to Chizuru Kagura's abdomen. She felt as though all the spiritual power in her body had been stripped away by that single blow. Orochi withdrew his fist; in his palm, he cradled a glowing sphere of energy containing Chizuru Kagura's soul and power. Chizuru Kagura dropped to her knees in despair, her mind blank. She knew that the moment Orochi crushed that energy sphere, her life would likewise come to an end.

Seeing Chizuru Kagura face such a crisis, both Iori and Kyo let out a shout and charged at Orochi together. However, with a wave of Orochi's hand, a pillar of purple light surged from the ground, knocking the two of them backward. Repeating his previous action, radiant light surged over his body, and with the S-class skill "Soul Extraction," he ripped the souls and powers from the two men as well, forming another sphere of light which he gripped in his hand.

Yet Orochi did not crush the orb immediately. Gripping the energy in his palm, he surveyed the mortals who had attempted to seal him once again, and burst into a laughter resembling Sanskrit chanting.

"Are these the abilities of the descendants of the Three Sacred Treasures? Ah, hah, hah, hah. If not for the fact that my power had not yet fully recovered back then, how could you ancestors ever have sealed me?"

With that, a stern look crossed his face. "For the crimes your ancestors committed against me, you must be prepared to bear the wrath of the gods... But there is no need for you to be too frightened. Very soon, everything will return to 'nothingness,' with no more pain, and no more separation between life and death."