Child of the World, Cao Qi

The pitch-black Sea of Life nearly covered the entire sky, only to be pierced through by a golden light pillar.

Not only that, even the twisted beast of humanity transformed from the Creation Mother Goddess was smashed straight down from the sky by an utterly violent force.

The earth trembled and wailed. Golden energy gathered wildly at Bai Cangshu’s fingertips, its shriek unbearably piercing.

The dazzling energy condensed into a fist-sized sphere at Bai Cangshu’s fingertips. Due to its extreme compression, the golden energy had nearly turned Blazing White.

Then, beneath Bai Cangshu’s cruel smile, an unprecedentedly condensed and terrifying Dodon Ray shot through the air in his Eightfold Kaio-ken state.

Bai Cangshu himself was propelled upward by the powerful recoil, flying even higher into the sky.

The fist-thick beam of energy tore through the air and struck the massive Demon Dragon Tiamat, which had sunk into the earth.

Boom!

Incomparably pure and terrifying energy exploded across the demon dragon’s surface.

A massive mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The heat from the blast was so intense that even Satoru Gojo and the others tens of thousands of meters away felt their hair curl slightly.

Satoru Gojo used the Limitless Cursed Technique to block the violent shockwave that crashed toward him like a hurricane, but everything on the surrounding ground was flattened outright.

What better demonstrated the terror of the battle were the monsters constantly being born from that black ocean. Like hot oil poured over snow, huge swathes of monsters charging at the forefront were melted in an instant by the high-temperature shockwave.

Roar!

"Argh!"

A pained roar came from the demon dragon’s mouth. It seemed that strike had affected her as well.

Bai Cangshu’s grin stretched wide. He paid no attention at all to Reverse Uchiha Izayoi observing him from behind.

He had gone completely mad from that incomparably violent power. Scarlet Blood Magic began appearing across his body.

A certain will within the Warp once again sensed that its most "devout" Divine Child seemed to be calling for it, and cast its gaze over.

Bai Cangshu’s physical strength had reached an indescribable level. With a casual stomp in midair, he felt the air behind him collapse completely.

At that moment, he finally understood why those top-tier monsters had ultimately condensed their power into all kinds of conceptual symbols.

At this moment, if he had to describe his own power, it would likely gradually be reduced to the single word [Strength].

Rip!

The air split apart, as though a massive rift had opened across the sky.

Meanwhile, a terrifying impact had already rung out below. The demon dragon had no time to react before Bai Cangshu, fast and powerful beyond all measure, drove a fist into her chest.

The crust shattered completely amid an exaggerated upheaval, and the demon dragon began sinking underground.

Standing atop the demon dragon’s chest, Bai Cangshu unleashed a mad barrage of punches, his fists seeming to vanish.

The sound of Yellow Springs flowing was endless. Myriad Death Intent almost completely flowed out from Bai Cangshu’s bloodline and began coating his fists.

Yet Tiamat’s surface seemed to possess a skin that completely isolated everything. No Death Intent could adhere to it. Even when Bai Cangshu’s terrifying force pierced through the demon dragon’s body and shattered the crust below, the Death Intent could not enter Tiamat’s body.

Tiamat had no concept of [death].

As the mother goddess who had created life, she was innately opposed to [death].

This was the highest level of immortality Bai Cangshu had ever seen, far surpassing Ajin. It had transcended mere immortality on a conceptual level and entered a domain where death could not exist.

In the original story, Beast Tiamat had been defeated only through the appearance of the Grand Assassin Servant, King Hassan. King Hassan could bestow the concept of [death] upon a target.

Only then had defeating Tiamat become possible.

Otherwise, whether Yellow Springs flowed backward or the underworld manifested in the mortal realm, neither could contain Tiamat.

As though he had completely forgotten that information, Bai Cangshu continued his violent assault. The demon dragon retaliated fiercely, but Bai Cangshu’s figure was like a phantom, existing somewhere between presence and absence.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!!

Reinhardt and the others floated high into the air, no longer daring to remain on the ground. Below, black monsters surged in every direction like a tide.

Seemingly realizing how powerful they were, the monsters no longer focused solely on these formidable individuals. Instead, they followed Tiamat’s will.

They would first wipe out all life in this world.

After feeling betrayed, the mother goddess of creation had decided to erase every life she had created.

"Ah…"

A sigh rang out. Bai Cangshu froze, and before he could throw his next punch, he saw Cao Qi, his entire body radiating golden light, walk directly out of the demon dragon’s body.

He seemed to have become some kind of phantom, ignoring the demon dragon’s body and walking straight through it from underground.

But Bai Cangshu could sense that this was no phantom. It was a physical body!

The other man had truly used his own body to walk out from the ground behind the demon dragon.

The reason Bai Cangshu had fired Dodon Rays at Tiamat and continuously pummeled her was actually to attack Cao Qi.

He had first smashed Cao Qi into the ground, then thrown the demon dragon on top of him.

"What is there to be surprised about?"

"Though it is a divine body, in essence, it is still flesh made up of cells. There are gaps between cells, so naturally, something can pass through without harming the body."

"A miracle is when even the slightest possibility comes to pass."

Bai Cangshu now roughly understood the true nature of Cao Qi’s special "magic," or rather, his Conceptual level ability.

At its core, it was a special power combining traits like probability manipulation and fate manipulation. And judging by how everyone in Azure Sky had awakened Heart Light Pulse, this magic itself had most likely been influenced by Heart Light Pulse as well.

Cao Qi, the King of Miracles, undoubtedly surpassed nearly all current reincarnators in terms of the completeness of his reincarnator abilities alone.

The Mad King Bai Cangshu had encountered before had used authority, Heart Light Pulse, and special abilities to show him just how far a reincarnator could amplify their powers after fully mastering every aspect of them.

It was another form of stacking, different from his own.

Bai Cangshu slowly turned around and faced one of The Three Supreme Kings, someone who had once seemed impossibly out of reach to him.

The smile vanished completely from Cao Qi’s eyes. From Mercenary Tao’s gaze, he saw undisguised provocation and malice.

Like a newly born, powerful beast within a pack, once it realized its own strength, it would always begin trying to challenge the authority of the pack leader.

Cao Qi disliked Mercenary Tao for more than just his bloodlust.

More than that, he felt something "uncomfortable" from Mercenary Tao, something born from being utterly contrary to his ideals and methods.

Behind Mercenary Tao, Cao Qi could practically see Aizen Sōsuke’s arrogant smiling face.

He acted as though he was lonely because he was strong, yet he remained so obsessed with proving the importance of "power."

To the point that he had created such an ignorant beast, one perfectly suited in every way to the requirements of Infinite Dimensional Space.

He thirsted desperately for power; he feared no death; he possessed no morality when it came to killing.

Cao Qi could only call such a thing a beast, because it lacked the most important quality that made a human being human—empathy.

Creak—boom!

Cao Qi watched Mercenary Tao clench his fist. The air exploded from between his fingers as though it had undergone a sympathetic detonation, bursting into rings of smoky clouds.

The next moment, two surges of force, one from before him and one from behind his head, pierced toward him like great spears.

But Cao Qi exhaled a breath of turbid air and suddenly turned, throwing a punch.

"Mercenary Tao…"

Bai Cangshu’s pupils contracted. Because he was unimaginably fast, the punches he had thrown from the front and back were both real punches.

The force was real, but the instant Cao Qi turned, Bai Cangshu discovered that the strike behind Cao Qi had become completely empty and passed directly through his body.

The next moment, as Cao Qi turned and struck, the force Bai Cangshu himself had unleashed merged with Cao Qi’s fist.

Black Conqueror’s Haki suddenly erupted around Cao Qi’s fist. That Conqueror’s Haki seemed newly born, yet in an instant, it grew wildly like a pile of dry grass set ablaze.

The power of Conqueror’s Haki Infusion instinctively erupted around Bai Cangshu’s fist as well.

Boom!

The air exploded, and the black Sea of Life overhead was torn apart.

Bai Cangshu felt an immense force continuously emerge from Cao Qi’s fist. At first, it could barely contend with the force Bai Cangshu had multiplied again through the Authority of Strength.

But then, it became as surging and violent as an ocean.

Before Bai Cangshu’s eyes, behind Cao Qi, the azure sky exposed after their clash had torn open the Sea of Life truly transformed into a raging sea.

It was as though all the oceans of the world had struck alongside Cao Qi’s fist.

The Conqueror’s Haki around Bai Cangshu’s right fist was suppressed in an instant, and then his entire body was sent flying.

Bai Cangshu felt no real sense of having lost in a clash of fists. He only felt that, in that brief instant, he had been wrestling against heaven and earth.

The whole world stood behind Cao Qi. That was no longer something a martial realm like "momentum" or "intent" could explain.

Cao Qi truly had the power of the entire world behind him.

To defeat him, one would have to defeat the entire world along with him!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!…

A succession of Blazing White Shockwaves exploded behind Bai Cangshu, but he suffered no harm whatsoever.

In his current Eightfold Kaio-ken state, Bai Cangshu’s body was tougher than that of most dragons and Titans.

The force field naturally generated by his body alone could block most damage.

Not to mention that Demon Dragon Grendel, already pushed to its limit, was still being frantically squeezed within his body.

Bai Cangshu stomped hard against the air, which had nearly been compressed into a solid by the overwhelming force. His feet left enormous cloud trails, and he finally came to a stop four or five thousand meters away.

Cao Qi calmly glanced at Mercenary Tao, whom he had sent flying, then calmly extended a hand and clenched it.

The next moment, Bai Cangshu felt heaven and earth undergo a drastic change. The world twisted before him. Sky, land, and sea converged before his eyes, the world becoming one whole.

"Feel the vastness of the world."

Only then did Cao Qi finish the rest of his sentence.

Behind him, the illusory purple clock appeared once more. The last flame on its face had begun to flicker, seemingly on the verge of going out.

Cao Qi coughed. Looking at Reverse Uchiha Izayoi, who was curiously examining that twisted world, he said,

"Mr. Izayoi, consider this the request of a dying man. Could you please refrain from interfering in the private grudge between us outsiders?"

"It may be difficult to explain, but I truly hate that fellow. I hate him enough that killing him would even feel exhilarating."

"But for the continuation of this world, I think it would be better to let him live…"

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi leaped into the air, evading the demon dragon’s sweeping tail. The massive swing unleashed a terrifying shockwave thousands of meters long, which tore through the air and blasted apart a mountain hundreds of miles away.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi had realized that this terrifying demon dragon possessed a special immortality, but aside from that, its combat ability alone could not threaten him.

That demon dragon’s true purpose was to destroy every living thing in this world—more precisely, those lives without extraordinary power.

He had learned the true condition of this Gift Game. It was likely to save the world by facing this demon dragon that could not be killed.

"So we can only kill all those monsters first to buy time?"

Gilgamesh had already revealed the Gate of Babylon and begun clearing out the monsters along one side of the Sea of Life.

This Prideful king had regained some of the bearing of the wise king he once was. With his nation behind him, he would never allow the world to be destroyed by such twisted love.

Cao Qi shook his head. He did not like that solution.

"Goddess, I wish to offer you a miracle."

Cao Qi spread his arms. He felt Tiamat’s grief at being betrayed; that love and sorrow were entirely real.

Therefore, as someone who pursued perfect worldlines, he was more inclined to give Tiamat a new ending.

Even if this was most likely a scene recorded by Ye Zi and manifested through that queen’s power.

Even if saving this Tiamat would not change the Tiamat of the true worldline.

Cao Qi was the sort who would do it even knowing it was false.

In Underwood’s enormous city square, Ye Zi emerged at an unhurried pace. After confirming that Azure Sky’s combat forces and Mercenary Tao’s powerful Yin spirits had all entered that dangerous world, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Human nature was sometimes so easy to grasp. Mercenary Tao’s arrogance and Cao Qi’s naïveté—both men could see through her arrangement.

Yet they had both entered of their own accord.

Ye Zi continued forward and placed a hand on Ye Kai’s shoulder, where he had been left alone outside.

"My foolish little brother, it is time to witness the truth of the world."

"We have no need to become involved in the evolution war of those high-dimensional observers. Life should pass away with dignity."

Ye Kai slowly turned around, his eyes utterly calm.

Ye Zi frowned. The next moment, Ye Kai’s eyes changed instantly. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun as they transformed into Mangekyō Sharingan.

"Ha—got it!"

White Face’s delighted voice came from nearby, while "Ye Kai" gradually transformed into Uchiha Madara.