Shikon Jewel Fragment

As the nuclear blast dissipated, Qingyun’s remains had completely turned into a grotesquely mutated mass of rotten flesh. Bai Cangshu expressionlessly pointed a finger, and a Dodon Ray instantly blasted the flesh into nothingness.

Osaka, where Bai Cangshu stood, had already been completely reduced to a wasteland. The shopping district had been razed to the ground, leaving behind only shattered remnants of steel and concrete.

Most of the collapsed buildings had been completely carbonized, though more than half of their frames remained.

Bai Cangshu walked through it. There was no sound left in this world, and within the range of his Mantra, not a single living being existed.

That was the price of exchanging words with the Multi-Faced Star People once. Countless people he had seen and never seen had all turned to ash.

Oka Hachiro, who was considered talented in this world, as well as the reincarnators who might have been hiding somewhere in the city, would all have died in that explosion.

Bai Cangshu gave one final look at the demons on the ground, not even bones remaining. It was a pity. He took out Ace’s Skiff, stepped onto it, and lightning surged beneath his feet.

Thanks to the effects of Imperial Ultimate Thunder Prison Scripture LV1, as well as acquiring the new energy system of Current Propulsion, the lightning Bai Cangshu could now command was far more powerful than before.

Using this item for flight could basically be considered effortless.

The Cloud Dial erupted, and Bai Cangshu shot into the sky. He crushed Nurarihyon’s Drop Card, yet his mind was still turning over his conversation with the Multi-Faced Star People.

When it came to observers, the first thing that came to mind was the famous observer effect. It roughly described how the act of observation could influence the observed.

The most intuitive example was the double-slit interference experiment. A photon’s wave-particle duality changed depending on whether it was observed. When observed, it behaved as a particle; when unobserved, it behaved as a wave.

The fact that an objective entity could change because of observation, a subjective act by a third party, had given rise to many terrifying conjectures.

The observers described by the Multi-Faced Star People were probably something along those lines. They believed that an existence of extremely high dimension watched over worlds, universes, and all things, and that because of their observation, the world displayed different forms and states.

That level of power was too high, already beyond anything Bai Cangshu could currently come into contact with.

But when he combined the Information Theory revered by both the Multi-Faced Star People and the Space, Bai Cangshu came up with many conjectures.

Then there was the so-called heart.

Bai Cangshu knew that the likely reason the Multi-Faced Star People had said his soul carried extraordinary weight was that Saitama’s Serious Punch had shattered him, after which Shigeo Kageyama had repaired him using the Golden Soul Fragments he had obtained from the One Piece World.

Whether it was Saitama’s conceptual attack or those Golden Soul Fragments, both had remained within his soul.

Yet even after activating Limit Break Spiral, Bai Cangshu could not detect how those changes had affected him.

Whether in terms of actual strength or effects on his thoughts and emotions, he sensed nothing at all. Neither the Goddess nor the Space had displayed any abnormalities.

"Heh, the heart really is unfathomable—formless and intangible."

Bai Cangshu raised his head, recalling the Black King he had encountered. That man had indeed been unbelievably powerful. Though he did not give Bai Cangshu the utterly crushing, insurmountable feeling Saitama had, the intense despair around him, along with the sensation that the entire world had fused with him, made victory seem utterly impossible.

Was that kind of power related to the heart…?

Bai Cangshu himself had not realized that all his concern regarding the heart was tied to power. What he cared about was not the heart itself. What he truly cared about, in the end, was power.

You have activated the Drop Card: Demon King Nurarihyon

You have obtained 2500 Dimensional Points

You have obtained Material: Nūrihyon's Core (Extremely Rare)

You have obtained Item: Shikon Jewel Fragment (Purple)

Bai Cangshu’s attention returned because of this rather successful draw, and he broke free from that rare state of contemplation.

Things too distant held little meaning for Bai Cangshu. He greedily desired the power of the Black King and Saitama, yet he was uncertain how much of that power was tied to the heart, something he could not understand at all.

That was why he investigated. That was why he had spoken with the Multi-Faced Star People.

But in the end, only power held in one’s hand was true, tangible power!

Shikon Jewel Fragment (Small)

Quality: Extremely Rare

Description: A fragment of a jewel formed by a great shrine maiden of an age of demons from her own pure soul and the souls of many great demons.

Usage Requirement: Possess Demonic Power or abilities related to souls.

Effect 1: After being worn, grants low-level Demonic Power resistance and low-level Demonic Power enhancement.

Effect 2: Devour or implant this item into the body to greatly enhance spiritual power, Demonic Power, and similar attributes. However, the user will also be influenced by the souls within the jewel.

Effect 3: This fragment may fuse with other fragments. Each fusion enhances its effects until it becomes complete.

This Shikon Jewel Fragment was probably already among the smallest kind, only about the size of one corner of a crystal. Yet Bai Cangshu could indeed sense a remarkably powerful force within it.

If this thing had not fundamentally belonged to a different system from the Nurarihyon of this world, it probably could have given him a considerable boost.

Looking at Effect 2 of the Shikon Jewel, with its glaringly marked negative effect, Bai Cangshu actually felt an urge to try it.

If he could truly draw the souls of the great shrine maiden Midoriko, the great demons of that era, and the dragon into his own body, it would be a major enhancement for him.

During the nuclear blast just now, Bai Cangshu had fully experienced the power of Satoru Gojo’s Limitless Cursed Technique. With his current physique, suffering a nuclear explosion at close range still carried a certain chance of completely killing him, turning him entirely into charred carbon.

But with the Limitless Cursed Technique, even his Armament Haki had not been completely shattered.

This rule-based technique had allowed him to completely avoid the shockwave, flames, and other damage from the close-range nuclear blast.

Thus, Bai Cangshu looked forward even more to accommodating increasingly powerful souls, then completely absorbing and perfectly replicating their powers. By then, Bai Cangshu could truly be called the reincarnator with the most diverse abilities.

And he would not need to spend resources nurturing and upgrading those abilities.

Scavenger EX051, the third coordinate broadcast will now begin for you.

The Space neither marked Bai Cangshu as a target for elimination nor intended to deploy new Scavengers. It directly initiated the third round of coordinate broadcasts.

A massive amount of coordinate information immediately appeared in Bai Cangshu’s mind, accompanied by current images of those locations.

What surprised Bai Cangshu was that the coordinate with the greatest concentration of reincarnators was Tokyo.

Moreover, Tokyo had not been destroyed by the nuclear blast.

Bai Cangshu counted the coordinates. There were as many as seven people. Aside from one target far away in Germany, every other reincarnator in this world had gathered in Tokyo.

"So that means one of the two targets that must be purged has already been transported to Tokyo by the Multi-Faced Star People…"

Bai Cangshu thought of the agreement the Multi-Faced Star People had not voiced aloud to him. It was highly likely that they had placed it on this purge target.

At that thought, the corner of Bai Cangshu’s mouth rose. He was very curious what kind of bargaining chip the Multi-Faced Star People, a high-dimensional race, believed he would accept without needing to discuss it with him.

When Bai Cangshu returned to the skies above Tokyo and looked down at the monster relentlessly smashing through the city, he gained his answer. At the same time, he understood why the nuclear blast had not destroyed Tokyo.

A monster covered in scales, with several enormous spikes rising from its back, and strikingly similar to Godzilla from films, was rampaging through Tokyo’s urban district.

Shibuya had already completely fallen. Large numbers of armed helicopters hovered above the city, and Bai Cangshu could see many Black Ball Team members appearing atop various high-rises. The Japanese financial conglomerates had probably issued a new mission.

But Bai Cangshu knew very well that this Godzilla-like monster was a gift from the Multi-Faced Star People—one of the reincarnators he had to purge.