Amaterasu is dead?
The head of the Three Noble Children, the goddess representing the sun, just died like that?
When every other god in Takamagahara had died and she was the sole survivor, would she really die so easily?
He didn't know the details of what happened here, or why she had slaughtered the other gods—even the death of Tsukuyomi on the moon might have been related—but Sū ěr was certain she wouldn't die this simply.
Almost the moment the thought surfaced, the layer of flesh covering the ground below churned and rolled in waves, like Moses parting the Red Sea. A fair-skinned arm reached out from the abyss of gore, bracing itself firmly on the side.
Massive. Even larger than the divine frame Takeminakata had transformed into. Despite being pulled from a sea of flesh, the skin was not stained with a single speck of blood; even the fine hairs on the skin, enlarged with the arm, were not reddened.
Whoosh!!
Before Sū ěr could think further, a second massive arm erupted from the sea of flesh. With an agility far beyond what its size should allow, it whipped through Sū ěr position like a violent hurricane.
Naturally, it didn't hit. However, the owner of the arm—Amaterasu—didn't care. The attacking arm swung down, its palm slamming into the meat on the other side.
The liquified gore beneath her palms solidified into support. A colossus—Amaterasu—sat up from the sea of flesh like someone emerging from a bath.
She alone could fill the heaven and earth of Takamagahara. Or rather, she was the final Takamagahara. Her outstretched arms allowed her fingertips to touch the edges of this small world. Her seated form towered like a mountain range reaching for the sky, level with the sun.
Eventually, the sun in the sky vanished. In its place were two suns—Amaterasu eyes.
When she opened them, everything in Takamagahara was illuminated. When she closed them, a darkness descended that even Sū ěr could not pierce with mere sight.
He had no heart to worry about how much chaos the flashing sun was causing in the world below, or if the events in Takamagahara were being reflected outside. Sū ěr simply locked eyes with the giant goddess.
The bones of other gods, their flesh long dissolved, fell from her chest, arms, and hair. Along with them fell half-melted remains and scraps of corpses. They fell like mere sand from her immense body, unable to leave even a stain on her surface.
"...It really has been... a long sleep..."
Amaterasu murmured softly, but her words were delivered clearly into Sū ěr ears. Neither too loud nor too soft, without a trace of madness or irrationality. Even the daze from a few seconds ago was gone; all that remained on this giant goddess was a sense of drowsy lethargy.
"Think she'll drop it now and tell us it was all a misunderstanding?" Sū ěr asked Think, his scalp feeling a bit prickly.
"You could try... Want to send her some flowers?" Think mocking voice rang in his ear. "Maybe she'll pull you into her bosom and comfort you?"
Looking at those two massive mountain peaks, the "bosom" was clearly a joke, but Sū ěr headache was real.
Unlike ordinary gods or Yōkai, no matter what world or era he was in, he only possessed truly transcendent power when he established a connection with the world. If that connection was severed, he lost his right to command the elements.
This was why, seeing this giant Amaterasu, Sū ěr understood better than Think just how problematic she was as an enemy—she couldn't be defeated by mere raw output.
Yes, Amaterasu had also established a connection with this world. Sū ěr could feel how deep that connection was. It was as if the "object" he called upon when connecting to Takamagahara was not the world itself, but Amaterasu!
The Sun Goddess had practically merged with Takamagahara; the two concepts were overlapping.
So, the one I connected with was actually Amaterasu? The spiritual energy I called upon to attack was her energy?
Sū ěr realized this with a touch of wry amusement.
No wonder he always felt Takamagahara was strange, as if it had birthed its own will and life—a parasite.
Sū ěr suddenly remembered a bit of trivia he'd read: a parasite called Sacculina. It sheds its shell, enters a crab's body through the joints, and grows branches to take over the crab, absorbing its nutrients until it controls the crab entirely. The crab stops growing and loses its own consciousness.
Interestingly, if you carefully separate the parasite from the crab at this stage, you get a parasite in the perfect shape of a crab, down to the last joint... just flat.
For the small world of Takamagahara, Amaterasu was the Sacculina, and the world itself no longer even possessed its own consciousness.
Not just Takamagahara—Sū ěr thought of Ashihara no Nakatsukuni. They were supposed to be one world, in the same box... Amaterasu was sucking the nutrients of the entire world, its very essence, making it narrow and filled with falsehoods.
After all, no matter how much she was praised as the Sun Goddess, she was still a being born within the world, and not even part of the first generation of life. To undergo a further change in her form of existence—an ascension—how could there not be a price?
"Why the long face?" On that massive face, an eyebrow twitched. Amaterasu wore a look of pity. "I thought that you, coming from outside the world and born with such an ability, would understand me... Did I ask for too much?"
Her voice remained steady and unhurried.