Chapter 365: Breaking the Status Rank
"Hmm?"
Inside the abandoned shrine, the Nine-Tailed Fox, who was nourishing its core, suddenly felt the number of evil spirits under its control plummeting at an alarming rate. Its eyelids trembled before snapping open.
"What is happening?"
It had sent Isayama Yomi and Isayama Mei ahead with a spirit army to strike the scattered bases of the spiritualist families before they could unite. How could the counterattack from those fragmented groups be this intense?
"Mei, what is the situation on your end?"
Isayama Mei stood atop a bird-shaped spirit, looking down at an unknown family currently being slaughtered. Suddenly, the voice of the Nine-Tailed Fox echoed in her mind.
"Everything is normal."
Even though the Nine-Tailed Fox wasn't present, Mei remained extremely respectful. However, after hearing the question, a faint sense of unease rose in her heart. The Nine-Tailed Fox wasn't the type to check in on their progress for no reason.
"Did something happen to Yomi?" Mei calculated rapidly in her mind.
But how could Yomi run into trouble? The Nine-Tailed Fox had entrusted them with over 15,000 spirits; Mei had only taken 5,000, meaning the rest were all with Yomi.
"Stop what you're doing. Go to the Isayama estate and bring all the spirits back to me!"
Once it confirmed that Mei's side wasn't the issue, the Nine-Tailed Fox immediately took direct possession of Isayama Yomi's body, remotely controlling her to return to the abandoned shrine.
"I understand."
Upon hearing the order, Mei immediately commanded a halt and led her nearly intact army of 5,000 spirits toward the Isayama estate in a grand procession.
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Above the Isayama estate, watching Hikigaya Hachiman massacre everything in sight, the spirits with higher intelligence had already begun thinking of escaping. However, having tasted the "sweetness," how could Hachiman let his "Spirit Coin bags" just walk away?
A pillar of spiritual energy soared into the sky, striking toward the edge of the spirit horde. Except for a tiny minority fast enough to flee beyond the sun-blocking barrier, the rest found their path blocked by the spiritual flow.
As Hachiman summoned a second stream of energy, a small section of the field was instantly vaporized. Listening to the system report his rapidly rising balance, Hachiman took several deep breaths to stabilize his mindset and continue the clearing.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Suddenly, the system emitted a ding—a prompt different from the usual income reports—waking Hachiman from his "harvester mode" trance.
[Congratulations, Host. Spirit Coin count has exceeded 500,000. It has been detected that the Host meets the upgrade conditions. Would you like to open the 'Path to Godhood'?]
"Path to Godhood?"
Hachiman's dull gaze gradually regained clarity. After his strength was boosted to the peak of the Emperor Grade by the Exorcist of Kansai, he had been trying to break through. But no matter how hard he worked, he felt his upper limit was fixed right there.
[Open now?]
The system, unaware of Hachiman's internal state, prompted him again after receiving no immediate reply.
"Of course."
Though he didn't know how long it would take to save up 500,000 coins again, weren't coins meant to be spent at critical moments?
[Deducting Spirit Coins. Beginning to break the Host's Status Rank limit...]
As the system prompt faded, Hachiman heard a sound like something shattering next to his ear. Then, an unbearable, excruciating pain flooded his brain!
BOOM!
A silent hum vibrated through Hachiman's body, followed by a massive vortex of spiritual energy appearing above the Isayama estate. As the vortex spun faster and faster, all remaining spirits near Hachiman were sucked into the maw, converted into pure energy, and absorbed by the vortex.
Inside the vortex: The Demon Slaying Blade, the Sessho-seki (Killing Stone), Avalon (The Distant Utopia)... one by one, Hachiman's equipment was stripped from his body. As a shockwave expanded from him, Hachiman's clothing and hair turned to dust and vanished in the air.
Subsequently, spiritual energy as thick as slurry gathered around him, gradually covering his entire body. Hachiman had completely lost consciousness from the pain. At this moment, he was like a small boat in a vast ocean, only able to drift with the tide...
Immersed in the thick spiritual energy, Hachiman's solid body began to molecularize from the bottom up. Simultaneously, on the periphery of the spiritual slurry, the previously stripped Killing Stone was crushed into powder by an invisible force and mixed into the liquid.
However, this was far from enough. The system quickly turned its gaze toward the scabbard radiating a peaceful aura. Unlike the previous violent decomposition, perhaps because it had been gifted by its owner's own hand, Avalon merged submissively with the slurry the moment they touched.
Then, without waiting for the system's guidance, the Ghost-Slaying Blade eagerly plunged itself into the mixture...
[Detected: Demon -Slaying Blade has not been upgraded to the highest level. Commencing automatic upgrade by converting other items.]
While Hachiman was unconscious, the system began to automatically recycle his skills and items according to its settings to generate enough value to max out the blade. Unfortunately, even after the system cleared out every useless item on Hachiman, the blade didn't reach the "Red" max rank, stopping at the "Orange" rank below it.
[........]
The system found nothing else left to upgrade, but the Rank-Breaking Ritual could not be stopped once started. The system momentarily entered a "deadlock" state.
Pfft...
In the darkness, a light chuckle suddenly echoed. Then, the locked system began to function again.
Far away in Chiba, in a drawer in Hachiman's room, the small bead gifted by the Chief Priestess suddenly took flight, performing a spatial jump to appear before Hachiman.
In the Inari Shrine, the sleeping Inari God suddenly opened her eyes, her gaze full of resentment.
"I knew none of you five were any good!"
In the silent space, the Inari God uncharacteristically blurted out a curse. A look of struggle flashed across her face before she sighed as if accepting her fate. As she stopped resisting, the ninth tail previously returned by Hachiman surged with five different energy fluctuations.
The next second, the tail carrying the five clusters of energy separated from the Inari God's body. It appeared before Hachiman and, using the previously merged bead as a medium, slowly integrated into the now multi-colored spiritual slurry...
A pillar of light shot into the sky, instantly blowing away the surrounding spiritual vortex, the silver barrier, and the black curtain that allowed spirits to fight at full strength during the day.
Consciousness returned to his body. Hachiman slowly opened his eyes, and the system's light screen automatically popped up.
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Name: Hikigaya Hachiman (Status Rank limit broken)
Age: 18
Occupation: Exorcist
Level: Demigod (In the process of deification, please replenish life energy as soon as possible)
Spiritual Power: ???
Ability: Spiritual Power Manipulation
Weapon: None Spirit Coins: None
Current Status: Smooth as a baby...
"Eh?"
Looking at the very last line of the screen, Hachiman blinked his eyes in confusion.
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