Chapter 84: This Palm, Solely to Annihilate the Realm

The Void Demon Realm.

“The High Priest is dead…” The village chief stood frozen, eyes glazed, unfocused, staring at the distant, colossal form of the High Priest disintegrating.

Then he began to tremble—every hair, every patch of skin, every cell shuddered.

A divine hand, truly aimed at the High Priest, had obliterated him along with the Void Demon Palace—all gone in a single palm strike.

“The Demon God has awakened! The strongest Demon God has awakened!”

The village chief went mad, shrieking hysterically about the strongest Demon God’s awakening, about the strongest Demon God’s power.

The death of the High Priest had driven him insane.

On the other side.

Tens of thousands of miles away from the land where the Void Demon Palace stood, this region fell under the jurisdiction of the Demon God Palace, one of the three great powers of the Void Demon Realm.

At this moment.

Across this region, countless Void Demons looked upward, fixed on that colossal, godlike Buddha hand—crushing the Void Demon Realm’s strongest High Priest. The boundless Buddha hand radiated terrifying holy energy, sweeping across all directions, its power palpable even ten thousand miles away.

The hand was vast, pressing forward as if crushing the heavens.

It made the azure sky rumble violently.

“The Demon God has awakened!”

One Void Demon cried out in terror, recalling the ancient legend of the strongest Demon God.

He was not the only one who thought so.

“Quick, report to the Demon Lord… the High Priest is dead, the Void Demon Palace has been destroyed!”

The Void Demons of the Demon God Palace trembled, scrambling to crawl and report to their palace—but they didn’t need to. The Demon God Palace’s Lord already knew.

The commotion caused by that hand made it impossible to ignore.

“What being has the High Priest provoked?” The Lord of the Demon God Palace—one of the three great powers of the Void Demon Realm and among its strongest—swallowed hard, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.

His thoughts raced.

He considered whether this was truly the awakening of a Demon God—such a cataclysmic act resembled the legend. But beyond that guess, he recalled another: ever since the High Priest discovered this world was not the only one, that other realms existed, he had begun waging war upon them.

He suspected the High Priest had not merely fought an enemy—he had kicked a steel plate.

Gazing deeply at the boundless hand, the Lord of the Demon God Palace’s eyelids twitched violently: “That kick… took you and the Void Demon Palace with it.”

At the same moment.

The disturbance from the Buddha hand drew the gaze of every major power in the Void Demon Realm—all eyes turned toward the Void Demon Palace, watching the hand obliterate the High Priest, descending like doom. Their spirits shook with dread.

Suddenly!

The eyes of the Void Demon Realm’s great ones narrowed sharply.

“No! This isn’t just about killing the High Priest!!” The Lord of the Demon God Palace screamed uncontrollably: “This is about destroying the entire Void Demon Realm!!!!”

At that moment, not a single Void Demon remained calm—even the realm’s greatest powers were frantic.

The colossal Buddha hand, forged from the combined might of countless Buddhas and gods, after crushing the High Priest, did not dissipate. Instead, its power surged endlessly, radiating boundless divine radiance, expanding infinitely, its light engulfing every corner of the Void Demon Realm—the heavens and earth bathed in brilliance.

In a few blinks.

The colossal Buddha hand filled the entire sky of the Void Demon Realm, truly overturning the heavens, spanning the nine layers of the sky.

And the colossal Buddha hand was descending—pressing toward the realm’s heavens, pressing toward its earth.

The entire world trembled.

Boom.

Rolling thunder echoed from the heavens, as if the sky itself cried out. The sun and moon dimmed; stars fell, turning into brilliant meteors that crashed into the earth. Mountains and rivers exploded; lakes and seas boiled away; grasslands and wastelands cracked open.

Watching the colossal Buddha hand blot out the sun, moon, and stars, crushing the heavens above, the Lord of the Demon God Palace was terrified beyond measure—his soul felt ready to flee his body.

The apocalypse of heaven collapsing and earth sinking—the very stuff of legend—had occurred.

In this moment, across the boundless expanse of the Void Demon Realm, all beasts prostrated themselves in trembling fear; all living beings were gripped by despair.

It was over.

This world faced annihilation.

The Void Demon Realm, which had given birth to countless lives, had reached its end.

“Annihilation…”

Watching the shattered space and the scene of the Void Demon Realm, the Prime Minister’s mind went utterly blank, his expression vacant—he had never imagined he would one day witness the destruction of a world.

Online.

Netizens stopped typing. Every motion ceased the moment the Buddha hand moved to obliterate the Void Demon Realm—they froze, stunned…

So this was how a world ended. Simply… one hand.

So this was how fragile a world was—one that nurtured countless lives, one that gave birth to infinite beings—destroyed in a single palm.

So this was the truth: Master Kōkai never intended to break the portal, nor to kill ten thousand demons. His true goal was annihilation. You killed a thousand of my people? Then I will erase your entire realm.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister and everyone else felt their scalps go numb, their bodies chilled to the bone, their legs trembling.

If such a transcendent being fought on Earth, Earth could be erased at any moment.

For no reason, they felt pity and awe for Earth.

They recalled the Lord of the Demons who had arrived in his chariot, making heaven and earth tremble in reverence—clearly, the demons’ side also harbored unspeakable terrors.

And transcendent beings and demons were inherently opposed.

Especially in ancient times, when demons and humans still interacted, demons and transcendent beings coexisted—and inevitably clashed in great wars.

One could imagine how hard Earth had struggled to survive. Perhaps Earth had already been shattered multiple times. Perhaps the Earth now was merely a rebirth, resurrected by transcendent beings after destruction—meaning today’s Earth was not the Earth of old.

Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief that Earth had endured through ancient times, prayed that transcendent beings and demons would never wage war on Earth, and prepared to witness the destruction of a world—

At the same time.

The Void Demon Realm.

The cosmos gradually cracked open; heaven and earth roared.

The Lord and others made no attempt to resist. They collapsed to the ground, eyes filled with dead gray—this Buddha hand was too terrifying. Merely its descent had already overturned the earth; this was beyond their capacity to oppose.

“The Demon God… this is the strongest Demon God.” Many Void Demons whispered, recalling the legend of the Void Demon Realm: the strongest Demon God had ended the Great Demon War with a single hand. This Buddha hand matched the legend exactly.

Perhaps the strongest Demon God had awakened. As legend said, he had once intervened when the Great Demon War nearly destroyed the world. Now, displeased with the current Void Demons’ destruction of the world—for power, for profit—he had intervened once more, seeking to obliterate the world, return it to chaos, and begin anew.

They had no time to dwell on these thoughts, because…

The hand descended.

All living beings closed their eyes in despair, ready to meet their end, to perish with this world.

“Kōkai, stop.”

A calm, casual whisper rang out—without warning.

Though the voice was soft, it echoed throughout the Void Demon Realm, reaching beyond the shattered space to Higashioi, Higashikawa, Japan—as if it had been spoken solely to reach that place, to be heard there.

Then, in the eyes of the Lord of the Demon God Palace and the other great powers of the Void Demon Realm, filled with disbelief—

A figure appeared.

At that moment, on the Japanese side, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and all others watching rose instantly, eyes wide with shock.

They had heard this voice before—just recently.

“Cimuzo!” Director Takahashi and Professor Nakada locked eyes and shouted in unison.

…

(PS: Some readers ask, “Why are demons evil and shrines/Buddhism good?” Let me say: my worldbuilding isn’t like that. I can only tell you readers—Kamikawa Mitsu’s world of demons, transcendent beings, and everything else that terrifies Earth and other realms—is unlike anything you’ve seen. As far as I know, no one on Qidian has written anything like this. Keep reading—you’ll see this is a brilliant, deceptive story. 233333)