"Old buddy, wake up! What's wrong with you?"
Chief Gray shook his friend's shoulder, completely bewildered. What was wrong with Yusaku Kudo? The brilliant detective looked like he was recovering from a lethal illness, his face stark pale and sweating profusely, swaying unsteadily on his feet.
Yusaku didn't say much. He was using every ounce of his genius to process the terrifying deductions in his mind, frantically searching for logical clues to break this apocalyptic deadlock.
But the more he thought about it, the more despairing his chilling conjecture became.
If true Gods really existed, then a massive, supernatural calamity was absolutely unavoidable. And most likely, the secular, mortal governments of the world would only face absolute death and destruction.
As for why he could predict that a calamity was coming…
[Every generation of the Lionheart Baron has his own mission!] This decrypted hint from old Hahn was clear enough. The Baron's mission was to fight the calamity.
Yusaku might be lazy by nature, preferring to solve crossword puzzles rather than actual murders these days, but he absolutely didn't want to see real, global destruction. Moreover, this now directly concerned his own life and his family's safety. He couldn't help but be deeply afraid.
Finally, he sighed heavily, a ragged sound escaping his lungs. He looked at Cliff and Gray, and laid out his horrifying conjecture about the "tainted heart" representing the manifestation of Human Evil.
The two men were so shocked that they couldn't even utter a complete sentence.
Confronting the literal authority of the Gods? Fighting the physical manifestation of human malice?
'You must still be dreaming…' Gray thought, his mind reeling.
The three panicked individuals hastily returned to the human-skin book, translating the final passages. Search! They absolutely had to find a tactical weakness to resolve this unknown calamity!
'Damn it!' Gray cursed internally. 'To confront the authority of the Gods, with just the three of us? Even if we wanted to drag the US military or the FBI down with us, would anyone believe us?'
They'd just be considered raving lunatics. America had always enjoyed favorable geopolitical weather and national peace isolated by two oceans; how could the arrogant politicians in Washington tolerate such doomsday slander from a disgraced dockworker and a retired Japanese novelist?
The character of the American high command was notoriously stubborn. Often, their bureaucratic hubris was even more abstract than Japan's. Chief Gray knew very well that the three of them wouldn't be able to get official reinforcements.
Yusaku read the final translated lines aloud, his voice trembling slightly:
> [My child, remember your mission. You are the Lionheart Baron of this generation. You will receive the Lord's gaze. You will receive the apostles' assistance. No difficulty or challenge can permanently defeat the Lionheart Baron. But you must remember one absolute truth—]
> [All suffering and calamity originate from humanity itself. The more wicked humanity is, the more severe the calamities. The more virtuous humanity is, the less severe the calamities...]
This was the last passage that could be translated.
However, upon hearing this, Yusaku's eyes flared with sudden brilliance. He had found a way out of this predicament!
Yes! Since the authority of the Gods had become a nightmare for mortals—and its primary fuel source was Human Evil—then as long as humanity wasn't overly "evil" in the specific domains of this God, the calamity would be starved of power.
Even if the disaster couldn't be completely eradicated, it could at least be drastically weakened, preventing them from facing the unmitigated, world-ending power of the divine.
Having found a logical solution, the crushing, oppressive feeling of suffocating doom eased considerably.
Thank goodness. Cliff slumped into his wooden chair, only then realizing that cold sweat had completely soaked his shirt. Confront the authority of the true God? Him? A guy who unloaded cargo crates for minimum wage? Could he win a fight like that?
"No, it's not time to relax yet!" Yusaku snapped, entirely believing in the human-skin book now.
He had no choice but to believe it. As a renowned detective, he was all too aware of the lethal dangers of wishful thinking. He solemnly handed the book back to Cliff. Although the translation was complete, the book seemed functionally useless as a weapon. But who knew if it might have some other warding effect when Cliff truly faced the disaster? He couldn't afford to gamble with it.
Yusaku understood exactly what he had to do: Weaken humanity's evil. Ideally, weaken it to the point where the manifestation couldn't form enough mass to cause a major disaster.
And the "evil" that Old Hahn spoke of—or rather, the evil defined by this specific "Lord" of Volcanoes, Forests, and Oceans—could be easily traced back to the Illuminati's original doctrine: The environment. Nature.
The deliberate, corporate destruction of the natural environment was the ultimate "evil" triggering this God's wrath!
Perhaps Yusaku's tactical guess was a bit narrow. But protecting the domains of this generation's Lionheart Baron—volcanoes, forests, and the sea—absolutely could not be compromised. This was their final insurance policy in case the supernatural situation got completely out of control.
Exhausted, the three of them rested in Cliff's rotting cabin.
The next morning, armed with a new objective, Yusaku and Chief Gray began to aggressively investigate whether there had been any major, imminent acts of environmental destruction scheduled recently in the US.
And they actually found a massive, glaring target.
The Longleaf Pine Forest. A massive, ancient forest ecosystem covering an area of over 140,000 square miles across the Southeast.
Logically speaking, a forest of that ecological magnitude should be perfectly safe under federal protection in the US. But then, a highly publicized, corporate-backed puppet known to the media as the "Environmental Girl" had suddenly come along. Her heavily funded PAC was aggressively lobbying Washington to re-zone and clear-cut a massive swath of the ancient forest to build a "sustainable, eco-friendly" mega-commercial district.
This level of bureaucratic hypocrisy was staggering.
Chief Gray almost couldn't bear to look at the cold fury in Yusaku's eyes, or Cliff's bloodshot, absolute rage.
This was just too damn abstract. An environmental organization fronting a corporate land-grab to sweep through an ancient forest and build a shopping mall?
No doubt about it. Even in Seiran Mizunotsuki's past life, this "Environmental Girl" had pulled similar hypocritical stunts. And in this timeline, she was dangerously close to succeeding.
Of course, all three men knew that the "Environmental Girl" was just a disposable puppet pushed to the forefront by greedy shadow billionaires. But that didn't stop them from absolutely despising her. That was 140,000 square miles of ancient domain belonging to the God they were trying to appease…
Yusaku stared at the smiling politician on the TV news with an extremely gloomy expression, wishing he could shove the "Environmental Girl" into a woodchipper.
"Gray. Proceed according to our plan," Yusaku ordered coldly.
"Understood," Gray nodded, his jaw set.
They would use every piece of blackmail, every favor, and every police connection they had to build up unstoppable political momentum for protecting that forest. Even if it was only temporary, Yusaku was certain. With the emergence of Cliff as the new Lionheart Baron, the manifestation of humanity's evil would soon be unleashed. The more they did to protect the God's domains, the more it would favor Cliff's survival when the blood hit the fan.
Tokyo: Suginami Ward (The Mizunotsuki Residence)
Finally.
'Is it about to begin...?'
Seiran Mizunotsuki lounged in his opulent study, pondering the scale of his upcoming overseas debut.
Should he stage a True Several Thousand Hands performance on the West Coast, crushing entire cities under colossal wooden Buddha statues? Combining his cursed energy system, the giant construct could even appear in an "invisible" and "intangible" form to those without spiritual awareness, creating spontaneous, unexplainable devastation.
Or perhaps he should bring out the Volcano Curse's domain for a spin, erupting Mount Rainier? Or summon the Ocean Curse to unleash a localized tsunami on Los Angeles?
After pondering for a while, Seiran decided not to take too big a step right out of the gate. Absolute, instantaneous annihilation would be difficult to harvest long-term. After all, this was the first harvest of the overseas leeks; the American government and its citizens needed to be given some psychological buffer time to understand true fear before the slaughter began.
He reached out and pulled Sayuri Sawamura onto his lap, pulling her in for a deep, bruising kiss.
Sayuri couldn't help but let out a soft, compliant "whimper" against his lips. She knew she was probably going to get thoroughly burned by his Yang energy again tonight. Although her mortal body was still not entirely used to the overwhelming feeling of his divine stamina, she was secretly, deeply pleased by the attention.
She knew that she and Eriri were currently extremely favored in the household hierarchy.
Because the two looked so similar—the beautiful, mature mother and the lively, tsundere daughter. And... they were both the type with incredibly creative minds in the bedroom. After all, they were both prolific doujinshi artists. How could they not have a vast arsenal of theoretical tricks up their sleeves to keep a God entertained?
However, Sayuri had recently heard through the grapevine that her daughter wanted to drag someone else down into this pit of indulgence to suffer with them. What was the girl's name... Kasumigaoka? The arrogant novelist with the black stockings?
Lost in her plotting thoughts, Sayuri suddenly gasped as she found herself effortlessly suspended in mid-air.
'Oh. He's lifting me up again...' Sayuri thought, her cheeks flushing as she wrapped her arms around his neck, resigning herself to the relentless indulgence of her Master. She was already getting used to it...
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