The black-robed leader of the World-Ending Society was terrified. He stumbled backward, trembling, pleading incessantly, "Please, spare me! I can serve you—no, the entire World-Ending Society can take you as our master and serve you!"
"Oh?" Shinji smiled and asked casually, "So, how many members does your Society have in total?"
Seeing Shinji's tone soften, the leader was overjoyed. "Besides the ones you've seen, we have two more members. Neither is weaker than me; they are extremely useful subordinates!"
Shinji smiled. "You aren't telling the truth."
The leader hurriedly swore, "Every word is true! If you don't believe me, I can swear an oath to you using a Curse Mantra!"
The "Curse Mantra" he mentioned likely belonged to a power system specifically designed to bind oaths, but Shinji didn't need any of that. Based purely on the man's heartbeat, pupil dilation, and micro-expressions, Shinji could easily tell he was lying.
Clearly, this leader wasn't being honest.
So Shinji reached out and grabbed the leader's head firmly. "No need for all that trouble."
"No—!"
The leader screamed, desperately unleashing the power of his Lamp in an attempt to open a spatial rift and escape.
Crack.
However, the moment he activated his Lamp, Shinji crushed it with his other hand.
As the Lamp shattered, the leader's consciousness lost all protection. His spirit body was instantly ripped out by Shinji's pupil power, and his memories were laid bare.
After browsing through all of the leader's memories, Shinji released the man's soul, allowing it to return to his body.
"Hmph."
Shinji snorted lightly.
As expected, the leader had lied.
There was no "World-Ending Society" anymore. Every single member had participated in this ambush; the "two other members" the leader spoke of simply did not exist.
In other words, with this one move, Shinji had completely wiped out the World-Ending Society.
Thinking about it, it made sense. The Society believed they had the backing of a Hegemon and never considered that this ambush might fail, so it was natural they didn't leave anyone in reserve.
Next, Shinji dumped the five Society members he had previously thrown into his Kamui Dimension onto the ground.
Looking at the six people before him, Shinji pondered silently.
Since these six had defected to a Hegemon, the information regarding their home worlds must have already been known by their master. In other words, their worlds were already on the Hegemon's menu. As long as the Hegemon who just left was willing, it could devour their worlds at any time.
The only reason the Hegemon hadn't acted yet was likely because the "World-Ending Society" still had some utility.
Now that Shinji had wiped out the Society and crushed their Lamps—symbols of their status as Lantern Bearers—they had lost all value to the Hegemon. Naturally, the countdown to their worlds' destruction had begun.
Shinji even suspected that the Hegemon who just left was already on its way to feast.
"Self-inflicted doom. No one can save you."
Shinji shook his head.
From the moment the World-Ending Society sided with a Hegemon, they and their worlds had lost any chance of salvation.
An incompetent general exhausts his armies to death. An incompetent and despicable Lantern Bearer brings catastrophic consequences to their world. The members of the World-Ending Society were prime examples of this.
With matters settled, Shinji didn't waste time on sentimentality.
He was no longer a naive youth. He had witnessed the destruction of several worlds personally. While his mood might fluctuate, he would never wallow in melancholy!
While Shinji pondered, the group opposite him was filled with dread.
Because his soul had just been extracted, the black-robed leader was groggy and delirious. Those under genjutsu wore blank expressions, while only the few pinned by black receivers retained clarity of mind.
When they saw their leader subdued and realized Shinji was deciding their fate, those who had spent a short time in the Kamui Dimension knew it was over. Their backer either failed to appear or had already been driven off.
Shinji made up his mind and walked toward them.
"Don't kill us..."
"I can give you anything! If you kill me now, you get nothing!"
The pinned members screamed hoarsely, begging for mercy or trying to strike a bargain for their lives.
For people willing to sell out their own worlds, Shinji had no interest in listening to their nonsense. He activated his pupil power, extracting the souls of the other five members and thoroughly browsing their memories.
To Shinji's regret, the power levels of the six worlds behind these members weren't particularly high. Even the strongest among them was inferior to the Demon Slayer World—low-martial, low-magic realms. Much of their reputation had been built using power plundered from other worlds.
This was also why they had been hunted by Alice like stray dogs, fleeing from place to place.
Thus, these six worlds held no treasures worth taking, nor power systems worth learning. The only thing that might attract Shinji was their fundamental planetary energy.
Regarding this, Shinji felt little psychological burden.
The situation of these six worlds was similar to T33 previously: they were already targeted by a Hegemon. Planting a tree in these worlds was simply snatching food from the tiger's mouth.
Of course, this analysis was currently based on Shinji's personal speculation. He needed to verify it before making a final decision!
After all, the destruction of an entire world was no small matter.
Using the six members and the memories in their heads, he activated his Lamp to open spatial rifts, searching for their home worlds.
Because Shinji controlled the six and had accessed their memories, this information turned into coordinates, allowing him to follow the map. It didn't take much effort to find the world of one of the members.
This world looked relatively peaceful, with no signs of Hegemon invasion, so Shinji didn't linger and began searching for the next one.
Finally, when Shinji located the world of the black-robed leader, he found it currently being eroded by a Hegemon. And the Hegemon eroding it was none other than the one he had faced just a short while ago...