— — — — — —
The moment a completely different voice slipped out of Tsukishima's mouth, Ginjo's eyes flew wide open.
At last, real fear surfaced.
"Tsukishima—hey! Say something! Tsukishima!"
He shouted several times, but Tsukishima's expression remained twisted and eerie, his pupils shrunk to pinpoints as he stared at the smiling Ryo.
"Ryo Yagami. You… you knew Tsukishima's ability. You let him stab you on purpose!"
"Bingo. Correct."
Ryo grinned, then raised a hand—and in Ginjo's hopeless gaze, pressed his palm over the man's eyes.
"Sleep tight."
With a dull thud, Ginjo collapsed to the ground, unconscious, his mind thrown into chaos.
Ryo then turned toward "Tsukishima Shukuro" and said:
"Mithras… so your true body really isn't dead."
Tsukishima—no, Mithras wearing Tsukishima's body—smiled gently.
"This faint, blurry sense of connection… this distance… it seems I really did fall into your trap."
He glanced around the unfamiliar surroundings and then let out a soft, amused breath.
"An unknown region of another world? I see. So you're a proxy of Queen Halloween?"
Ryo didn't bother denying it—silence was as good as admitting.
"Hmm? So not Queen Halloween after all," Mithras said with mild surprise, seeing right through him.
Old fox, Ryo cursed inwardly but kept his face impassive.
Mithras continued cheerfully: "No need to be so tense. At this distance, the link between me and my true body is basically gone. Which is exactly what you wanted, isn't it?"
He wasn't wrong.
Ryo had deliberately manipulated events—letting Tsukishima interfere with the past so the remnants of Mithras's parasitic power inside Ryo would be drawn out and transferred, anchoring Mithras's avatar inside Tsukishima instead.
A carefully engineered setup from start to finish.
Mithras's avatar had figured that much out.
With the vast separation between worlds severing the connection to his main body, the power he carried was nothing more than what Tsukishima himself possessed—essentially meaningless to Ryo.
But that didn't mean Mithras had no value.
Even the scraps of information left in this avatar's mind—the knowledge of the upper layers of Little Garden—was well worth the price Ryo had paid.
Basically, he just caught himself a walking three-digit encyclopedia.
Of course, the memories were incomplete—Mithras had only parasitized Ryo for a short time, so only a fraction of information carried over.
And still, Mithras smiled and said. "So, what do you want to know?"
'Good grief. He's already trying to bait me.' Ryo paused.
What do you want to know? Answering that outright would expose his intentions and give Mithras room to weave lies or mislead him.
Seeing Ryo hesitate, Mithras added with a chuckle. "Don't bother trying any soul-reading tricks. Three-digit authority isn't something you can handle that easily."
But Ryo's hand was already pressed against Mithras's head, coldly activating his memory search.
Whether Mithras's warning was true didn't matter. Ryo's soul-reading wasn't "ordinary."
The Cosmo—power sourced from a one-digit conceptual world—had already evolved into the Seventh Sense.
A soul search fueled by his Cosmo was not something Mithras could brush off.
If Ryo didn't have a way to deal with Mithras inside him, he never would have allowed him to possess Tsukishima's body in the first place.
As the torrent of memories poured in, Ryo narrowed his eyes and began filtering—discarding Tsukishima's memories entirely and isolating Mithras's.
His lips slowly curled upward.
There wasn't much—laughably little for someone on the three-digit tier.
But it was the lingering fragments of a parasite shard. Even scraps contained secrets worth scheming for.
"So… you latched onto Kalki, huh? That guy kept calling himself 'Highness' to hide his real name, but looks like that secret isn't exactly a secret in the upper layers."
Ryo's expression turned amused. Looks like all that doom-saying he'd told The Buddha wasn't empty talk. Sure enough—Kalki really had been parasitized by Mithras.
Within the memories, the Ouroboros' true flag was a three-headed serpent—representing its three internal branches: First Union, Second Union, and Third Union.
The First and Second were decision-makers. The Third handled execution.
Kalki belonged to the Third Union—and was actually considered a candidate successor to its leader.
A glorified puppet laboring under delusions. No wonder he eventually tried to leave Ouroboros.
"And the mastermind funding Ouroboros is indeed the Cross… though they only influence the First Union."
"As for the Second Union… Greek handiwork? Zeus? Poseidon? Or the ever-aloof Lord Hades? Athena's also suspicious—but too bad, no memory fragments point to which."
"The Three Pure Ones and Four Heavenly Kings are watching coldly from afar, while the Twin-Goddesses of a Thousand Eyes are openly hostile toward Ouroboros."
"Buddhism? Ha. Half their factions support the First Union, the other half send heavenly troops to hunt them down. Truly skilled at hedging bets."
"Tsk tsk… and Queen Halloween also funded Ouroboros? Specifically the Second Union. Was she planning to become its leader? Wonderful. Is she infiltrating the enemy, or just acting on her twisted whims?"
The Queen interfering in the Second Union while blocking Mithras in the First Union from parasitizing him…These people's relationships were absurdly tangled.
Ryo's inner sarcasm sharpened—and so did his wariness.
Queen Halloween… her stance was way too ambiguous.
Canaria was her direct disciple, yet the Queen herself funded the organization that destroyed everything Canaria once had.
What kind of deranged personality was that? Building something beautiful only to tear it down with your own hands?
No way someone's that messed up… right?
Ryo couldn't help feeling a deep chill.
Still, her information wasn't even the most important part.
Mithras's memories held one critical truth—
Ryo's gaze darkened, thoughts whisper-quiet:
"Mithras was killed and parasitized by the Son of God from the Cross… but after I blindsided Mithras, the one who escaped and latched onto Kalki wasn't the Son at all—it was the Father's."
"The Father used me to plant a hidden piece in Kalki that the Son doesn't know about… These ancient monsters layer schemes like it's breathing."
The Son and the Father—supposedly one in the 'Holy Trinity'—actually acted with conflicting wills.
This revelation alone sent a cold shiver through Ryo.
"That was my mistake. After seeing how the Son of God operates in his own pantheon, it's nothing like the faith describes… I shouldn't assume Little Garden works the same way."
"Honestly… the Holy Trinity scheming against each other? That alone proves they aren't the 'real' ones. Their divinity shouldn't look like this. It's just like that guy in the Campione world who called himself the Buddha and tried to steal the Buddha's divinity. But can impostors really reach that level? What are they actually after?"
"Just how many secrets does Little Garden have…?"
.
.
.