This was not a fair contest at all. It was a hunt in which he had been doomed to an overwhelming disadvantage from the very beginning-one that could even be called "cheating"!
Isshiki knelt on one knee, looking up at the towering figure gazing down on him like a god. His heart brimmed with disbelief, rage, and...
A trace of fear he could barely suppress.
He knew that today, he might truly be doomed.
This Pure Land, these dead souls, and the Sage of Six Paths who set the rules... none of them would give him a chance.
But even the direst circumstances often held a sliver of hope.
Just as Isshiki had survived a thousand years ago when, dragging his broken body along, he encountered a monk named Jigen.
His only hope now was to give everything he had and fight for life in the face of death!
"I, Ōtsutsuki Isshiki... cannot possibly... fall here!"
A furious roar erupted from Jigen's throat, laden with a thousand years of pent-up resentment, boundless defiance, and the madness of a man driven to the brink.
Blood kept trickling from the corners of his mouth. The searing pain in his chest and the humiliation of feeling as insignificant as an ant burned his proud soul like the fiercest flames.
Reason told him that forcing a "resurrection" through Jigen's mediocre body, which had long since reached its limits, was the worst possible choice-a poisoned remedy.
This body was nowhere near capable of holding all his power and data. Forcibly unfreezing the Kāma to complete the overwrite would not only drastically weaken him, leaving him unable to wield even half his full strength, but its "frailty" and "incompatibility" would also sharply shorten his lifespan after resurrection, leaving him only a few months.
But he had