The shrine burned.
Candles melted into the soil.
The masked congregation had vanished—either fled or swallowed by the curse they invoked.
And standing atop the altar of writhing roots was him.
The Thousand-Faced Monk.
His robes moved like fog, stitched together from the skin of forgotten prayers.
His face flickered: now a child, now a woman, now an animal, now a blank mask.
"You stand before a god, Hiragi," the Monk spoke, his voice a chorus of thousands.
"Kneel, and I shall let your mind live within me."
Hiragi spat blood.
"I'd rather die than become part of something that wears faces it didn't earn."
The Monk raised a withered hand.
The air fractured.
Not cracked.
Not trembled.
But fractured—like glass being broken by a scream.
A thousand versions of Hiragi appeared around him—each one with a life he never lived.
One had a family. One died young. One was a killer for hire. One... was happy.
"Every possibility you never chose lives here," the Monk whispered.
"And I command them all."
"Then I'll slay them all," Hiragi growled.
VOID ENGAGE.
His body burst into motion.
The True Voidfire around his limbs ate through time.
Each clone of him shattered upon contact, turning into dust and screams.
But the Monk merely watched. Amused.
"You're still fighting shadows," he said. "I AM the root of them all."
He raised both arms.
From the cracked shrine floor, a massive face of tangled masks emerged, towering over the battlefield. It opened its mouth—
—and Airi struck it with a glyph of light.
"You're not fighting alone," she yelled.
Ishigami followed, hands raised. Reality twisted.
"Theory: If a god wears stolen masks, remove its face."
He inverted the illusion—and for one moment, the Monk faltered.
His true form glitched. Something human. Something... broken.
"Now, Hiragi!"
Hiragi soared upward.
Voidfire trailing behind like wings of obsidian ash.
He screamed, blade forward, and pierced the mask-core of the entity.
"I don't need infinite versions of myself," he roared.
"I only need this one. The one who chose to fight!"
The Monk shrieked as the masks cracked—
—each one exploding into names that were lost in time.
And then silence.
The Hollow God crumbled.
The illusion ended.
The shrine was gone.
All that remained was a boy, breathing heavily, sword in hand.
"It's over," Airi said softly.
"No," Ishigami corrected. "It just began."
Hiragi looked up at the red sky.
"They'll come, won't they? The others."
"Yes," Ishigami said. "This was just one of the Hollow Gods."
"Then let them come," Hiragi replied. "I'll slay them all."
End of Chapter 58