From God of Lies to Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 298: The Self-Defense Forces Routed

If modern Kyoto was a chaotic yet vibrant ancient capital, then the current Tokyo was a lifeless, stagnant new metropolis!

Terrifying economic pressure left everyone in this city looking utterly defeated, disorganized, distressed, and apathetic. It also twisted the deep-seated suppression in everyone's bones into an indescribable madness!

Yes, madness. The crushing weight of survival, the paths completely severed, the future thoroughly locked away... In short, because human life had reached a dead end!

Ordinary people knew they had no future, living day to day like walking corpses. The underclass had nowhere to go, merely clinging to existence through minimum-wage labor. Meanwhile, the elites continued to wallow in luxury and unbridled hedonism, well aware that they no longer had any foothold on the international stage!

In an era where the great eastern nation next door had vanished into mystery, playing both sides had become impossible. Beneath the gaping jaws of the Giants known as America, they had been reduced to a colossal corpse waiting to be devoured.

Under these dire circumstances, a piece of news from TV Tokyo crashed into everyone's line of sight!

"According to reports, a unique monster has appeared in the Adachi Ward, near the Tokyo Prison area! It is advancing toward the core of the Tokyo Metropolitan area!"

This extraordinary broadcast instantly invaded everyone's vision, making the hearts of all who witnessed it skip a beat!

In the footage captured by the news station, viewers could clearly see an enormous, bizarrely shaped monster setting out from the Tokyo Prison behind it, marching relentlessly toward the southwest!

Its appearance was profoundly strange. Despite possessing a humanoid body, it bore the head of ghosts and monsters, its ferocious and terrifying visage resembling an Asura demon!Its arms were not arms at all, but two razor-sharp tachi blades that mindlessly sliced through the surrounding buildings as it moved.

Indeed, this monster stood over fifty meters tall. Amidst the low-rise buildings of the Tokyo suburbs, it looked unimaginably colossal!

Everything in the monster's path was reduced to a desolate wasteland of rubble as it advanced.

Everyone was instantly reminded of scenes from Ultraman. Didn't this creature look exactly like a kaiju? But where was their Ultraman?

"Southwest? Isn't that... the direction we are in?" someone in Chiyoda Ward stammered, trembling with dread as an ominous feeling washed over them.

"The Imperial Palace! Its target is the Imperial Palace!" an unknown voice bellowed, prompting a sudden realization among the masses. "That's right! Only a target like that fits the nature of a monster!"

Although the creature resembled a traditional kaiju, in every meaningful sense, it wasn't a beast. It was more akin to a ghost!

In the minds of the people, who could a ghost's target possibly be? Following the current laws of Transcendence, it could only be those historically renowned families.

Was there any family more fitting than that of the Emperor? There wasn't, and there never would be!

After all, the current Emperor maintained an unbroken imperial line of single succession. From ancient times all the way back to the late Ming Dynasty, their bloodline had suffered from a scarcity of male heirs, or even a complete lack thereof. Therefore, such a family was the perfect target!

This was an inherently fascinating historical quirk; the Japanese imperial family had spent centuries walking a precarious genealogical tightrope.

Now, everyone understood. This massive monster's target could only be the Imperial Palace, or perhaps something hidden within its walls.

Whether it was the secret royal caches or the fabled Three Sacred Treasures, it all amounted to the same thing.

'How wonderful! Just like this, let everything be destroyed together!'

'The Emperor will die, the Prime Minister will die, my boss will die, and I will die! Hahahahaha!'

Some sighed in their hearts. Even at a time like this, they only dared to harbor such thoughts inwardly, lacking the courage to speak them aloud.

The public easily deduced that Emperor Naruhito, far away in the Imperial Palace, and Prime Minister Shimao, situated in Congress, had undoubtedly received this news and come to the exact same conclusion!

"Prime Minister Shimao, I do not care what your cabinet is thinking, but I require you to immediately mobilize the Self-Defense Forces and eradicate the monster heading toward the Imperial Palace!" Emperor Naruhito's tone was incredibly blunt, yet entirely pragmatic. "You know the consequences if the Imperial Palace is overrun!"

Although Japan's so-called Constitutional Monarchy had been established for a long time, allowing Prime Ministers like him to disregard certain decrees from the Emperor, this nation and this royal family boasted a legacy spanning over a millennium.

The family's prestige was intrinsically tied to the reputation of the country itself. It could be slandered, but absolutely no one could accept its literal destruction!

"Hai! Your Majesty, I swear to defend Tokyo!" Shimao had no choice but to declare loudly. "Please relocate temporarily. One of your invaluable stature must not remain in the path of danger!"

"I am going nowhere. I shall remain right here in the Imperial Palace, awaiting your victory!" Naruhito's words slammed into Shimao like a heavy hammer, making him keenly aware that the cabinet's recent actions had deeply angered the monarch.

"If you fail, then I will wait in the Imperial Palace for the arrival of death!"

Consequently, Shimao could only pass the pressure down the chain of command. "Connect me to the Self-Defense Forces Headquarters, Lieutenant General Fujiwara!"

"This is Shimao. I need you to intercept that monster in the Arakawa Ward in the shortest possible time! This is not a discussion; it is an absolute order! If you fail, explain yourself to the Emperor, or simply commit seppuku on the spot!" He paused, his tone venomous. "Remember this, General: behind you lies the Prime Minister's residence, the Imperial Palace, and the entirety of Tokyo!"

"Hai!" Even if Lieutenant General Fujiwara had cursed Shimao's entire family up and down in his heart, on the surface, he could only bellow his compliance. He immediately mobilized the troops, rushing toward the battlefield at breakneck speed.

Meanwhile, Shimao remained frantically busy. He hesitated for a long while before finally sighing. "Connect me to the US Forces Japan Commander..."

Although he was a staunch right-winger, there were many times he had to admit that their own military was as fragile as wet paper. At the very least, for now, he still had to rely on the foreign garrison!

Thus, the long-silent America Tokyo Base received a call from the Prime Minister. However, to Shimao's utter dismay, the other party issued an uncompromising refusal.

"I am very sorry, Prime Minister Shimao, but this is not a matter of money!" The Commander, who had always smiled broadly at the mention of funding, suddenly adopted an exceptionally righteous and stern tone. "We have received strict orders from the White House. The Great Leader has strictly forbidden us from intervening in Supernatural Events. This is not something I can do just because I wish to!"

"Forbidden?" Shimao hung up the phone in despair, gripped by a profound sense of abandonment, like a child who had just realized his father no longer loved him.

Even though everyone harbored deep-seated animosity toward the garrison, the sudden realization that they had lost their military support left them feeling incredibly disoriented. One had to admit, the sheer force of habit made their pathetic reliance truly pitiful!

"Do not worry, Your Excellency. The warships of our Self-Defense Forces have arrived!" an aide reported with a fawning smile. "Now that the fleet is here, everything will be alright!"

"Yes, everything will be alright!" Hearing these words, a glimmer of light and radiance finally returned to Shimao's face.

The weapons mounted on those warships were not the useless, flashy props seen in Ultraman; they were the absolute most devastating killing machines in their arsenal!

Faced with the pinnacle of modern weaponry, what did that monster even amount to?

"Order them to attack! Let this monster know that even in the face of Transcendence, Tokyo is not a place it can simply come and go as it pleases!"

"Oh? Is that so?" an otherworldly voice whispered directly into Shimao's ear, causing every member of the cabinet to snap their heads in that direction simultaneously.

They saw an incomparably handsome young man materialize right before their eyes. He was sitting casually on the Prime Minister's desk, looking down at them. "You all seem very confident in your little toys."

The Handsome Man was truly beautiful, exuding an elegant, classical grace that naturally invoked affection. A few officials even found themselves involuntarily aroused by his mere presence.

"Utterly disgusting!" The Handsome Man waved a dismissive hand. Right in front of everyone, the official harboring lustful thoughts was violently snapped out of midair by a massive Gaping Maw, bitten cleanly in half!

"You feel lust for absolutely everything, don't you? What are you, a Reincarnated Lust Demon?"

Accompanied by his voice of pure revulsion, the bisected man's blood splattered across everyone in the room. Yet, utterly paralyzed by terror, not a single person dared to move a muscle!

If anyone still hadn't figured out that this being was allied with the monster outside the city, they would have lived their entire lives in vain.

"Who are you?" Shimao finally mustered the courage to ask.

"Shh!" The Handsome Man placed a slender finger over his lips, blowing gently to signal for silence, before pointing gracefully at the monitors in front of them. "Watch."

Everyone turned their heads. Despite being drenched in warm gore, no one dared to utter a word of complaint. They merely looked at the screens in trembling obedience.

In the live feed, the colossal ghost swung its massive blade, cleanly slicing a warship in the river completely in half, instantly clearing the path ahead!

Shimao's secure phone began to ring. Through the receiver, the Fleet Commander's voice carried the despair of a man mourning his dead parents. "Your Excellency, Prime Minister... Two of our warships have been cleaved in half. We... we have failed!"

Meanwhile, the ground forces displayed on the screen were scattering and fleeing for their lives beneath the monster's gigantic feet!

They could not even manage to slow it down!