Tomie's smile grew increasingly morbid.
"Hehehe, come on! You ugly freak!"
Before the evil spirit could even get close.
Yang Yi raised his arm, aimed the dark gold Emperor's Bolter in the direction of the anomaly, and pulled the trigger.
"Boom—!!!"
A pillar of golden light ten times thicker than before erupted from the muzzle. The radiance was so overbearing that the moment Kyoko, a mere human, came into contact with its afterglow, she felt an agonizing pain in her eyes and an overwhelming urge to fall to her knees in worship.
The golden light struck the one-eyed evil spirit with pinpoint accuracy.
The moment the evil spirit's massive, mountain-like body touched the golden light, it instantly dissipated in the holy wrath.
The golden light continued unabated, shooting straight into the heavens and violently tearing a golden rift through the twisted sky.
It took a long time before the rift slowly closed.
Yang Yi put away the Bolter and turned to look at Kyoko behind him, who was completely dumbfounded and had even forgotten to breathe.
"That cousin of yours, Miko Yotsuya, should be able to see some of the anomalies."
"If those anomalies realize she can see them, they will eat her."
Kyoko shuddered violently and nodded subconsciously.
"She can definitely see them, because she's been acting very strangely lately."
She couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of hell her timid and frail cousin was going through.
"Master! I beg you, please, you have to save her!" She kowtowed desperately, her forehead hitting the floor with dull *thuds*.
"Do you want to see the world through your cousin's eyes?"
Yang Yi walked over and bent down to pick up her glasses.
Then, he gently blew a breath onto the lenses.
"Huu—"
Afterward, he handed the glasses back to Kyoko.
"Put them on."
With trembling hands, Kyoko accepted the glasses she had worn for three years. Right now, they seemed to hold a faint, almost imperceptible warmth. She looked at the calm Yang Yi and the excited Tomie beside him.
Gritting her teeth, Kyoko put the glasses on.
"Ah..."
Her body instantly stiffened, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
She saw it.
The world before her was no longer the one she was familiar with.
In the corner of the once-empty room, a charred, shadowy anomaly with backward-bent limbs was huddled up, staring at Yang Yi with terrified eyes. On the ceiling, a dangling, rotting head was desperately trying to retract itself. Arms reaching out from the cracks in the floorboards were attempting to put the floor back in place.
Outside the window, a massive number of shadowy anomalies stood on the streets. Further away in the city, the sky, the ground, the high-rises... every inch of space as far as the eye could see was crammed with grotesquely shaped anomalies.
This world was far more crowded than she had ever imagined!
"Hah... hah..." Kyoko slumped to the ground.
She was going to go mad. It turned out this world was crawling with anomalies everywhere.
Looking at Kyoko, who was on the verge of fainting from sheer terror, Yang Yi seemed to have expected this. He reached out again and pulled an item from the sleeve of his flowing Daoist robe.
It was a palm-sized, dark gold sachet, embroidered with an extremely abstract two-headed eagle pattern in red thread. The sachet looked completely ordinary, perhaps even a bit crude.
Yang Yi held it out to Kyoko.
Kyoko was already delirious at this point, merely drawn by instinct to the trace of warmth emanating from the sachet.
"Take it."
Yang Yi explained, "This is a piece of sacred material torn from the cushion beneath the buttocks of a 'Great Emperor' who sat in meditation for ten thousand years."
Kyoko froze.
"A... a butt cushion?"
"What's wrong with a butt cushion?" Yang Yi's tone was completely serious. "It is tainted with the aura of that entity, as well as the auras of countless powerful beings who tried to attack Him, challenge Him, and ultimately turned to ash. It's more than enough to deal with ordinary anomalies."
Half-doubting, Kyoko took the sachet and hung the red string around her neck.
The moment the sachet touched her skin, an indescribable warmth surged through her entire body.
The next second.
Wearing the "enchanted" glasses, Kyoko witnessed a miracle with her own eyes.
"Screee—!!!"
"Roarrr—!"
The instant she put on the amulet, the world around her erupted in golden flames.
The charred, shadowy anomaly in the corner of the room shrieked as it turned into blue smoke. The heads on the ceiling instantly exploded. The arms on the floor completely withered away.
With Kyoko at the center, a three-meter radius anomaly-free domain was formed.
Upon seeing her, most of the anomalies fled from her as quickly as if they had seen a ghost.
Kyoko stared blankly at the scene.
Was this Emperor's cushion really this effective?
"Stop dawdling!" an impatient voice rang out as Tomie kicked the floor next to Kyoko. "If we wait any longer, those ugly freaks might just eat that sister of yours as a snack!"
Tomie couldn't wait to head to the next "tourist attraction."
"Ah! Right! Miko!" Kyoko snapped out of her daze, scrambling to her feet and pulling out an address. "She lives in Shinjuku Ward..."
"Got it."
Yang Yi smiled and reached out, grabbing Kyoko and Tomie by the shoulders.
Kyoko's vision blurred. When she opened her eyes again, she had already left the apartment and was standing on the street.
Just as she was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she saw Yang Yi pull out an ostentatiously designed, pitch-black Batmobile.
Its lines were full of aggression, looking like a fighter jet flying close to the ground.
"Waaaaah—!!!"
Tomie let out an excited scream. She had absolutely no resistance to such cool things and immediately dove straight into the passenger seat.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Let's go!!"
Kyoko sat in the back seat, tightly clutching the "Emperor's Butt Cushion Amulet" to her chest, her body trembling from her recent experiences and the sudden turn of events.
Yang Yi got into the driver's seat.
"Vroom—Boom—!!!"
The next instant, the vehicle let out a deafening roar.
Yang Yi released the brakes.
The Batmobile instantly launched forward, its tires dragging long trails of sparks across the ground as the entire car sped madly through the streets of Tokyo at hundreds of kilometers per hour. The noise along the way caused sheer chaos; countless car alarms were triggered, and dogs across entire blocks barked wildly.
"Hahahahahaha—!!" Tomie let out a joyous, maniacal laugh, sticking her head out the window and letting the fierce wind mess up her long hair.
In the back seat, Kyoko was pinned firmly against her seat. Her face was deathly pale, as if her very soul had been thrown out of her body.
Half an hour later, the group arrived at the neighborhood where Miko Yotsuya lived.
"Screech—!"
Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of tire friction, the vehicle did a 180-degree drift and came to a steady stop at the street corner.
The powerful inertia made Kyoko dry heave.
As soon as the three got out of the car, Kyoko noticed Yang Yi and Tomie looking at something not far away.
Kyoko followed their gaze.
Right there, under the streetlight at the corner, a girl in a school uniform was squatting all alone at the entrance of an alley. Her body was trembling non-stop as she seemed to be picking something up from the ground.
"Miko!!" Kyoko cried out involuntarily.
...
Miko Yotsuya's heart was filled with despair.
In her vision, the world was gray and bleak, while "they" were so vividly colored.
Right in front of her, less than ten centimeters away, a massive ghostly figure was squatting before her. Its rotting, swollen face was almost pressed against hers.
The ghost's mouth opened and closed, emitting a foul stench of rotting organs mixed with the smell of alcohol, making Miko want to vomit.
It was whispering.
"Can you see me?"
"You can see me."
"You can see me."
Miko didn't dare to look up; she could only pretend to be picking up a coin. But her trembling hands couldn't manage to pick it up.
*Damn it, stop shaking. Hurry, hurry up and pick it up, hurry up and leave.*
*Please... stop looking at me...*
Just then, a familiar voice rang out. It was her cousin.
Then, a crisp, energetic, yet slightly crazed female voice followed.
"Wow! Handsome, look!"
"That girl is playing a staring contest with a disgusting old ghost!"
*Thump, thump, thump.*
Miko's heart pounded violently.
*Someone... someone can see them!*
*And! And they even said it out loud!!*
*It's over.*
Miko stiffly turned her neck, glancing back from the corner of her eye.
She saw three figures.
An absurdly handsome man. An absurdly beautiful woman. And her cousin Kyoko?!
Miko's brain short-circuited.
And because of those words, the old man ghost also snapped its head up, looking toward the source of the voice.
"You can see me!"
"You can see me!"