Tap.Tap.
"Ha?!" Yorimitsu muttered, cracking open his left palm.
A single, heavy droplet landed directly in the centre of his hand. It wasn't water. It was a thick, viscous crimson.
"Blood?!"
He looked up toward the heavily darkened heavens. Instantly, the sky opened up, and the blood came pouring down in a torrential, suffocating deluge.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Hmmm... this is exceptionally dangerous," Yorimitsu murmured.
He sharply flared his Reiryoku, extending his fiery aura outward to form a tight, protective shield. The descending sheets of blood slid seamlessly off the spiritual barrier, splashing heavily onto the stones and rapidly filling the courtyard with deep, swirling puddles of crimson.
Orochi, however, merely stood perfectly still in the centre of the storm, entirely unbothered as the heavy downpour washed over his cracked mask and soaked his robes in deep scarlet.
'After so many centuries of agonising patience... I can finally forge my eternal kingdom,' Orochi thought, his gaze sweeping over the two twisted shrines that now loomed menacingly over the horizon. 'If it hadn't been for her wretched corpse gaining sentience and being worshipped as Kami, I would have successfully completed this grand ritual an age ago.'
His focus drifted back down, his serpentine eyes locking onto the single-horned swordsman before him. A chilling smile broke across his face. 'But fate has truly blessed me. Once the final two shrines rise, I will completely consume that boy's soul. I will be able to descend as kami as well...
Orochi's calculations were abruptly shattered when Yorimitsu's voice sliced cleanly through the storm.
"Tell me... what exactly is your relationship with... Shuten?"
The forbidden name echoed with immense weight through the pouring rain.
"Hmmmm," Orochi's head jerked upward with terrifying speed, his purple aura violently thickening until it began to warp the light around him. "What do you know of that name?"
Tap!
Orochi vanished into thin air.
Tap!
Moving with the rhythm of the storm, he materialised instantly alongside the very next drop of blood that touched the earth, standing tall and looming directly over Yorimitsu's blind spot.
"I know that he has been pulling the strings from the shadows, actively influencing the highest echelons of the Capital, you are doing the same with reginal lords as well, aren't you?" Yorimitsu replied, his expression completely unfazed by the spatial displacement. He turned his head slightly, his single horn gleaming through the crimson rain. "Are you one of his generals?"
The moment those words left Yorimitsu's mouth, Orochi's hand snapped forward like a striking viper, his razor-sharp fingernails aimed directly at his throat. But Yorimitsu was already moving. Twisting his hips, he fluidly brought the flat of his blade upward, catching the point-blank strike and forcefully deflecting the impact, sending a shockwave through the blood puddles as he pushed Orochi back.
"Tch... It's that damn blade again," Orochi spat, his gravelly voice dripping with unadulterated venom as he recoiled from the deflection. "It truly is my eternal nemesis. To think that bastard actually left that steel behind for his descendants, ha? Even from beyond the grave, that man remains an absolute thorn in my side."
"Ohhhh... why so angry? I only asked whether you were merely one of his generals," Yorimitsu repeated coolly. A soft, fiercely arrogant grin plastered itself across his sharp features.
'It's working,' the thought flashed through the swordsman's mind. 'Every single time I drag Shuten's name, his focus wavers, albeit for a brief moment. His control over Reiryoku flutters just enough for me to read his movements.'
"All sorcerers are inherently liars, brat?" Yorimitsu recalled the teachings of his master, her voice cutting clearly through the torrential downpour of blood. "In order to weave external Onmyōdō, a practitioner must be capable of weaving intricate stories. Whether those stories are true or completely false doesn't matter in the eyes of the rituals; only the intent behind the words carries any true weight."
Yorimitsu took a slow, deep breath, adjusted his stance, and with a sudden surge of power, his entire blade ignited into a brilliant, blinding aura.
Most people who had heard the ancient legends of Orochi knew the tale like this:
Centuries ago, he was a mortal soldier of the Land of the Rising Sun, a brilliant military strategist and a prodigy of the mystic arts. But the chronicles say that one day, driven by pride, that soldier turned his blade against his own martial master, only to be effortlessly defeated. In a desperate bid for retaliation, he raised a rogue army and marched back to challenge his teacher a second time. Once more, he was soundly crushed.
Yet, out of pity, his master spared his pathetic life. Consumed by an all-consuming, psychotic rage upon his return home, the disgraced soldier slaughtered his entire family, draining their blood. Those actions are what transformed him into an Oni.
'If all sorcerers are liars, then I should probably consider his entire legend about the First People to be an absolute fabrication,' Yorimitsu's thoughts churned as he analysed the field. 'But even in the grandest lies, a shard of truth remains. There has to be a clue hidden in that story of his... a key to uncovering the true, final objective of this ritual.'
With a sudden, violent downward slash, Yorimitsu gouged his blade into the earth, unearthing a blank wooden roof tile. Catching a handful of the descending crimson deluge with his bare left hand, he rapidly traced an intricate, glowing seal across the rocks with the blood, then hurled the improvised talisman directly at Orochi.
Orochi tilted his head with fluid, effortless malice, letting the tile sail harmlessly past him. The moment it cleared his silhouette, the seal flashed violently, momentarily manifesting the faint, echoing visage of a wail before it slammed into the pagoda behind them, tearing the building into shreds.
CLAMP!
In the mere blink of an eye, the world around Yorimitsu violently distorted. Before he could even register the movement, he found his feet lifted entirely off the ground, Orochi's obsidian-clawed hand clamped like a vice around his throat.
"Ha?!"
Yorimitsu gasped for air, his vision blurring. The space itself had somehow folded around him.
"You truly possess a magnificent talent for provoking your betters," Orochi whispered, his cracked mask mere inches away.
Raising his free hand, the demon snatched a stream of the falling blood straight out of the air, freezing the liquid into a jagged, pulsing dagger of pure malice. He plunged it ruthlessly toward Yorimitsu.
Fwump—
With a desperate surge of his Reiryoku, Yorimitsu's form fluttered like a dying flame, dispersing into a thick cloud of white smoke just as the dagger pierced his silhouette. He escaped the fatal grasp, but the moment he materialised a few paces away on the wet stone, his knees trembled, and he struggled to catch his breath.
"This damn rain..." He glanced up grimly, wiping a smear of blood from his jaw. 'It is interfering with my internal circulation, even in this form, my Onmyōdō is starting to break down.'
Squclch.
Right where the blood from his smoke-clone had splattered onto the earth, the ground violently groaned. A small, gnarly tree composed of black bark and pulsing red veins rapidly sprouted from the stone, feeding greedily on the falling blood.
'Tch… and his Onmyōdo is so deeply layered that I can't even begin to dissect the structural formulas,' the realisation pressed heavily against Yorimitsu's mind, his heart hammering against his ribs as his single horn pulsed with a warning light. 'This isn't just standard sorcery. I have yet to see another use it.'