Crrrrk! Crrrrk!
The second Watanabe's sandals touched the mud, the ground crystallised beneath him like thin ice.
He drew a low, deliberate breath. The steam escaping his lips froze instantly into glittering frost, drifting away in the storm as he exploded forward, leaving a jagged, shining trail of ice carved through the dirt.
A fresh volley of spectral arrows rained down from the dark sky, fired from even further back. But before the glowing shafts could even reach his path, the cold aura radiating from his body froze the arrows mid-flight, shattering them into fine powder.
Without losing a fraction of a second, Watanabe closed the gap, appearing directly in front of the massive Shield General. His pure white blade vibrated with a soft, resonant hum a clear, ringing tone that echoed through the rain like a distant temple bell.
"STOP HIM...!" the four-armed spirit shrieked, her voice cracking with desperation. "DON'T LET HIM REACH ME!"
Responding instantly to the command, the heavy Shield General stepped into a wide, grounded stance. Thrusting its colossal tower shield forward, the ancient samurai set its weight against the mud, forming an impenetrable wall of rusted steel and enchanted bone directly in Watanabe's path.
"Hhhpt..." Watanabe hiccuped softly, his icy eyes drifting downward as the ground beneath the giant began to churn.
Crrrck! Crrrk!
The ice fractured as thick, heavy mud burst upward from the earth, coiling tightly around the Shield General's legs like living ropes.
'I see...' Watanabe breathed out, his fingers tightening around the vibrating hilt of his translucent white katana. 'It's reclaiming its forgotten Onmyōdō arts as well... It really is a vicious, endless circle, isn't it, being so old. But it's all a little too late. At the level I'm at right now... none of that should matter!'
Watanabe pivoted into a low, horizontal stance, bringing his blade around in a fluid arc.
"AHHHHH—!"
The Shield General roared, a deep, decaying bellow that shook the air as it slammed its tower shield down. A thick layer of dense, hardened earth erupted from the ground, coating the shield in a massive boulder-like barrier.
PLOOOOP!
There was no sound of crashing metal or breaking stone. Watanabe's pure white blade glided through the mud, the armour, and the creature's torso as if slicing through water, stopping only when he completed his step on the opposite side of the battlefield.
Crrrrk!
Silence fell over the field for a single heartbeat. Then, the giant General snapped cleanly in two.
Drawing a slow, freezing breath as he landed softly on his feet, Watanabe listened to the instant frost spread. Before the halved monster could even hit the dirt, its entire upper body froze solid into stark white ice, crumbling into glittering shards that scattered across the mud.
SPLOCK!
Watanabe swung his boot, kicking the remaining lower half of the frozen General away with heavy force.
A wave of rancid, suffocating stench erupted from the shattered torso—a smell so vile and pungent it made the village's pit toilets smell clean by comparison. Luckily, the sub-zero frost crawling over the ground rushed up to encase the rotten remains, freezing the corpse solid before it crumbled into harmless, odourless dust.
"AHHHHHHH—!"
A high-pitched shriek of agony echoed from behind the defensive bone wall. The second the Shield General was completely destroyed, the tempo of the bleached flute bumped erratically, its melody wavering in panic.
"Hhmmmpt... so it is as I thought," Watanabe grinned, his snowy white hair fluttering in the howling wind. "Slashing her Generals bleeds her overall power, doesn't it?"
Gripping the heavy frozen shoulder of the upper torso with his free hand, Watanabe swung his body around and hurled the frozen mass straight through the storm toward the Bow General!
The heavy projectile soared through the air like a catapult stone. Skidding across the slick ground, Watanabe charged directly behind the flying corpse, using it as a moving shield to blind his enemy's vision.
Positioned on a high earthen mound, the Bow General hesitated for a fraction of a second, its hollow eye sockets flustered by the unexpected barrier. Then, reacting on instinct, the skeleton pulled back its spectral bowstring, aiming straight through the incoming mass to draw its next shot.
Unlike the previous projectiles, these spectral arrows ignited with the same nauseating, emerald-green hellfire as the Sword General's nodachi.
Watanabe drew a deep, icy breath, his chest rising as cold mist billowed from his mouth.
"Plum Blossom Art: Four Seasons' Blossom..." he whispered, his eyes gleaming with pure white light.
Raising his translucent blade skyward, he roared into the storm, "SUMMER!"
He swung his weapon in a sweeping arc. In an instant, the single blade duplicated into dozens of shimmering, white-steel strikes, fanning out through the rain like the dense, swaying branches of a summer plum tree. The flurry of slashes intercepted the green-flamed arrows mid-air, severing their magical bonds and extinguishing the hellfire in a shower of sparks!
Without wasting a single fraction of a second, Watanabe stepped forward, his voice booming over the howling wind once more.
"AUTUMN!"
This time, he brought his blade down in a clean, effortless vertical slash. The second wave of incoming arrows struck the invisible wake of his swing and immediately began to wither. Their spectral energy decayed, their metallic arrowheads rusting away into brittle, brown fragments that fluttered to the mud like dry autumn leaves.
"WIN—"
CRACK-CRACKLE!
A sharp, brittle sound echoed through his ears.
Watanabe froze mid-chant. He lifted his free hand to his face, his eyes widening in shock. Across his knuckles, forearms, and cheek, his pale, alabaster skin was spider-webbing with thin, jagged fractures—cracking open like brittle ice under extreme pressure.
The terrifying truth hit him instantly: his human body couldn't withstand the absolute-zero temperature of his own awakened Reiryoku for long!
'Tch... It's just as I thought,' Watanabe gritted his teeth, the agonising pain shooting up his leg as another web of thin fractures spider-webbed across his thigh. 'The longer this fight drags on, the more dangerous it gets for me. I still don't have proper control over this elemental Reiryoku... I'm just tapping into it on pure instinct!'
He planted his cracked heel firmly into the frozen dirt, drawing in one final, deep breath.
"WINTER!"
BOOM!
An absolute explosion of sub-zero energy erupted from his position in every direction. A blinding blizzard of frost and ice surged across the battlefield, flash-freezing the mud, the ancient tombstones, and the howling rain mid-air. Within seconds, the entire mass gravesite was transformed into a barren, silent landscape of stark white ice—as if winter itself had descended upon the earth in a single heartbeat.
"A... a Kekkai?!" the four-armed spirit gasped, her raspy voice cracking as she frantically scanned the frozen domain.
She stared in disbelief at the icy mist blanketing the horizon, her hollow eye sockets trembling.
"No... no! It's not a true Kekkai... there is no spell or spirit art binding it together! It's just... raw, unfiltered elemental aura!"
Though Watanabe didn't fully realise it yet, he had just instinctively manifested an incomplete Kekkai formed by his ice through sheer force of will. It was a power reserved for elite masters, yet he had summoned it effortlessly; he had yet to pay the price for unlocking such talent, and the price was truly catastrophic.