Chapter 113: Shōran
Rumble!
The sound of impact rolled across Minato Ward like thunder dragging its body over the city.
Windows rattled. Streetlights flickered. Countless residents, already uneasy from the darkened sky, pushed open their curtains and looked toward the source of the disturbance. Far away, beyond the mountain roads and private land of the Shinomiya estate, the night kept flashing with violent bursts of spiritual pressure.
To ordinary eyes, nothing could be seen clearly.
Only the sound remained.
Again and again.
Like giants were beating the heavens apart.
High above the ruined scenic area, Zenki and Onimaro Oni had turned into blurs too fast for the naked eye to follow. Red and black shadows clashed, broke apart, then collided again, each impact sending circular shockwaves across the sky.
The ground trembled beneath them.
The manor shook.
The private mountain groaned like it might split open.
"Onimaro Oni!"
Zenki's roar tore through the night, savage and ancient.
Just as Gin Tsumugi had said, Onimaro Oni and the two Yokai-Gods, Zenki and Goki, were old enemies from a thousand years ago.
Onimaro Oni had been the first Great Yokai "he" had ever confronted directly.
For Zenki and Goki, that name had long since been carved into memory.
If "he" had not stopped them back then, the two Yokai-Gods would have stormed Mt. Oe themselves just to settle the score.
A thousand years had passed.
Some grudges did not fade.
They only waited.
Onimaro Oni understood that better than anyone. It was not facing Zenki alone. Goki waited nearby, silent and patient, looking for the slightest opening. One careless movement, one misjudged breath, and a fatal strike would tear through its defenses.
Escape was impossible.
In that case, it could only fight.
Boom!
A collision even heavier than the last exploded in the sky.
Zenki and Onimaro Oni were both blown back hundreds of meters. Onimaro Oni slammed into the ground, carving a deep trench through the earth, while Zenki crashed into the mountainside with enough force to bury half his body in stone.
Dust and broken rock rained down.
"A thousand years..." Onimaro Oni rose slowly from the crater, blood leaking from the corner of its mouth. Its old man's face twisted with pain. "And Zenki has only grown stronger."
"Awoo-ee-yo... Onimaro Oni... Onimaro Oni..."
Zenki's voice came from the collapsed mountainside.
The next instant, his axe flashed.
The entire slope shattered.
Boulders tumbled down like a landslide, and the mountain the Shinomiya Conglomerate had spent a fortune preserving was split open in one blow.
The once-beautiful private scenic area had completely become a battlefield.
No one cared.
Not Shinomiya Kaguya.
Not Isayama Yomi.
Not Tsuchimiya Kagura.
Not a single Onmyoji present had the leisure to mourn the scenery.
Their eyes were fixed on the sky.
The battle between Onimaro Oni and the legendary Yokai-God Zenki was too brutal, too direct, too far beyond common sense. Every exchange forced them to revise their understanding of what a Great Yokai truly meant.
This was not a monster.
This was a walking disaster.
If an existence like this were allowed to rampage freely, a city could become a graveyard overnight.
"Slash!"
Zenki roared and swung his massive axe down.
A blade of force dozens of meters long tore through the night. It looked less like a slash and more like an ancient god of death splitting heaven and earth apart. Everything in its path screamed under the pressure.
At the same time, the overlapping Spirits manifested by Onimaro Oni and Hyakume Oni trembled violently, barely holding together under the weight of that strike.
"Defend!"
Onimaro Oni's expression changed.
Blue flames roared upward, forming a shield before it. At the same time, its Spirit began rewriting the surrounding laws and order, suppressing Zenki's attack at the source.
The difference was obvious.
The Slaughter Ghost's control over its Spirit had been rough, almost crude. It used its domain as a weapon and battlefield, relying on overwhelming force to crush its enemies.
Onimaro Oni was different.
Its grasp over its Spirit was far more refined. It did not simply add power to its attacks. It modified the environment, rewove the rules, and weakened an enemy's force from within.
Zenki's terrifying slash began to shrink.
The force inside it collapsed layer by layer.
By the time it reached Onimaro Oni, the once-massive blade had been reduced to less than a third of its original size.
The blue-flame shield swallowed it with a violent roar.
For a moment, Zenki and Onimaro Oni fell into a stalemate.
Zenki was stronger in raw combat power.
Onimaro Oni was more difficult to kill.
If this continued, deciding a victor would take time.
Unfortunately for Onimaro Oni, Zenki had never come alone.
"Awoo-ee-yo..."
A low roar sounded from behind it.
Goki appeared there without warning.
The blue Yokai-God's claws tore through the air, dragging a line of condensed yin energy behind them as they slashed toward Onimaro Oni's back.
Onimaro Oni's pupils tightened.
Zenki and Goki were attacking together.
"Come, then!"
Its voice grew hoarse and solemn.
The next instant, the three figures vanished again.
Rumble!
Rumble!
The sound of impact shook heaven and earth.
One red shadow.
One blue shadow.
A great demon with a bird's body and an old man's face trapped between them.
Zenki swung his axe with the violence of a falling mountain. Goki struck barehanded, each blow carrying a force that could crush steel into powder. The two Yokai-Gods moved with terrifying coordination, one breaking through the front, the other sealing the rear, their savage yin energy tearing at the space around them.
The spectating Onmyoji felt their scalps go numb.
"So these are the shikigami of Kamo no Yakushi no Sukune..."
"Too powerful."
"Onimaro Oni is strong, but against both Zenki and Goki, it cannot possibly win."
"I want to know how White Fox Gin Tsumugi is commanding them."
"And what exactly is his relationship with the Tsuchimikado Clan?"
"Keep watching. Perhaps we'll find out soon."
"No matter what, after tonight, no one in Onmyōdō will dare underestimate him again."
"The so-called number one genius of the new generation has already grown to this point..."
"It makes us old bones look rather embarrassing, doesn't it?"
"You said it, not me."
While Zenki and Goki pressed Onimaro Oni into a corner, the other side of the battlefield sank into a different kind of tension.
Hyakume Oni stared at Gin with every eye on her arms open wide.
All of her earlier contempt had vanished.
She did not know what method this Onmyoji had used to summon Zenki and Goki, but that alone was enough to make her wary. If she underestimated him now, she really might end up dying here, exactly as Onimaro Oni had warned.
Gin, however, barely looked concerned.
His gaze lingered on the distant battlefield, watching the violent aftershocks roll through the sky.
"As expected," he murmured. "Without Zendō and Myōdō's own Spirit, they're still disadvantaged in a war of attrition. The path they chose is suited for explosive battles, not prolonged ones."
Not every Great Yokai possessed a Spirit.
There were two broad paths for a Yokai to reach that level.
The first was the path taken by Onimaro Oni, Hyakume Oni, and the Slaughter Ghost.
They evolved their Spirtit Domain into a true Spirit, gaining authority over an area of the material world. Within that territory, they could modify laws, weave order, and suppress enemies by rewriting the battlefield itself. This was the most common path for Great Yokai.
The second was the path of Zenki and Goki.
They never formed Spirit Domains. Instead, they honed themselves to the extreme, breaking through their own limits again and again until their bodies and combat instincts reached the level of calamity. They could not rewrite laws like those who possessed Spirits, but their raw battle power far surpassed most Great Yokai.
Neither path was inherently superior.
It only depended on the one walking it.
"Under Zendō and Myōdō's pincer attack, Onimaro Oni's curtain should fall soon."
Gin finally turned his gaze back to Hyakume Oni.
"I can't keep slacking off either."
Hyakume Oni's entire body tensed.
Although the face she wore was still twisted into a grotesque smile, the eyes on her arms had narrowed with murderous vigilance.
Her plan was simple.
Use her full power from the beginning.
Kill Gin Tsumugi in the shortest possible time.
Only then would she and Onimaro Oni have a chance to survive.
Otherwise, once Zenki and Goki finished dealing with Onimaro Oni, her fate would be sealed.
"Relax," Gin said, reading her thoughts at a glance. "I won't be your opponent."
Hyakume Oni froze.
"What?"
"I prepared someone else for you."
"Someone else?"
The same words had summoned Zenki and Goki earlier.
This time, unease crawled across Hyakume Oni's skin.
What else could he possibly call forth?
Below, Shinomiya Kaguya, Isayama Yomi, Tsuchimiya Kagura, and the gathered Onmyoji all held their breath.
Even those watching through secret techniques fell silent.
Could Gin still summon another shikigami capable of fighting a Great Yokai?
Tsuchimikado Arima, Kurahashi Genji, Tsuchimikado Garaku, and several other high-level Onmyoji instinctively rejected the possibility.
A shikigami capable of fighting a Great Yokai was a Great Yokai-level being in its own right.
Such existences were not cats and dogs one could pick up on the roadside.
Throughout the entire history of Onmyōdō, there had been only a handful.
How could anyone summon one after another as though opening drawers?
And yet...
After everything Gin Tsumugi had done tonight, no one dared declare it impossible.
They could only watch.
Gin drew another talisman from his robes.
His fingers shifted through a sequence of seals.
Hyakume Oni's unease sharpened into alarm.
No.
She could not let him finish.
Her Spirit stirred. Countless eyes opened in the sky, each pupil locking onto Gin. The space around him began to distort, preparing to crush his technique before it formed.
Gin's expression did not change.
"Isn't it a little late to interfere now?"
His voice carried through the night.
"The Four Spirits of Heaven rectify the four directions."
The talisman burned.
"The noble divine one of the eastern heavens."
The wind shifted.
"Azure Wood of the East."
Spiritual light surged.
"Swiftly, as the law commands."
Gin's eyes sharpened.
"Come forth."
The world seemed to inhale.
"Shōran."
A vast torrent of Azure Wood divine power descended.
It pierced through the double Spirit of Onimaro Oni and Hyakume Oni like sunlight through rotten cloth.
The blackened sky cracked.
The blue flames trembled.
The negative influence of the Spirit began to dissolve inch by inch.
Below, the devastated private scenic area changed.
Grass sprouted from cracks in shattered stone. Broken branches straightened. Withered cherry trees, long past their season, drew vitality from the descending divine power. Buds appeared across the branches, swelling, blooming, and bursting open in waves.
A breeze passed through the ruins.
Cherry blossoms scattered beneath the night sky.
They danced through a season where they had no right to bloom, beautiful enough to make the battlefield feel briefly unreal.
Then a man appeared before everyone.
He looked several years older than Gin.
His nose was high, his lips thin, his brows sharp like drawn blades. A few loose strands of black hair fell near his temples, framing a face no less striking than Gin's own. Tall and slender, he stood with the cold arrogance of an eagle looking down from the night sky.
Azure Wood divine power radiated from him in waves.
He was like a god who ruled over forests, spring, and all living things that grew beneath heaven.
Furukawa Oishi stared at him in shock.
"Did Lord White Fox... summon a god?"
"No."
Ouchiyama Megumi denied it first.
Her cloudy eyes widened as she looked at the figure in the sky, disbelief shaking her voice.
"That is not a god."
Her fingers trembled.
"That is a Divine General."
"One of the Twelve Divine Generals."
"Seiryu."
"The Twelve Divine Generals?" Shinomiya Kaguya murmured.
Then she stopped.
Not the Twelve Divine Generals of the Onmyo Agency.
There was no "Seiryu" among them.
But there was another set of Twelve Divine Generals.
The legendary shikigami once commanded by the Great Onmyoji Abe no Seimei.
"Impossible..." Kaguya whispered.
"Seiryu," Ouchiyama Megumi said, still staring upward. "One of the Twelve Divine Generals who served Abe no Seimei."
"The legendary Seiryu?"
"Seiryu?"
"How can that be...?"
Isayama Yomi, Tsuchimiya Kagura, and the others looked at one another, the shock in their eyes even greater than when Zenki and Goki had appeared.
Then the next scene pushed that disbelief into something close to terror.
The aloof man known as Seiryu turned toward Gin.
Without hesitation, he lowered himself onto one knee.
His head bowed.
His voice was deep, steady, and filled with reverence.
"Seiryu greets you once more, Lord Seimei."
The night went silent.
Then Seiryu continued.
"In this life as well, I am willing to become the blade in Lord Seimei's hand."
He lifted his gaze toward Hyakume Oni.
"And cut down every enemy before you."
.....
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