Chapter 138: A Battle Worth Witnessing, Even in Death
The sky over Musashi Province was a canvas of bruised purples and churning grey. The storm howled, and though the sun had only just crested the horizon, the world seemed to have plunged back into the bleak inversion of night.
Amidst the roaring wind, a colossal figure, seemingly the new center of the world, slowly straightened its back. The ground beneath its feet continued to fracture, the fissures spiderwebbing a hundred paces out from the point of impact and showing no signs of stopping.
Its six arms spread wide, vast enough to blot out half the sky. The face, hidden behind a stark white bone mask, slowly turned. Eerie green light spilled from the eye slits, a malevolent gaze that swept over every living thing present.
Yet, for all the suddenness of this creature's arrival, the choice made by Hikaru and Kikyo was crisp and decisive. They had just finished dealing with their previous foe. Now, they could only face this new, overwhelming difficulty head-on. They could not—would not—allow this enemy to succeed.
The moment Hikaru stepped from the relative safety of the barrier, the demon's aura—its yao qi—slammed into him like a solid wall.
It was nothing like the targeted speed suppression of Kidomaru, nor was it the grotesque distortion of the Tahoto, which fused human and demon regeneration. This was something else entirely. It was pure, unadulterated, overwhelming quantity.
Gaseous Transformation.
In the evolutionary ladder of demons, Physical Transformation was the limit of the first six stages. Beyond that lay Materialization, and at the very apex of the twelve transformations was the theoretical thirteenth: Gaseous Transformation.
But just as he hadn't truly grasped the essence of Materialization before facing Kamaitachi, Hikaru had no practical knowledge of this next step. Gaseous Transformation existed only in his most abstract speculations. There was no established theory, only a 'conjecture'—an extrapolation from body mass to energy, combined with the vast repository of information he possessed as a transmigrator. It was a far-flung, advanced imagining.
Only now did Hikaru personally experience what that level truly meant. Theory had crashed into reality.
What the texts called Gaseous Transformation was more accurately described as 'Qi Transformation'. Or, more terrifyingly, 'Phenomenal Transformation'.
Just as wind is not a single object and rain is not a discrete entity, the yao qi of a Gaseous Transformation-level great yokai was no longer confined to its body. It spread outward, merging with the very fabric of the world, becoming a 'Second Law' that superseded the natural order within its domain.
For dozens, even a hundred miles around, the air grew heavy. The ground softened underfoot. Gravity itself seemed to warp and intensify. This wasn't merely caused by the sheer amount of yao qi; it was because the yao qi itself had become a phenomenon.
In its domain, the rules of heaven and earth were dictated by its very existence.
This was the true, unbridgeable chasm between a Gaseous Transformation great yokai and a Materialization-level demon. Physical Transformation was about changing shape. Materialization was about changing properties. But Gaseous Transformation… Gaseous Transformation was about changing the world.
This explained how Kidomaru, with his twelve transformations, had been able to manifest a 'domain' that crushed all others in speed. His power was the condensation of yao qi infinitely close to this stage.
But the creature before them—this Tsuchigumo—was a complete great yokai of at least thirteen transformations. It had clearly reached the Gaseous Transformation stage four hundred years ago. Though its long slumber and severe injuries likely meant it wasn't at its peak, it was still an existence that had truly stepped into the world of 'Phenomenal Transformation'.
Against such a being, the favorability with the earth that Hikaru had used against Kidomaru was utterly useless. He could only rely on himself—on his own body.
Thunder Muscle flared to life, and violent purple arcs of electricity exploded across his form. Yet, he didn't charge Tsuchigumo head-on. Instead, he cut sharply to the left, circling toward the flank of its massive body.
At that exact same moment, a bowstring twanged.
Kikyo's Sacred Arrow was loosed. Pure white spiritual power condensed into a fist-sized ball of light at the arrowhead. This was not the composite arrow of sealing and purification she had used before; this was a pure, unadulterated Sacred Arrow, designed for one purpose.
To break demons. To shatter qi.
A single, casual shot was already the maximum output of a normal priestess—the ultimate killing move against any demon.
The arrow blazed a brilliant white trail through the oppressive gloom, aimed straight for the left eye slit of Tsuchigumo's bone mask.
White light detonated.
Spiritual power burst against the mask, the force of purification invading the dense layer of yao qi like a scorching sun burning through thick haze. A massive crack splintered across the mask's surface, spanning its entire face.
Tsuchigumo's head tilted slightly.
It hurt.
Though the damage was limited to the mask—which seemed to possess some special property that offset spiritual power—the attack had registered. Tsuchigumo paused. The baleful green light behind the mask swiveled, locking onto Kikyo's position.
Then, it laughed. A wild, ecstatic sound.
"Very good! Excellent!" its voice boomed. "To be able to harm me… this is truly wonderful, priestess! Spiritual power of this caliber is almost on par with Midoriko herself."
Midoriko. The legendary priestess who was the source of the Shikon Jewel—and, in a sense, its creator.
Kikyo's eyes remained cold. She stood at the very edge of the barrier, the corners of her white kosode and red hakama fluttering wildly in the corrupted wind. Her long, jet-black hair was whipped back from her face, but her expression was a mask of serene, beautiful cold, completely unmoved.
She did not answer. The second arrow was already nocked on her bowstring.
Tsuchigumo, however, had no intention of letting her shoot again. He loved a good fight, not a one-sided beating.
His upper two arms lifted from his knees. Ten fingers interlaced, then separated. Between his palms, gray-white threads materialized from thin air.
This was his spider silk. It was also the manifestation of his yao qi, his innate technique.
The threads shot out with absurd speed, like countless gray-white lightning bolts radiating from his palms in all directions. Every single thread carried the petrifying property of his Gaseous Transformation. The ground they touched instantly hardened and turned brittle, as if corrupted in a single moment. The moisture in the air, sliced by the passing threads, condensed into tiny ice crystals that rained down like frozen dust.
This was a further manifestation of his 'Phenomenon'—to make everything harden, turn brittle, and lose all activity. Anything entangled by his threads would be subsumed into his reality, turned to stone, turned to dead matter.
From the flank, Hikaru saw the threads sweeping toward Kikyo. He pushed his Thunder Muscle to its absolute limit, his body blurring into a purple afterimage as he raced to intercept.
Muramasa flashed from its sheath, the blade instantly wreathed in crackling thunder. He brought it down in a vicious slash.
Thunk.
A dull sound, like stone striking stone, echoed through the air. The thread was severed. But the yao qi at the cut immediately surged up the blade toward his hand. A layer of gray-white 'frost' bloomed on the steel of the demon blade Muramasa as Tsuchigumo's power attempted to convert the weapon into a part of itself.
Hikaru's thunder countered in the same instant. Purple arcs of electricity surged down the blade, forcibly repelling the gray-white erosion.
"Able to cut my thread… not bad, kid," Tsuchigumo's tone held a flicker of interest. "But you can only cut one, can't you?"
Before the words had even faded, dozens more threads shot out. This time, they didn't just radiate outward; they wove together. The threads interlaced in mid-air, rapidly forming a gigantic net between Tsuchigumo and Kaede Village.
The net spanned over a thousand paces, its gray-white strands gleaming with a deathly luster under the dim sun. Anything caught beneath it—people, trees, the very land itself—would be petrified. The entirety of Kaede Village, along with the vast plains surrounding it, was within the net's terrifying scope.
Hikaru fell back, knowing he couldn't possibly cut them all. But there was no panic in his eyes.
Because he knew what was coming.
The bowstring sang with a triple-shot.
Three Sacred Arrows left the string in what seemed like a single instant, their white trails crossing in the air to form a brilliant fan. Spiritual power exploded against the spider web.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three consecutive detonations of pure light. The web was burned through, leaving three massive, gaping holes. The gray-white yao qi at the breaks sizzled and dissolved in the white light, like ice and snow meeting boiling oil.
This was purification. A thorough, root-level stripping and dissolution of the demonic energy that composed the web. Spiritual power was the natural bane of yao qi—even at the Gaseous Transformation level, it had to yield before the purity of Kikyo's power.
All six of Tsuchigumo's arms paused. The green light behind his mask pulsed, locking onto the figure in the white robes and red hakama.
"This level of Sacred Arrow..." For the first time, his tone held something other than excitement. It was regard. It was even a sliver of seriousness. "This concentration of spiritual power… this depth of purification… you are not just comparable to Midoriko."
He tilted his head, the cracked bone mask creaking. "Although your scale is still somewhat lacking, your spiritual power is actually purer than Midoriko's. The purification effect is stronger, more concentrated!"
His head canted further. "Interesting. Extremely interesting."
The middle pair of his six arms unclasped from his chest, joining the other two in weaving. New threads shot out from four hands simultaneously, their speed even greater than before. They were no longer weaving a net.
It was a downpour. A storm.
Hundreds, then thousands of threads shot out from all directions, threatening to turn the entire ten-mile battlefield into a gray-white hell of spiderwebs.
Kikyo did not retreat. Instead, she took a step forward.
She stepped out of the barrier.
The shrine maiden in white robes and red hakama stood upon the corrupted earth, her longbow held level. The spiritual power on her bowstring no longer condensed arrow by arrow. It was simply… released.
A torrent of white light seeped from her very being, spreading along the bow, flowing across the string, and forming a field of pure spiritual power with a radius of ten feet around her.
Within that field, every gray-white thread was silently dissolved the moment it made contact.
Like ice meeting fire. Like darkness meeting light.
She no longer needed to shoot arrows, no longer needed to consciously purify. Her very existence had become the ultimate purification for yao qi.
Hikaru saw this. He saw Kikyo standing there, a solitary beacon in the encroaching doom. Her white robes gleamed with a lustrous light, her long, jet-black hair lifted by the flow of spiritual power, spreading behind her like a silken black flag. The hems of her red hakama clung to her slender legs, the white sash at her waist glowing like a ribbon of pure energy.
Her face was as cold and beautiful as ever. But in the depths of her jet-black eyes, a fire was burning.
It was the fire of protection.
She was protecting the village behind her. Protecting the children and the other shrine maidens hiding and trembling in the shrine. Protecting the Oni Samurai who had just crossed the threshold of a new power but had not yet had time to find his footing.
In that moment, Kikyo did not look like a shrine maiden.
She looked like a warrior.
She was the final human line of defense on this land, the only one capable of confronting a Gaseous Transformation-level great demon head-on.
Tsuchigumo straightened his body to its full, terrifying height. The twelve-meter-tall, gray-white form stretched out, all six arms spread wide. The eerie green light behind his bone mask burned brighter than ever.
"Then let me… get serious!"
His yao qi surged again. The ground within a radius of several miles began to petrify as a whole, a wave of gray-white corruption spreading from his feet at an incredible speed. All six of his arms began to spit silk. Hundreds of threads shot out from six directions simultaneously, a relentless storm intent on turning the entire battlefield into a tomb of gray-white webs.
But within the range of that shining white spiritual field… not a single thread could enter.
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