The godlike yet godless being pointed at Xu Fu and spoke in a language no one could understand.
With a gentle beat of its wings, countless white feathers spread across the sky above Xu Fu and the others, drifting slowly toward the ground.
Those feathers were the medium for its curse. Anyone they touched would end up just like the monster from before.
Xu Fu formed a hand seal with her left hand and raised her right. White flames ignited on her five fingers.
The five white flames left the fingers of her right hand and began circling the group. Every white feather that drifted toward them burst into flame the moment it crossed a certain distance.
"Phew~! Thank goodness. Looks like it still works even if it isn't the Flame of the Sun." Xu Fu let out a breath of relief, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
In the original storyline, Keitaro Gentoga's group had first gone to Seimei Shrine. There, the ghost of a certain onmyoji had given Keitaro Gentoga two shikigami, Zenki and Goki. Zenki was a bunrei of Amaterasu, while Goki was a bunrei of Tsukuyomi. Zenki's Flame of the Sun was this evil god's perfect counter.
After a brief test, it seemed the Flame of the Sun was not the only thing that could counter this evil god. Other flames worked as well. Of course, even if a yang flame had truly been necessary, Xu Fu could still have produced one.
Xu Fu pressed her index and middle fingers together into a sword seal and thrust them sharply at the evil god before her.
"[DISMANTLE]."
Five invisible slashes cut through the evil god's body. Because they were invisible, they were nearly impossible to guard against.
Was it over? Of course it couldn't be that simple.
Both of the evil god's faces split into grins, as if mocking Xu Fu for overestimating herself.
At the severed parts, white threads stitched its body back together... Or rather, its entire body was woven from countless dense white threads. Ordinary attacks simply had no effect on it.
"I already knew that."
Scarlet flames took shape in Xu Fu's palm, dripping through the gaps between her fingers.
"Your weakness is fire, right?"
The evil god's smile gradually vanished, as though it had witnessed something inconceivable.
Aside from Dismantle and Cleave, whose external manifestation took the form of invisible slashes, Ryomen Sukuna possessed another technique—one whose outward manifestation was flame...
"[OPEN]."
It stared at Xu Fu in astonishment. Flame should have been a phenomenon produced when matter burned and released energy, yet in her hands, it seemed to take on physical substance. Like dough, it stretched and changed shape between Xu Fu's palms, until at last it became an arrow.
"When it comes to cooking, the most important thing is controlling the heat."
Xu Fu made the motion of drawing a bow and nocking an arrow. The arrow of flame formed in her hand.
"Once the side dishes have all been cut, it's time to reduce the main course over high heat."
As though it would burn away the night itself, scorching firelight reflected in the evil god's eyes, along with the blurred figure standing behind the flames.
But soon, both the night and that figure vanished within the fire, leaving only a hazy, scorching scarlet...
Because its entire body was made of thread, it caught fire very easily. As long as one part touched the flame, the crimson blaze would race along the threads and cover its whole body in the blink of an eye, wrapping the evil god in raging fire.
Between Xu Fu's feet and the evil god's position, the asphalt road melted under the fire's heat.
Burned down to a few scraps, the evil god still wanted to struggle at the brink of death. Every thread on its body possessed the power to curse an adult to death. As long as those threads could take root inside another living creature, new threads could grow, giving it another chance to cling to life. But with Xu Fu here, it was destined to accomplish nothing. Even those last scraps were reduced to ash in the flames.
The translucent door dissolved after the evil god's death as well, dispersing into wisps of white smoke.
Xu Fu went to the spot where the door had disappeared and found a strange ring.
The ring was covered in scuff marks and looked quite old. It was adorned with a lifelike carved heart.
Defeating an evil god even came with loot. Didn't that make it feel just like a game?
Xu Fu remembered this ring. When the wearer wanted to curse someone, the phantom of a beating heart would appear in their hand. As long as the wearer squeezed and crushed that phantom heart, the heart of the person they wished to curse would burst apart directly.
In the original storyline, Yayoi Hozuki had nearly used this ability in a dream to kill someone else. The ring would tempt its wearer into cursing and killing others; it was an extremely dangerous item.
When Xu Fu had seen that part of the plot, she had thought: why was this ring's ability so similar to Cursed Arm Hassan's Noble Phantasm, Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat?
In the setting, Cursed Arm Hassan had wanted to become the leader of the Assassin Order and obtain the title "Old Man of the Mountain," Hassan-i-Sabbah. However, every Hassan before him had been an assassination master with a unique skill, so Cursed Arm Hassan, knowing himself to be mediocre, transplanted a demon's arm onto himself. In FGO's Sixth Singularity, Cursed Arm Hassan had even used that arm to turn the tables and kill Tristan of the Round Table.
So then... what was the relationship between the original owner of Cursed Arm Hassan's arm and this evil god Xu Fu had burned to death? They couldn't possibly be the same god from different worlds, could they?
Xu Fu remembered that this white evil god seemed to be Malbas, the fifth-ranked demon of the seventy-two pillars. Its original form had both lion and human shapes, but for some reason, this white evil god had only goat traits, without the slightest hint of a lion.
As for the demon who had given Cursed Arm Hassan that cursed arm, Xu Fu remembered the setting mentioning it somewhere... She thought it was called Shaytan? A demon recorded in the Qur'an, whose Arabic name was translated as "tempter" or "instigator."
Because Xu Fu had set up a barrier in advance to disperse bystanders, and because the incident had both begun and ended very suddenly, none of the nearby residents were caught up in it. Human casualties were zero.
The only deaths were essentially small animals like birds and mice, along with Sagami Kengyo, who still had not woken up by the time the evil god was dealt with.
Even after the incident was completely over, Monk Jogan still found it somewhat unbelievable.
An evil god that even the ancestors of Nissho Temple had only managed to seal at the cost of their lives had truly been dealt with by the little girl before him all alone? And casualties were practically nonexistent. The worst damage was only the road surface melted by the fire.
"Hmph hmph hmph~! How was that? Pretty amazing, right? Are you seeing Xu Fu-chan in a whole new light now~? You're not a cute girl, but if you want to start worshiping Xu Fu-chan too, Grandpa, I don't mind~!"
Xu Fu stood in front of Monk Jogan with both hands on her hips, looking so proud that she seemed to have forgotten heaven and earth existed. It made people want to pinch her cheeks and teach her a lesson.
It was hard to connect this innocent appearance of hers with that overwhelming malice from earlier.
"Little girl, where did you learn all this?"
Monk Jogan was very curious. Just who had taught such a young female practitioner of Taoist arts to possess such strength?
Of course, Xu Fu's teacher was Guiguzi. But saying that would be the same as directly exposing her identity. Besides, she was both Xu Fu and Fenghuang Yu, so if one had to be strict about it...
"Teacher? Xu Fu-chan doesn't have a teacher. Or maybe I have a lot of teachers? They were all happy to teach me things, but how much I could learn depended entirely on my talent. They didn't really care too much either way."
That was actually true. In theory, all the Heroic Spirit Servants who had lent her their Saint Graphs before were her teachers, because she had learned something from every one of them.
"You have many teachers?"
Monk Jogan could not help being startled when he heard that. Everyone else also quietly perked up their ears, including Keitaro Gentoga's group.
They had explored so many haunted spots together, and although they were already friends, they still did not know who Xu Fu had learned her Taoist arts from. Their curiosity was hard to suppress.
"Then who did you learn the slashes and flames you showed just now from?" Monk Jogan asked again.
What he cared about most was that overwhelming malice... That malice did not seem to originate from the user herself, but from the technique. Among Japan's spiritualists, there were black magicians and curse practitioners who specialized in curses, so Monk Jogan would not hold any strong prejudice against Xu Fu because of that.
However, even if the technique's user might not be evil, the creator of that technique certainly was. More than that, they were quite possibly a great villain even more terrifying than an evil god.
Xu Fu rubbed her chin and considered her wording. "Who taught it to me, hmm... Ashiya Douman, I guess?"
"...What? Who did you say?"
Monk Jogan was dumbfounded. He seemed to have just heard a name that rang like thunder, to the point that he even wondered if he had forgotten to clean out his ears and misheard.
"Ashiya Douman. You know, the one who was always opposing Abe no Seimei."
"Hiss—"
In an instant, sharp intakes of breath rose one after another.
In Japan, Ashiya Douman was a great onmyoji even ordinary people knew of, let alone those in the spiritualist world.
If asked who the greatest and most famous onmyoji was, many people would answer Abe no Seimei. And if asked which onmyoji's ability and fame ranked just below Abe no Seimei's, the first person many would think of was Ashiya Douman.
"Ashiya Douman... Wasn't he a great onmyoji from a thousand years ago?" Monk Jogan asked in confusion. "Could he have lived until the present day?"
Faced with all those gazes full of confusion and curiosity, Xu Fu merely said calmly, "Who said being dead means you can't teach people?"
Perhaps ordinary people could not, but that was the great onmyoji Ashiya Douman. Of course he could teach others in spirit form after his physical body died... Everyone immediately looked as though they had come to a realization.
"It's just that the slashes, flames, and domain from earlier originally all belonged to the curse of a powerful evil spirit named Ryomen Sukuna. After studying the curse, Ashiya Douman improved it, turning it into a technique that, in theory, anyone can learn... Of course that depends on talent~!"
Xu Fu added.
"Ryomen Sukuna... The ancient kishin recorded in the Nihon Shoki? No wonder that technique contains such terrifying malice..." Monk Jogan murmured.
Ryomen Sukuna had an older prototype. According to Japan's oldest official history, the Nihon Shoki, in Hida Province, there was a man named "Sukuna" who had two faces and four arms, with his backs joined together, no neck, and limbs on each side. He could wield a bow and arrows and twin swords at the same time. Because he rebelled against the imperial court and plundered the people, he was ultimately slain by Takefurukuma, who was dispatched to kill him.
"That said, such an evil technique will also affect the user."
Monk Jogan looked at Xu Fu and invited her in a solemn voice, "How about it? Would you like to come to our temple and train under me for a while?"
An invitation to become his disciple? Again?
Xu Fu had not expected that not only Namiko Shami, but even Monk Jogan before her would want to take her as a disciple. Did all these spiritualists have something wrong with them?
"No thanks. We still have things to do next."
"Hmm... Rejected, huh? Very well. But if you ever change your mind, you can come find me at any time."
Monk Jogan seemed not to have given up entirely on the idea of taking her as a disciple, stubborn in the same way Namiko Shami was.
Since the thing that needed to be sealed was gone, Sagami Kengyo's wife was naturally freed from her duty as a sokushinbutsu. Monk Jogan and the others began arranging her burial and memorial rites, praying that her soul could rest in peace and reincarnate safely.
There was also the evil spirit in Yayoi Hozuki's arms. Given their position, Monk Jogan's group could not simply sit back and watch a child carry such a dangerous spirit around everywhere. However, after learning that Yayoi Hozuki's purpose in collecting evil spirits was to fight a very dangerous spirit and rescue her imprisoned mother, Monk Jogan gave up on the idea of confiscating Yayoi Hozuki's evil spirit.
The main reason was still Xu Fu. Today's incident had allowed Monk Jogan to see what kind of person Xu Fu was, so he believed that if the evil spirit in Yayoi Hozuki's hands truly went out of control, Xu Fu definitely would not stand by and do nothing.
Even so, what Yayoi Hozuki intended to do was still far too dangerous. To help her better protect herself, Monk Jogan felt she still needed to train seriously.
And so Xu Fu's group watched as Monk Jogan extended another invitation to become his disciple, this time to Yayoi Hozuki, only for Yayoi Hozuki to refuse him outright.
Yayoi Hozuki's reason for refusing, however, was that she "already had a prior promise."
Curious who it was, Monk Jogan asked, and Yayoi Hozuki brought out Namiko Shami's name.
"That old woman... Being behind her in line puts me at a serious disadvantage..."
He did not give up there. He told Yayoi Hozuki to come find him whenever she changed her mind.
After that, Xu Fu's group left Nissho Temple. Although Monk Jogan said they could stay there for the night, there was no need. They could find an inn themselves.
Besides, they still needed to set up the Regicidal Bellflower grand formation. After leaving Nissho Temple, they found a suitable place and set the second doll in position. With that, the grand formation was two-fifths complete.
After spending the night at an inn, Xu Fu and the others recovered their energy, but they did not immediately head to the third haunted spot.
"There's somewhere I want to go take a look at."
Because of that one sentence from Yayoi Hozuki, the four of them walked to Seimei Shrine in Kyoto.