Chapter 117: Man and Demon
Deep within the mountains west of Musashi Province stood a five-story wooden spiritual tower, nestled inside a secluded courtyard.
The structure was pitch-black, its ancient timber appearing as if it had been soaked in ink. Every pillar, every eave, and every tile was carved with a dense lattice of Sanskrit characters and esoteric incantation seals. There were no walls enclosing the tower, no villages nearby. Even the wild beasts of the forest seemed to give the area a wide berth, their instincts screaming at them to stay away.
Not a single blade of grass grew on the land for half a li in any direction, leaving only a desolate expanse of parched yellow earth and jagged gravel. All living things instinctively feared this place.
Because beneath the tower, something was breathing.
It was a slow, heavy rhythm.
A ponderous beat, like a heart buried deep underground.
Tsubaki landed before the tower. Using the curse for spatial displacement had consumed the vast majority of her spiritual power; her legs felt weak, and her pristine white robe and red hakama were stained with dirt and morning dew.
She paid it no mind.
Her gaze was fixed upward, locked onto the pitch-black, five-story spiritual tower. Moonlight washed over its frame, causing the ancient seals to shimmer with a faint, dark golden light. The seal was still functioning.
But it had already loosened.
When she had crushed the Unsealing Charm back in Kaede Village, the signal had been transmitted here. The first layer of the seal had already cracked.
Tsubaki stepped forward and pressed her palm against the tower door. It was shockingly cold, not like wood at all, but like touching a block of ancient ice.
"Master," she said in a low voice. "I'm sorry."
There was no true remorse in her tone, only the cold finality of a ritualistic farewell.
She formed a seal with her hands. They crossed and her fingers intertwined, shaping the mudra she had practiced countless times—the Seal-Opening Mudra of the Tahoto.
A sharp cracking sound echoed from within the tower as the second layer of the seal shattered.
It was followed by the third.
And then the fourth.
With every layer that broke, the tower shuddered, and the golden light of the Sanskrit seals dimmed by a fraction. By the time the fourth layer gave way, the tower door groaned and cracked open on its own.
It wasn't pushed.
It was burst open from the inside by something immense.
A chaotic miasma, a foul blend of countless strange odors, surged from the crack in the door—a nauseating mix of turbid qi, yin qi, and Yao Qi.
And an overwhelming, ghostly presence.
This was nothing like Kibutsuji Muzan, a unique existence who was fundamentally human but twisted into the form of a demon by illness. This was a true demon. also, the Yao Qi belonged to an ancient demon, one that had existed for at least five hundred years, making it far more potent than that of a "new demon" like Hikaru. The stench was so thick it was suffocating.
Tsubaki took a single step back, not out of fear, but simply because she was waiting.
The final layer of the seal was still intact. It was the core seal, forged from her master's entire life's worth of spiritual power. Even with the first four layers shattered, it could hold for a time.
But not for long.
Because what Tsubaki was about to do would dismantle it completely from the inside.
She retrieved something from the folds of her robe. It wasn't a talisman or a ritual tool.
It was a porcelain bottle.
Inside was demon blood. There was still a considerable amount left.
This time, however, after uncorking it, she didn't pour it out. Instead, she shook the bottle, letting the dark red liquid churn at the mouth and release a pungent, fishy stench.
Then, she brought the bottle to her lips.
And drank.
One gulp. Two gulps.
She tilted her head back until every last drop slid down her throat.
The moment the demon blood entered her body, she began to tremble violently. A painful contortion twisted her glamorous face, the upward curve of her eyes stretching even wider as her pupils bled from their normal deep brown to a venomous dark red. On the surface of her skin, thick veins bulged like writhing snakes, spreading from her neck and across her cheeks.
The demon blood rampaged through her system, attempting to forcibly transform her—a living human—into a demon.
Normally, such a transformation required the blood of the Progenitor of Demons, Kibutsuji Muzan himself. The blood of an ordinary demon lacked the necessary concentration and would only cause a person to die of poisoning.
But Tsubaki was no ordinary person.
She was a priestess; she possessed spiritual power. More than that, she was proficient in black magic, particularly curses directed at humans. She had long ago inscribed a spell formula within her own body, using it as a medium to forcibly guide, suppress, and absorb the twisted power now coursing through her.
This was not a complete demonization.
It was half-demonization.
She would retain her human consciousness and a priestess's spiritual power while gaining a demon's regenerative abilities and formidable physical strength. The price was steep: her spiritual power would be continuously eroded by the demon blood until it was eventually exhausted.
But that was a problem for later.
Right now, all she needed was power. Power enough to break the final seal. Power enough to "dialogue" with the evil demon sealed beneath the pagoda.
And even, power enough to devour it.
Tsubaki knelt before the pagoda door, her hands pressed flat against the ground. The transformation was still ravaging her body. Her nails began to grow, elongating from their rounded shape into sharp claws. A fine, grinding sound came from behind her lips as her canines lengthened into fangs.
Her white priestess top was stretched taut by the bulging muscles on her shoulders and back; the body beneath the fabric was being reshaped by the demon blood—not into a non-human mutation, but a grotesque distortion of her human lineage.
Yet, her eyes remained clear.
Within those dark red pupils, her sanity held firm. In fact, the spiritual power that had been sealed by Kikyo momentarily broke free from its shackles, surging with a chaotic new strength.
"What do you want?"
A voice rumbled from within the pagoda. It was deep, hoarse, and carried the dryness of centuries of slumber, like stone grinding against stone.
Tsubaki looked up at the cracked pagoda door. In the dark gaps, she saw two points of dark red light flicker.
Eyes.
"I want your power," Tsubaki said, her voice turning raspy from the corrosive influence of the demon blood. "In exchange, I will set you free."
The two points of red light were silent for a moment.
Then, a low, rumbling laugh echoed from within the pagoda, so powerful it made the gravel on the ground jump.
"A priestess making a deal with a demon."
"Interesting."
"Do you know what you are doing?"
"I know," Tsubaki replied, pushing herself to her feet. The transformation had stabilized. Her face was still the same glamorous one, but her pupils were now a solid dark red, her fangs peeked out from her lips, and her nails were as sharp as claws. The sacred priestess outfit of a white top and red hakama now wrapped around a half-human, half-demon body.
It was a discordant, twisted sight.
Yet, it possessed an inexplicably eerie and seductive charm.
Tsubaki's voice turned cold. "I want your power."
"Your abilities, your Yao Qi, the demonic power you've accumulated over centuries—all of it will merge into my body."
"And your consciousness will be suppressed, locked away, and erased by my spiritual power."
"In other words," she raised a hand, the one that had already morphed into a sharp claw, and pointed it deep into the pagoda's darkness, "I am going to eat you."
The red light inside the pagoda flickered.
The laughter stopped.
After a moment of heavy silence, the voice spoke again. "You think you can suppress me?"
"We'll know once we try."
Tsubaki slammed her hand against the pagoda door, right over the final layer of the seal. Her spiritual power—now distorted by demon blood, chaotic yet immensely powerful—poured into the core of the ancient ward. This wasn't a simple unsealing; it was a thorough, brutal crushing. Using the dual impact of demonic power and a priestess's spiritual power, she attacked the seal from both the inside and the outside simultaneously.
The pagoda burst apart.
The pitch-black wood exploded in all directions. The golden light of the Sanskrit incantations flared one last time in the air before being completely extinguished.
A wave of pure darkness surged from the base of the pagoda.
Immediately following it, the evil demon, sealed for centuries, stood up from the ruins.
When Momiji and Botan arrived, this was the scene they witnessed.
The Tahoto had collapsed. The place where they had grown up, the spiritual tower their master had spent her life protecting, was now nothing more than a pile of broken wood and rubble.
And in the center of the ruins, Tsubaki stood.
Around her, black ghostly qi and white spiritual power intertwined, writhing like two great serpents tearing at each other. Her body was actively absorbing the power of the newly freed demon. The creature's form was already beginning to disintegrate before her, turning into a dark red mist that she swallowed into her body, mouthful by mouthful.
Her glamorous face was contorted in a mask of exertion and ecstasy, a dark red light flickering faintly within her features.
"Se... Senior Sister..." Botan's voice cracked.
Momiji didn't speak. She just stood there, staring at the collapsed spiritual tower, watching her master's lifelong effort reduced to nothing. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears—only a burning, silent anger.
"Momiji, Botan."
Kikyo's voice came from behind them. The priestess, clad in her iconic white and red, held a longbow, her dark, clear eyes fixed on the twisted mass of light and shadow ahead.
"Get back."
Her tone was not one of negotiation. It was a simple statement, an obvious command.
Momiji and Botan took half a step back, compelled as much by Kikyo's commanding presence as by the chilling realization that the upcoming battle was not on a level they could possibly participate in.
Hikaru landed silently beside Kikyo. The remnants of thunder still clung to him, faint purple arcs of electricity dancing between his sleeves. He looked at Tsubaki, who was still in the process of devouring the ancient demon.
The Nekomata Claws tucked in his bosom were vibrating violently.
[Nekomata Claws: Favorability +8]
[Current Favorability: 80 (Symbiosis)]
[It is excited. It smells an extremely dense aura of death. That evil demon devoured the lives of an entire town hundreds of years ago, and the accumulated Death Qi within its body is so thick—it's driving it mad.]
Hikaru pressed a hand against his chest, stilling the trembling claws.
"Don't be in such a hurry," he whispered. "It's not your turn to take the stage yet."
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