Chapter 115: Total Annihilation
"Seiryu has descended as well."
Onimaro Oni staggered beneath the combined assault of Zenki and Goki, forced backward again and again with no room to breathe.
A deep axe wound had been carved across its chest. Blood poured from the split flesh in thick streams, staining its bird-like body a darker shade of black. One of its arms had already been torn away by Goki, ripped off with raw, brutal force.
Even so, Onimaro Oni still managed to glance toward Hyakume Oni.
The moment it saw Seiryu standing before her, its heart sank.
"That calamity cannot be avoided now."
It knew better than anyone what Seiryu represented.
The Twelve Divine Generals each had their own authority, duties, and specialties. Some governed astrology. Some excelled in barriers. Some specialized in formulas, rites, or the manipulation of fate.
But Seiryu was different.
Among the Twelve Divine Generals, he was one of the finest combatants. Aside from the Ominous Generals such as Tensei, very few could compare to him in direct battle. Even within the full ranks of the Twelve, Seiryu's martial strength stood near the top.
If Onimaro Oni fought him one-on-one, even it would be forced into a desperate battle.
As for Hyakume Oni, who had only advanced into the ranks of Great Yokai within the last century, her fate was already sealed.
And the battle soon proved Onimaro Oni right.
Rumble!
Seiryu raised one hand.
Although he was the Wood General and a divine being of the wood attribute, the Azure Dragon also commanded water. A long spear appeared in his grasp, shaped like a trident, its edges gleaming with cold divine light.
The moment he swept it toward Hyakume Oni, endless waves rose out of empty air.
They did not surge like ordinary water. They carried the weight of the deep sea, the vastness of ancient oceans, and a crushing gravity that seemed capable of dragging all things into the abyss.
"So what if he really is that man?"
Hyakume Oni's face twisted.
At this point, there was no road left behind her. Begging for mercy would be meaningless. Repentance would be laughable. No one present would believe it, and Seiryu would never accept it.
If she wanted to live, she could only fight.
"I'll bet everything!"
Her Spirit erupted.
Across the Spirit she had unfolded, the countless eyes embedded between heaven and earth suddenly widened. The whites became bloodshot. The pupils shrank, then expanded to their limit.
A breath later, dark-red beams of decaying light burst forth from those eyes.
Each beam possessed enough power to kill a Professional Onmyoji.
Hundreds, then thousands of them tore through the air, crossing and weaving together into a vast net of death. The net descended with a foul, rotting aura, aiming to swallow Seiryu and the roaring waves together.
"Naive."
Seiryu smiled.
It was not a warm smile. It held only contempt.
He struck the air with the end of his spear.
The endless waves shifted at once, folding inward and rising up into a colossal sky-blue hand. Divine might shook the four directions. The giant hand reached out, seized the dark-red net, and tore it apart as easily as ripping wet paper.
The beams collapsed.
The rotten light scattered.
But Seiryu's attack did not stop there.
Under his command, the giant hand slammed upward.
Crack!
A sound like shattering glass rang through the world.
Hyakume Oni screamed.
Bloody tears gushed from every eye on her body. Some of those eyes could not endure the backlash and burst outright, spraying blood and dark fluid through the air.
Gin Tsumugi watched calmly.
He was not surprised.
With that single strike, Seiryu had shattered Hyakume Oni's Spirit.
Of the two overlapping Spirits that had swallowed the private scenic area, the inner layer belonging to Hyakume Oni began breaking apart piece by piece. Cracks spread through the space like fractures across a mirror. The countless eyes embedded in the sky and earth dimmed, turned translucent, and faded away one after another.
One move.
A single move had shattered a Great Yokai's Spirit.
At that moment, the terrifying strength of Seiryu, one of the Twelve Divine Generals, was revealed in full.
An ordinary Great Yokai like Hyakume Oni was not even on the same level.
Seeing Hyakume Oni reel from the backlash, Seiryu naturally would not let the opportunity pass. Divine power erupted from his body, and his figure vanished.
In the next instant, he appeared directly before her.
"Die."
The long spear in Seiryu's hand descended, carrying a suffocating aura of death.
Hyakume Oni's expression twisted with terror.
Faced with certain destruction, she made a ruthless decision.
Every eye on her body was forcibly gouged out at once.
Blood sprayed.
The eyes melted into liquid in midair, then gathered together, condensing into a massive eyeball dozens of feet wide. The pressure radiating from it far exceeded Hyakume Oni's own aura.
Then, a beam of light erupted from the giant eye.
It tore across heaven and earth like a cannon of death from the underworld, leaving only blood, decay, and silence in its wake.
"Cough... cough..."
Onimaro Oni, which had just been punched into the ground by Goki, coughed heavily and glanced toward Hyakume Oni.
"So even Hyakume Oni has reached the end of her rope."
That attack was not a trump card used lightly.
It was a suicidal measure that harmed the user almost as much as the enemy.
Hyakume Oni had been cornered.
"Awooo-ee-yo... Onimaro Oni... Onimaro..."
Before Onimaro Oni could think further, Zenki came roaring down again.
The Yokai-god's massive axe carried the force to sever all things. It tore through the air, creating a series of explosive sonic booms as it descended toward Onimaro Oni. Goki's attack followed right behind, vicious and precise, allowing no chance to escape.
Onimaro Oni could only drag its broken body back into battle.
On the other side, Seiryu faced Hyakume Oni's desperate strike without retreating a single step.
"So you did have one or two tricks left."
Even then, the aloofness on his face did not fade.
He slashed forward with his spear.
A blow condensed from both Azure Wood divine power and Water divine power burst from the spearhead.
For an instant, the night became day.
The world was filled with a radiant brilliance, so sharp and pure that it seemed capable of erasing everything in existence.
Hyakume Oni's death beam melted beneath the slash like snow beneath the sun.
The giant eyeball, formed from every eye she had torn from her own body, was split apart in the next breath. Its surface rotted, collapsed, and dissolved into the sky.
But Seiryu's slash still had power left.
It cut through Hyakume Oni before she could react.
Puchi!
Her body split in two.
Blood poured from the sky in a red curtain, and the heavy stench of it spread across the ruined scenic area.
"Aaaaah!"
Hyakume Oni screamed.
The vitality of a Great Yokai was monstrous. Even after being bisected, an injury that would instantly kill almost anything else, she still tried to force her body back together.
All it brought her was more pain.
The divine power clinging to the wound gnawed at her flesh and soul, denying her regeneration.
"Perish completely, Hyakume Oni."
Seiryu appeared before her again.
He raised his spear, divine power raging along its blade.
Hyakume Oni looked up. For the first time, every trace of arrogance had vanished from her face.
Only despair remained.
The spear fell.
Bang!
Her head burst apart.
Blood, shattered bone, and milky-white brain matter scattered through the air.
At the same moment, Hyakume Oni's presence disappeared completely from heaven and earth.
The Great Yokai Hyakume Oni had fallen.
Slain by the Azure Dragon.
Seiryu withdrew his spear. The killing intent around him faded, replaced by absolute solemnity.
He turned, then bowed respectfully toward Gin.
"Lord Seimei, I have fulfilled your command."
"Thank you for your hard work, Shōran."
Gin nodded.
He was not surprised by the outcome.
From the moment he summoned Shōran, Hyakume Oni's death had been decided.
Shōran was Seiryu's true name.
Just as Zenki and Goki's true names were Zendō and Myōdō.
Only those acknowledged by them had the right to know those names, much less call them aloud.
"Lord Seimei, it seems my aid is no longer needed there."
Shōran glanced toward the battlefield where Zenki and Goki were tearing Onimaro Oni apart.
Under the combined assault of the two Yokai-gods, Onimaro Oni had been forced into complete retreat. Its injuries were growing worse by the second. A short while ago, Goki had smashed half of its head apart with a single blow.
Its aura had weakened to the extreme.
Even its Spirit was shaking, becoming unstable, on the verge of collapse.
If nothing unexpected happened, that battle would soon end in Zenki and Goki's victory.
"I, Shōran, shall return for now and await your call at any time."
Gin gave a slight nod.
Only then did Shōran's figure slowly fade, dissolving into motes of azure divine light.
"To let one of the [Twelve Divine Generals] descend into the world without restraint is still a little difficult with my current strength."
Gin watched Shōran disappear and spoke softly to himself.
After the last advancement of the role-playing system, his [Shikigami Contract] had reached [Great Mastery], granting him the ability to summon the [Twelve Divine Generals].
For now, however, the only Divine General he could temporarily summon was Seiryu.
And even that came with a time limit.
"If I want to summon the others, improving [Shikigami Contract] is the key."
He understood the path clearly enough.
The problem was that he had no convenient way to improve it independently. For now, it could only advance along with the overall progress of the role-playing system.
At that moment, the final Spirit covering the private scenic area began to collapse.
Onimaro Oni's Spirit, which had lingered even after Hyakume Oni's death, finally disintegrated.
That meant the battle between Onimaro Oni, Zenki, and Goki had ended.
Sure enough, the first Great Yokai that "he" had confronted a thousand years ago had been torn into pieces under the combined assault of the two legendary Ghost-gods.
Onimaro Oni was dead.
Its body was broken beyond recovery. Its aura vanished from the world.
By this point, all three Great Yokai drawn here by the supernatural incident surrounding Shinomiya Kaguya had been subjugated and destroyed.
The Slaughter Ghost.
Hyakume Oni.
Onimaro Oni.
All annihilated.
At Shinomiya Manor, no one spoke.
Shinomiya Kaguya, Isayama Yomi, Tsuchimiya Kagura, Furukawa Oishi, Ouchiyama Megumi, and the other Onmyoji all stared at the sky in a daze.
The same was true for the Onmyoji watching from afar through secret arts.
In truth, after Gin summoned Seiryu, many of them had already guessed the result.
But guessing it and seeing it happen were two entirely different things.
These were three Great Yokai.
Three Great Yokai had fallen in succession.
Even during the Heian Period, when yokai roamed freely and the night belonged to the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, such a sight was rare.
In the present era of Supernatural Recovery, the total number of Great Yokai subjugated by the Onmyo Agency, the Onmyo Alliance, the Onmyo Academy, and the great Onmyoji families combined was only four or five.
In other words, Gin Tsumugi alone had accomplished more than half of what the entire modern Onmyodo world had achieved over the past two years.
How could anyone remain calm?
After this battle, no one would dare doubt his strength again.
There would be no more clowns like Yamashiro Rito leaping out to question his qualifications.
But compared to his strength, the veil covering Gin Tsumugi had become even more important.
Abe no Seimei.
White Fox Gin Tsumugi.
The connection between those two names now pressed down on the entire Onmyodo world like a mountain.
What truth lay beneath that veil?
What secret had been buried for a thousand years?
Those were the answers everyone now desperately wanted to know.
Gin lowered his gaze and glanced at Shinomiya Kaguya and the others.
Then he snapped his fingers.
At the edge of the plaza, Imai Takumi suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.
His face turned ashen.
His body trembled violently, and the spiritual power inside him collapsed like a broken dam. The Spirit-Insight Power that formed the foundation of an Onmyoji shattered completely.
Just like Yamashiro Rito before him, Imai Takumi's Onmyodo power had been crippled.
For someone who had tried to scheme against him, Gin had no intention of being merciful.
"Cough... cough..."
Imai Takumi collapsed to his knees, blood spilling continuously from his mouth.
Regret swallowed him whole.
But after watching Gin kill three Great Yokai in a row, he did not dare utter even a single threat.
No harsh words.
No accusations.
No final struggle.
He could only endure the cruel reality in silence.
Furukawa Oishi, Ouchiyama Megumi, and the other Onmyoji looked at him with undisguised disgust.
In their eyes, simply crippling his power was already letting him off lightly.
Still, since Gin had made his decision, none of them were foolish enough to interfere.
A moment later, Gin stepped into the air.
With Uho, his figure flickered and vanished from the battlefield.
He had no intention of staying behind.
Too many things would become difficult to explain if he remained.
More importantly, several National Level Onmyoji were already rushing toward Shinomiya Manor from every direction.
Gin had no desire to be caught in the middle of that "friendly" siege.
.....
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