The girl's body had completely finished its mutation.
A corrupting power, fusing the dual terrors of holes and spirals, frantically overflowed from her body.
Tiny holes and spiral patterns began to surface on the surrounding walls and the hard concrete ground.
The scene had become a living portrait of hell.
A trypophobe would probably drop dead on the spot, unless every single hole and spiral was stuffed with gold.
The morbid smile on Tomie's face vanished the moment she saw this sight.
In its place was a profound disgust stemming from the very depths of her soul.
"So ugly! So ugly! So ugly!"
She took a step back, as if looking at it for even a second longer would taint her perfect eyes.
"How can such a thing even exist?! Die! Die!"
She turned her gaze to Miko and the others, barking out an order.
"You lot, hurry up and clean up this disgusting trash."
"Get it out of my sight."
Hana Yurikawa and Kyoko's faces instantly turned deathly pale.
The intense visual shock sent their stomachs churning; the visceral discomfort was so overwhelming they wanted to gouge their own eyes out.
They gripped their weapons tightly, but their legs felt like jelly, leaving them hesitant to step forward.
Miko Yotsuya alone stood her ground, her posture unwavering.
Her mind flashed back to the days and nights when she had been utterly powerless against monsters. In the endless darkness, she had witnessed countless terrifying entities far more hideous and indescribable than the thing before her.
But now, she tightly gripped the power to change her fate in her own hands.
Her resolve was already as solid as a rock.
"I'll do it."
Seeing Miko step up first, Yuria's competitive spirit was instantly ignited.
She forcefully suppressed the churning discomfort in her stomach and summoned her rabbit, Rabian, holding it defensively in front of her.
"Hmph, my familiar has long been thirsting for battle."
She declared loudly with her usual chuunibyou flair, trying to mask the slight tremble in her voice.
"Such lowly scum shall be purified by Miko and myself."
Miko didn't respond, simply channeling cursed energy slowly into her eyes.
"[Eyes of Truth], open."
The moment her vision shifted, the monster's weakness was laid bare before her.
Its core wasn't a physical entity, but rather a composite mass of spiral and hole energy.
To destroy it, they would have to plunge their weapons directly into that innermost, utterly repulsive mass of flesh.
Miko glanced down at the Myriad Soul Banner in her hands.
The cute pink fabric of the banner was adorned with a shiny star.
She instantly dismissed the idea of using it to attack.
*It's way too dirty. If I attack with this, I'll have to throw the banner away!*
Just as Yuria took a deep breath, bracing herself to send Rabian charging in, Miko reached out and stopped her.
"Wait, let's just blanket it with firepower instead."
She pulled a weapon out of the exquisite backpack Yang Yi had given her.
It was an incredibly cute pink dolphin bubble gun, its casing plastered with sparkly cartoon stickers.
The aesthetic of the toy was completely at odds with the hellish battlefield around them.
This was a divine artifact Yang Yi had custom-made for her using a [Noita] mod.
Though it looked like a harmless children's toy, it actually harbored apocalyptic, world-destroying power.
The bubble gun's modification interface appeared before Miko. A translucent holographic screen, visible only to them, popped up, displaying the custom magic modules she had equipped herself.
[Triple Cast] [Double Spell] [Homing] [Incendiary] [Flashbang]
And at its very core, glowing with a faint golden light, the [Sacred Talisman] module.
"Since it's hiding behind something so disgusting so we won't want to touch it..."
Miko's tone was terrifyingly calm.
"...then we'll just blow it up until there's absolutely nothing left."
The moment the words left her mouth, she pulled the bubble gun's trigger.
The cursed energy within her body was rapidly drained, rushing out like floodwaters bursting through a dam.
Accompanied by a cheerful nursery rhyme, countless bubbles carrying sacred runes shot out from the cute dolphin's muzzle, blanketing the air.
The bubbles shimmered in iridescent colors, each carrying different elemental energies.
The moment the first bubble gently brushed against the monster's squirming surface...
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
A terrifying chain of explosions erupted.
The incendiary effect instantly ignited a monstrous inferno of [Pure Yang Flame]. The golden-red fire, radiating a warm, evil-banishing aura, frantically scorched the monster's flesh.
Blinding light erupted from the flashbangs, illuminating the entire area.
Meanwhile, the purifying energy released by the [Sacred Talisman] explosions transformed into visible golden shockwaves. They rippled outward ring by ring, accompanied by the echoing chorus of holy hymns.
The deafening explosions, the monster's agonizing shrieks, and the holy hymns of the runes intertwined, composing a grand symphony of destruction.
Under the relentless saturation bombing, the monster's outer shell—composed of countless holes and spirals—was stripped away, purified, and vaporized inch by inch.
Finally, the pitch-black spiral core hidden deep within was completely exposed to the air.
*Now.*
"Go."
Miko and Yuria struck almost simultaneously.
The tip of the Myriad Soul Banner and Rabian's plush arm struck the exposed core from above and below at the exact same time.
The core trembled violently. A split second later, it was instantly shattered by the two vastly different powers, dissolving into a cloud of black motes of light that faded into nothingness.
However, the very moment the monster completely dissipated...
The massive spiral cloud formation in the sky gave a violent shudder.
Its rotation abruptly accelerated, and the profound darkness at the center of the clouds seemed to open like a giant, spiral-shaped eye.
An invisible, sinister will bridged the spatial distance, locking dead onto Yang Yi and his group.
Immediately after, the ground beneath all of Kurouzu Town began to quake violently.
Every villager eroded and controlled by the spiral curse—whether they still barely maintained their human forms or had already mutated into monsters like the snail people—froze in place.
They slowly turned their heads.
Countless pairs of eyes, their pupils swirling with bizarre spiral patterns, turned in unison to "stare" directly at Yang Yi's location.
Soon after, a dense cacophony of footsteps, dragging, squelching, and monstrous roars echoed from the streets in every direction.
Countless twisted figures emerged from the shadows of the surrounding buildings.
They completely surrounded the small courtyard, entirely unaware that the people inside were waiting for them to do exactly that.