Chapter 150: Flesh Sacrifice
"Sure enough, it appeared."
Gin Tsumugi looked at the Great Yokai standing in front of Nue, the one that seemed to have been thrown out as a sacrifice, and a faint smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"I was wondering how long you could endure."
He had to admit, the ones hiding in the dark were decisive.
For some unknown result, they had directly cut off one of their own arms.
"This harvest is even greater than what I expected from fishing out a few Great Yokai."
Gin's smile grew slightly colder.
Perhaps those hidden figures were still loyal to their master after a thousand years.
Or perhaps they had placed their final sliver of hope here.
Hagoromo Gitsune looked at the strange Great Yokai wrapped in black cloth and frowned.
"These are that person's subordinates, aren't they?"
Her voice carried both surprise and confusion.
"What are they doing by appearing now?"
"It is obvious, Lady Hagoromo Gitsune."
Shōko's gaze remained fixed on the battlefield as she spoke.
"Their master requires the power of Onmyōdō to be weakened and suppressed before resurrection becomes possible."
She glanced toward Nue, who was being refined by the Ghost-Averting and Evil-Dispelling Incantation.
"And Seimei himself is the symbol of Onmyōdō. Nue, as his derivative, represents a division and weakening of Onmyōdō in a certain sense."
Shōko's tone remained calm, but every word carried weight.
"Moreover, the ones who helped Lady Hagoromo Gitsune destroy the Spiral Seal at Kinkaku-ji were also them. I fear that is not all. Even Lady Hagoromo Gitsune's return was most likely fueled by them from behind the scenes."
After organizing the information she had gathered, Shōko continued concisely.
"Onmyōdō had just suffered the Mount Fuji Incident. Immediately afterward, the Level One Onmyōdō Alarm was sounded in Kyoto. No matter how one looks at it, this was taking advantage of Onmyōdō's weakened state to press the attack."
"One part of their goal was to let Nue be born, splitting and weakening the power of Onmyōdō."
"And the other part was likely to make Lady Hagoromo Gitsune lead the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons into battle against the Onmyoji, causing both sides to suffer severe losses."
She paused.
"That, too, would weaken Onmyōdō."
"So I was calculated by these creatures from beginning to end."
A cold glint flickered in Hagoromo Gitsune's eyes.
When facing Gin, she was a gentle mother overflowing with love.
But to anyone else, especially strangers, she was still Hagoromo Gitsune.
A unique reincarnated Yokai born from humanity's darkness and despair.
The Great Yokai feared throughout Japan.
That much was clear from the way she had watched Kidōji, who had followed her for hundreds of years, and the other Great Yokai be slaughtered one by one without interfering.
If she had not feared that rashly joining the battle would displease Gin, she would have already acted herself.
"This is the emergency Lady Shōko warned us about."
Miyoshi Tōgo and Kurahashi Genji exchanged glances.
The appearance of this suspected sacrificial Great Yokai did surprise them slightly.
However, because Shōko had warned them several days earlier, they had already prepared themselves mentally, and even prepared countermeasures for a series of emergencies.
But now that Gin Tsumugi had appeared, those measures were clearly no longer needed.
"Also..."
Tsuchimikado Arima suddenly spoke.
"Do you feel that the nails piercing this strange Great Yokai carry a familiar aura?"
Kurahashi Genji narrowed his eyes.
"Indeed. A little."
His expression darkened.
"It is exactly the same as the aura left behind at the cruel blood sacrifice site on Mount Fuji."
"In that case, the mutation during the later stage of the Mount Fuji Incident was likely inseparable from these hidden planners."
Tsuchimikado Yasuzumi and Keikain Hidemoto's eyes turned slightly gloomy.
If not for the mutation that erupted in the later stage of the Mount Fuji Incident, Onmyōdō would never have suffered such heavy losses.
Although Yamata no Orochi had been the culprit, these Great Yokai hiding behind the scenes were undoubtedly accomplices.
"Who is this guy?"
Compared to Gin, Shōko, and the Onmyoji, Nue, who was being painfully refined by the Ghost-Averting and Evil-Dispelling Incantation, felt a trace of doubt and hope rise in his heart.
His body had already become somewhat faint and hollow beneath the continuous purification.
In contrast to the unchanging outcome of being refined to nothing, the sudden change before him was obviously favorable.
No matter what it was, it had to be better than being completely purified.
Then—
"Aoooo!"
The Great Yokai wrapped in black cloth suddenly let out a painful cry.
It was not because it had been affected by the Ghost-Averting and Evil-Dispelling Incantation.
Rather, the nails piercing through the black cloth and into its body had transformed into black snakes one after another.
Those black snakes bit into the Great Yokai's flesh and blood, devouring it mouthful by mouthful.
Worse still, they seemed to multiply as they fed.
The more flesh and blood they consumed, the more black snakes branched out, writhing and spreading across the bound figure.
"This is a flesh sacrifice used to summon a Great Yokai."
Nue recognized what was happening at a glance.
Perhaps such rituals had become rare in the current era.
But in the Heian Period a thousand years ago, scenes like this had been far from uncommon.
Flesh sacrifice.
As the name implied, it was a special ritual that used the flesh and blood of living beings as offerings to summon a Great Yokai.
Whether the summoning succeeded depended entirely on the quality of the flesh and blood.
High-ranking Onmyoji were the best offerings.
If ordinary people were used instead, one could only make up the difference with quantity.
For that reason, every blood sacrifice often came with seas of blood and mountains of corpses.
After all, high-ranking Onmyoji were difficult to capture.
Ordinary people were much easier to slaughter.
In the Heian Period a thousand years ago, entire villages were often exterminated by Yokai in horrific fashion, all for the sake of performing blood sacrifices and summoning Great Yokai to descend.
Some did it to gain power.
Some did it to obtain protection.
Others simply wanted to offer a sacrifice to please a particular Great Yokai.
In that sense, it was somewhat similar to using the fruit produced by a Weird Wood Spirit to please Gyūki and obtain a reward.
However...
Using a Great Yokai as the sacrifice?
Not to mention the Onmyoji who knew nothing about blood sacrifices, even Nue was seeing such a thing for the first time.
What kind of existence required a Great Yokai as an offering?
Moreover, this Great Yokai was clearly unwilling.
Its power had been sealed directly by someone else.
Even its right to speak had been stripped away.
Obviously, whoever had done this feared that it might reveal something.
....
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