Like a beast, she tore and chewed.
She ripped out the girl's throat with her fingers, gnawed chunks of flesh off with her teeth, and swallowed them down in great gulps. The old woman's evil spirit knew she had to heal herself as fast as possible if she wanted any chance of escaping those terrifying little brats.
"Yayoi?"
Keitaro Gentoga looked at Yayoi Hozuki in confusion.
He didn't understand why she was stopping him from going forward. The old woman was devouring another spiritual body. Wasn't this the perfect moment to capture her?
"You can't go over there, Keitaro." Yayoi kept her eyes fixed on the old woman devouring the little girl, her tone heavy. "If you go over there... you'll die."
"Huh?"
Die?
Keitaro didn't think Yayoi was exaggerating. A chill instantly shot from the soles of his feet straight up his spine.
"Just watch from here. You'll understand soon enough." Yayoi didn't explain further, because the answer would reveal itself very shortly.
The old woman's evil spirit crouched over the black-haired little girl. By now, half the girl's head and one of her arms had already been eaten away, exposing the pale cross-section of her skull. Sticky strands of nerve fiber dangled from the severed shoulder.
But that still wasn't nearly enough to satisfy the old woman.
Her throat worked as she kept tearing and biting. Her jagged spine rose and fell with every swallow, and her murky eyes bulged with greed, as if she meant to tear apart the tiny body beneath her and eat every last bit of it.
The old woman had no idea why those little brats had stopped advancing, but for her, that was a good thing. It gave her more time to feed.
However, she hadn't gotten smug for long before the black-haired little girl pinned beneath her suddenly began to laugh.
There was no human emotion in that smile at all—only a chilling emptiness.
The little girl's hair began to grow at a visible rate. Black strands spread across the floor like a living tide, writhing outward. Tough as wire and alive like spirit-serpents, they instantly coiled around the old woman's wrists, bit into her withered neck, and wrapped layer upon layer around her hunched body like a web.
Before the old woman could even react, she was already bound tight.
She tried to scream, but more strands shot upward from her neck and covered her mouth.
"...! ...! ...!"
All her struggling was useless. The hair wound tighter and tighter, thicker and thicker, cutting deep into rotten flesh with a sickening creaking grind.
In the end, countless writhing black strands wove themselves into a black cocoon. Only a narrow slit was left at the eyes, just enough to reveal her bulging eyeballs twitching and darting in despair.
And then something even more horrifying happened.
The half-open door beside the black-haired little girl and the old woman began to warp and twist as though it were melting wax. The wooden frame writhed into the outline of lips, while peeling patches of wall curled back and fell away, gradually forming the blurred contours of facial features.
By the time that giant face had fully taken shape, the doorway itself had become a bottomless maw. Soundless darkness squirmed within it, and row upon row of sharp teeth gleamed with a glaring, icy light.
"...! ...! ...!"
This time, the old woman didn't even have the chance to beg for mercy. Her mouth had long since been sealed shut by endless strands of hair, and escape was even more impossible.
All she could do was watch helplessly as those two massive lips lined with fangs slowly closed in. Like a condemned prisoner awaiting the falling blade, despair and terror grew madly in her clouded eyes, reflecting those pale, approaching teeth.
Bit by bit.
When the fangs sank into her shriveled body, a dull sound rang out like an overripe fruit bursting open. Then the teeth drove deeper, tearing through flesh like carving forks shredding rotten meat, grinding bone and organs into thick slurry. Bound in the hair, the old woman's evil spirit convulsed violently, yet even her final wail dissolved into bloody froth leaking between clenched teeth.
In the melted stillness that followed, even the sound of blood dripping felt unbearably loud.
Gulp.
Keitaro's throat bobbed as he involuntarily swallowed, trying to force down the fear and tension choking him.
"What... what the hell is that thing?"
Bad, bad, bad, bad...! That thing is seriously bad news!
Why does this suffocating pressure—like being slowly drowned underwater—feel so overwhelming now when I didn't sense any of it before?!
"It's kind of like an alligator snapping turtle," Xu Fu said, stroking her chin as she analyzed the little girl evil spirit's behavior. "Those turtles use their tongues as bait to lure little fish into their mouths, and this thing does the same. It baits those evil spirits that love to bully the weak into thinking it's easy prey, then devours them the moment they take the hook. Pretty crafty, huh?"
"This big-mouth evil spirit probably isn't our actual target. If the one cursing Mr. Kotaro and the others were this strong, they'd already be dead. The annoying old hag from before was probably the real culprit." Xu Fu lowered her eyes, sounding tired and listless. "Which means our original objective is already complete~."
"But this thing is dangerous." Expressionless, Yayoi took out a doll shaped like an alien. "We can't just leave her in this hospital."
"Ugh~, figures you'd say that..." Xu Fu let out a long sigh, bitterness creeping into her expression. "So that means we're working overtime now, right~? Even after coming all the way out here, Xu Fu-chan still can't escape the hell of evil overtime. Ah, woe is me~! Xu Fu-chan is way too mi-se-ra-ble~!"
As she spoke, Xu Fu patted Red Hood on the back encouragingly.
"That's right~! Guess we'll just have to ask you to work extra hard~! Red Hood, I'm counting on you~!"
Not far away, the black-haired little girl whose head and arm had been half-devoured by the old woman had already stood back up. The missing flesh had fully regenerated.
After all, she was only a clone—a lure sent out by the main body to draw other evil spirits in. Once the old woman had been devoured, injuries that looked so horrific were easily repaired.
The black-haired little girl stood silently in front of the main body, the corners of her mouth still split all the way to her ears in that scalp-prickling grin. Even though her whole face was blurred and lacked any discernible features, Xu Fu and the others could still tell—she was looking at them.
"Great. We've been marked now, so even if we wanted to ignore this, we can't anymore." Mid-sentence, Xu Fu glanced over her shoulder and saw that a crowd of identical black-haired little girls had gathered behind them at some point, blocking their retreat.
"It's fine." Even now, Yayoi's face did not change. Small as she was, she still gave the others an extraordinary sense of security. "I'll protect Keitaro and Eiko."
"Then I guess Hood and I will have to open things up." Xu Fu hugged the Lady Yu Doll tightly in one arm and used the other to grab her cap, spinning it around one hundred eighty degrees. "Go~! Hood! Doesn't matter whether the enemy's a monster or a god—start with a [GUN BREAK] and test the waters!"
The black muzzle leveled at the evil spirit's main body at the end of the corridor, and Red Hood coldly pulled the trigger.
BANG!
With the crack of gunfire, a burst of flame lit the shadows. The fired bullet pierced through and obliterated the black-haired little girl's freshly regenerated head in the blink of an eye, then continued onward without losing momentum and shattered one of the giant evil spirit's teeth.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh—!!"
A piercing shriek exploded from the giant evil spirit's pitch-black mouth, like ten thousand steel needles stabbing straight through the eardrums. At the same time, every nearby little girl clone shared in the main body's pain. They all parted their pale lips and let out layered wails that mixed childishness with rot.
The punishing sound waves struck from both front and back. Keitaro felt as though his skull were being hammered over and over with a blunt weapon, and his already bloodless face turned even worse.
"Oh~! Looks like the attack worked. Nice, nice." Xu Fu nodded in satisfaction.
Whether you're human, ghost, or god, if you dare show a health bar, I can empty it.
If a god could bleed just like a human, then there was nothing all that frightening about them.
The giant evil spirit looked furious. She summoned more and more little girl clones until they nearly filled the entire hallway.
The long hair of those black-haired little girls suddenly shot outward, the strands whipping through the air like living black pythons as they all lunged at Red Hood, who had just drawn the most aggro by firing that shot.
"Red Hood! Dodge those attacks! Then look for a chance to use [DRAGON SHOCKWAVE]!" Xu Fu barked out orders with the speed of a battle trainer in full control.
The instant those pitch-black strands tore through the air toward her, Red Hood ducked low, letting them whip over her head. New attacks came in from both sides at once. Her leg muscles tightened sharply, and she shot through the gaps between the strands like an arrow loosed from a bow, then defied all common sense by planting herself against the vertical wall.
Three more black pythons slammed into the wall with vicious force, but Hood had already borrowed that momentum to sprint across it. Her crimson cloak snapped behind her as she pounced like a hunting night bat toward the evil spirit clones.
By then, the Drake Sword was already in her hand. A phantom dragon gathered behind Red Hood, and a half-transparent sonic blast erupted in an instant, crashing into the evil spirit clones ahead and into the giant evil spirit's main body as well.
The interwoven black strands snapped apart one after another under the force of [DRAGON SHOCKWAVE]. Clone after clone dispersed under the sonic impact.
Only the giant evil spirit's main body remained. Though its form twisted from the blow, it did not disappear.
"Tch! Didn't one-shot it?" Xu Fu clicked her tongue in frustration.
The clones that had just been wiped out surged back from the shadows. Newly formed bodies crawled forth, writhing out of darkness, while endless strands of hair interwove through the corridor into a death-web. Like a black tide, they came flooding in with suffocating pressure.
Xu Fu immediately issued another command.
"Hood! Use [EVADE]!"
Red Hood tapped off with her toes, leaving streaks of crimson afterimages in the black tide.
But with attacks coming from all directions, those black strands were impossible to guard against completely.
A moment too slow on one evasive move, Red Hood had her ankle suddenly ensnared by strands shooting in from a blind spot. Just as she raised the Drake Sword, more strands lashed out and bound her wrist and the blade itself.
The window shattered without warning.
Red Hood was hurled out through it by the strands, and together with the shards of glass, she dropped downward under the pull of gravity.
"...Just as I thought. You really can't trust the 'Evade' skill too much. Most of the time, 'Parry' is more useful." Xu Fu sounded suddenly and deeply moved.
She absolutely refused to admit this was her own command error.
There were evil spirit clones below too, and with Red Hood's abilities, she would be able to deal with them and come back quickly enough—but... the clones here, together with the main body, would definitely try to wipe them all out before then.
"Yayoi~, your turn now. Just hold out until Hood gets back." Xu Fu silently stepped aside and yielded the field to Yayoi Hozuki. "Of course, you can also choose to wipe out all these evil spirits before she returns."
Yayoi nodded. "I'll do my best."
With that, she raised the alien doll in her arms and released the evil spirit sealed inside.
Although Red Hood had injured her with gunfire, the giant evil spirit had never forgotten what it wanted most.
Keitaro Gentoga.
That was why it had thrown Red Hood down to the first floor—so it could start by taking care of the others first.
The clones' hair surged again, locking onto Keitaro.
And at that critical moment, a powerfully built evil spirit appeared at Yayoi's side.
The evil spirit wore only a tattered white coat. Below the waist, there was nothing at all—only torn hems drifting like mist. Its fleshless skull lay bare to the air.
But its upper body was packed with knotted muscle, every tendon wound tight like steel cable. Its thick arms looked as though they could erupt with crushing force at any second.
Just as those python-like black strands were about to touch Keitaro, the white-clad evil spirit suddenly reached out and seized them. The muscles in its arm bulged violently, and with sheer brute force, it tore the tough strands apart.
The next moment, the white-clad evil spirit flashed into the middle of the evil spirit clones. Its clenched fist shot out, and the instant it connected, one clone's head exploded like a watermelon smashed by a sledgehammer.
Before the other clones could even react, the white-clad evil spirit suddenly opened its mouth. In the blink of an eye, its fleshless head swelled to monstrous size, and with one bite it severed seven evil spirits at once, swallowing their upper bodies whole.
This white-clad evil spirit had also appeared in the original story, so Xu Fu knew exactly who it was.
Don't let its displayed strength fool you—even if it looked weaker than that monk evil spirit Xu Fu had run into last time, this thing's background was anything but simple.
This white-clad evil spirit's true identity was one of Japan's Three Great Vengeful Spirits:
Taira no Masakado.
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T/N: okayyyyyyyy u might be asking woah where did these extra chaps come from and whats with that (5/25) numberrr well basically thats 5 out of 25 which means u guys get 25 extra chaps THIS MONTH, ill prob just do 5 weekly or something idk
u guys got this because spygler, or u might better know him as SPYTL won in the jjk minecraft server tournament and becauses hes such a people pleaser he wanted webnovel to have 25 bonus chaps along with patreon
disgusting
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
discord.gg/wisetl
patreon.com/wisetl