"KKKKRRRRRRR!"
The creature roared, its form blurring as it split into four identical, horn-armoured duplicates.
'Ah... that was faster than I expected,' Yorimitsu thought, his eyes darting across the four beasts surrounding him. 'It's already mastered a multiplication technique... and produced four full bodies!'
All four entities tilted their heads back simultaneously, charging volatile, purple spheres of compressed Reiryoku within their maws, trapping Yorimitsu in a lethal crossfire.
"CE-LO!" the creatures roared in unison, their voices overlapping in a jarring, unnatural chorus.
"Copied Technique: Thundergod Charge," Yorimitsu whispered.
The four beams erupted at once, converging on his position. In a fraction of a millisecond, a jagged arc of lightning-infused Reiryoku enveloped Yorimitsu's body. He vanished into a crack of thunder, reappearing instantly behind the leftmost duplicate before the beams collided.
'You must be the original... Your Reiryoku is the densest,' Yorimitsu reasoned, sweeping his dragon-runed blade toward the creature's exposed neck.
But before the edge could connect, the creature's head snapped backwards with a sickening crunch, twisting a full rotation on its neck to face him directly. Another point-blank beam of purple light erupted from its gaping jaw.
"Tsk...!"
Yorimitsu clicked his tongue, twisting his body mid-air to dodge the beam. Pivoting on his heel, he redirected his momentum to drive a low, disembowelling thrust into the monster's midsection.
CLANG!
Instead of cutting through, the blade ground to a halt. The creature shot both hands downward, catching Dōjigiri's edge between its thick, horn-armoured palms to stop the strike in its tracks!
"Hmph... That is your first mistake," Yorimitsu said, a calm smile touching his lips even as the remaining three clones closed in to surround him once more.
With a swift, surging effort, Dōjigiri cleaved straight through the thick, horn-armoured hands attempting to trap its edge. Sweeping past the original beast, Yorimitsu dashed to the far side of the courtyard, re-establishing a low, balanced stance.
"KKRRRRRRR—AAAAAHHHH!"
A horrific, dual-toned shriek ripped through the downpour. The original creature wailed in agony, clutching its severed, bleeding wrists. Simultaneously, the three surrounding clones clutched their own hands, letting out identical, agonising shrieks as their palms split open and sloughed off in a mirror image of the original's damage!
"There are three ways to kill a creature such as yourself," Yorimitsu said softly, raising his runed blade high above his head. Rain streamed down his dark hair, plastering wet strands across his eyes.
"First... one could locate every last core anchored to your existence and destroy or seal them simultaneously. But seeing as you aren't about to stand idly by while I wander around hunting down your hidden vessels... that idea isn't exactly viable."
Yorimitsu closed one eye. His stance shifted.
His boots began tracing intricate, sweeping patterns into the thick mud a deliberate, rhythmic sequence of movements that resembled the fluid steps of a traditional Buyō ritual dance.
His lead leg dug gracefully into the earth, gliding forward to slice through the pooling rainwater, while his trailing leg rose and planted with absolute balance. With every deliberate step, spiritual energy surged downward, etching glowing, ink-like channels straight into the ground.
"The second way is to purify the entity using traditional Shinto prayers," Yorimitsu continued, his voice calm amidst the roaring storm. "But as you can see, I didn't bring a shrine maiden along to sing the sacred incantations... so that option is out of the question as well."
Rain washed over his silver blade as he held his stance, the ink markings along the steel glowing with an eerie, rhythmic pulse.
"Which leaves me with only one choice... capturing your spiritual body in its entirety."
Yorimitsu's eyes snapped open. Both boots slammed simultaneously into the water-logged earth, driving deep into the mud.
"Hmph..." A wide, feral grin spread across his face.
'It's just like the old hag taught me... I was never much of a dancer, but these are the exact steps she used during her purification rites.'
With a fluid, heavy motion, Yorimitsu flipped Dōjigiri point-down and plunged the silver blade deep into the earth.
"Normally, pulled off by a single swordsman, any of these options would be impossible," Yorimitsu said, looking up at the four weeping, horn-armoured beasts. "But with the Seal of Ryuu combined with the Dance of the Witch... you're completely out of luck."
Above them, the four duplicates shrieked in unison.
Determined to crush him where he stood, the clones unleashed their ultimate barrage. Hundreds of thousands of glowing purple Reiryoku spheres materialised overhead, blotting out the storm clouds until the sky turned as dark as twilight.
"Well... would you look at that," Yorimitsu chuckled, his eyes reflecting the dark purple dusk above.
He grasped the hilt of his grounded katana with both hands and gave it a sharp twist.
VRRRRRRRRRR!
The liquid-black lines of the Seal of Ryuu covering his skin and blade flared violently. Rushing down the silver steel like a surging river, the dark ink burst into the earth, tracing glowing, draconic runic channels outward across the courtyard in every direction!
"Seal of Ryuu, Secret Art: Capture its soul... Spider of the Night."
Yorimitsu's whisper barely carried over the roar of the storm, but the earth answered instantly.
CRACK!
The mud-slicked ground shattered beneath the compound. Jagged fissures tore open across the courtyard, and from the black abyss below, six massive, chitinous spider legs, each as thick as an ancient tree trunk and dripping with dark spiritual energy, clawed their way up into the open air.
Before the thousands of purple spheres could rain down, the entity fired a dense, web-like net of black spiritual silk into the sky. The massive web snagged every single orb of compressed Reiryoku, reeling the volatile energy overhead straight into its subterranean maw.
With sickening crunching sounds, the spider swallowed the barrage whole.
Simultaneously, dozens of razor-thin silk threads shot up from the cracked earth, piercing the four horn-armoured Shinigami clones. The black webbing wrapped violently around their limbs and torsos, binding them so tightly that their movements froze instantly.
"Phew..." Yorimitsu exhaled, a cold shiver running down his spine. 'How terrifying...'
He pulled Dōjigiri smoothly out of the mud and began walking slowly toward the immobilized beasts.
'This thing isn't even summoned in its full, true form, yet its power is this absurd... Just how strong was that old hag in her prime?'
Yorimitsu stopped before the original beast. With a single, continuous sweep of his silver blade, he cut through the air in a horizontal arc.
FLASH!
The silver light traced through all four necks in a single heartbeat.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The four massive, horned heads hit the mud in rapid succession, their sightless eyes staring blankly into the storm.
"You may claim the bodies as your compensation," Yorimitsu murmured, lowering his steel.
The subterranean spider let out a low, vibrating hiss from beneath the earth. The silk threads surrounding the severed remains tightened, dragging the headless corpses and fallen heads down into the dark fissures.
As the monster's flesh vanished entirely into the abyss, the shattered earth began to seal itself back together, leaving behind only rain-slicked cobblestones as the colossal spider faded back into the spirit realm.