Chapter 519: The Fear-Eating Giant
The great general, now without legs or ears, was brought before the Son of Heaven.
In the Son of Heaven's great hall, the deafened great general spoke in an eerie, warbling voice:
"The Big Yōkai says he's coming. He's coming soon, and he'll eat everyone in Kyoto!!"
The civil and military ministers in the hall were thrown into panic. Ten thousand armoured samurai and thirty thousand auxiliaries had been Kyoto's finest troops!
If those troops couldn't stand against the demon army, who could possibly save them now?
The Son of Heaven was both terrified and furious. He pointed at the legless great general sitting on the tatami and roared:
"You useless, bungling fool! You agreed before you set out: if you failed, you would kill yourself to atone!!
"Now do it! This instant! Kill yourself!!"
The great general had lost his hearing. His ears were two bloody holes.
But one look at the Son of Heaven's furious face told him he was being ordered to commit seppuku. He clearly didn't want to die, though, so he played dumb.
"Wha? Huh? I can't hear. I can't hear a thing?"
The Son of Heaven was livid. He yanked the short sword from the sash of a samurai beside him and threw it down in front of the great general.
"Can't hear, eh? Then can you understand this?"
He made a slicing gesture across his own belly.
"Seppuku. You. Die. Got it?"
The great general kept playing dumb.
"I don't understand. Is the Son of Heaven asking if I've eaten? No, no, I'm still hungry. Please, Son of Heaven, feed me."
The Son of Heaven was beside himself. He had the samurai beside him pin the great general down and perform the seppuku for him, then cut off his head and hang it outside the Son of Heaven's great hall.
But killing the man didn't solve the problem. What were they going to do about the demon army?
Just as the ministers were at their wits' end, a samurai came rushing in from outside, shouting as he ran:
"Disaster! The demon army has reached the walls of Kyoto and is attacking the city!"
The Son of Heaven was stunned.
"What? How can they be here so soon!!"
In fact, it was even faster than he'd imagined. By the time the messenger reached the Son of Heaven's hall with the news, the demon army was already climbing the walls.
Their claws were so sharp that they drove them straight into the seams between the stone blocks and climbed over the walls with ease.
Then they fought the samurai on the walls and cut through all of them in under ten minutes!
Because of its importance, Kyoto had a population of a full 1.2 million. Its walls were very high, thirty metres, with one great gate and three small gates for coming and going.
Once the Big Yōkai army controlled the walls, a crew of Big Yōkai hauled boulders as tall as two-storey houses with ropes and used them to block the three small gates, leaving only the great gate open.
Then the demon army entered the city, killing everyone they saw and eating everyone they killed!
Their methods were utterly savage. Man or woman, old or young, they grabbed people and ripped out their hearts and lungs.
Once they'd eaten the heart, lungs, and organs, they tossed aside the body, which was still breathing its last, and grabbed the next person.
To these monsters, it seemed, organs were tastier than flesh and bone.
The samurai in the city formed ranks and charged the Big Yōkai in the streets, trying to fight back.
But the six-metre Giant Yōkai, wielding a kanabō, a great club of solid metal, charged into the samurai and swung left and right.
Mangled bodies went flying, and the remaining samurai were so terrified that they simply scattered.
After that the demon army ran rampant through the city. Five hundred Big Yōkai, led by the Giant Yōkai, went on a frenzy of man-eating!
Corpses covered the ground. The whole city filled with the horrifying sound of chewing, with screams, and with panicked shouting.
Ordinary people ran in every direction, terror in their eyes, desperate to find a crack to squeeze themselves into.
In the great house of one noble, the noble himself, his family, and his servants, nearly a hundred people in all, were hiding behind the high walls of their estate.
The whole household held its breath and didn't dare speak, afraid that any sound would draw the monsters eating people out in the streets.
But just then, with a tremendous crash, the Giant Yōkai smashed through the noble's high wall.
Its huge, demon-lord body stepped into the noble's courtyard. It split its huge mouth into a grin, and its blood-red gaze swept over the tightly shut doors and windows.
It took a deep sniff and let out a satisfied murmur:
"I smell fear. The old, the young, the women, the men. Such sweet, juicy fear~"
Then its huge hand punched through a window and grabbed someone.
The person screamed, but not for long. The Giant Yōkai lifted them up to its face and bit their head off in one crunch!
The Giant Yōkai kept smashing through doors and windows and dragging out the people hiding inside.
Whether they huddled in corners or hid under beds, the Giant Yōkai's hand always found them with uncanny precision, as if it could smell the fear on them.
Heads popped between its sharp teeth with a sound like chewing gummy candy, and the headless bodies it tossed into the courtyard soon piled up into a small mountain.
The Giant Yōkai came to the largest building in the estate, plunged both hands through the doors and windows at once, grabbed two people, and pulled them out.
Two screams rang out. One was the noble himself, and the other was the noble's son.
The Giant Yōkai held the two of them up in front of its face and said cheerfully:
"I've eaten ninety-nine heads today. I only eat a hundred heads a day. Not one more, not one less.
"So of you two, I'll eat one and let one go. Which of you volunteers to be eaten~?"
The noble's son was so terrified that he was shrieking and squealing, don't eat me, don't eat me!
The old noble was far steadier than his son. Gripped in the Giant Yōkai's hand, he was shaking all over too, but he forced a calm look into his eyes.
"Bakayarō!! Demon! If you've got the guts, eat me! These old bones are tough. Mind you don't break your teeth on them!!"
The Giant Yōkai stared at the old noble for a while, then suddenly opened its mouth and lunged at him.
The old noble glared with his eyes wide open, determined to die with them open.
But just as the bloody maw was about to crush the old noble's head, the Giant Yōkai's mouth swerved and bit off his son's head instead!
Crunch, crunch, crunch!
The Giant Yōkai kept chewing. It tossed the headless body of the old noble's son onto the pile of corpses, set the old noble down, and said as it chewed:
"Your son's fear was perfectly ripe. Delicious. I couldn't resist.
"As for you, you're dry as a plum that's only just set fruit.
"Maybe I'll come back and eat you someday, but not today. I've already eaten my hundred."
With that, the Giant Yōkai actually just turned and left. Before it went, it put its fingers in its mouth and whistled.
All across the city, the Big Yōkai who were eating people stopped at once. Carrying some human limbs over their shoulders, they followed the Giant Yōkai out of the city.
The monsters didn't go far once they were outside. They went into hiding on a great mountain south of Kyoto called Peach Blossom Mountain.
From that mountain, the demon army could see all of Kyoto. If anyone tried to escape through Kyoto's great gate, the Big Yōkai on the mountain would immediately hunt them down!
The old noble who'd been lucky enough to be spared looked at the headless bodies of his family and servants piled up into a small mountain, sank to the ground with a thud, and the light went out of his eyes.
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