Chapter 245: Fighting to the Edge of the Universe, Even the Great Dao is Erased!
On the journey back, Kobe Hikaru's boots crunched against the dirt path. The very texture of the earth beneath him felt entirely different, a subtle shift in the air's density, even though the floating text in his vision remained numerically stagnant.
[Kanto Region: Favorability 2.]
Still a meager two.
However, the hue of the system text was entirely wrong. Nine, perhaps even ten parts of its usual luster had faded. The edges of the characters, which normally shimmered with a faint, inviting light, were now coated in a dull, ashen gray.
The attitude of the land itself had shifted. The soil beneath his feet felt impatient, radiating a distinct sense of rejection. This was, without a doubt, the lingering aftermath of Mount Hakurei's complete disappearance.
Standing amidst the shifting winds, Kikyo furrowed her brow. She, too, could clearly perceive the drastic alteration in the natural order. The sharp rise of heavy, suffocating Turbid Qi and the rapid decline of pure spiritual energy across the entire Kanto region painted a grim picture.
"The demons suppressed beneath Mount Hakurei have broken free," she murmured.
Kikyo stepped half a pace to his left, her signature longbow secured across her back. Her raven-black hair swayed in a gentle, rhythmic arc with her movements. Her heightened spiritual perception had caught the anomaly far earlier than Hikaru—and with far greater clarity.
Mount Hakurei had been a colossal peak formed around the mummified remains of the Sokushinbutsu, Master Hakushin. Despite sinking into despair for hundreds of years and teetering on the absolute edge of becoming a corrupted demon Buddha, Hakushin had remained, at his core, a saintly figure. He was a genuine high monk of absolute purity and boundless kindness.
His mere existence had acted as a massive anchor, suppressing countless demons across the Kanto region that otherwise would have been born into the world to wreak havoc. The formidable foes Hikaru had clashed with previously—beings like Kidomaru and Tsuchigumo—were all outsiders. They had arrived, fought, and immediately departed, never lingering in Kanto. This oppressive holy aura was undoubtedly the reason why. Even the aristocratic dog demon, Sesshomaru, operated under the same unspoken rule.
Compared to the untamed wilds of other provinces, the actual quality of demons native to Kanto was surprisingly weak. There were no Great Yokai. There wasn't even a single demon that exceeded the threshold of the Twelfth Transformation. Excluding Kidomaru, the absolute strongest demons Hikaru had encountered thus far were merely the three commanders who had descended from Tono and now served under his banner: the Kappa, the Kamaitachi, and the Snow Woman.
While the individual quality was lacking, the sheer quantity was a different story. In the blood-soaked chaos of the Warring States period, human malice and desire ran rampant. The total volume of demonic energy spawned by such suffering was a fixed, terrifying constant. The holy barrier had simply imposed a strict upper limit, preventing any single entity from gorging itself into a true powerhouse.
But now, that ancient suppression had vanished into thin air.
Master Hakushin had finally attained true Buddhahood, and the holy mountain had lost its divine anchor.
"It is not merely the demons buried directly beneath Mount Hakurei," Kikyo added, casting a sideways glance at him. "The impenetrable wall of Buddha Power that stood for centuries had long since mutated into a massive seal over the entire Kanto region. It held down the ancient, powerful horrors of the past across thousands of miles. And now..."
"The barrier is gone, so the old monsters are naturally waking up to stretch their legs," Hikaru finished, his tone entirely devoid of surprise.
The Buddha Power of Mount Hakurei had always been a double-edged sword. In life, it acted as a flawless purifier, crushing vast amounts of demonic aura. But upon its sudden removal, the centuries of accumulated, highly compressed Turbid Qi were bound to rebound with catastrophic ferocity. The subterranean ley lines running through northern Mino were likely boiling like a sealed iron steamer right now.
As they moved forward, this chaotic phenomenon would only continue to violently expand.
"Looks like our schedule is about to get rather packed," Hikaru noted casually, his long strides never breaking rhythm.
Slaying demons and purging evil was the sacred duty of a shrine maiden., it was a perfectly suitable pastime for him—a legitimate, recognized deity now worshipped across multiple territories and actively protecting a household.
Kikyo offered no verbal response. She simply turned her head, her dark eyes studying him intently. Her gaze drifted down from his stoic face, swept across the armored plates of his chest, and finally locked onto his right hand.
Deep within the center of his palm, a microscopic, brilliant white light flared between his fingers before instantly vanishing into the skin.
"It seems you are capable of wielding spiritual power now?" Kikyo spoke, her red lips parting in sudden realization.
Hikaru gave a single, curt nod.
Ever since his Heavenly Soul had fully formed, he had indeed unlocked the ability to connect with the pure qi of heaven and earth. The absolute core of any spiritual talent lay in the user's ability to invoke and manipulate the pure energy naturally present in the environment. Pure qi was the bedrock of all spiritual power. Exorcists, shrine maidens, Onmyoji—every single human discipline that cultivated holy arts began with the fundamental steps of sensing, guiding, and condensing this energy.
He had been entirely incapable of this feat before. He had possessed only a demon soul, an entity composed entirely of dense, suffocating malice that naturally violently repelled any trace of pure qi.
But after the Twelfth Transformation had merged his existences into one, he walked the razor's edge between life and death. Both Turbid Qi and pure qi now flowed through his veins. The Earthly Soul anchored the dark and turbid, while the Heavenly Soul conducted the bright and pure. The two opposing rivers flowed in parallel within the exact same vessel, miraculously avoiding mutual destruction.
He couldn't hide such a fundamental shift from Kikyo, nor did he possess any desire to do so.
"I can sense it, and I can pull it in. But my control is garbage," he admitted flatly. Being a complete novice in the holy arts, his finesse was practically nonexistent.
"I will instruct you again," Kikyo replied, her tone leaving absolutely no room for debate.
The shrine maiden slowed her brisk pace, eventually coming to a halt on an open, grassy slope bordering the dirt road. She turned to face him, the gentle breeze catching the wide sleeves of her white kosode.
It was the exact same posture, the exact same measured distance between them, as that fateful day in Kaede Village months ago when she had first attempted to teach him. Back then, her warm hands had pressed firmly against his lower abdomen and spine, resulting in three consecutive days of utterly exhausting failure.
This time, physical contact was unnecessary.
"Draw the pure qi inward through the Heavenly Soul. Guide it downward along the central channel of the three souls. Let it pass smoothly through the human soul, and allow it to pool just above the Earthly Soul," she instructed, her voice taking on a crisp, authoritative cadence.
The Heavenly Soul governed the ethereal spirit, while the Earthly Soul anchored the physical vessel. To manifest spiritual power in the real world, the energy naturally had to be filtered and transformed by the physical body.
Kikyo raised her right hand. Her slender index finger pointed precisely at the center of his abdomen, hovering just an inch away from his clothing without making contact. "But you must halt the flow right here. Do not, under any circumstances, allow it to bleed into your internal organs. And absolutely do not let it collide with your Turbid Qi."
Hikaru tilted his head slightly. "What exactly happens if the pure and the turbid crash into each other?"
"It will... explode."
Kikyo's answer was so brutally straightforward it was almost refreshing. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of Hikaru's mouth as he closed his eyes, his focus turning entirely inward.
High above, at the absolute crown of his head, his Heavenly Soul began to slowly rotate. A faint, ethereal white glimmer extended outward like a net, brushing against the sparse, floating particles of pure qi lingering in the evening air.
The energy seeped into his body. It was a microscopic amount, an extremely fragile, gossamer thread of light that began a slow, agonizing descent down the central channel of his three souls. As it passed through the human soul, the golden ring clamped down, perfectly stabilizing the erratic flow rate.
The first step was flawless.
The thread continued its downward plunge.
Approaching the Earthly Soul.
Deep within his abdominal cavity, the dark crimson, heavily demonized source lay dormant. The sheer density of the Turbid Qi pooling there was dozens of times thicker than the energy within the three-soul channel.
The very microsecond the fragile thread of pure qi brushed against the outer edge of the Earthly Soul—
It wasn't a poetic metaphor. It literally detonated.
A hollow, deafening vibration, like a muffled thunderclap, violently echoed inside his chest cavity. The shockwave slammed into his internal organs, stunning his circulatory system for half a heartbeat. The two diametrically opposed forces of absolute purity and absolute malice violently ground against each other on the surface of the Earthly Soul, generating an apocalyptic spike of chaotic energy.
A catastrophic misfire.
"Throw it out!" Kikyo's voice cracked like a whip. It was the first time he had ever heard genuine, unfiltered panic bleeding into her usually serene tone.
Fortunately, Hikaru's combat instincts were vastly faster than sound.
He violently thrust his right palm forward. Through sheer, brute-force willpower, he grabbed the violently expanding sphere of chaotic energy, ripped it away from his Earthly Soul, and channeled the explosive mass up his arm and out of his body.
It felt exactly like throwing a devastating punch or swinging a heavy blade.
A perfectly colorless shockwave erupted from his open palm.
It was dead silent. It emitted no light.
The only visual indicator was a momentary, hyper-compressed ring of white mist as the sheer kinetic force shattered the air itself.
The towering, densely forested hill directly in front of them simply ceased to exist.
From the jagged peak down to the deep bedrock, spanning an area of several miles in width and dozens of zhang in height—from the outer crust to the dense inner core—the entire geographical formation was uniformly atomized the instant the shockwave passed through it.
There was no dramatic collapse. There was no fiery explosion.
Just pure, unadulterated annihilation.
A massive cloud of powdery rock and pulverized soil drifted lazily in the twilight air, falling over the landscape like a blanket of gray snow. The massive obstacle that had previously blocked their path was completely gone. In its place lay a perfectly clear, unobstructed view of the sprawling plains behind it, a winding river, and a distant, flickering village.
It felt incredibly refreshing.
Hikaru lowered his hand, flexing his fingers. He couldn't help but wonder why the legendary Yu Gong, who spent generations moving mountains, hadn't just found someone like him to do the job in a single afternoon.
Kikyo stood frozen beside him.
A fine layer of gray dust had settled over her pristine white garment and crimson hakama. She slowly looked down at her ruined sleeves, then slowly raised her head to stare at the empty horizon where a mountain had stood mere seconds ago.
She remained absolutely silent for a long, agonizing moment.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She looked utterly, deeply speechless.
Hikaru turned his head, and their eyes met. Kikyo took a slow, deep breath, her chest rising and falling before she carefully began flicking the dust off her sleeves.
Hikaru looked back down at his right palm. A searing, residual heat radiated from his skin—the violent friction generated by the internal collision of pure and turbid energies still lingered, causing his meridians to twitch and tingle.
The internal process had been a terrifying, near-fatal disaster. But the external result...
He looked at his hand, then back at the erased horizon.
"It seems I lack the delicate talent for traditional spiritual arts," he noted dryly. "However, using it as a ballistic weapon doesn't seem half bad, does it?"
He stared at the newly created clearing, the falling gray snow reflecting vividly in his Crimson Demon Eyes.
The destructive output generated by smashing pure qi and Turbid Qi together wasn't demonic aura, nor was it holy light. It was an unstable, highly volatile amalgamation of both. Once expelled from his body, the raw destructive yield far surpassed any of his current, individual attack methods.
Blood Fire could not cleanly sever a mountain; it could only scorch it to ash over time. Yomikiri could not cleave a mountain; it could only freeze it solid. Even the devastating, devastating strikes of Banryu could not instantly vaporize a landmass of that sheer volume in a single swing.
But this chaotic collision could.
This single, unrefined blast could easily rival the ultimate strike of a genuine Great Yokai.
The only glaring flaw was that using his own internal organs as a mixing chamber was essentially playing Russian roulette. But Hikaru's mind was already racing. He could easily bypass the risk by channeling the pure and Turbid Qi separately, forcing them to collide and detonate outside his body, perhaps condensing the reaction along the edge of his blade. He could even experiment with layering other elemental attributes into the explosion, like lightning or Blood Fire.
The corners of Hikaru's mouth twitched upward. Far from being disappointed by his lack of spiritual finesse, he looked distinctly smug.
Kikyo caught that exact expression. It was a look she had grown intimately familiar with—the exact face he made right before he ruthlessly exploited a loophole for his own gain.
"Let's call this technique... Zhenhuang Shen," he declared.
Aragami—the most violent, primal, and untamed aspect of deities within the Shinto pantheon. The Aragami governed absolute destruction, the chaos of war, and the violent pioneering of new frontiers. And 'Zhen' represented the violent oscillation, the catastrophic collision, the muffled thunder born when the two opposing forces struck each other.
Zhenhuang Shen. The Trembling Aragami.
Named for the desolate wrath of a god, built upon the shattered bones of pure and turbid energy. It was a devastating strike that only a bizarre anomaly like him—a creature simultaneously harboring the Heavenly Soul's holy light and the Earthly Soul's demonic malice, existing as a god, a ghost, and a demon all at once—could ever hope to unleash.
"Strong enough. Powerful enough," Hikaru nodded approvingly.
Kikyo stared at him. "..."
"You nearly blew yourself to pieces."
"Which simply means I need more practical experience. I'll keep practicing!" Hikaru replied, his tone entirely serious.
Kikyo decided she didn't want to entertain his madness any longer. She turned on her heel and continued walking down the path. Hikaru fell into step right behind her.
The pair continued eastward along the newly minted, perfectly flat 'natural' path that had appeared after the hill's sudden eviction. The thick layer of dust under their boots was gradually swept away by the evening wind, revealing the hard-packed dirt road beneath.
They walked in comfortable silence for about half a mile.
The sky overhead rapidly darkened, bleeding from twilight orange into a deep, bruised purple.
Kikyo's brisk pace suddenly slowed to a crawl.
It wasn't physical fatigue. Her Spirit Transformation Technique wasn't merely a tool for rapid traversal; it actively lightened her physical mass, allowing her to glide across the earth with zero exertion. She could walk a thousand miles at this pace without breaking a sweat.
The simple truth was that the shrine maiden harbored a distinct distaste for traveling under the cover of night.
She turned her head, her dark eyes scanning the dense woods bordering the road. She spotted a flat, secluded clearing nestled deep within the trees. The ground was blanketed in a thick, luxurious layer of soft fallen leaves, pushed by the wind into shallow, inviting mounds. The thick canopy of branches overhead blocked out the vast majority of the fading daylight, allowing only a few, scattered streaks of dim yellow light to filter through the gloom.
"We will rest here for the night," Kikyo announced.
Before he could even agree, she had already unslung her longbow, leaning the polished wood carefully against the nearest thick tree trunk. From the depths of her sleeve, she produced a thin, woven cushion, spreading it neatly over the leaves.
Then, her hands drifted down to her lower back—and her nimble fingers began untying the thick sash of her crimson hakama.
Hikaru's footsteps halted instantly.
"Disappointed?" she asked, not looking back.
That was, naturally, impossible. If he hadn't been genuinely concerned about Kikyo's physical stamina, Hikaru wouldn't have ever stopped their previous sessions.
"Right by the roadside?" he asked, his deadpan tone betraying a flicker of amusement.
"I will establish a Barrier."
Hikaru lowered his gaze to the forest floor. Brilliant white threads of highly condensed spiritual power were already rapidly spider-webbing outward from where Kikyo stood, silently weaving into a massive, impenetrable dome of concealment. Just like the camp they had made near Mount Hakurei, to any outside observer, the area would appear as nothing more than a patch of unnaturally thick, blurry white fog.
Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be heard.
"Exactly when did you set this up?"
"The moment we stepped into the tree line."
The heavy sash fell away. The crimson hakama slid smoothly down from her waist, pooling at her feet and revealing the pristine white undergarment beneath.
In the dim, shadowy light of the forest, her black pupils appeared exceptionally deep and entirely focused. She stared straight at him, her gaze unwavering, completely devoid of her usual maidenly hesitation.
She stepped forward, her slender fingers gripping the front lapel of his rough gray robe, firmly pulling him down toward her.
Hikaru's large palm naturally found the side of her waist. The fabric of her white undergarment was incredibly thin—so thin that the calluses on his palm could clearly register the searing heat and the delicate, yielding curve of every inch of skin beneath it. Her waist was impossibly slender, so delicate he felt he could almost snap it with a single, careless squeeze.
Yet, the soft, yielding curves hidden above and below that slender waist proved far more generous than her usual stoic, heavily layered posture ever suggested.
Kikyo let out a soft breath, leaning her back flush against the rough bark of the tree trunk. Then, she suddenly shifted, turning around to face the wood, presenting her back to him.
"Facing away... you seem to have a lot more energy?" Hikaru noted dryly.
Kikyo: "..."
The dark, coarse texture of the tree bark created a stark, stunning contrast, making her exposed skin look so pale it practically glowed in the gloom.
Outside the absolute silence of the Barrier, the evening breeze rustled through the treetops, entirely ignorant of the world within. Inside, the only sounds were the rustle of fabric and the occasional, extremely faint, breathy gasp that leaked into the white mist, echoing briefly in the enclosed space before melting away.
A long, indeterminate amount of time passed.
Silver moonlight finally pierced the canopy, spilling down through the gaps in the branches.
Kikyo leaned heavily into the crook of his shoulder. Her white undergarment had been pulled back into place, though the sash was tied noticeably askew. Her pale hand rested flat against the center of his chest, her fingers tracing the steady, rhythmic thumping beneath his ribs.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"It is faster than before," she murmured, her voice laced with exhaustion.
"Before, I was a walking corpse. I didn't have a heartbeat."
"I do not mean before," she corrected softly, her fingers curling slightly against his skin. "I mean just a moment ago."
"..."
"Your heartbeat is faster than it was just now... I like this speed."
Hikaru remained silent, his chin resting lightly against the top of her head. The cold moonlight washed over them, the thick white mist of the barrier flowing lazily around their secluded sanctuary.
Kikyo closed her eyes, her erratic breathing gradually smoothing out into a steady, peaceful rhythm.
After a long stretch of comfortable silence, her voice drifted up again. It was barely a whisper.
"We should depart early tomorrow morning. Kaede Village... seems to have run into some trouble."
"But tonight—"
Her fingers tightened their grip on his lapel once more, pulling him just a fraction closer.
"There is no rush."
Having finally tasted the intoxicating sweetness of intimacy, the stoic guardian craved more. A shrine maiden, despite her holy vows, was still flesh and blood. And beneath the heavy mantle of duty, she was still a young woman.
Facing the man who had become her own personal 'God', Kikyo had already endured the agonizing ache of restraint for a very, very long time.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]