Chapter 248: First to Kyoto Becomes the Lord of Pandemonium
Mutsu Province.
The frigid land of northeastern Japan, where the mountains stood like jagged iron teeth against the sky. Winter arrived earliest here and lingered the longest, burying the earth in unforgiving frost.
Inside the Great Hall of Kurokawa Castle, the candlelight flickered dimly, casting long, wavering shadows across the tatami mats.
The Daimyo ruling this province, the head of the Date Clan, Date Terumune, sat motionless at the head of the table. He was a man in his early forties, with a gaunt face and sharp, high cheekbones. He wore a deep gray hitatare beneath a dark purple kamishimo, a short sword resting securely at his waist.
A massive map lay spread out on the low wooden table before him. It covered the entire expanse from Mutsu to Shimotsuke—from the freezing northern reaches of Ezo down to the southern gateway of Kanto. Dozens of small, colored flags pierced the parchment, each marking a local faction that had already bowed to the Date banner.
The five districts of Mutsu, southern Dewa, and the Aizu territory previously under the Ashina Clan's jurisdiction—the entire Six Provinces of Tohoku had been systematically annexed or crushed by him over the past two years. He had accomplished this far earlier than any historical record would dictate, seizing this very Kurokawa Mansion originally constructed by the Ashina.
He was the undisputed master of the Northern Country. The absolute leader of the Northeast provinces.
Yet, none of his retainers dared to call him that. The men kneeling rigidly in this room cared far less about his titles and far more about the unnatural color of his eyes.
Lapis lazuli.
Beneath the dim candlelight, those two eyeballs reflected a cold, glassy luster that simply did not belong to a living human. They looked like polished glass beads forcibly embedded into his eye sockets.
"Finished reporting?" Terumune spoke, his voice devoid of inflection.
The retainer kneeling in the center of the hall pressed his forehead hard against the back of his hands, his shoulders trembling slightly as he recounted the frontline battle situation at a frantic pace.
"...The vanguard of one thousand and two hundred troops crossed the Shimotsuke border and advanced into the northern sector of Musashi Province. They encountered resistance from three hundred elites of the Uesugi Army outside Kaede Village. Shortly after engaging, they were struck by an unknown attack. The entire vanguard force collapsed in an instant..."
His voice grew smaller and smaller, eventually dying in his throat.
"Unknown cause?" Terumune repeated the words slowly.
"Yes... according to the frantic descriptions of the surviving scouts who fled back, they only had time to see the sky fill with blinding lightning..."
As those words fell, the world inside the hall went dead silent.
Terumune calmly reached out and picked up the tea bowl resting on the low table. He glanced down at the scalding, steaming liquid inside. Then, without a shift in expression, he suddenly raised his hand and splashed the boiling tea directly onto the retainer's face.
The man shrieked, collapsing backward onto the floor and clutching his blistering face with both hands.
Terumune stood up. In the same fluid motion, he drew the short sword at his waist.
The blade fell.
The sound of tearing flesh was incredibly brief, leaving only a heavy thud and the steady dripping of fresh blood pooling onto the tatami.
The other retainers in the hall buried their heads even lower, their breath hitching. Not a single one dared to look up.
"I do not need such vague reports." Terumune's voice remained perfectly level, yet the sheer violence and suffocating ferocity bleeding from his tone pressed down on their necks like a physical weight.
No one dared to breathe, let alone speak.
"Withdraw and perform your duties... I do not want to see a similar failure again," Terumune finally commanded.
Hurried footsteps echoed one after another as the retainers scrambled to file out of the hall, their pace bordering on a panicked trot. The heavy sliding doors slid shut, leaving Terumune entirely alone in the dim room.
And the bleeding corpse on the floor.
He did not spare the dead man a single glance. Instead, his lapis lazuli pupils lost their focus, staring blankly ahead as if listening to an extremely distant, echoing sound.
"...Come out," he said to the empty air.
The shadows in the darkest corners of the hall shifted. From the gloom on either side of the room, two slender figures silently emerged.
Two young girls. One purple, one blue.
The girl with long purple hair wore a white robe layered beneath lightweight purple armor. At her waist hung two broad, white-hilted blades, distinctly different from the thin, curved katanas native to Japan. Beneath her loose bangs, the corners of her eyes tilted upward, giving her exquisite face a sharp, heroic edge. Her light armor perfectly outlined a lithe, athletic frame.
The blue-haired girl wore her deep blue hair tied into twin buns. Her facial features were strikingly similar to the purple-haired girl, yet she carried a softer, prettier demeanor. Clad in a blue dress and matching armor, she held a red-tasseled spear that stood as tall as she did, the butt of the shaft tapping lightly against the floorboards as she stepped forward in her leather boots.
The two inhuman entities knelt on one knee in perfect synchronization.
"Reporting, My Lord—" The purple-haired girl on the left spoke first, her voice carrying a strange, buzzing resonance like the rapid vibration of moth wings. "According to the final message transmitted by the Moth Yokai at the front, the Uesugi Army was not the primary obstacle. The true hindrance... was a yokai."
"The recently famous Thunder-slaying Demon God, Kobe Hikaru," the blue-haired girl on the right immediately added, her tone crisp.
Kobe Hikaru...
Upon hearing that name, Terumune—or rather, the ancient will puppeteering Date Terumune's flesh—closed his eyes.
The lapis-colored pupils flickered violently the moment his eyelids shut, as if a parasite were squirming frantically behind the ocular cavities.
Thousands of miles away.
Deep within the frozen mountain ranges of Mutsu, a spiritual body so massive it obscured half a valley hovered in the liminal space between sleep and wakefulness.
Menōmaru.
The son of the Moth Yokai Hyoga, who had flown across the sea from the mainland. He was the direct descendant of a Great Yokai who had been defeated and sealed away in the bitter cold of the north by the legendary Dog General, Toga, hundreds of years ago.
Having inherited his father's Great Yokai bloodline, his immense Yao Qi, and even his ancient memories, Menōmaru was an entity whose power rivaled, or perhaps even surpassed, that of Sesshomaru.
Date Terumune, the so-called 'Alliance Leader' ruling the northeastern provinces, was nothing more than a meat puppet under his absolute control.
Moth Yokai were monsters inherently proficient in illusions and mental domination. Menōmaru had reached the absolute pinnacle of this dark art. As the son of a Great Yokai from the mainland, he was deeply aware of the terrifying, collective power held by the seemingly fragile human race.
Thus, although his true physical body had only recently begun to awaken, he had spent his long slumber using his astral spirit to silently subjugate the human lords of the northern lands. He ruled Mutsu Province from the shadows, operating under the guise of successive Date Clan heads. He had even personally orchestrated the birth of an exceptionally gifted half-demon descendant bearing the Date name, infused with Great Yokai blood, to serve as a backup vessel—a perfect spiritual host should he need one.
In addition, he had repeatedly dispatched his demonic subordinates southward to test the waters of the human domains.
As his true body gradually roused from its centuries-long sleep and successfully integrated the Yao Qi and memories of his father, he accelerated his purging and assimilation of the various yokai tribes and human nations across the northeast.
Until... Mount Hakurei vanished, and the sacred barrier obstructing their southward march collapsed.
Seeing his golden opportunity, he immediately dispatched the vanguard of his Moth Yokai legion to march south alongside the northern human armies.
And now... without a doubt, the opening battle had ended in a miserable failure.
For Menōmaru, who had been carefully plotting to sweep south, trample the Kanto Region, reconquer the Western Lands of Japan, and wash away his father's past humiliation in blood, this was a highly unfavorable signal.
Naturally, he had to investigate the anomaly thoroughly.
And so, in the very next second, Menōmaru's consciousness snapped back to his main body. His vast, suffocating perception expanded outward like a tidal wave, instantly blanketing the entire northeast.
It continued to extend, reaching further south.
In the following instant, his colossal form shuddered.
He snapped open the six compound eyes of his illusory spiritual body.
The hundreds of chaotic demons that had been unsealed following Mount Hakurei's disappearance—the ones who should have been rampaging across the Kanto Region, spreading like wildfire and plunging the human populace into constant terror...
Overnight, they were all gone.
The chaotic auras of those rampaging demons had been completely extinguished in a single night.
It was as if an unseen giant were holding a pair of invisible iron pliers, methodically snipping off every single spark of rebellion the moment it dared to emerge from the earth.
In their place, a highly concentrated, terrifyingly dense presence had taken root. It rose from the Kanto region like a dark, newborn sun, radiating an aura so oppressive it made even a Great Yokai like him hesitate to continue his southern march without further preparation.
It was an incredibly vast, unified 'Fear'.
Meanwhile.
Kanto, Musashi Province.
Inside a quiet side room of the main shrine in Kaede Village, Kobe Hikaru sat cross-legged on the woven tatami mats. A shallow copper basin rested on the floor before him.
The basin was filled to the brim with clear water, its surface as smooth and still as a polished mirror.
Hikaru reached out, his right fingertip lightly touching the water's surface. A faint pulse of Yao Qi flowed from his skin into the liquid, causing gentle ripples to spread outward.
Within the distorting ripples, one face after another began to emerge from the depths.
The dark green, heavily armored scales of the Great Kappa appeared first. His massive, two-meter-tall frame was crouched low on the wooden docks of Shimizu Port in Suruga, bowing respectfully toward the water's surface.
"My Lord."
"In the direction of Shimizu Port, a total of twenty-six famous demons unsealed last night were eliminated. Among them, eleven were at the Sixth Transformation, and the rest were at the Fifth Transformation. We suffered zero casualties." The Great Kappa's voice echoed from the water, steady, deep, and thrumming with power.
As part of the Hyakki under Hikaru's command, the Great Kappa and the others had naturally been taught the yokai transformation system Hikaru had personally summarized. This precise classification gave them a clear, tangible direction for evolution when relying on 'Fear' to strengthen themselves. It also allowed them to accurately gauge the strength of both enemies and allies based on physical traits and transformations, rather than relying on a vague, easily masked perception of Yao Qi.
Yao Qi could reflect the general rank of a yokai, but it did not necessarily dictate the actual combat lethality between members of the same race. However, calculating the sheer volume of Yao Qi combined with the number of visible physical transformations provided a highly accurate combat estimate.
As the Kappa finished, the ripples shifted. The silver-white, razor-sharp silhouette of the Kamaitachi flashed across the rugged mountain ridges of western Sagami.
"Lord, there were twenty-three targets in Sagami. The highest was a Seventh Transformation. They've all been handled; I took their heads personally." The Kamaitachi spoke at a breakneck pace, the sound of rushing wind bleeding through the water.
The image warped again.
A pair of icy blue pupils materialized in the basin—Oikawa.
The leader of the Yuki-onna from the three Tono clans, currently stationed in northern Musashi. Her face was deathly pale, her deep blue kimono blending smoothly with her frost-white hair. Her voice was chillingly cold, yet laced with absolute reverence.
The surname Oikawa was a long-standing, ancient name among the Yuki-onna. Legend had it that hundreds of years ago, a Yuki-onna's first true bond with a human began with a mountain hunter named Oikawa, and the name had been passed down through the frozen clan ever since as a mark of honor.
When Hikaru first heard this piece of lore, his mind immediately drifted to the Yuki-onna sharing the exact same surname who served under a certain Nurarihyon in another timeline.
A coincidence?
Perhaps not.
"In northern Musashi, thirty-one demons were unsealed," Oikawa reported, her breath fogging the surface of the water. "The largest was an Eight-Transformation centipede. I froze its lower half to the bedrock, and Tanuki Juzaburo brought his yokai in to shatter the rest."
The water surface churned one last time.
A furry, perfectly round face squeezed into the frame, grinning widely—the Tanuki Spirit, Tanuki Juzaburo.
The intelligence chief who, not long ago, had only possessed two pitiful transformations.
Now, he had successfully completed his Fifth Transformation, officially joining the ranks of upper-middle-class yokai. Though his sudden leap in power relied heavily on the 'Fear' bestowed by his master, as long as he never betrayed Kobe Hikaru, that Fear would never fade. He was a genuine mid-tier yokai now. Given enough time, he would have the opportunity to break through to the Advanced ranks and become a true yokai leader.
"Reporting to My Lord!" Juzaburo's voice practically vibrated with irrepressible pride. "From last night until this morning, the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons has cleared a total of one hundred and seven demons across the regions of Musashi, Sagami, and Suruga that were unsealed due to the disappearance of Mount Hakurei!"
In a single night, they had hunted down and slaughtered one hundred and seven famous yokai.
And throughout this entire bloody purge, Hikaru hadn't even needed to draw his blade.
He had relied entirely on his subordinate yokai. The original Twenty-three Demons, the forty-seven elites from the Tono division, and the thirty-three additional yokai recruited along their journey.
A total of one hundred and three.
One hundred and three demons.
And this number didn't even account for the total fighting force; these were strictly the famous yokai designated by Hikaru as 'cadres'. Mid-tier yokai who had completed at least four transformations.
This core group alone constituted a military force that could easily rival a small nation. Beneath them swarmed nearly a thousand lesser yokai and minor spirits they had gathered themselves, drawn in like moths to a flame by the immense Fear Hikaru passively distributed.
One had to realize that the so-called 'famous yokai'they had purged overnight were not mere mindless beasts. They were entities whose names were whispered in terror across human society, possessing a substantial foundation of'Fear'. They were Intermediate yokai with at least five transformations.
In the entire Kanto Region, the only other factions capable of suppressing over a hundred famous demons in a single night would be Uesugi Kenshin deploying her full Divine Artifact legion, or Takeda Shingen marching his entire army out in an all-or-nothing offensive.
But the Uesugi Army relied on human numbers—a legion of at least a thousand elite soldiers, multiple Hime-mushas, and Kenshin's personal, overwhelming presence to make such a feat possible.
Hikaru used yokai.
And he hadn't lifted a single finger.
This was the real reason why no allied yokai had appeared to assist Kaede Village when the northern army's vanguard attacked earlier. Aside from the fact that Hikaru could easily arrive in time to handle it himself, his entire Night Parade was busy violently suppressing the chaos erupting everywhere else.
`[Kanto Region: Current favorability 7 (Satisfied)]`
The regional favorability that had shifted previously climbed once again... and this time, it spiked by a massive five points.
"—Excellent. Return to your posts. Do not harass the common people excessively," Hikaru gave his final command, his tone flat but approving.
He withdrew his finger. The Yao Qi faded, and the water surface returned to the stillness of ordinary water.
His gaze then drifted to the dry floor beside the copper basin, where a folded slip of paper lay waiting. It was the last item Tanuki Juzaburo had handed over before departing.
However, it wasn't a battle report.
It was a letter... passed through several hands all the way from the distant Chugoku region of Japan.
Hikaru picked up the slip and unfolded the coarse paper.
The handwriting was aggressively messy, looking as though it had been scrawled by a set of claws hastily dipped in ink. Faint traces of lingering Yao Qi still pulsed between the jagged strokes.
Hikaru recognized the arrogant, sweeping style of this handwriting at a single glance.
Nurarihyon.
The letter was excessively long. But stripping away the paragraphs of shameless, nutrient-less boasting, the core message was clear.
In the Chugoku region, Nurarihyon had successfully recruited Advanced yokai leaders like Gyuki, Mokugyo Daruma, and Karasu Tengu. Continuing his journey, he had clashed violently with the Night Parade led by the young yokai leader Inugami Gyobu Tanuki, eventually teaming up with him to slay the Great Yokai Gakusanjin, who had been forcibly awakened and corrupted by the Kyoto yokai faction.
Compared to Hikaru's own steady, methodical conquest, the current exploits of Nurarihyon—the man destined to become the Lord of Pandemonium in the original timeline—could certainly be described as magnificent and chaotic.
The Great Yokai Gakusanjin was no joke. He was a terrifying, mountain-sized existence possessing Yao Qi so overwhelmingly vast it could alter the weather and create large-scale crystalline rain. While not particularly skilled in complex combat techniques, his sheer, astounding mass made him a walking natural disaster.
And it seemed this incident was directly tied to 'Nue'.
Had the mastermind of Kyoto already started making his moves over there as well?
Regardless, being able to defeat such a colossal entity, even if he had to team up with another major yokai leader to do it, was more than enough proof of Nurarihyon's formidable, skyrocketing strength. He was indeed worthy of competing for the supreme title of Lord of Pandemonium.
However, his rate of progress was still far inferior to Hikaru's. From Hikaru's current, elevated perspective, the Nurarihyon he had first met in the forest already possessed a Yao Qi level reaching, or perhaps even exceeding, the typical Eleventh Transformation.
Building upon the foundation of an already powerful yokai, a mere year of travel wasn't actually enough time to trigger a qualitative, world-shaking evolution.
Yet, the subordinates he had gathered were truly a cloud of experts.
Gyuki. Also known as Ushiwakamaru of Mount Nejireme. He was once a human, a devoted disciple at a temple on Mount Hiei during the Heian Period. After his mother was brutally devoured by a spider-bodied, bull-headed yokai from Mount Nejireme, he hunted the beast down and fought it to the death in a fit of absolute rage. After perishing, his lingering wrath transformed him into a bull-headed demon, leading a gang of outlaws down the mountain to rob the corrupt rich and aid the starving poor.
His bloody, noble deeds were widely circulated in human society. Fueled by centuries of persistent ghost stories, he had gathered an extremely dense, potent 'Fear'. Having existed for hundreds of years, his Yao Qi was naturally monstrous.
In Hikaru's memory of the lore, Gyuki was the true second-in-command of the Nura Clan's military might, and quite possibly the entity closest to reaching the world of a Great Yokai within the clan, second only to Nurarihyon himself.
According to the messy scrawl in the letter, Nurarihyon had fought Gyuki for three straight days and nights before finally beating him into submission and recruiting him.
Then there was Mokugyo Daruma, a Tsukumogami born from a wooden fish. Transformed from a temple instrument that had been immersed in Buddhist Dharma chants for centuries, he possessed deep Buddhist wisdom. Although his physical martial prowess wasn't overwhelming, he had mastered a monk's Power of Will and defensive magic, making him an incredibly resilient Advanced yokai leader who could never be underestimated.
There was also the Karasu Tengu of Mount Takao, a master of aerial combat and intelligence gathering.
Each one was a deeply entrenched, well-known yokai possessing a formidable well of 'Fear'.
According to Hikaru's strict classification system, they were all yokai leaders sitting at the Eighth Transformation or higher.
Although the current Nura Clan had not yet reached the absolute peak of their legendary Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, they were certainly not inferior in quality to Hikaru's own forces. They were a significant, world-class power.
Nurarihyon, carrying the weight of such a Hundred Demons on his back, would be a terrifying opponent.
At the very end of the letter, Nurarihyon laid out a direct, arrogant challenge to Hikaru:
'Looking at the chaotic state of the board, both your goal and mine are to become the Lord of Pandemonium, right?''Then how about a bet—the first to enter Kyoto shall be crowned the Supreme Commander of all yokai in the world.''What do you think?'
Beside the final line was a crudely drawn self-portrait of Nurarihyon, holding his signature tobacco pipe in his mouth, flashing a highly punchable, smug smile.
Hikaru stared at the drawing for a moment. His expression didn't shift. He calmly folded the note and tucked it into the folds of his dark robes.
His Crimson Demon Eyes shimmered faintly in the dim lighting of the side room.
In the quiet silence, a familiar, soft weight suddenly pressed against his back. Yura of the Hair had restored herself from her red comb form at some point, manifesting her human body and leaning lazily against his spine.
Her short black hair brushed against his neck. She rested her chin on his shoulder, her delicate, doll-like face leaning intimately close to his ear. Her ink-black vertical pupils, gleaming with a predatory emerald-green light, stared curiously at the spot where the water curtain had been.
Her lithe body shifted against him, her soft fullness pressing deliberately into his back, her waist curving deeply to maximize the contact.
Pale, slender arms slipped under his armpits, her cold fingers resting lightly on his chest before restlessly probing downward toward his stomach.
Yet, despite her aggressive body language, she pretended to be entirely nonchalant, poking her head over his shoulder. "Who wrote it?"
Incidentally, Yura of the Hair, a Tsukumogami who had recently completed her Sixth Transformation, was also officially one of the Hundred Demons under Hikaru's command.
As a Tsukumogami with maxed-out favorability, she was, also... firmly slated for Hikaru's absolute core team.
"An old friend," Hikaru replied dryly. He reached down, grabbed her wandering hand by the wrist, and firmly pressed it back to its original place on his chest.
"You actually have yokai friends?" Yura sounded genuinely surprised, though her fingers immediately resumed their restless tapping against his collarbone.
"...Nonsense," Hikaru muttered, standing up abruptly.
The sudden movement caused Yura to stumble forward a step. Her black hair instinctively shot out, wrapping tightly around his arm to steady herself. She pouted, muttering under her breath, 'At least give a warning.'
Ignoring her complaints, Hikaru walked to the door of the side room and pushed open the wooden sliding door.
Night had fully enveloped Kaede Village. The colossal canopy of the Sacred Tree cast a massive, complex shadow over the earth beneath the pale moonlight.
To the north, the campfires of the Uesugi Army were faintly visible, illuminating the Bishamonten flags with their stark black characters on white backgrounds, swaying rhythmically in the cold night wind.
The aura of his Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was distributed across thousands of miles of land, woven together like an invisible, inescapable net.
The lands of the seven provinces—Suruga, Totomi, Mikawa, Musashi, Sagami, Owari, and even the Mino borders already under the influence of the Imagawa forces—his yokai were scattered throughout every shadow, and the invisible threads of Fear converged upon him from all directions.
The first to enter Kyoto shall be king, then.
Hikaru lifted his chin, his gaze locking onto the western horizon.
The Great Yokai Hagoromo Gitsune was waiting there.
Her loyal subordinate Kidomaru was there.
Ancient Great Yokai like Tsuchigumo and others of his monstrous caliber were there.
, the human Onmyo Bureau, the mastermind Nue, and countless hidden entities that had yet to show their faces... as well as the celestial immortal medicine residue he was absolutely determined to claim. They were all gathered in that one city.
"Nurarihyon—"
Hikaru whispered to the night wind, his tone perfectly flat, yet carrying an absolute, unshakable certainty. "You will lose."
Although Hikaru initially had no intention whatsoever of becoming the Lord of Pandemonium—after all, he had been weak, alone, and merely trying to survive back then—things had changed.
Now, he had vast influence. He had overwhelming power.
Add to that the simple fact that every single one of his destined enemies was currently entrenched in that city...
Well then, he wouldn't mind stepping up to the throne just to see the scenery from the top for himself.
In life... or in an undead yokai's life, one must always strive upward.
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