Tahoto.
It was a five-story wooden spiritual tower, situated within a courtyard deep in the mountains to the west of Musashi Province.
The tower's body was pitch black, like old wood soaked in ink; every pillar and every eaves tile was carved with dense Sanskrit characters and incantation seals.
There were no walls around the tower, no villages, and even wild beasts were unwilling to approach.
Not a single blade of grass grew on the land for half a li around, leaving only parched yellow earth and jagged gravel.
Living things instinctively feared this place.
Because beneath the tower, something was breathing.
Very slowly.
Very heavily.
Like a heartbeat buried deep underground.
Tsubaki landed in front of the tower.
Using the spatial displacement brought by the curse had consumed most of her spiritual power; her legs were slightly weak, and her white robe and red hakama were stained with dirt and dew.
She didn't care about any of that.
She looked up at the pitch-black five-story spiritual tower.
The moonlight shone on the tower's body, and those ancient technique seals faintly glowed with a dark golden light—the seal was still functioning.
But it had already loosened.
When she had crushed the Unsealing Charm talisman in Kaede Village, the signal had already been transmitted here.
The first layer of the seal had already cracked open.
Tsubaki walked forward and pressed her palm against the tower door.
The door was very cold.
It didn't feel like wood; it felt like touching a block of ice.
"Master."
She said in a low voice: "I'm sorry."
There was no true remorse, only a ritualistic farewell.
She formed a seal.
Her hands crossed, fingers intertwining; the mudra she had practiced countless times—the Seal Opening Mudra of Tahoto—took shape between her fingers.
Crack.
The sound of the second layer of the seal shattering came from within the tower.
Followed by the third layer.
The fourth layer.
With every layer of the seal that shattered, the tower would vibrate once, and the golden light of those Sanskrit seals would dim by a fraction.
By the fourth layer, the tower door cracked open on its own.
It wasn't pushed open.
It was burst open from the inside by something.
A chaotic scent, like a mix of countless strange odors, surged from the crack in the door.
Turbid Qi, yin qi, Demonic Qi.
And also, ghostly qi.
Not like Kibutsuji Muzan, a special existence who was human at his core and only resembled an evil demon due to illness.
But a true demon.
Moreover, it was a Demonic Qi of an ancient demon of at least five hundred years, far stronger than that of a "new demon" like Kanbe Hikaru.
It was so thick it was nauseating.
Tsubaki took a step back, not out of fear, but simply because—she was waiting.
The final layer of the seal was still there.
The core seal, forged by her master's lifelong spiritual power, could hold for a while even if the first four layers were shattered.
But not for long.
Because what Tsubaki was about to do would completely dismantle it from the inside.
She took something out from her bosom.
It wasn't a talisman or a ritual tool.
It was a porcelain bottle.
Inside was demon blood—there was still some left, and quite a lot of it.
Only this time, after uncorking it, she didn't pour it out. Instead, she shook it, letting the dark red liquid churn at the mouth of the bottle, emitting a pungent, fishy stench.
Then, she brought the bottle to her lips.
And drank it.
One gulp, two gulps.
Until it all went down her throat.
The moment the demon blood entered her throat, her body trembled violently.
A painful contortion appeared on that glamorous face, the upward curve of her eyes stretched even wider, and her pupils began to turn from a normal deep brown to a dark red.
On the surface of her skin, veins bulged like snakes, spreading from her neck to her cheeks.
The demon blood rampaged through her body, attempting to transform her—a living human—into a demon.
Normally, such a transformation would require the blood of the Progenitor of Demons, Kibutsuji Muzan.
The blood of an ordinary demon lacked the concentration and would only cause a person to die of poisoning.
But Tsubaki was no ordinary person.
She was a Priestess; she had spiritual power.
She was even more proficient in Black Magic directed at humans.
She had long ago inscribed a Spell Formula within her body, using it as a medium to forcibly guide, suppress, and absorb that twisted power.
There was no complete demonization.
Instead—it was Half-demonization.
Retaining human consciousness and a Priestess's spiritual power while gaining a demon's regenerative abilities and physical strength.
The price was that her spiritual power would be continuously eroded by the demon blood until it was eventually exhausted.
But that was a matter for later.
Now—all she needed was power.
Power enough to open the final seal, power enough to "dialogue" with the evil demon beneath the pagoda.
Even, power enough to "devour" it!
Tsubaki knelt before the pagoda door, her hands pressing against the ground.
The transformation from the demon blood was still ongoing.
Her nails began to grow, extending from a rounded shape into sharp claws; a fine grinding sound came from behind her lips as her canines lengthened.
Her white Priestess top was stretched tight by the bulging flesh on her shoulders and back; the body beneath the fabric was being reshaped by the demon blood—not a non-human mutation like demonization, but a distortion of human lineage.
But her eyes remained clear.
Within those dark red pupils, her sanity remained.
Even the spiritual power that had been sealed by Kikyo broke free from its shackles in a momentary expansion!
"What do you want?"
A voice came from within the pagoda.
Deep, hoarse, carrying the dryness of centuries of slumber.
Like stone rubbing against stone.
Tsubaki looked up at the cracked pagoda door; in the dark gaps she saw, two points of dark red light flickered.
Those were eyes.
"I want your power."
Tsubaki said, her voice turning raspy from the erosion of the demon blood: "In exchange—I will set you free."
Those two points of red light were silent for a moment.
Then, it laughed.
The laughter echoed from within the pagoda, making the gravel on the ground jump.
"A Priestess making a deal with a demon."
"Interesting."
"Do you know what you are doing?"
"I know."
Tsubaki stood up; the transformation from the demon blood had stabilized.
Her face was still that glamorous one, but her pupils had turned dark red, her canines slightly peeked out from her lips, and her nails were as sharp as claws.
The Priestess outfit of white top and red hakama wrapped around a half-human, half-demon body.
Discordant, twisted.
Yet it possessed an inexplicably eerie and seductive charm.
Tsubaki's voice turned cold: "I want your power."
"Your abilities, your Demonic Qi, the demonic power you've accumulated over centuries—all of it will merge into my body."
"And your consciousness will be suppressed, locked away, and erased by my spiritual power."
"In other words—"
She raised her hand, the one that had already turned into a sharp claw, and pointed deep into the pagoda door: "I am going to eat you."
The red light inside the pagoda flickered.
The laughter stopped.
After a moment of silence, the voice spoke again: "You think you can suppress me?"
"We'll know once we try."
Tsubaki pressed her hand against the pagoda door.
The final layer of the seal.
Her spiritual power—distorted by demon blood, chaotic, yet still powerful—poured into the core of the seal.
It wasn't a simple unsealing, but a more thorough crushing.
Using the dual impact of demonic power and Priestess spiritual power, she broke the seal from both the inside and outside simultaneously.
Boom—!
The pagoda burst apart.
The pitch-black wood exploded in all directions; the golden light of the Sanskrit incantations flickered one last time in the air before being completely extinguished.
Darkness surged from the base of the pagoda.
Immediately following it... that evil demon, sealed for centuries, stood up from the ruins.
...
When Momiji and Botan arrived, this was the scene they witnessed.
The Tahoto had collapsed.
The place where they had grown up, the spiritual tower their master had spent her life protecting, had turned into a pile of broken wood and rubble.
And in the center of the ruins, Tsubaki stood there.
Around her, black ghostly qi and white spiritual power were intertwined, like two snakes tearing at each other.
Her body was absorbing the power of that evil demon.
The demon's form gradually disintegrated before her, turning into dark red mist, which she swallowed into her body mouthful by mouthful.
That glamorous face was contorted, with a dark red light flickering faintly.
"Se... Senior Sister..."
Botan's voice cracked.
Momiji didn't speak.
She just stood there, looking at the collapsed spiritual tower.
Watching her master's lifelong effort come to nothing.
Her eyes were red, but there were no tears, only anger.
"Momiji, Botan."
Kikyo's voice came from behind them.
The Priestess in white and red held a longbow, standing behind the two young priestesses, her dark yet clear eyes watching the twisted mass of light and shadow ahead.
"Get back."
It wasn't a tone for negotiation, but a simple statement—it was a command!
Momiji and Botan took half a step back.
Because of Kikyo's pressure.
And also because—they knew that the upcoming battle was not at a level they could participate in.
Kanbe Hikaru landed beside Kikyo.
The remnants of thunder still clung to him, purple electric arcs dancing between his sleeves.
He looked at Tsubaki ahead, who was devouring the evil demon.
The Nekomata Claws in his bosom were vibrating violently.
[Nekomata Claws: favorability +8]
[Current favorability: 80 (Symbiosis)]
[It is excited. It smells an extremely dense aura of death; that evil demon devoured the lives of an entire town hundreds of years ago, and the accumulated Death Qi within its body is so thick—it's driving it mad.]
Kanbe Hikaru pressed down on the claw in his bosom.
"Don't be in a hurry."
He whispered, "It's not your turn to take the stage yet."}],"new_glossary_terms":[{
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