Chapter 104: The Six Gods Descend Upon Kyoto
Kyoto.
The once most prosperous city, where the day belonged to humans and the night to yokai, was now completely shrouded in twilight.
Even the clouds in the sky carried a sickly yellow color of death.
Every part of the city seemed to be burning—not with flames, but with the miasma of yokai and the aura of Yomi, twisting through the air like ghostly fire.
Most of Kyoto's humans had already fled the moment the miasma of Yomi appeared.
But the yokai—those whose minds had been erased by the aura of Yomi, turning them into mere puppets—now wandered aimlessly through the streets and alleys. Their bodies varied in degrees of decay.
This decay was the mark of a hellish yokai.
For these yokai, the reincarnation cycle no longer applied—death meant eternal imprisonment in hell, their bodies endlessly rotting yet never vanishing completely.
At the heart of this city of death, a massive egg-like sphere—formed from a mixture of demonic energy and Yomi's aura—floated in the air.
It was the spawn of Hagoromo Gitsune.
For over a thousand years, she had accumulated resentment, merging it with demonic energy and the aura of Yomi, using a living human woman as a medium to birth a hellish yokai into the world.
"Aaaaaaah—!"
The agonizing screams of a woman echoed through Kyoto.
"Oh… my child… finally… finally, the time has come… Just a little longer, just a little longer!"
Hagoromo Gitsune's voice was filled with madness.
"Quick! Bring me the hearts and livers of humans! Any human's will do! Bring them all! Bring them all to me!"
"Yes…"
The yokai puppets of Yomi, now mere husks of their former selves, swarmed out like flies, flying in all directions toward the fleeing humans.
Although the humans had been fleeing for days, yokai were far faster than any human could ever hope to be.
The sheer number of refugees formed a long, desperate line of people seeking safety.
Yet the onmyōji were utterly powerless against the horde of yokai—they were like flies, countless beyond measure.
"Damn it! There are too many of them! We can't hold them back!"
"That bastard Abe no Seimei! He actually dared to bring Yomi's aura into the mortal world!"
"If only the clan master were here! Damn it!"
"The clan master went to Himeji City a long time ago. The gods must already know what's happening! Everyone, hold on!"
The onmyōji held protective talismans in their hands, constructing barriers to shield the fleeing humans. But there were simply too many yokai—the barriers were already showing cracks.
Moreover, once a barrier was formed, it couldn't move, forcing them to stand their ground like turtles in their shells.
A tragic sight unfolded along the highway—countless barriers, large and small, linked together, protecting terrified and despairing humans within.
Though onmyōji were weak compared to yokai, they still carried the legacy of the gods from millennia past. If not for that, humanity would have long been reduced to nothing but food for yokai.
Yet now, despair loomed over every single human.
"What do we do…"
"Mommy, are we going to be eaten by yokai…?"
"No, my child… The gods above will surely save us…"
"There are too many yokai! Even the onmyōji can't—"
"Help! I don't want to be eaten by a yokai!"
"Uuuh… Mommy!"
"Gods above! Please, save us!"
Crack… crack…
Under the relentless assault of the yokai, the barriers continued to fracture.
Even the onmyōji, faces drenched in sweat, were now shaking in terror.
"Damn these yokai!"
"The barrier is breaking—!"
"AAAAAH!"
Crack! Boom!
The barrier shattered in an instant.
The horde of puppet yokai surged forward, rushing to devour the humans.
As the onmyoji and humans braced themselves for certain death, a golden light suddenly illuminated the world.
"Wind Scar—!"
In the blinding radiance, every single yokai was instantly shredded into pieces.
The remains continued to dissolve and be purified, until all that remained was pure demonic energy, completely cleansed.
"Roar! You wretched yokai! Your opponent is me!"
"I'm going to slaughter you all!"
"Disappear from this world!"
"Disgusting yokai!"
Excited voices rang out across the sky, accompanied by bursts of blinding light.
The despairing, terrified humans looked up to see dozens of powerful yokai appearing in midair, relentlessly attacking the terrifying creatures that had been preying upon them.
The monstrous yokai—once overwhelming in number—were being wiped out in droves.
The onmyōji were the first to react.
"Those are the daiyōkai from Liyue!"
"Thank the gods! Rex Lapis Ōmikami has sent his envoys to save us!"
"We're saved!"
Liyue was known as a nation where humans and yokai coexisted in peace. Rex Lapis's contracts had long spread throughout the world—there was no human or yokai unaware of them.
As for why Kyoto had so many yokai—
It was because they were all evil yokai who had been banished from Liyue, as the contracts forbade yokai from preying on humans.
Thus, they had fled to Kyoto…
Which in turn had given Abe no Seimei the perfect opportunity to turn them all into his puppets.
Abe no Seimei was already an onmyōji who had touched the realm of the gods. Over a thousand years, he had refined his techniques of transforming yokai into shikigami puppets to an unimaginable level.
And now, he had been absorbing the power of Yomi without restraint.
Though he lacked a divine seat and an Authority, his power was already on par with the gods.
With the supreme energy of Yomi, the power of the realm of the dead, he was already equivalent to a blank-slate Primary God in sheer combat strength.
As the daiyōkai who had become Immortals continued purging the puppet yokai, the sky suddenly erupted with six beams of divine light.
Buzz—
The sacred multicolored radiance drove away the ever-expanding aura of death, revealing the blue sky once more.
Warm sunlight poured through the massive hole in the heavens, illuminating the earth below.
It was as if a gate to the heavens had been opened in the middle of hell itself. For the people drowning in despair, it was a ray of boundless hope.
The gods had come to save them.
"Look! The gods are here!"
"It's the six newly ascended gods of Takamagahara!"
"The gods have arrived!"
"Please, divine ones… protect us!"
"Gods, please… save my child!"
Both the onmyōji and the common people lifted their heads, staring at the six divine figures dispersing the aura of Yomi, clinging to this as their lifeline.
Faced with such a calamity, even onmyōji had no choice but to pray to the gods—let alone ordinary humans.
Xianyun, dressed in her divine robes, furrowed her brows as she gazed toward Kyoto.
"So this is the power of Yomi… drawn forth by that blasphemer? It is indeed powerful. Even with our divine power and Authorities, we can only disperse it, not purify it."
Beside her, Madame Ping held out a miniature floating teapot.
"My Authority over Serenitea Pot can temporarily contain the aura of Yomi, but I can't maintain it for long. We must eliminate the true culprit quickly."
Moon Carver snorted coldly.
"That blasphemer is still lurking in Yomi. We'll have to wait until he emerges before we can deal with him."
Mountain Shaper spoke calmly.
"Then let us first deal with the daiyōkai who have already been turned into puppets of Yomi."
Buzz! Boom!
The moment the gods finished speaking, Kyoto shuddered—
Eight distinct auras of divine-level Yomi energy erupted from within the city.
It was obvious.
Abe no Seimei, still hiding within Yomi, was summoning them forth to stall the gods.
Xiao, his voice cold, merely responded—
"So, they're actually coming to challenge us."
Over the skies of Kyoto, nine daiyōkai radiating divine-level auras charged toward the six newly ascended gods standing beyond the city's outskirts.
Their eyes lacked pupils, appearing as blank, lifeless white orbs, identical to those of the dead.
If not for their yokai features, they would have been indistinguishable from the rotting corpses writhing in the depths of Yomi's hell.
The nine daiyōkai were:
Oni-faced Tsuchigumo, who had once shattered countless Hyakki Yakō (Night Parades of a Hundred Demons), forming a power akin to faith—Awe.
Gairota, the demon of Rashōmon.
Great Tengu, who had been tamed as a shikigami puppet by Abe no Seimei a thousand years ago.
Hakuzosu, the fox yokai once sealed for a thousand years within Ma'anshan, later freed and enslaved by Hagoromo Gitsune.
The Twenty-Seven-Faced, Thousand-Handed, Hundred-Footed Yokai, Nijunanamen Senju Mukade, a monstrous entity born from the thousand torii gates crafted by shrine artisans over a millennium.
Ibaraki-Doji, a fearsome demon, half of whose face bore the tombstone of his father.
Kidomaru, a nameless swordsman from Heian-kyō, who had transformed into an demon upon death.
Mole Cricket Legion, a thousand-year-old spirit swarm, subdued by Hagoromo Gitsune.
Gashadokuro, an entity so vast it rivaled mountains, formed from the remains of countless corpses.
These nine yokai, their minds utterly devoured by Yomi's aura, had lost all sense of self, retaining only their primal battle instincts.
"ROAAAAAR!"
They bellowed, charging toward the six gods at blinding speed.
In an instant, they closed in on them.
A thirty-meter-tall Tsuchigumo lunged at Madame Ping, its massive fist, as large as a house, hurtling toward her.
Boom—!
The fist tore through the air, creating a violent vortex of demonic energy and Yomi's aura.
A single punch from a divine-level yokai infused with Yomi's power—enough to shatter half of Mount Fuji in an instant.
Yet Madame Ping remained unshaken.
A floating teapot appeared in her hands—the manifestation of her Authority.
"Realm Within."
She gently brushed her fingers across the pot.
In an instant, the surrounding space distorted, forming a massive vortex.
The Tsuchigumo's massive fist twisted like strands of noodles, spiraling as though it had been flushed into an invisible void.
"It's merely divine power imbued with Yomi's essence… nothing more."
Her Serenitea Pot Authority allowed her to manifest independent pocket dimensions—a power she could wield in combat or expand into vast miniature worlds, akin to an Adeptus' realm.
Xianyun scoffed.
"Hmph. They are nothing but puppets infused with Yomi's energy. Without an Authority or a divine seat, they are nothing but fodder."
She extended her hand—a golden Guizhong Ballista materialized.
With a surge of divine power, her machinery began assembling itself at an alarming speed.
In the blink of an eye, ten Guizhong Ballista hovered behind her.
During the Archon War, she had once relied on these machines to hold her ground against gods and their followers.
Though they could not kill a god, they had been powerful enough to repel them.
But that was against true gods.
These creatures?
They were merely daiyōkai infused with divine energy.
She could blow them apart in seconds.
"Guizhong Ballista – Fire!"
The tips of the constructs glowed with golden runes, forming a divine Adeptus formation.
In the past, it had taken three Adepti working together to produce a single god-slaying shot.
Now, as a god herself, she could control ten at once.
Buzz—!
The golden energy surged, forming ten fifty-meter-wide beams of divine light.
As the air cracked apart, the beams shot forth, barreling toward the five-hundred-meter-tall Gashadokuro—a walking mountain of death.
BOOOOOOOM—!
The blinding radiance illuminated everything ahead, placing the Gashadokuro at its very center.
Explosions, scorching flames, and the sound of the earth splitting apart echoed through the air.
As the light gradually faded, the place where the Gashadokuro once stood had been reduced to a massive crater, over a thousand meters wide and hundreds of meters deep.
At the bottom of the pit, scarlet magma churned, forming a molten lake that radiated an eerie red glow.
Had these daiyōkai still retained their consciousness, they would have already fled in terror upon witnessing the true power of the gods.
But now, they were merely mindless puppets, existing only to delay time for Abe no Seimei's emergence.
And so, they roared, charging forward once more.
Xiao raised his palm.
A small spear manifested in his grasp—the embodiment of his Authority.
In an instant, the spear expanded, becoming a deadly weapon.
"Evolution Eon—Origin of Ignorance!"
"Transcension—Gravity Defier!"
With a surge of divine power, Xiao vanished, reappearing in front of Great Tengu.
No flashy techniques, no unnecessary movements—just a single, brutal thrust.
Boom!
Great Tengu shattered into dust.
The next moment, Xiao was already behind Hakuzosu.
A single horizontal sweep of his spear sliced the fox yokai in two.
Then, without pause, he struck again and again, reducing the bisected corpse to mere fragments, which finally dispersed into pure demonic energy and the aura of Yomi.
Exorcism. Demon-Slaying. Protector of Liyue.
These were the three Authorities of Xiao.
To the people, the Guardian Yaksha was a fearless demon-slayer, a battle-hardened warrior, a guardian of Liyue.
His very existence revolved solely around combat.
Compared to the other five gods, he was by far the strongest in battle. In many ways, he was a god of war.
Just as Xiao lunged at a third yokai, a series of blue-white flashes streaked past him.
The frozen radiance struck Ibaraki-Doji head-on, encasing the demon in solid ice in an instant.
From afar, Ganyu still held her bowstring taut, her stance unwavering.
Her Authority was Cryo Blessing, a lower-tier subset of the Cryo Elemental Authority.
Even though these yokai infused with Yomi's power had reached divine-level strength, they lacked true Authorities or control over any rules.
Without such power, they could never be a match for even a Subordinate God.
Xiao flicked his spear, effortlessly shattering the frozen Ibaraki-Doji like brittle ice.
The nine divine-level yokai were completely annihilated within ten exchanges.
Moon Carver scoffed.
"Even if Yomi's aura is of supreme divine grade, the power infused into these creatures was already diluted beyond recognition. They were mere stepping stones, easily swept aside."
Mountain Shaper turned his gaze toward the massive, fully-formed egg hovering over Kyoto.
"That thing… holds the true essence of Yomi's power."
"Though we wield Authorities, we've only been gods for a few days. Our divine bodies, Authorities, and power are far from fully developed."
"Even though that blasphemer lacks a divine seat or an Authority, we may still struggle against Yomi's supreme energy."
Xianyun scoffed coldly.
"Hmph. You're conceding defeat before the battle has even begun? Watch as my Guizhong Ballistae blast that thing to dust."
...
At that moment, Hagoromo Gitsune had completed her childbirth.
She collapsed on the egg, her expression one of blissful satisfaction.
"Ah… my child… I've finally brought you into this world…"
"I can already feel your heartbeat, brimming with life."
Thump. Thump…
A deep, rhythmic pulsing emanated from the massive egg.
The sound spread throughout all of Kyoto, enveloping the entire city in its unnerving pulse.
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