Chapter 92. I warned you.

Outside the Atsuta Grand Shrine, a figure slowly took shape.

He wore a hooded sweatshirt and looked to be in his early twenties, with spiky hair and a stud in his left ear.

He gave a faint laugh, his slit pupils narrowing slightly.

"A total of one hundred and twenty-seven barriers. That is quite a few more than last time."

Yet even as he said it, there was not the slightest trace of tension in his movements. He took one step forward and entered the shrine’s domain.

An invisible ripple spread from beneath his foot, but it merely trembled into tiny waves and produced nothing else unusual.

He walked straight through.

The Atsuta Grand Shrine was not merely a shrine, but also a place of great antiquity and renown.

The man looked about as though he were admiring the scenery.

But wherever he passed, grass withered, earth decayed, and living things perished.

If an exorcist had witnessed this, they would surely have cried out in alarm.

This was a Serpent Lord.

One of the great yokai recorded by the Exorcist Association, though compared with the famed Flood Serpent, the Serpent Lord was far more mysterious.

The reason the Flood Serpent was so well known was that it had begun as a minor demon and, over the course of centuries, had grown by evading exorcists, outwitting humans, and surviving endless hunts.

The Serpent Lord was different.

It was a noble by birth.

Upon coming into the world, it already possessed spiritual power equivalent to what an ordinary demon would need a hundred years to accumulate. In the five hundred years that followed, though the Serpent Lord never acknowledged the exorcists’ authority, it also never once crossed blades with them.

For that reason, no one knew its secret.

With an easy, leisurely gait, the serpent lord strolled along the stone path.

There was still much time left tonight.

From the west came successive stirrings of spiritual power; pillars of light visible only to spirit sight flared again and again.

Good, it thought.

Forty years ago, it had chanced upon the Flood Serpent.

The arrogant creature had actually challenged it.

The result, naturally, was that it was nearly beaten back into its original form.

After that, the Flood Serpent became one of the Serpent Lord’s defeated underlings.

Just like tonight, the Flood Serpent was merely a pawn.

A pawn used to weaken the defenses of the shrine.

The warding barrier could detect demons and drive off evil spirits, but it was useless against the Serpent Lord.

That was its greatest trump card.

For it was the descendant of that being.

The serpent demon that had once battled Susanoo and was ultimately slain.

The Eight-Headed, Eight-Tailed Orochi.

The Sacred Sword was born from the body of Orochi and thus possessed the power of serpents.

And the spells associated with the Atsuta Grand Shrine were, for the most part, derived from the Sacred Sword.

In other words, they all originated from Orochi.

If they were of the same kind, how could there be any repulsion between them?

The Serpent Lord passed through several more barriers and, by way of the mountain path at the rear, gradually approached the shrine’s main hall.

The reason it had been able to steal the Sacred Sword without anyone the wiser was precisely because of its bloodline.

The Sacred Sword could not resist the blood of Orochi.

It was a pity that trouble had arisen midway, forcing the Serpent Lord to go to great lengths, even sacrificing the Flood Serpent to draw attention away, before it could return to the shrine.

Through spirit sight, it could see that many people were still within the shrine.

Then kill them all, it thought casually.

At that moment, however.

It suddenly felt as though something had tripped it.

Click—

A taut wire pulled up some kind of ring, and while the serpent lord was still in confusion, the shock wave of the explosion had already swallowed it whole.

Boom—

...

“There’s trouble.”

When Qiao Qiao heard the explosion, he immediately stopped what he was doing.

He took out the revolver he had already assembled and checked the rounds.

Then a second explosion rang out.

The silence had barely lasted before one blast after another followed, and they were drawing closer.

“Are they coming this way?”

Qiao Qiao frowned slightly.

At hand, apart from a pistol, twenty-four explosive rounds, thirty exorcism bullets, six exorcism grenades, half a box of plastic explosive, ten detonators, and two directional exorcist mines, he had little else usable.

A shame he had taken out the grenade launcher just to reduce the weight.

Without hesitation, Qiao Qiao quickly set up a simple defense.

At the same time, he called Yukitokii Masato, but unfortunately something seemed to be wrong with the signal, and the call would not connect.

As for Asano Ariko, she merely held the model of the Yamato battleship in her arms and stared blankly from the side as Qiao Qiao made these preparations.

“It may only slow them down, but that’s enough.”

Qiao Qiao stood up, preparing to evacuate with Asano Ariko.

Then a figure emerged from between the trees.

Its face was blackened all over with scorch marks, and the clothes on its body were ragged and full of holes. Clearly, this was the one that had triggered Qiao Qiao’s traps.

Yet the wretched appearance did nothing to conceal the pride in its expression, and its amber slit eyes fixed on Qiao Qiao.

“Land mines? Grenades? Explosives?”

It spoke in a hoarse voice.

“So humanity has fallen to this extent. Hah.”

“Do not come any closer.”

Qiao Qiao raised his gun. Since the two sides were several meters apart, he had loaded ordinary exorcism bullets.

“Raise your hands and state your name, affiliation, and purpose. Otherwise I will fire.”

“How naive!”

The serpent lord sneered, ignoring Qiao Qiao’s warning as it took another step forward.

Boom—

The step landed squarely on a land mine. Countless fragments and steel pellets burst from beneath its feet, engulfing its whole body in an instant.

“I warned you.”

Qiao Qiao adjusted his position.

“...”

The smoke cleared, and the serpent lord was still standing where it had been, seemingly struck by grievous injury, motionless.

Its clothes were even more torn.

The wounds on its body were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“As expected, for a great yokai, spiritual power of this level still isn’t enough to be fatal,” Qiao Qiao murmured.

“Teacher, shouldn’t we run first?”

Asano Ariko held the Yamato model in her arms, glanced at the serpent lord, and asked Qiao Qiao.

“No. There’s no need to run.”

Qiao Qiao refused the suggestion.

“Even if we escape now, this demon will catch up.”

“Because its target is not anyone else.”

“It is Asano the shrine maiden.”

“?”

Asano Ariko froze.

On the other side, the serpent lord’s gaze swept over the pair and quickly settled on Asano Ariko.

“Found you.”

It thought.

“Why was it that the demons could steal the Sacred Sword, yet never leave Nagoya? Because what they stole was only part of the Sacred Sword.”

Keeping guard as he spoke, Qiao Qiao gave a brief explanation.

It was not merely an explanation, but something closer to a ritual.

A ritual to remove obstacles.

“If a warehouse left unattended for a hundred years becomes a spirit, then why should the Sacred Sword, which has been offered worship for a thousand years, not possess its own consciousness?”

“The serpent demons stole the Sacred Sword, only to discover afterward that the sword’s consciousness, or rather the sword spirit, was missing.”

“They could only remain in Nagoya, searching for the sword spirit.”

“But what they never expected was that the Sacred Sword’s sword spirit had, through manipulation of the memetic pattern, already attached itself to a novice shrine maiden of the Atsuta Grand Shrine.”

“That is Asano the shrine maiden.”