Aida stood frozen in shock for a long time, unable to utter a single word, while the expressions of his two trusted disciples behind him were even worse.
“Then right now… is there no other way? Is there any way to find out who he gave the mirror’s heart to?”
“It’s difficult,” Maha said. “The Yata-no-Kagami contains the divine power of Amaterasu Omikami, which puts its divine rank on par with my mother’s. If I want to track it, I must first establish a spiritual connection with the Yata-no-Kagami, which is quite difficult.”
Aida panted heavily for a moment, looking back at his two disciples only to find that their faces were even more ashen than his.
“…Please allow me to discuss this briefly with the other disciples of our sect.” Aida turned and bowed deeply to Maha, his voice trembling. “I will be back shortly. Please wait a moment, Your Highness.”
Maha gave him an utterly indifferent look.
Headstrong and opinionated, Aida had no intention of actually consulting his disciples. He was merely using the excuse to step away and think about how he could persuade Maha to expend such great effort to track down the Yata-no-Kagami—and what devastatingly high price he would have to pay in exchange once he succeeded.
After being deported back to Japan, Aida had used all the resources at his disposal to look into the rumors surrounding the Peacock Wisdom King, only to find that he had encountered a textbook example of a violently brutal deity. Likely due to his half-demon heritage, the Peacock harbored deep hostility toward everyone except his mother, the Phoenix Great Wisdom King. He was also naturally envious by nature; he had even stormed into the Formless Heaven and swallowed the Buddha’s body whole simply because his mother was overly devoted to Buddhism.
In truth, compared to other deities, the Peacock Wisdom King was relatively easy to summon—which was likely because he grew up in the snowy mountains and felt a stronger sense of identification with the human realm.
However, ever since he arrived at the Esoteric School, the destroyed properties and collapsed buildings were nothing compared to the main issue: he treated the Esoteric School entirely as his private dining hall!
Aida had previously prepared eighty-eight living human sacrifices for him—unfortunate souls purchased from the black market and smuggled from overseas. But for some reason, Maha refused to eat the meals prepared for him. Instead, he chose to follow his whims during every meal; whichever Esoteric School disciple caught his eye, he would simply seize them and swallow them alive right then and there. Without a care for the consequences, he would wipe his mouth and saunter away, leaving a floor stained with blood and mangled remains.
Last week, after Maha ate several elders of the sect, Aida was finally forced by the immense pressure from the remaining elders to negotiate with Maha, requesting that he stop eating Japanese people.
Yet to Maha, there was no distinction between Japanese people and any other humans; they were simply divided into those who looked delicious and those who did not. The moment Aida made his request, it instantly poked the Peacock Wisdom King’s sore spot. The volatile deity nearly disemboweled Aida on the spot. Aida had to use every ounce of his strength to narrowly escape with his life, and he later had to offer a massive batch of sacrifices just to barely appease the Peacock Wisdom King’s wrath.
So now, the situation was even more thorny: how could he possibly persuade this notoriously malevolent deity to track down the Yata-no-Kagami’s heart for the Esoteric School?
Maha could easily guess the dilemma the Japanese were facing, but he couldn’t care less. Sitting bored on the altar, the Peacock Wisdom King swiped his screen a few times until a series of loud explosions echoed—Game Failed once again on Candy Crush.
Maha firmly squeezed the phone into a ball of scrap metal and casually tossed it aside. He habitually reached out to demand a new phone from Aida, only to suddenly remember that Aida wasn’t there.
The grand hall was empty, with candlelight reflecting a golden glow around the opulent altar.
By the side of the white jade platform, the Demon buried its head deeply into its chest, terrified that a single careless move might cause its thousand-year cultivation to become nothing more than a casual post-meal dessert for the Peacock Wisdom King to change up his palate.
Maha couldn’t help but feel profoundly bored. His gaze drifted aimlessly around the room until it suddenly landed on the unconscious Yan Lanyu.
In the flickering candlelight, Yan Lanyu’s eyes were tightly shut and his breathing was steady, making him look like a quiet, peaceful doll.
“…Hmm.”
Maha had been eating quite well recently, so unlike when he was in the Sea of Blood, his first instinct upon seeing a human wasn’t to eat them. Instead, a rare playful streak was sparked inside him. Seeing how Yan Lanyu’s cheek looked as pale as jade under the candlelight, he reached out and poked it hard.
Outside the main hall, Zhou Hui asked in a low voice, “What are you waiting for? Let’s just go straight in, KO Maha, grab the kid, and run.”
But Chu He held him back. “No, no… wait.”
Up on the altar, Maha blinked, seemingly finding the soft, elastic texture of the skin rather amusing.
He began poking left and right, sometimes gently and sometimes forcefully. After poking eleven or twelve times, one side of Yan Lanyu’s face was flushed red, looking just like a ripe apple.
Maha’s playful mood soared. In a sudden flash of inspiration, he sat down grandly right on the white jade platform and began braiding Yan Lanyu’s hair into little pigtails.
Zhou Hui: “…”
Chu He: “…”
The couple felt as though they had been struck by a bolt of lightning from the heavens. Zhou Hui said tremulously, “What’s going on here? Does this brat have some kind of bizarre hobby? Is he playing with a real-life ball-jointed doll?!”
Chu He’s face bore an expression of someone whose eyes had just been opened to a whole new world. It took him a long while to snap out of it. “No… felines often toy with their prey before eating them. This must be a habit he inherited from you… right… wait!”
Zhou Hui rose to charge inside, but Chu He grabbed him once again.
At the same time, the side door of the grand hall creaked open. Aida walked back in with his trusted disciples, bowing respectfully to Maha. “Lord Wisdom King, is there any way to temporarily awaken Yan Lanyu so we can interrogate him about the whereabouts of the mirror’s heart?”
As he finished speaking, he raised his head and finally saw what Maha was doing, causing the expression on his face to turn utterly blank.
“Can’t be done,” Maha said naturally under their collective, shocked stares, completely unfazed by his own behavior.
“H-How…”
“He used the vast majority of his Yang world soul to wrap around the mirror’s heart and sent it to god-knows-where, leaving only a tiny sliver of his Yang soul and his intact Yin world soul to sustain his daily functions. The benefit of doing this is that it provides maximum protection to the mirror’s heart and prevents the recipient from rejecting it. At the same time, it doesn’t have too much of an adverse effect on him; the sliver of Yang soul he left behind is enough for daily life.”
Maha paused, tilting his head to look left and right like an artist admiring his work. Deciding that the pigtail on top of Yan Lanyu’s head wasn’t very aesthetically pleasing, he unraveled it and braided a new one at the back of his head.
“But the problem is that the Demon is inherently of a powerful Yin nature. When the Demon occupied this young man’s body, it severely corroded his already depleted Yang world soul, which is what caused his current comatose state. Without a conscious soul, he naturally cannot be awakened.”
Aida could no longer care about Maha’s shocking behavior and asked urgently, “Doesn’t he still have his Yin world soul?”
“Have some common sense, will you? A Yin world soul is the soul of the dead, which is normally in a state of absolute chaos. Furthermore, the Yin world soul has already suffered through the immense tortures of the mountain of daggers and the sea of flames in hell. If it is forcibly awakened, it is equivalent to—”
Maha’s voice suddenly cut off, and he rose to take a half-step back.
Aida didn’t react at first, but as he looked past Maha’s figure, he was shocked to discover that Yan Lanyu’s arm on the white jade platform was twitching.
The frequency of his body’s twitching grew increasingly violent, escalating into full-blown spasms. Several veins bulged against his skin, and then, like living snakes, they slithered and snaked beneath his flesh, spreading all the way up to his face.
His eyes remained tightly closed while his face contorted in agony. His entire body arched backward as though he were enduring immense pain, letting out ragged, hollow gasps.
“What’s happening?” Aida stammered in shock.
Yan Lanyu gripped the edge of the white jade platform tightly, his knuckles letting out a terrifying cracking sound. His body sat up inch by inch, his face twitching violently in pain, appearing exceptionally menacing in the flickering shadows of the candlelight.
“Hah… hah…”
With a heavy thud, he tumbled off the platform onto the ground, then staggered unsteadily back to his feet, opening a pair of blood-red eyes.
Maha dodged to the side and said calmly, “…Equivalent to a fierce ghost returning to life.”
The next second, Yan Lanyu charged down the altar, brushing past Maha as he lunged straight at Aida, violently knocking him flat onto the ground!
Aida roared in terror, and his disciples rushed forward to grab Yan Lanyu, but it was entirely futile. Yan Lanyu unleashed a sharp, bone-chilling screech. Clawing downward with brute force, he tore through fabric and flesh alike, ripping a chunk of bloody meat right off Aida Yoshihide’s chest!
Aida shrieked in excruciating pain, while his disciples broke out into a chorus of panicked shouts and furious roars!
A piercing howl echoed through the vast, empty temple as if a freezing gale had swept in from all directions. The wind carried a foul, rotting stench, sounding like countless aggrieved spirits weeping and wailing directly into everyone’s ears.
“It’s… it’s ghosts,” a disciple trembled. “They’re all ghosts!”
At that moment, the scene descended into absolute chaos. Aida and Yan Lanyu wrestled violently; the former’s face was covered in blood, looking thoroughly distorted, while the latter, appearing possessed by a fierce ghost, unleashed agonizing shrieks as his fingernails dug deeply into the flesh of Aida’s neck.
The Esoteric School disciples flailed their arms to drive away the waves of ghosts descending upon them from the void, while simultaneously trying to pounce and restrain Yan Lanyu. However, before the first disciple could even get close, Yan Lanyu grabbed him by the hand and snapped his wrist with a sharp crack!
The disciple let out a deafening scream of agony. Taking advantage of the distraction, Aida pulled a talisman out from the void, shouting as it ignited with an eerie blue flame, and slapped it directly onto Yan Lanyu’s forehead.
Yet immediately after, Yan Lanyu ripped the talisman away. As if thoroughly enraged, he bit down hard on the injured disciple’s broken wrist, tearing off a chunk of living flesh!
“What is going on?!” Aida’s voice completely warped in terror. “Your Highness! Lord Wisdom King!”
Maha pinched his chin thoughtfully, murmuring softly, “So this is a Yin world soul… How did you guys at the Esoteric School refine this? Why is the resentment so incredibly thick?”
“Your Highness!”
“Strange, how did it suddenly get jolted awake? Could it be that it was summoned by my vast and boundless divine power?”
“—Your Highness!”
Aida’s voice barely sounded human anymore. He desperately unleashed a flurry of talismans that erupted into a blaze of fire. However, Yan Lanyu’s blood-drenched hand snatched the talismans right out of the air, crumpled them into a ball, shoved them into his mouth, and forced them down his throat!
The disciples were completely stunned, and one was so terrified he nearly dropped to his knees on the spot!
“But you also need to reflect on yourself. Look at how he isn’t targeting anyone else but you; this proves the problem lies with you,” Maha evaluated quite rationally and objectively. He then extended his hands into the air, pushing out a square black frame that floated toward Yan Lanyu to trap him.
The black frame rapidly expanded into a bottomless black sack, swooping down to envelop Yan Lanyu inside.
—That was actually a specialized pocket dimension created by Maha, equivalent to a void existing outside the Six Realms, containing nothing but pitch-black emptiness.
His original intention was simply to have the Yin world soul stay inside for a while so he could figure out a way to knock Yan Lanyu unconscious again. However, for some unknown reason, Yan Lanyu suddenly erupted with an unimaginable burst of strength, directly grabbing the edges of the spatial rift and unleashing an enraged, piercing shriek!
The Esoteric School disciples staggered backward, and blood instantly sprayed from Aida’s ears.
That sound didn’t originate from Yan Lanyu’s mouth alone; it was a resonance triggered across thousands of voids—a ghostly wail overflowing with hatred, resentment, indignation, and agony!
Maha’s gaze suddenly shot directly outside the hall, and he murmured softly, “—Uh oh.”
No one noticed what he said, but just as the words left his mouth, the earth suddenly shuddered.
An airflow akin to a hurricane cascaded from the heavens, accompanied by a colossal roar resembling an incoming ocean tide, sounding like thousands of galloping horses charging forward.
The roof of the divine hall began to emit a groaning creak under immense pressure, the walls trembled, and dust and debris rained down rapidly.
—Outside the main doors, standing on the steps, Zhou Hui stared up at the sky. After a long pause, he said in utter disbelief, “What… what on earth is that thing?”
The colossal dragon coiled in the void had opened its eyes. Its two vertical pupils were blood-red, and a third eye upon its forehead emitted an eerie, supernatural aura.
It slowly shifted its mountain-like body, every inch of its movement whipping up a foul-smelling, furious gale. Then, a massive dragon claw descended from the sky with a force that could overturn mountains and seas, instantly bending a row of ancient pines around the shrine completely out of shape!
Chu He slipped with a thud but was immediately caught by Zhou Hui, who pulled him smoothly into his embrace.
The dragon’s body resembled a rolling mass of dark clouds. Its head reared high into the air, its three vertical pupils reflecting a bone-chilling crimson light, like three eerie red lanterns hanging in the night sky.
“—It is resonating with Yan Lanyu’s soul!” Chu He shouted directly into Zhou Hui’s ear over the din. “Young Master Yan’s screams have awakened it!”
Zhou Hui cursed loudly, “What the hell is this thing?! The Esoteric School keeps something like this around? Aren’t they worried about causing their own genocide?!”
Chu He was about to reply when the paulownia wood doors of the grand hall were violently slammed open with a loud bang, and Maha’s figure shot out like a bolt of lightning.
By now, it was already too late for his parents to hide. The two sides collided practically face-to-face. Maha and Zhou Hui simultaneously stared with wide eyes: “You—”
Chu He yelled sharply, “Watch out!”
With a thunderous crash, the dragon’s body rolled over like a massive bulldozer. Amid a torrential downpour of falling branches and chunks of snow, it plowed straight into the grand hall, instantly knocking all three of them flat onto the ground.
“What kind of demonic mess are you cooking up?! What is that thing?!” Zhou Hui was utterly exasperated, grabbing Maha by his collar and demanding fiercely, “You brought that out from the Sea of Blood, didn’t you?!”
Maha’s response was a resounding sword strike. In the blink of an eye, Zhou Hui drew his blade from the void to block, the clashing edges erupting into a blinding shower of electric sparks!
“It has nothing to do with me, I just came here to casually eat a few people—as for that dragon, it is the manifestation of a living human falling into demonic corruption. Human eyes cannot see it.”
The corner of the Peacock Wisdom King’s mouth hooked upward. In the tense standoff, the blade reflected a cold gleam, mirroring the cruel, bloodthirsty smile on his lips. “That is Ninigi-no-Mikoto, who took on that form after turning into a demon. He’s the current headmaster of the Esoteric School. So, I don’t care whether these humans live or die anyway—it’s their own damn fault.”
Didn’t he get his divinity back? Why is he still eating humans? 😬