The Tear's Train Ticket.
A cause-and-effect type Stand.
A blade that guides disaster and fortune.
The moment he saw that thin little blade, Moryo sensed an indescribable danger, as if the moment it left even the smallest scratch on him, something unimaginably terrifying would happen.
Moryo hurried to dodge.
Hum~
Time stopped.
Ryosuke walked up to Moryo and waved his hand, throwing out the Tear Blade.
Time began to flow again.
Before Moryo could react, the Tear Blade had already pierced through his body. A bone-deep pain spread through him, but when he looked closely, he found that the blade formed from tears didn't leave even the slightest wound.
It was as if everything had been an illusion.
Except…
'What's this uneasiness in my heart?'
Moryo was a demon summoned from the void. He had a unique sensitivity toward the threads of karma and fate that existed in the unseen.
He was certain that just now, Ryosuke had done something extremely terrifying to him.
"What did you do to me?!"
A large blade wrapped in dense natural energy came chopping down onto Moryo's head. Under the heavy impact, Moryo's body fell back down into the crater from the earlier explosion.
Ryosuke stepped on his head, yanked the Blade of Ruin out with force, and said, "If we're fighting, then fight. Why are you trying to chat?"
"You bastard!"
In all the years he had lived, Moryo had been hated, feared, sealed, yet he had never been angered to this degree.
He no longer cared about the unease in his chest.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Hundreds of tentacles smashed the ground, trying to pound Ryosuke into pieces. Every strike carried ghost-god power. In terms of pure force, each blow was on the level of a Rasengan used by Jiraiya in Sage Mode.
This was the foundation of a monster who had lived for centuries.
Under the storm of attacks, Ryosuke weaved, dodged, and countered from time to time by swinging the Blade of Ruin or summoning his Stand.
The ground shattered as the two continued downward along the deep pit. No one knew how long they fought until, bang!, red lava surged up from beneath the earth.
Ryosuke manipulated the land, turning the magma into waves that wrapped tightly around Moryo.
Countless tentacles stabbed out, sending lava splashing everywhere.
Moryo roared, "You think!"
"You can!"
"Kill me!"
He was about to lunge again.
A tiny snowflake drifted past in front of Moryo's eyes.
"Hm?"
His vicious killing intent paused for a split second.
It was winter, and with the thunder and storms Ryosuke had summoned earlier, snowfall wasn't unusual.
But as Moryo stared at the drifting little snowflake, for some reason, the unease he had forgotten under his rage surged back up, and…
It surged violently.
The snowflake fell onto the magma, making a sizzling sound as it evaporated. Rising with the steam was a trace of natural energy controlled by Ryosuke.
In that instant, Moryo's scalp tingled.
He understood the source of his unease, Moryo looked up toward the surface.
After their insane battle, they had already reached several thousand meters underground. In Moryo's sight, the surface was just a palm-sized hole.
From that hole, an avalanche descended.
Wrapped in magma, Moryo was buried under the cascading snow. The lava rapidly cooled, solidifying and trapping Moryo firmly inside.
He tried to break free, tried to shatter it, but found that the snow contained large amounts of natural energy.
That natural energy seeped into the cooling magma along with the melting snow.
At this moment, Moryo felt like a debt-dodging gangster who owed money to the Japanese yakuza, thrown into a cement barrel, forced to watch himself get sealed in.
Through cracks in the hardened rock, Moryo stared at Ryosuke, his eyes filled with panic, "Was this also part of your plan?!"
This wasn't Ryosuke's plan.
This was the work of "misfortune."
But it didn't matter, he had no intention of explaining it to Moryo.
Ryosuke once again took out the Dragon-Serpent Jewel, walked up to Moryo, sliced open a small opening with the Blade of Ruin to expose a patch of purple-black skin, and even thoughtfully wiped it with a towel.
Just like disinfecting the spot before a nurse draws blood.
Feeling how careful Ryosuke was being, Moryo was truly terrified now.
"Y-you, what are you trying to do?"
"Ryosuke, we can talk about this, ah!!!"
The Blade of Ruin stabbed in. Endless ghost-god power was extracted along the blade, and under Moryo's horrified gaze, flowed into the Dragon-Serpent Jewel for storage.
Ryosuke was going to eat him.
And not in one swift, clean bite.
But like drinking milk tea, bit by bit, not letting a single drop go.
Moryo begged, cursed, tried to reason with him.
Yet compared to him, Ryosuke seemed more like the demon.
Not a single response the whole time. Only focused absorption.
Half an hour later, the last trace of ghost-god power flowed into the Dragon-Serpent Jewel. Moryo's enormous body was reduced to a thin, half-transparent "skin."
"Just kill me… Ryosuke, give me a quick death, I admit defeat…"
"Kill you?"
Ryosuke lightly shook his head and said calmly, "What do you take me for?"
At those words, Moryo instantly perked up, speaking without stuttering.
"You're going to let me go?"
Ryosuke shook his head again.
Not kill, not let go, Moryo didn't understand what Ryosuke meant.
Until Ryosuke took out a palm-sized jade.
The Ghost-Sealing Jade.
Ryosuke's earlier words, "What do you take me for," meant, "Do you take me for some wasteful tycoon or feudal lord?"
Ghost-god power, whether for cultivation or research, was an exceptional resource.
But this kind of energy was far too special. Even Ryosuke and the toads of Mount Myōboku couldn't generate it.
Kill Moryo?
That would be far too wasteful.
Ryosuke planned to seal Moryo, then ask the experts at the research institute whether they could find a way to make him continuously produce ghost-god power.
The moment Moryo saw the Ghost-Sealing Jade, he guessed Ryosuke's intention. He could no longer contain his emotions,
"Your mother's..."
Before he could finish, Ryosuke grabbed him and slapped him onto the jade.
He didn't even need to operate it. The formation left behind by the first-generation shrine maiden activated on its own, sealing the powerless Moryo inside.
Inside the jade, Moryo was still cursing.
Cursing and cursing, he eventually realized Ryosuke couldn't hear him, so he crouched down and began thinking about his future.
After a long while, he realized... he didn't have a future at all.
In the end…
Moryo gave up thinking.
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