The sudden male voice behind her made the Snow Woman shudder in shock. Almost by pure reflex, she vanished from her original position in a flash, and as she retreated, she didn't forget to turn back and exhale a raging blizzard.
A storm formed purely from yōkai power exploded outward. Its extreme cold forced the already frigid air to plummet several more degrees in an instant.
Tree branches that had merely been coated in snow were caught in the aftermath of her attack—frozen solid in the blink of an eye, then shattered into countless shards of ice under the howling wind, scattering like powder across the sky.
Even plants were reduced to icy dust by such a blizzard. If it had been flesh and blood instead, the outcome was obvious.
With an attack like this—backed by her A-rank yōkai power and the overwhelming environmental advantage—the Snow Woman had been confident she could kill a B+-rank human in seconds.
She didn't know why her opponent hadn't been affected by the environment, but his spiritual power was right there for her to sense.
Even if he hadn't been trapped by the illusion, she was an A-rank yōkai. Fighting one-on-one against a mere B+-rank exorcist should have been effortless.
And yet—
This human she hadn't taken seriously at all made no move to defend himself when the blizzard tore toward him. Instead, he calmly reached back and drew the long blade still sheathed on his back.
Facing the onrushing storm, he simply swung the sheathed blade through the air.
A violent gale burst forth, tearing through the blizzard like cloth being ripped apart, splitting it cleanly down the middle and forcing it to peel away to either side.
After shredding the storm, the remaining force softened into a gentle breeze, lifting the Snow Woman's silvery hair as if teasing her.
"Your spiritual power can't possibly be only B+," the Snow Woman said coldly, her gaze sharpening as she looked at Ren Kuroda. Anger crept into her expression."You've been hiding your true strength this whole time. You even used your companions as bait—just to lure me into making the first move, didn't you?"
After that brief exchange, the way she looked at Ren had changed completely.
She had thought everything was unfolding exactly as she planned. Instead, it turned out she was the one who had been played.
This human boy had casually cleaved apart her blizzard with a single strike. More than that, he had remained completely unaffected by the illusion created through the Sesshōseki. His true strength was clearly far beyond what she had initially judged.
"I thought my past successes proved that my kind exaggerated things," she said bitterly."They always said humans were crafty and dangerous… I thought that was nonsense. Greedy, stupid, and eager to kill one another—that's all humans are. But it seems there really are some exceptionally sly ones among you."
Her recent string of easy victories had made her believe the warnings of her predecessors were overstated.
Now, seeing Ren's strength, she realized those words hadn't been baseless after all—because she herself had just been outmaneuvered.
Worse still, she hadn't even figured out his true limits yet.
Even after she had exposed the truth, the aura he gave off still stubbornly remained at B+ rank, as though he had no intention of revealing anything more.
Humans really are deceitful, she thought.To fool me this thoroughly… even his age and appearance must be fake.
Unlike yōkai, who possessed long lifespans and eternal youth, humans had limited lives. When yōkai faced humans who concealed their spiritual power, they often relied on outward appearance to judge strength.
Looking at the young man before her, the Snow Woman quickly concluded that he must be hiding not only his power, but his true age as well.
A human of this apparent age simply shouldn't possess such strength.
"If I said I was just here to slack off," Ren said helplessly, shrugging, "that I never had much interest in the Sesshōseki to begin with—and definitely didn't plan on drawing you out—I doubt you'd believe me."
He paused, then added seriously,"But there's one thing I should clarify. My spiritual power really is only B+. That's actually the result of me working pretty hard lately."
Facing the Snow Woman's hostile expression, Ren could only sigh inwardly.
He truly hadn't planned anything involving the Snow Woman or the Sesshōseki.
The reason was simple—the Sesshōseki was far too dangerous to handle. If he actually obtained it, it would inevitably draw the attention of the major exorcist clans, leading to endless trouble.
And with his current strength, the Sesshōseki wouldn't help him that much anyway. Whether he got it or not genuinely didn't matter to him.
"You expect me to believe that?" the Snow Woman sneered.
Not a single word Ren had said registered with her.
If he truly had no interest in the Sesshōseki, then what was he doing here? Did he really think this snow-covered mountain was a tourist attraction?
As she landed after widening the distance between them, the Snow Woman flicked her wide kimono sleeves.
In the next instant, countless razor-sharp icicles condensed in midair, then erupted forward like a torrential downpour, streaking toward Ren at terrifying speed.
Given the strength Ren had already displayed, the Snow Woman knew this attack alone wouldn't trouble him much.
But the barrage of icicles was only a feint.
This was a snow mountain—her domain. As a Snow Woman who commanded ice and snow, how could she not take advantage of her surroundings?
After the icicles launched, an intense blue yōkai aura flared from her body. She thrust both hands forward, palms spread wide.
Ren shattered the incoming icicles with his Nichirin Blade—but then he felt something was wrong.
The yōkai power she had released was immense, yet it wasn't concentrated. Instead, it had dispersed outward into the environment.
That made no sense. Power should become stronger when condensed, not scattered.
Why would she deliberately waste so much yōkai power spreading it around?
The answer became clear almost immediately.
As the ground began to tremble violently, Ren turned—and what filled his vision was nothing but endless white.
The Snow Woman could create ice and snow with her own power, yes—but that would be inefficient.
After all, they were standing in a snow mountain. Everywhere you looked was already white. Ice and snow were the one thing this place had in excess.
Instead of creating snow, she used her power to move it—leveraging the environment itself to cause far greater destruction with minimal effort.
With her innate control over ice and snow, and standing in a place like this, her techniques naturally grew stronger. And when used correctly, she could even trigger disasters—
Like an avalanche.
The ground shook as a massive wall of snow thundered down the mountainside. Because Ren and the others were near the base, the avalanche had accumulated terrifying momentum by the time it reached them—its power nearly at its peak.
The white surge resembled a colossal beast, devouring everything in its path, growing larger and larger as it attempted to swallow the entire world in snow.
Faced with such a monstrous avalanche, even Ren—whose strength had recently skyrocketed—couldn't say for certain that he could escape its range.
And even if he could, he couldn't retreat.
Yamato Kuga, Kamishiro Issei, and the others were still trapped inside the illusion created by the Sesshōseki. They were completely unaware of the danger—and they were squarely within the avalanche's path.
No—truthfully, even if they were fully conscious, there was no way for them to evade a disaster of this scale. At best, they could struggle briefly before meeting the same end.
Nearby, the Snow Woman herself was also within the avalanche's range.
Yet she looked utterly unconcerned.
Which was only natural.
She was a Snow Woman—a yōkai born of snow itself. How could she fear ice and snow?
Water doesn't drown fish. And snow was no more deadly to her than water was to a creature born to swim. What was a catastrophic disaster to others was, to her, little more than a gentle baptism.
"Behold the roar of divine flames—The ravenous might of the fire wolf!Advance like fire—Greedy Wolf!"
Facing the surging white tide, Ren stopped holding back.
A presence utterly different from spiritual power erupted from his body.
The instant that aura burst forth, the Snow Woman—who had been calmly watching the avalanche—froze in shock.
She knew that aura.
As a yōkai herself, she recognized it instantly.
That was yōkai power.
The purple blade of Ren's Nichirin Sword ignited as crimson flames surged along its length, fueled by yōkai energy. An overwhelming, despair-inducing aura flooded the surroundings in an instant.
When Ren swung his blade, the yōkai energy saturating the air reacted like volatile gas touched by flame.
The slash expanded explosively, multiplying countless times over—transforming into massive, blazing wolves that howled as they charged straight into the white avalanche.
Yes.
Faced with a calamity of this scale, Ren Kuroda revealed his yōkai power without hesitation.
Although becoming a "Demon King Seed" had strengthened his spiritual power to B+ rank, that alone was nowhere near enough to unleash Greedy Wolf at full force—let alone stop an avalanche.
Thankfully, Yamato Kuga and the others were still trapped in the illusion.
Even if he activated Half-Demonization, no one would be aware of it—at least, not yet.