The description of the Second Talent related to divine artifacts, unlocked when Shibata Katsuie, a divine artifact incarnate who had descended alongside a god-buddha incarnation, reached Affection of fifty, was not complex.
According to the words of Uesugi Kenshin, the Dragon of Echigo: the essence of most divine artifacts, at their very beginning, was the soul of the dead. Those souls who still clung to lingering attachments in the mortal world and had not fallen into hell, when chosen by a god and bestowed with a Name, became divine artifacts.
The Name was the Kotoba, the command. It was the name granted by the god to the soul. The seal of their contract. The tether by which the soul maintained its human form.
The Vessel was the Oto, the sound. It was the form the divine artifact took when transformed into a weapon in battle. A blade. A sword. A rope. A fan. When a god grasped the Vessel, they could channel their divine power through it.
Yet among them, the most unique category, those divine artifacts who had reincarnated alongside a god-buddha incarnation, were different from ordinary divine artifacts. They had not been chosen after death. They had been born already carrying their Name.
They had become the divine artifacts of a god in the heavens before reincarnation. Thus, from the very moment of their birth, they were already the divine artifact of a specific god-buddha incarnation.
But they were also left with only human form. They could no longer transform into weapons. They could only follow their lord into battle in the guise of military commanders. The faith-artifact power they could manifest was, therefore, incomplete. Shibata Katsuie was such an existence.
And now, what Shinji had grasped was the more fundamental power beneath that incomplete manifestation.
The first was called Curse. But in essence, it was a contract. It was the channel of connection established between a god and a divine artifact through the act of Bestowing a Name. The god granted the artifact a name. The artifact entrusted its very existence to the god. Served the god. When the artifact transformed into a weapon and was gripped in the god's hand, this channel was formally opened.
The god could use the artifact's body to bear faith and convert it into divine power. The artifact, in turn, could use the name bestowed by the god to preserve the purity of its soul and consciousness, to remain untainted by the impure energies of the mortal world.
This was the essence of the Curse. Shinji, having grasped such a Talent, if he could but hold the true artifact-body of Shibata Katsuie, could also wield the myriad Arts converted from faith. Just as the panel described, the so-called Cursed Arts Talent was, in truth, twofold.
It was the parallel of Curse and Art. The suppression of the supernatural was merely one application of a divine artifact in human form. Considering the System's judgment that incarnate artifacts need not be physically carried, that merely being able to command them counted as possession, these two Talents… even if he couldn't use them now, he could certainly study them in depth later!
Amidst this, Shinji dismissed the System panel from his consciousness. After this, Onikiri rested across his knees. Yomi-giri lay at his side. Banryū stood planted at his hand. The air within the cave, with the successive departures of Takeda Shingen and Oda Nobuna, returned to stillness.
Yet Yoshimoto still sat across from him. Her hair was loose. The flush on her face still hadn't fully receded. The white elephant crouched outside the cave entrance. Its six eyes were half-open, half-closed. Utterly silent. Like a golden door-god.
"Next, we also need to climb the mountain." Shinji rose to his feet.
"Wait." Yoshimoto also stood. The layered hems of her twelve-layered kimono dragged a broad swath across the ground. She didn't rush to follow as she had before. "This time… I'll go with you. From a different direction."
Shinji tilted his head and looked at her. He was rather surprised. Since when had this usually timid, cautious young daimyō possessed such boldness and courage? Had that white elephant given it to her?
To this, Yoshimoto lifted her chin. A pair of bright, luminous eyes met his directly. Not a flicker of evasion. "I just saw it. That Oda woman ran off to the east. Takeda took the west. So I'll take the south. You take the north. Four directions. Four separate forces. No matter how strong this mountain's barrier is, it can't suppress all four sides at full strength simultaneously."
She spoke with clear logic and keen observation. In the end, she was the daimyō of a province. Her strategic mind was bound to be exceptional. "I have the white elephant. It listens to me. You saw it yourself, Buddhist power has little effect on it. Charging up from the south, at the very least, I can help divert the pressure from one front." A student of Taigen Sessai had, indeed, learned something.
"And, I told you. This time, I can help you. I won't lose to that miko at your side!" The girl spoke with righteous conviction. Though her voice was somewhat lacking in confidence, she still said it.
Shinji looked at her. Within his crimson demon eyes, nothing was revealed. "You're certain?"
"Certain!" Yoshimoto glanced at the spirit-entity crouching outside the cave entrance, as though to bolster her own courage. The white elephant's six eyes, in response, slowly opened a sliver.
"Then it's settled. We'll regroup, at the summit!" As her words finished, she lifted the hem of her kimono and stepped barefoot onto the stone steps. She headed south without looking back, as though terrified she might regret it.
The white elephant rose. Its four feet trod upon the void. It followed behind her in silence. A young daimyō of sixteen or seventeen. Alone. Riding alone, if the white elephant could be considered a mount.
Walking toward the southern barrier of Mount Hakurei. She had said she was no longer a weakling. This time, she would prove it with her actions. It seemed that arrow from Kikyō had truly left a deep and lingering grudge. Three sentences, and not one strayed from the word miko.
Shinji was inwardly amused. He stood at the cave entrance and watched for two seconds. Then he turned and walked toward the northern stone steps. Yoshimoto's words were, in truth, not wrong.
East, Oda Nobuna, with Shibata Katsuie and Maeda Toshiie. Even suppressed, that was one Demon King and two military commanders. West, Takeda Shingen, leading three warrior maidens in a frontal assault. Though Fudō Myōō's divine-buddha power was suppressed by Buddhist force, the fist of the Tiger of Kai would not soften. South, Imagawa Yoshimoto, riding the white elephant in a direct advance. The final gift of Taigen Sessai clearing the path before her.
North, himself. Attacking from four directions. It could, to the greatest possible extent, disperse the pressure of Mount Hakurei's barrier. Saint Hakurei's flesh-buddha was, after all, no true buddha. His soul had never reached the Pure Land. No matter how vast his vow-power and hōriki, they were not truly infinite. With the weight of resentment pressing within his heart, in the end, it was not pure enough.
At the same moment.
The peak of Mount Hakurei. At the summit stood a temple. Corridors. Winding cloisters. A bell tower. A Buddha hall. A majestic cathedral, grown directly from the petrified flesh and bones of Saint Hakurei.
The beams and pillars were ribs. The roof ridge was a spine. The tiles were thin sheets of petrified skin, layered upon one another. The entire temple was the head and shoulders of Saint Hakurei.
The corridor was impossibly deep. Gazing inward from the entrance, its end vanished into the white mist. Along both sides were arrayed hundreds of small Buddha statues. Every single one faced the same direction. Toward the deepest part of the corridor.
'Tsuchimikado Kokoro' stood in the middle section of the corridor. Her white kariginu was worn over a deep black hitatare. The pentagram haori was draped across her shoulders. Her deep chestnut hair hung to her waist. Those eyes, which had once been a large, amber-like hue, now blazed with golden light.
Traces like a six-pointed star swirled within them. It was the mark of the Seiman, the pentagram created by Abe no Seimei. One could also call it the sigil of Nue. Her gaze, nearly transparent in the light of the white mist, stared straight ahead at the denser bank of fog at the corridor's end.
Within that fog was a silhouette. Gaunt. Hunched. A string of prayer beads clutched in its hand. The outline of a human form. Saint Hakurei.
"Venerable Saint." 'Kokoro' spoke. Yet her voice was not as clear and light as before. Instead, it was exceedingly deep and low. This was, without question, still not the voice of Tsuchimikado Kokoro herself. It was the will of Nue.
"It seems the Guardian Spirits of the principal daimyō of the Kantō have begun to converge. The Golden Lion. The Celestial-Eye Peacock. The Leopard-Tail God." She paused faintly. "Though two of them have been wounded by that yōkai, their cores are not shattered. They are still usable."
The silhouette within the mist did not stir. 'Kokoro' continued. Her pace was steady and even, as though reciting a text she had long since memorized by heart.
"The words our ancestor entrusted a messenger to bring from the underworld, you, venerable saint, should have heard them clearly by now. What was promised, is no empty pledge. As long as you gather these Guardian Spirits and plunder their Mandate of Heaven, for a considerable time, no hegemon will arise in the Kantō. The Imagawa. The Takeda. The Hōjō. The Uesugi. All of them will be stalled here. Unable to ignite large-scale war."
This was a lie. Without a hegemon, in this chaotic age, conflicts great and small would only multiply. But Saint Hakurei would not know this. The era in which he had lived was the Heian period. Though there had been famine, Heian-kyō had still been capable of suppressing the various factions.
He had been trapped within the mountain his own body had become for centuries. He would have no knowledge of what the outside world had become. Nor could he discern the lies of Nue.
After all, this was the dark face of the mightiest onmyōji who had ever lived. Across centuries. Across the entire history of this island realm. This, precisely, was Nue's objective. Chaos bred resentment. Resentment fed Kyōto. The more chaotic the situation, the better. Resentment above all.
The logic was identical to Kidōmaru's method of generating resentment for Hagoromo Gitsune. Only the means were different. Kidōmaru used yōkai to manufacture fear. Tsuchimikado Kokoro, or rather, the will of Nue, used an impossible peace and the "selfish desire" of Saint Hakurei himself to move him. To stir chaos into the Mandate of Heaven. To create a long, grinding quagmire of war.
"Throughout this process, venerable saint, you...." Her voice softened by half a measure. Yet it grew even more confident. "Lord Nue has said: after devouring a sufficient quantity of the Mandate of Heaven, your flesh-buddha can fully awaken. No longer a resentful spirit trapped within this mountain. But, alive once more." Rise from death. Return to life. Those words were never spoken aloud. But they had already reached him.
The fear Saint Hakurei had felt in the final moment of his life, the fear of death, had been seized and held fast.
At the far end of the corridor, the silhouette within the mist remained silent for a very, very long time. Centuries of Buddhist cultivation. Centuries of accumulated resentment. Centuries of suppressed fear.
And then, that gaunt, withered silhouette raised its hand. The prayer beads in its grasp turned soundlessly. Above the celestial dome, the coiling mist swirled and churned as though a vortex was taking shape.
Then, the phantom silhouettes of three Guardian Spirits slowly surfaced, then vanished. The wounded Golden Lion. The Celestial-Eye Peacock with its broken wing. The Leopard-Tail God with its severed tail.
They had, indeed, been drawn here by Saint Hakurei. And then, the silhouette of Saint Hakurei slowly faded into the white mist. Vanished. No answer. No promise. No words. But his action itself, was his answer.
'Tsuchimikado Kokoro' watched the direction in which he had disappeared. Within her amber eyes, there was no joy. No smugness. Only a brimming, fervent anticipation. "Let me see… just how far you can go."
.
.
.
.
Read 50 chapters advance on [email protected]/Lost_moon