The fragments of the shattered illusion still swirled wildly through the corridor when Shinji had already withdrawn his blade momentum.
The Bone Thunder Shura stood steady where it was. Saint Hakurei sat at the far end of the corridor. The turning of his prayer beads had ceased. His withered eyes were still open.
Within those clouded, white pupils, there was no rage. Only waiting. Waiting for his answer to continue. Yes, that single sentence, What does it have to do with me, had seemed, on its surface, a rejection of the question.
Yet it was, in itself, an answer. Saint Hakurei had heard it. And so, naturally, he would wait. For the answer that might, at last, come to this question over which he had agonized for centuries.
Shinji gazed at that gaunt, withered silhouette. He, too, understood, the other party truly yearned for his response. Saint Hakurei was not like Abe no Seimei, a being of two faces.
This high monk, who had saved countless souls in life, was, in every sense, a true sage. It was only a single, fleeting thought on the verge of death that had led him to this fallen state.
But in the original story, Kikyō had successfully persuaded Saint Hakurei. What had she said again? "A sage need not pursue perfection. Because a sage is also human. So-called right and wrong, are merely trivial matters. Simply do good deeds. Do not ask what lies ahead."
That was why the answer was What does it have to do with me? The general meaning was thus. But what a pity, he was not Kikyō.
Saint Hakurei's withered eyes watched him. There was no reaction. Only the prayer beads resumed their turning. Vow-power surged from the end of the corridor. Heavier than before.
It was clear, Saint Hakurei did not accept Shinji's "answer." Shinji clicked his tongue.
As expected. He did not possess Kikyō's power to move hearts. He did not possess the empathy of that miko, who had walked through the fires of the world in her original trajectory. He was a yōkai. A demon warrior. He did not have that ability.
Even if Kikyō herself had spoken those words now, in all likelihood, the result would have been the same. Rejection. Shinji would never, ever allow Kikyō to endure the kind of experiences that would have allowed her to persuade Saint Hakurei.
He had never believed in the so-called gift of suffering. Saint Hakurei, naturally, would not be swayed by this surface-level rhetoric from Shinji. Then there was only one road left. Fight.
The flesh-buddha was mighty. Even without having truly become a buddha, he was a monk of the bodhisattva and arhat level in this age. His vast vow-power, in both quality and quantity, was no lesser than that of a seasoned daiyōkai.
Yet he was, after all, not a combat specialist. This could be seen even in the original story. Saint Hakurei's strength was manifest in his barrier, in the vast hōriki that blanketed an entire mountain range. Not in battle. And that barrier only suppressed yōki. It was not necessarily impossible to fight!
Saint Hakurei raised his right hand. The prayer beads flew from his grasp and shattered midair into one hundred and eight individual beads. Every bead was wreathed in vow-power compressed to its absolute limit. They shot toward the Shura Form in a single, unified salvo.
Shinji swept Onikiri horizontally with his right arm. The blade-light of blood-fire detonated thirty of the beads head-on simultaneously. Golden light shattered within the dark crimson flames. The shockwave bled outward to either side, blasting two rows of fist-sized craters into the stone walls of the corridor.
The left arm slashed upward with Yomi-giri. The ghostly violet arc severed the twenty beads flanking from the side. But the remaining fifty-eight bypassed the twin blades entirely. They slammed into the Shura Form from behind, from above, from below, all at once.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
A continuous chain of explosions. The Shura Form's skeletal frame groaned and shrieked beneath the impact. Cracks spidered across its surface. Pain. But it didn't shatter.
Shinji gritted his teeth and steadied his stance. Banryū, gripped in the third arm, cleaved vertically downward. The pale greatsword smashed the final wave of beads back, ricocheting them into the Buddha statues lining the corridor. The stone images shattered in rapid succession.
Saint Hakurei's figure vanished. Not movement. True instantaneous teleportation. The flesh-buddha was one with the mountain. Within the range of his barrier, his position itself held no meaning. He was the mountain. Every part of the mountain was him.
In the next instant, Saint Hakurei appeared directly above the Shura Form. His withered hand pressed downward. The vow-power of the entirety of Mount Hakurei transformed into a single golden pillar of light. Its diameter covered the full width of the corridor. It descended from the heavens.
The Shura Form lifted its head. The six-meter Bone Thunder colossus faced that light head-on, a light capable of crushing any yōkai that had not yet achieved Phenomenon. The Sanskrit chanting surged. The tolling of bells grew ever more majestic.
Banryū was raised above its head. [Immovable Earth], gripping the blade, standing upon the earth. Absolute refusal to retreat. [Valor], strength doubled when gripping the blade. Beneath the dual Talents, accompanied by a deep, muffled roar, the flat of the pale greatsword caught the golden pillar of light.
BOOM.
The floor of the corridor shattered beneath the Shura Form's feet. Cracks spread wildly in every direction. The stone steps collapsed layer by layer. The Shura Form did not retreat but it trembled.
The skeletal frame emitted a dense cacophony of fracturing sounds beneath the crushing weight of the light pillar. The physique woven of thunder was compressed to its absolute limit. Violet-white arcs of lightning erupted violently from the gaps.
The cycle of the four viscera was nearly ground to a halt by the vow-power of that light. Heart-Fire was half-extinguished. Kidney-Water froze solid. Lung-Metal ground to a stop. Liver-Wood stiffened into rigidity.
The leakage at the missing gap skyrocketed. Fire sought to generate Earth. But there was no Earth to receive it. The energy of the four viscera gushed wildly from the broken circuit. The Shura Form was on the verge of collapse.
Saint Hakurei's second strike followed immediately after. His figure teleported once more, appearing directly before the Shura Form. His withered hand pressed against the Shura Form's chest. Vow-power poured in. Purification.
The centuries-old hōriki of the flesh-buddha attempted to unravel the yōki structure of the Shura Form from within. To reduce the Bone Thunder colossus to nothingness. The skeletal frame began to dissolve. The thunder that filled its gaps began to scatter and collapse.
The Shura Form's body was shrinking. Six meters. Five and a half. Five meters. This, this was Saint Hakurei's true strength within this merged world. The vow-power accumulated through a lifetime of good deeds, saving thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of souls.
The grudge-power born of centuries of resentment, wandering endlessly through the mountain after death. The two layered and intertwined. Vow and resentment. Resentment and vow. They had long since fused into one. Flesh-buddha. Living bodhisattva.
Even if he was no combat specialist, even if he was not trained in the subjugation of demons, he still held this level of fearsome power. Shinji, though his normal combat strength was no lesser than the Eleventh Transformation, and though fully unfurled he approached, or even matched, the threshold of the strongest beneath a daiyōkai, was still unable to truly contend against an existence like this. He was still far, far short.
But,
"Banryū." Shinji's voice rang out from within the Shura Form. Still calm. Unhurried. Unruffled. He asked a single question. "Do you want to shake a Buddha?"
The System panel flickered.
[Banryū: Affection +5. Current Affection: 55.]
Banryū hummed. It was responding. The blade of the pale greatsword trembled. A visible white light shimmered along its cutting edge. That was not yōki. Not faith. It was the weight of this very greatsword, forged through the Thousand-Demon Slaying, responding in kind.
This was a demon blade that had always borne the heaviest of burdens. Bankotsu had carved a path through a hundred men and a thousand demons, forging it from a mundane blade into a demon artifact.
After Shinji had completely reforged it, stripping away all that was old, the weight it now bore was even greater. He had carried it up this mountain. He had pressed forward relentlessly against the crushing force of Buddhist power. He had shattered half the Buddhas upon this mountainside.
Now, before him stood a flesh-buddha of centuries. The hōriki of an entire mountain condensed into a single palm.
The weak against the strong. A demon shaking a buddha. Shaking a mountain is easy. Shaking a buddha... is hard. And yet, this was precisely what Banryū loved. It was a brute. A greatsword forged through the Thousand-Demon Slaying. It was born to rise against insurmountable odds.
Shinji had known this all along. In truth, even if Saint Hakurei had not appeared, he had already planned to seek out a mountain to bear. To apply pressure to this greatsword that craved pressure. Saint Hakurei's arrival could not have been more opportune. And it aligned perfectly with what Shinji had envisioned.
Thus, the roar continued. The pressure multiplied. The System panel continued to flicker.
[Banryū: Affection +8. Current Affection: 63.]
[Banryū: Affection +11. Current Affection: 74.]
[Banryū: Affection +13. Current Affection: 87.]
So fast. Approaching the threshold. Faster than anything beyond the norm. Amidst this, the Shura Form still shrank beneath the purification of the vow-power. Five meters. Four and a half.
Saint Hakurei's purifying vow-power continued to pour in. The dissolution of the skeletal frame was accelerating. But Banryū's resonant hum was also intensifying.
The white light upon the blade spread from the cutting edge to the blade's spine. From the spine to the hilt. From the hilt to the Shura Form's third arm. And then, along that third arm, it poured directly into the Shura Form's thoracic cavity.
It poured into that cycle, where four viscera operated, yet a single link was missing. Fire generated Earth. Earth, had finally arrived. A force of pale white, of absurd, crushing weight, erupted from the blade-soul of Banryū and flooded into the very center of the Shura Form's chest.
Beneath Heart-Fire. Above Kidney-Water. To the left of Lung-Metal. To the right of Liver-Wood. That was the Spleen. The Spleen belonging to Earth.
The System panel flickered for the final time.
[Banryū: Affection +13. Current Affection: 100.]
[Third Talent Unlocked — Earth Dragon: The earth beneath the wielder's feet obeys his will within a certain range. He may manipulate soil and stone, alter terrain, and condense the power of the earth for offense and defense.]
[Banryū has reached Max Affection. Fuse?]
Fuse. Not a shred of hesitation. No time to even consider it. Pale white light erupted from Banryū's blade. The form of the greatsword did not vanish. The vessel of max Affection still remained.
But the will of Weight contained within it, the power of the earth accumulated through the Thousand-Demon Slaying over centuries, poured into Shinji's body. The Earth Dragon Transformation fused into his spine and bones, becoming the great transformation of Dragon-Stone Bone-Essence.
Then... reforged. Overflowed. Projected. Reaching into the thoracic cavity forged by the Ninth Transformation's Shura projection. Beneath Heart-Fire. The pale white light condensed into form. Heavy. Solid. Like a boulder. Like the root of a mountain. The Shura-Spleen. The Five Viscera. Complete.
In that instant, Fire generated Earth. Earth generated Metal. Metal generated Water. Water generated Wood. Wood generated Fire. The Five Elements connected head to tail. The cycle closed. The leakage vanished.
At that moment, the Shura Form ceased its contraction. The four-and-a-half-meter Bone Thunder colossus, beneath the infusion of the Five Elements cycle, swelled outward once more. Five meters. Five and a half. Six meters. Surpassing its original upper limit. Seven meters.
The withered hand Saint Hakurei had pressed against the Shura Form's chest was rebounded. The purifying vow-power met the fully operational Five Elements cycle. Like water crashing against a spinning millstone, it was shredded to pieces.
Within those withered eyes, at last, a fluctuation surfaced. Shock. Shock that the yōkai before him had achieved the completion of the Five Viscera. Heart-Fire pulsed. Kidney-Water settled. Lung-Metal purified. Liver-Wood unfurled. Spleen-Earth anchored the center.
The Five Elements cycle turned soundlessly within the Shura Form's chest. No more leakage. No more fractures. As though five rivers had, at last, converged into a single sea. No. It should be said, five rivers had converged into one vast, boundless ocean.
On this day, the Tenth Transformation of demons was achieved.
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