Chapter 233: Nue: Petitioning the Underworld to Resurrect Master Hakushin
Once Shibata Katsuie—the reincarnated Regalia bound to a deity's incarnation—finally breached the fifty-point threshold in favorability, the system's introduction to her second granted talent proved surprisingly straightforward.
According to the Dragon of Echigo, Uesugi Kenshin, the true essence of most Regalia was fundamentally rooted in the souls of the deceased.
These were lingering spirits. Souls anchoring themselves to the mortal realm through sheer obsession, refusing the descent into hell. Chosen by the gods, they were bestowed a 'Name,'elevating them into divine instruments. The Name acted as the'Instruction'—a celestial brand forging the contract, tethering the spirit to a human shape. Conversely, the Treasure was the 'Sound'—the physical manifestation assumed during combat. Whether a gleaming blade, a binding rope, or a sweeping fan, a god wielding this Treasure could channel their divine authority through it.
Yet, Katsuie belonged to an entirely different, highly irregular classification. She was not a wandering soul plucked from the afterlife. She had been born with a 'Name' already inscribed upon her soul, serving as a heavenly Regalia long before her current reincarnation. From her very first breath in this world, she was inherently bound to a specific deity's incarnation.
The caveat? She was trapped in flesh and blood. Stripped of the ability to morph into a weapon, she could only march onto the battlefield as a mortal warrior. Consequently, the faith-fueled power she could draw upon was fractured, incomplete.
Sitting in the dim cavern, Hikaru analyzed the deeper mechanics beneath Katsuie's fragmented state. The first talent was designated as 'Curse.'In truth, it was a binding contract. It represented the absolute channel forged through'Naming'—the god grants a name, and the Regalia surrenders its entire existence to serve. When the Regalia transforms and rests in the god's grip, this conduit bursts wide open. The deity funnels faith into divine power through the weapon, while the Regalia relies on the bestowed name to shield its consciousness from the world's corrosive Turbid Qi.
Having assimilated this talent, Hikaru realized a deep truth. If he could somehow acquire Katsuie's true Regalia form, he could unleash a myriad of 'Arts' fueled by faith. The system's interface flickered in his mind.
`[Incantation Talent Unlocked: Parallel integration of 'Curse'and'Art' detected.]`
Nullifying supernatural forces was merely a surface-level application of a human-form Regalia. Given the system's lenient parameters—dictating that he didn't need to physically grasp a transformed object, only command it to establish 'possession'—the potential was staggering. Even if he lacked the means to use these twin talents immediately, they were vital assets to study for the future.
Hikaru dismissed the glowing interface from his vision. The translucent blue squares dissolved into the cavern's gloom.
He sat in silence. The demonic blade Onikiri rested heavily across his armored knees. Yomikiri leaned faithfully at his hip, while the massive halberd Banryu stood planted firmly by his right hand.
The cavern had grown suffocatingly quiet following the abrupt departures of Takeda Shingen and Oda Nobuna. Yet, Imagawa Yoshimoto remained. The young female daimyo sat opposite him, her usually immaculate hair slightly disheveled. A faint, lingering flush painted her cheeks, a stark contrast to the damp, chilling air of the cave. Outside the rocky entrance, her massive white elephant crouched in the dirt. Its six golden eyes were half-lidded, radiating a serene, immovable aura like a temple guardian carved from ivory.
"Time to move. We're climbing the mountain," Hikaru stated, his voice flat. He rose to his feet, armor clinking softly in the shadows.
"Wait." Yoshimoto scrambled up. The heavy, layered silk of her Junihitoe dragged across the rough stone floor, pooling around her in a vibrant sea of fabric. Instead of immediately scurrying behind him like a frightened shadow, she held her ground. "This time... I am taking a different path."
Hikaru paused, tilting his head. His Crimson Demon Eyes locked onto her. He felt a flicker of genuine surprise. When had this notoriously timid, overly cautious girl managed to scrape together a spine? Was the six-eyed elephant outside bolstering her nerve?
Meeting his crimson gaze, Yoshimoto actually raised her chin. Her bright eyes held steady, refusing to dart away in panic. "I saw that Oda brute charge off to the east, and the Takeda forces took the west. Therefore, I will take the south. You take the north." She took a steadying breath. "Four directions. Four separate assaults. No matter how absolute the Barrier of this mountain claims to be, it cannot suppress all four fronts simultaneously with maximum force."
Her logic was flawless. Beneath her pampered exterior, she was still the daimyo of a province. Her strategic foundation was solid.
"I have the white elephant, and it obeys my commands," she continued, gesturing toward the massive beast outside. "Master Taigen Sessai left it to me. You saw it yourself—the Buddha Power on this mountain barely affects it. If I lead a charge up the southern slope, I can at least draw some of the pressure away from you."
She had indeed absorbed the teachings of her late master.
"Besides," she added, her voice pitching up slightly, "I told you I would be useful this time. I absolutely refuse to lose to that... that priestess of yours!" The young ruler spoke with forced conviction. Her bravado wavered slightly at the edges, but the intent was ironclad.
Hikaru stared at her in deadpan silence. His demonic eyes betrayed zero emotion. "Are you certain?"
Yoshimoto cast a nervous glance at the spirit beast outside, silently pleading for backup. In response, the white elephant slowly opened its six golden eyes, fixing a heavy, ancient gaze upon the cavern. "That settles it," she declared, puffing out her chest. "Let us meet at the summit!"
Without waiting for a rebuttal, she hoisted the heavy hem of her kimono, exposing her bare feet to the cold stone steps. She marched southward, her back rigid, refusing to look over her shoulder lest her newfound courage evaporate. The massive white elephant rose, its four thick legs treading silently upon the air itself, and followed its master into the mist.
Hikaru watched the sixteen-year-old ruler vanish into the fog. Alone, with only a spectral mount for company, she was marching straight into the southern Barrier of Mount Hakurei. She had sworn she was no longer weak. Now, she was putting her life on the line to prove it.
'She really hasn't let go of that arrow Kikyo shot at her,'Hikaru mused dryly.'Every third sentence out of her mouth loops back to the priestess.'
A faint, almost imperceptible amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. He stood at the cave entrance for two more seconds, then pivoted sharply, his heavy boots crunching against the northern stone steps.
Yoshimoto's tactical assessment was entirely accurate. To the east, Nobuna was tearing up the path alongside Katsuie and Maeda Toshiie—a Demon King flanked by two elite warriors. To the west, Shingen was leading a brutal assault with her three Hime-mushas. Even if the mountain's Buddha Power suppressed her Fudo Myo-o divine energy, the Tiger of Kai's raw physical strength would shatter boulders. To the south, Yoshimoto was advancing with Taigen Sessai's legacy clearing the oppressive fog. And to the north, there was him.
A four-pronged siege was the optimal strategy to fracture the Mount Hakurei Barrier. Master Hakushin's flesh-and-blood Buddha was formidable, but he was not a true deity. His soul had never ascended to the Pure Land. No matter how much Vow Power or magical energy he had hoarded within these rocks, his reserves were finite. Weighed down by centuries of festering resentment, his power lacked the infinite purity of true enlightenment.
Meanwhile, at the absolute summit of Mount Hakurei, a grotesque temple loomed through the dense fog.
Long corridors, winding cloisters, towering bell pavilions, and grand Buddha halls formed a magnificent monastery. Yet, this architecture had not been built; it had organically 'grown' directly from Master Hakushin's petrified flesh and bones. The massive load-bearing pillars were calcified ribs. The sweeping roof ridges were fused vertebrae. The overlapping roof tiles were thin, hardened sheets of petrified skin. The entire sprawling complex was, in reality, the mummified head and shoulders of Master Hakushin.
The central corridor stretched impossibly deep. From the entrance, the far end was swallowed by a thick, suffocating white mist. Hundreds of miniature Buddha statues lined both sides of the walkway, their blank stone eyes all staring uniformly toward the deepest, darkest recess of the hall.
Tsuchimikado Koketsu stood motionless in the center of the corridor. She wore a deep black hitatare beneath a pristine white kariginu, a haori embroidered with a pentagram draped casually over her shoulders. Her dark chestnut hair cascaded down to her waist. However, her naturally amber eyes now burned with a sinister golden radiance. Hexagram-like geometric traces continuously rotated within her pupils—the manifestation of the Kikyo Seal forged by Abe no Seimei. It was the obvious mark of 'Nue'.
Her glowing gaze pierced the white mist, locking onto a denser cluster of fog at the very end of the hall. A silhouette lurked within. A gaunt, severely hunched human figure, slowly thumbing a string of prayer beads.
Master Hakushin.
"Master," Koketsu spoke. The voice that echoed down the bone-ribbed corridor was no longer the clear, crisp tone of the young Onmyoji. It was impossibly deep, layered with ancient malice. It was the will of Nue.
"It appears the Guardian Spirits of the major Kanto daimyo have begun to converge—the Vajra Lion, the Heavenly Eye Peacock, and the Hyōbi-shin." She paused, her golden eyes narrowing. "Although two of them suffered damage from that undead monster, their spiritual cores remain intact. They are still perfectly usable."
The hunched silhouette in the mist remained perfectly still. The clicking of the prayer beads did not falter.
Koketsu continued, her cadence smooth and rhythmic, as if reciting a carefully rehearsed scripture. "The message my ancestor had delivered from the underworld... you should have heard it clearly, Master. That promise was not empty air. So long as you gather these Guardian Spirits and plunder their Mandate of Heaven, no hegemon will rise in the Kanto region for the foreseeable future. The Imagawa, the Takeda, the Hojo, and the Uesugi—they will all stagnate. They will be entirely incapable of launching large-scale warfare."
It was a blatant lie.
Without a unifying hegemon in this chaotic era, petty friction and border skirmishes would only multiply, drowning the land in endless bloodshed. But Master Hakushin had no way of knowing this. He was a relic of the Heian period. Back then, despite rampant famines, the authority of Heian-kyo was absolute enough to suppress regional warlords. Having been entombed within his own mountain for centuries, the mummy monk was completely blind to the current state of the outside world. He was even less equipped to see through Nue's deception.
After all, he was conversing with the dark manifestation of the greatest Onmyoji in Japanese history.
This was precisely Nue's grand design. Chaotic warfare bred resentment. Resentment fueled the dark leylines flowing into Kyoto. The more fractured and blood-soaked the land became, the better. Resentment was the ultimate currency.
It was the exact same methodology Kidomaru employed to harvest resentment for Hagoromo Gitsune. Only the execution differed. Kidomaru used monstrous Yokai to harvest raw terror. Tsuchimikado Koketsu—or rather, Nue—weaponized an impossible promise of peace. By manipulating Master Hakushin's lingering 'selfish desires,' Nue was goading the monk into shattering the Mandate of Heaven, plunging the realm into a permanent, inescapable quagmire of war.
"And throughout this process, Master..." Her deep voice softened, dripping with venomous confidence. "Lord Nue has decreed that once you have consumed enough of the Mandate of Heaven, your flesh-and-blood Buddha form will achieve full awakening. You will no longer be a vengeful spirit shackled to this mountain. You will return to life."
Resurrection.
The word hung heavily in the damp air. It wasn't spoken aloud, but the implication struck with the force of a hammer. Nue had perfectly grasped the singular terror that had broken Master Hakushin in his final mortal moments—the absolute, paralyzing fear of death.
At the end of the bone-white corridor, the silhouette fell completely silent. He had practiced austere Buddhism for centuries. He had accumulated a mountain of resentment for centuries. He had suppressed his own cowardice for centuries.
Slowly, the gaunt figure raised a skeletal hand. The wooden prayer beads clicked methodically.
High above the temple's petrified roof, the mist began to violently churn. A massive vortex tore through the sky. Within the swirling gray clouds, the phantom projections of three Guardian Spirits flickered into existence—the bleeding Vajra Lion, the crippled Heavenly Eye Peacock, and the severed Hyōbi-shin. They had been forcefully dragged to the summit by Master Hakushin's will.
Without a word, Master Hakushin's silhouette dissolved back into the impenetrable white mist.
He offered no verbal answer. He made no formal vow. But his actions spoke volumes.
Koketsu stared into the empty fog. Her glowing amber eyes displayed no overt joy, no arrogant triumph. There was only cold, calculating anticipation.
"Let us see just how far you can go."
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