Chapter 97: Transformation Box Filled With Soul Ash
Shangshan Che took out the doll that looked dumb and dazed.
Immediately after, following the extremely faint sound of thread snapping, a familiar scent of white musk mixed with tobacco mint lingered around Shangshan Che’s nose.
—Sister Nanjo?!
Shangshan Che’s heart jolted violently. Before he could understand what change had happened to the doll, that viscous and warm darkness had already merged into his shadow.
Then, no distinction between them.
In an instant, Shangshan Che felt himself being tightly embraced from behind, and a soft voice like an auditory hallucination rang in his ear:
“You hang me at the room door every day to guard against that kind of monster, and it’s been so long but you still haven’t remembered. Sister gets very lonely and heartbroken alone…”
He looked at the doll in his hand again and discovered that a finger-width slit had shockingly cracked open on its forehead.
Shangshan Che remembered the effect description of the Nanjo Doll—
【After use, “Nanjo Emi” will immediately appear behind you.】
That voice line almost identical to Nanjo Emi, yet even more charming and gentle, drilled into Shangshan Che’s ear again:
“Don’t worry, I’m behind you.”
—In the gap between the buildings, the Nue that had been watching the three people under the streetlamp let out a puzzled hum.
“Why do I suddenly feel uneasy.”
It kept moving between tricky positions, relying on its powerful recovery power to squeeze bullets out of its muscles, then stopping the bleeding and healing the slashed wounds.
“Tch, whatever.”
Nue thought indifferently in its mind: “Living beings can die, but the transformation box must be retrieved. I can just use these few people and that one-star shikigami to fill the gap in soul ash for tonight.”
Otherwise…
Nue’s body suddenly shivered.
If it failed to hand over enough soul ash by the deadline, no matter where it fled, it would absolutely be found and captured by the overlords, to serve as a warning to others.
It had already witnessed such tragic consequences once.
And after that “tide” arrived, the first to be purged would definitely be lone demons like it without any backing.
Nue gnashed its copper teeth and iron fangs: “So this token of allegiance to the Demon Guide Association must be delivered beautifully, perfectly…”
Shangshan Che silently tucked the doll back into his pocket, pretending as if nothing had happened, with no response to the confusion of the two beside him.
He gripped Kaga Kiyomitsu tightly and suddenly lifted his gaze—
It’s coming!
At the boundary between the dim light and darkness, Nue charged on all fours, pouncing at extreme speed like skimming the ground in flight.
A foul wind howled. Shangshan Che could tell from that gaze full of killing intent that the target’s goal was himself!
Its claws scraped sparks from the cement ground in a series. One moment Nue was running in the middle of the road, the next it had already arrived before Shangshan Che with an unmatched gale.
Shangshan Che merely held the sword, his pupils slightly contracting, seemingly not yet reacting to Nue’s terrifying speed.
A triumphant grin had already appeared on Nue’s ferocious ape-monkey face.
It thrust out its claws from above and below simultaneously along with its long tail—apart from the inexplicable three slashes from that girl earlier, there was no other way to prevent this.
From this hair’s-breadth instant, the shadow at Shangshan Che’s feet surged wildly, roiling like boiling water.
Dozens of viscous shadow hands shot up, firmly wrapping and locking the key joints of Nue’s body, forcing its iron-cutting claws to stiffen rigidly one centimeter before Shangshan Che’s pupils.
But this one centimeter was like an insurmountable chasm!
Nue, forcibly pinned in midair, continuously increased the output power of its body, its tiger-like robust limbs struggling and tearing with difficulty.
Shadow hands were constantly torn off and crushed, but more and more shadow hands emerged from the spreading darkness.
Nue only felt its entire body being locked tighter and tighter.
The shadows swelled and boiled, like an invisible giant hand throttling Nue’s neck, leaving it unable to breathe.
A trace of fear finally appeared on that ferocious ape face: “Damn it! What the hell did you do!?”
Shangshan Che had no intention of talking to a dead man… no, a dead demon.
He merely swung the sword silently.
Kaga Kiyomitsu’s blade reflected that twitching ferocious ape face.
In the instant the blade fell, Shangshan Che replaced “Ghost God（Weak）” with “Greed, Anger, Ignorance（Weak）”.
Thus, Kaga Kiyomitsu tore through half of Nue’s body like slicing an empty skin sack—
The crisp impact of the blade against the ground echoed. Shangshan Che could clearly feel that the hand feel of the latter half of this slash was completely different.
Just before the moment of cleaving into the heart and lungs, the slight resistance that had been felt vanished entirely.
Slashed empty again?
Shangshan Che looked up—amidst dozens or hundreds of shadow hands, only a bloody skin sack remained grasped.
The real Nue had already fled into the darkness dragging a trail of blood, desperately escaping to the distance using the suddenly rising wind.
“It ran away, huh.”
A long sigh echoed in the empty alley, making Shizuma Mafuyu, half-lying on the ground, turn her head in startled doubt.
Then, she saw the roiling shadows at Shangshan Che’s feet gradually subside, the dazzling array of shadow hands converging in the same direction, finally shaping into that person she absolutely wouldn’t mistake.
“—Lord Nanjo!?”
No, not right.
Shizuma Mafuyu immediately reacted. The Nanjo Emi she knew wouldn’t show such a smile as if to devour someone, nor such an eerie temperament.
Before Shangshan Che, that pitch-black “Nanjo Emi” cast her gaze at her and smiled knowingly: “It’s that little sidekick, huh.”
Then she turned her eyes, looking down at Shangshan Che, gently lifting his chin with her hand: “Give the order. Let me go catch that reckless demon.”
Shangshan Che gently brushed away that warm shadow hand and asked: “Can you do it?”
“Nanjo Emi” revealed a wicked smile: “With ease.”
Shangshan Che stared at the top of her head for a while: “What’s your name.”
“Shadow Woman is fine.” The Shadow Woman stepped on Shangshan Che’s shadow. “Or, you can treat me as a substitute for Emi.”
—【Shadow Woman（Remnant）（Two-and-a-Half Star）】
Sister Nanjo’s shikigami was surprisingly powerful. The Shadow Woman, who had only partially manifested before him, had already reached two-and-a-half star strength.
“Then, Miss Shadow Woman.”
Shangshan Che said to her: “Could you trouble yourself to watch over Lili Zi and Ms. Shizuma here?”
The Shadow Woman discontentedly pressed his shoulder with her hand, asking back in an unfriendly tone: “What about that demon? Just let it run away like this? I won’t be able to explain to Emi.”
“I’ll go kill it.”
Shangshan Che waved his hand and summoned Two-Foot Adult: “Curse applied?”
Two-Foot Adult nodded: “Target is moving rapidly.”
After speaking, Shangshan Che could clearly feel the Shadow Woman’s gaze roaming over his face, finally hearing her light chuckle,
“Kid, if you die, sister won’t take responsibility, okay.”
With that, the Shadow Woman lifted her toes from Shangshan Che’s shadow, making his body suddenly feel lighter.
The Shadow Woman’s body dissolved once more, separately merging into Lili Zi’s and Shizuma Mafuyu’s shadows.
“Go on, I’ve got this place.”
Shangshan Che nodded silently and led Two-Foot Adult away from Lili Zi’s sight in an instant.
Once Shangshan Che was far away, Lili Zi asked faintly: “With your power, you clearly didn’t need to consult his opinion. Why let him take the risk?”
The shadows roiled, and an eerie, cold voice emerged: “Shikigami obey their master’s commands, even if he’s only my temporary master. Is that strange?”
“Miss Shadow Woman, lying isn’t fun.” Lili Zi closed her eyes.
The shadows paused for an instant, then emitted an intrigued tone.
“Eyesight like Kamizumi’s, huh. Interesting.”
…
The reason Shangshan Che chose to chase and kill Nue alone was simple.
—Let me hog all the experience!
If he let the Shadow Woman chase the fleeing Nue in the dead of night, the success rate would naturally be extremely high, but then the soul ash box full of soul ash wouldn’t fall into his hands.
On the dim street, Two-Foot Adult, held by Shangshan Che, reminded him: “Che Adult, the target stopped two minutes ago, on the fifth floor of the third residential building to the left front.”
Shangshan Che, who had already transformed into Hannya, scanned the surroundings. He discovered this street was unexpectedly quiet, with not a single household light on at night.
Just like earlier, even though Shizuma Mafuyu’s gunshots had carried far, no residents around had woken up.
Harvested by living beings holding soul ash boxes as well, huh.
Nue’s bloody scent was unusually thick in the air in all directions, seemingly deliberately spread, making it impossible to judge the escape direction by smell.
Unfortunately, this trick was useless against Two-Foot Adult, who could precisely locate from afar.
“Alright then, strike while it’s vulnerable.”
Putting away Two-Foot Adult, Shangshan Che darted like a ghost through the dense apartment buildings, arriving at the fifth floor of the mentioned apartment building in seconds.
But when Shangshan Che clung to the wall, he was stunned to discover that one room on the fifth floor actually had its lights on.
He peeked from the side without curtains and saw that even at three or four in the morning, the boy wearing a hood at the desk was still diligently studying hunched over.
Judging by the problems, it seemed like solving a system of linear quadratic equations.
“When did junior high kids get this intense…”
Shangshan Che grumbled inwardly, about to check the other rooms, when he suddenly felt a sense of incongruity.
He remembered the equations on that boy’s workbook.
—Because it was clearly a problem for solving a system of linear quadratic equations, but the boy was writing all sorts of sine and cosine trigonometric function equations!
Something’s off. Look again.
Shangshan Che peeked again, confirming his suspicion—not only was the problem-solving completely mismatched, the boy was now frantically writing “sos” on the workbook.
He narrowed his eyes and scanned the visible area outside the window, finding no other anomalies, not even a speck of blood.
But the window and room door were tightly closed and locked, with curtains covering a small half…
So what was with those workbook edges trembling nonstop in the wind?
Shangshan Che already understood in his heart.
He clung to the apartment building wall, nearly soundlessly taking a deep breath.
Then, like a cannonball, he smashed into the boy’s room.
Amidst the shattering glass fragments flying everywhere, the cold Hannya locked eyes with the bloody ferocious ape gasping with difficulty against the wall corner.
“To think they only sent a mere one-star Hannya to chase me.” Nue couldn’t stop cold laughing. “Really looking down on me, huh.”
“Shut up, dead demon.”
Shangshan Che first took Nue’s weakened claw head-on with his body, then grabbed the boy’s collar and hurled him viciously out the door,
“Get out of here, kid!”
The boy screamed and crashed through the thin wooden door, rolling into the living room. Shangshan Che, feeling his physique surge from the injury, revealed a sinister smile,
“That’s it?”
Nue was about to smash through the wall behind to continue escaping, but saw the sword at the Hannya’s waist.
—Vermilion scabbard!
This was the onmyoji who had summoned those shadow hands earlier, not a shikigami Hannya sent to chase it!
Nue instantly revealed an extremely savage expression. It knew it had no way out; perhaps those eerie shadow hands were waiting for it to flee in panic and then strangle it from the darkness.
The only way to survive was to kill the onmyoji disguised as Hannya in an extremely short time!
Its life or death would be decided in the next few seconds!
Realizing this, Nue let out a roar far more ferocious than a lion or tiger, charging forward with its exposed flesh and blood.
Claws whistled from left and right, tearing the bedboards along the way into flying debris, while that slender snake tail had somehow circled behind Shangshan Che, thrusting straight toward his heart.
Nue’s unhealed bones, flesh, and wounds all split open from the sudden exertion, spraying blood outward with a sizzle—this scene was as grotesque as it could get.
And in this narrow room of merely a dozen square meters cluttered with miscellaneous items, even Kaga Kiyomitsu in Shangshan Che’s hand seemed a bit too long.
This fatal triple strike was almost impossible to block.
“Come on!”
But Shangshan Che roared, his 270° field of view taking in all of Nue’s small movements.
Since the opponent had gone all-in from the start, he had no need to hold back.
The suppressed and accumulated Corona Qi in his body erupted with a bang, instantly raising the temperature of the air in the narrow room by several degrees.
Corona Breathing Technique, Fifth Form!
Shangshan Che at near-divine speed used the hilt to knock away one of Nue’s claws, then using the huge recoil flipped the blade, slicing the other incoming claw as if cutting paper.
Natural Reason School · Tiger Tail Sword!
Scalding blood spraying from Nue’s arm obscured Shangshan Che’s vision.
In the next instant, that bloody ferocious ape maw had already shattered the blood curtain, sealing Shangshan Che’s mouth and nose with a violent foul wind, causing his breathing technique to stutter.
“Good!”
From the void, faint lightning struck, making the assaulting snake tail pause as well.
Shangshan Che shifted his body accordingly, letting the razor-sharp tail tip pass under his armpit, taking only a harmless patch of skin.
But the ferocious ape maw was already upon him, its fangs about to clamp his throat!
“Want to eat? I’ll feed you plenty!”
Hannya grinned ferociously and, at this most critical moment, released Kaga Kiyomitsu from his hand.
Then, he brutally shoved his left arm straight into Nue’s mouth.
All the way, straight to the core!
Empowered by Greed, Anger, Ignorance, Shangshan Che’s arm was like a red-hot branding iron, shattering most of Nue’s teeth in moments and effortlessly dissolving its internal flesh and blood.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!”
Sensing the situation inside its body, Nue grew even more terrified and furious, its claws leaving deep and shallow blood marks all over Shangshan Che.
Some wounds were even bone-deep, yet this onmyoji showed not a shred of human emotional fluctuation!
The more terrified it got, the more damage it inflicted on Shangshan Che, the hotter and stronger that arm nearly pulverizing its neck became!
“You’re not human… damn it! What grudge does your Hannya have against me!” Nue’s struggles began to weaken.
Its throat was completely burned through and unable to vocalize, only using wind manipulation to produce faint vibrations: “We’re both demons, why help those humans…”
Shangshan Che, witnessing his physique break through the 60 mark, didn’t reply. He simply picked up Kaga Kiyomitsu nearby and asked, looking down: “Last words?”
Staring into those emotionless black pupils, Nue finally felt heartfelt fear.
The way this Hannya looked at it was completely like appraising an object, not an enemy or kin.
It had clearly felt such eyes before, kneeling under that round table.
“You are… you’re one of the Demon Guide Association’s overlords…” Nue let out a miserable, muffled laugh. “I couldn’t even accomplish something this simple… really…”
Slash.
Kaga Kiyomitsu swung down, completely severing Nue’s slender neck.
“Too wordy.”
Shangshan Che yanked out his left arm, pitted and corroded by stomach acid. Seeing its grotesque state, his mouth twitched involuntarily. He poured the last drop of Awakening Spirit Mist into his mouth.
Demon Guide Association, overlords…
What organization or influence was this in the Eternal World?
Tch, this world is getting messier. Once the tide rises, all manner of ox demons and snake spirits crawl out from dark corners.
Shangshan Che glanced at the boy he’d thrown into the living room. Confirming the boy had called an ambulance and was in no immediate life danger, he picked up Nue’s corpse and left.
Feeling his injuries gradually improving, Shangshan Che first found an empty alley, took a deep breath, and opened the prompt.
—Let the Demon Guide Association or whatever go to hell first!
【You killed the severely injured two-and-a-half star demon “Nue” and obtained 262 soul ash!】
【You used Kaga Kiyomitsu · Imitation to slay “Nue”. Kaga Kiyomitsu · Imitation’s quality has slightly improved.】
【Your skill, Corona Breathing Technique proficiency +107!】
【Your skill, Natural Reason School proficiency +92!】
【You obtained Nue’s Heart!】
【You obtained Soul Ash Conversion Box full of soul ash（Special Item）!】
This is it!
Shangshan Che immediately took out this soul ash conversion box, feeling a heavier weight in his hand than before.
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