"This is… Tenseiga!"
Ayaka's fingers tightened around the black blade as understanding dawned. "Of course. With this, I can defeat the Fire Oni King."
The sword could not cut the living at all.
Against spirits, though, its bite was beyond imagining—and after Su Han's refinements, its power had only grown more terrible.
"Elysium sits in the deepest layer of Fengdu," Su Han said. "An underworld inside the underworld. Everyone there is a ghost."
He met Ayaka's eyes, voice turning harder.
"This time, you're not just to defeat the Fire Oni King," he told her. "Kill her completely. And every spirit you meet on the way—cut them down. Don't leave a single one."
Ayaka froze. "All of them?" she asked quietly. "Is there… a reason?"
Even if they belonged to another world, slaughtering every soul she met felt brutally excessive.
"Makoto still hasn't woken," Su Han said. "Her remnant needs soul power to recover.
"So choose. Is it better to cull that world's dead… or to reap from ours?
"If the former Electro Archon returns sooner, Inazuma changes sooner too."
Ayaka stood in silence for a long breath.
Then she set both hands on Tenseiga's hilt and bowed her head.
"I will complete this mission with my life," she said. "Please rest easy."
If it would change Inazuma's fate, then even becoming a butcher would be a burden she accepted.
For her homeland, she was willing to be the villain in someone else's story.
Yae Miko smiled at the severity in her face. "You really are a silly crane," she said lightly. "You didn't even hear the second layer in his words.
"Those souls? Even if you spare them, a demon will come later and kill them anyway.
"Every spirit in Elysium is wicked. Killing them is hardly an injustice."
"…Ah?"
Only then did Ayaka realize she had been maneuvered. Her expression went blank for a heartbeat, then flustered.
Su Han reached out and squeezed her cheek. "Go," he said. "The timer's running."
"O-okay… I'm going."
Face burning, Ayaka accepted the mission. Her form thinned, turned translucent, and faded from Narukami Shrine.
Yae glanced sideways at Su Han. "Those spirits really will all be slaughtered later?" she asked.
"Yes," he said without hesitation. "A thing called the Evil Sword Immortal will come through here one day. It will devour every soul in this layer except the Fire Oni King.
"We're just giving them an earlier release.
"If we left them, they'd die anyway."
He felt no guilt at all.
It was another world.
Its ultimate fate had little to do with him.
If killing Xu Changqing himself would earn him a reward, he would have sent Ayaka after the Daoist too.
Right now, his focus was simple: stabilize Inazuma, safeguard his own position, and keep growing stronger.
Everything else was, at best, a means to those ends.
…
The air of Fengdu tasted like rust and cold ash.
Ayaka stepped out of the teleportation's afterglow with Tenseiga in hand, and the underworld noticed her at once.
"Human," a hoarse voice rasped.
"Ha… a human, here."
"Eat her."
"Human flesh is sweetest."
Wind that had never passed over a living sea scraped through the bones of the place. Dozens of spirits drifted closer, drawn by the warmth of her pulse.
Tenseiga slid free of its sheath with a soft, ringing note.
Silence crashed down in its wake.
Every ghost present stared at the black blade, at the quiet light building along its edge, and began to tremble without knowing why.
"Kamisato Art: Mist-Cutting."
Light traced the air.
More than a dozen sword-strikes fell in a single breath.
Every wraith in front of her came apart at the seams; their souls unraveled into flakes of pale light and were pulled, irresistibly, into Tenseiga's hungry steel.
Ayaka did not look back.
She walked deeper.
Anything that reached for her died.
Her steps were as soft as falling snow; behind her, frost bloomed for a heartbeat on disintegrating soul-stuff and then blew away.
Only when she reached the very edge of Fengdu's lowest tier did she feel the heat.
The air turned heavy and hot, the kind of heat that crushed breath out of lungs and dulled thought.
"This must be Elysium," she murmured. "It's so hot… My ice will be weakened.
"So this will come down to the sword."
She adjusted her stance, plotted out how to move.
Then she stepped onto her blade, let it lift her over the churning bands of fire, and crossed into a land dyed red.
It wasn't just she who felt the oppression.
The local spirits did too.
Jing Tian and Xue Jian, somewhere ahead, were half-melted in their disguises. But for the Fire Spirit Pearl, they would never have chosen this path.
Ayaka had no Shushan illusion arts.
The moment she set foot in Elysium proper, two hulking oni turned on her.
"A human, here?" one sneered. "Leave your soul."
"Her soul is yours," the other said at once. "The body's mine."
They had barely finished dividing the spoils when silver streaked through the air.
Two neat cuts. Two bodies sprawling in pieces.
Ayaka could feel it at once: the oni souls here burned hotter and denser than the shades on the outskirts.
Tenseiga drank them without complaint.
…
Elsewhere in Elysium, a casino rattled with dice and laughter.
"I win again!" Jing Tian whooped. "Come on, pay up!"
"What kind of monster luck is this?"
"Luck, nothing. Pay him what he's owed…"
Grumbling, the ghosts at the table emptied their purses.
Xue Jian watched, suspicious. He had been losing steadily not long before. Now he was on an unbelievable streak.
Cheating?
Jing Tian didn't notice her stare.
The thrill of winning dulled everything else, even his sense of time.
Even the fact that his disguise spell had limits.
Because he'd kept the gamblers occupied here, though, no one had gone out to patrol.
Outside, Ayaka's sword was running red with soul-light.
An hour later, with his pile of winnings high and his smile wider than ever, Jing Tian realized something was off.
The ghosts were all staring at him.
"Out of money already?" he joked. "Why so quiet?"
"J-Jing Tian…" Xue Jian whispered. "Their eyes. Something's wrong."
"What, they want to eat me now?"
He followed her gaze.
One of the ghosts in the crowd actually had drool hanging from its mouth.
A chill ran through him.
What about his disguise?
He reached mentally for the charm, did a quick, panicked check of its duration.
Too late.
"This one's human!"
"Eat him."
"Eat the human!"
The casino imploded into chaos.
A hundred hungry dead surged toward Jing Tian and Xue Jian.
"Help!" Xue Jian screamed.
Jing Tian's hands shook.
These weren't the bumbling shades of lesser hells. If they caught him, he'd be torn apart.
Cold swept through the hall like a wave, cutting through the furnace heat.
With it came a clear, ringing voice.
"Kamisato Art: Frost's End."
Three nested vortices of ice and wind blossomed from the entrance and swept through the room.
They caught every ghost.
Thousands of twisted things tried to wrench themselves free, but the technique rode on Tenseiga's power. This was not an ordinary weapon's technique. The blade itself chose spirits as its prey.
In less than three seconds, the den fell silent.
Every oni in sight had been erased.
Xue Jian could only stare.
So could Jing Tian.
Both of them turned, almost in unison.
In the doorway stood a small-framed girl, her black blade humming softly as it drew the last flecks of shattered soul from the air.
"Who are you?" Jing Tian stammered. "Another from Shushan?"
"No," Ayaka said. "I come from Inazuma.
"I'm here to help you obtain the Fire Spirit Pearl.
"Please, come with me."
She let Tenseiga finish feeding, then sheathed it and offered them a gentle smile.
Something relaxed in their chests at once, as if the underworld itself had stepped back a pace.
Xue Jian's gaze dropped to Ayaka's hip.
Her eyes widened. "You—you and that fox immortal," she blurted. "Why do you bear the same mark?"
Ayaka blinked. "What mark?"
"That one."
Xue Jian pointed at the Vision at her waist.
Jing Tian's eyes lit in recognition. During the poisoner incident, a fox immortal had saved them once. She had carried a similar gem at her side—lightning where this one shone like snow.
Ayaka laughed softly. "That fox is my lady," she said. "My superior.
"I heard of what happened last time. I only kept quiet because I feared you wouldn't believe me."
At that, Xue Jian let out a long breath.
Then another thought hit her, and she blurted, "We don't have anything to pay you with this time. I already gave you the Five-Venom Beast."
The last mission had cost her clan's heirloom and her place in Tang Manor both.
If this foreign girl demanded another treasure, she had nothing left to give.
"I won't be taking anything from you," Ayaka said. "Don't worry.
"Just stay close."
The words were enough.
Both of them sagged in relief.
A sword light fell nearby; Xu Changqing stepped into view, robes a little scorched, eyes widening as he took in the scene and the girl with the ghost-eating blade.
Xue Jian's quick explanation filled in the rest.
"So you serve that fox," he said, bowing slightly to Ayaka. "Thank you for saving Brother Jing.
"Without you, we would have been in real danger."
"There's no need for such courtesy," Ayaka replied. "We're all friends here.
"The Fire Oni King is deeper in. Once we take to sword-flight again, please carry Jing Tian.
"I'll see to Miss Xue Jian."
"That would be best," Xu Changqing agreed.
As they rose into the broiling air once more, he couldn't help glancing at her. "Since our last parting," he said, "I've reflected a great deal.
"I was too extreme in my thinking.
"I owe that honored lady much."
Ayaka smiled faintly. "You are already wise, Master Xu," she said. "Lady Guuji only nudged you a little."
Flattery, after all, was just another art.