After Nurarihyon used all his strength to block Hagoromo-Gitsune's killing move, Heroic Spirit EMIYA finally located the core of the cocoon.
Then he fired the arrow.
The spiral sword broke the sound barrier the instant it left the bowstring, yet it produced no sonic boom.
Because the sonic boom was too slow to keep up with it.
Only after the spiral sword had flown away did the sonic boom leisurely catch up, echoing through the void.
The flying spiral sword tore through space. The vortex of magical energy condensed around its blade ground everything along its path into nothingness.
It plowed a white scar across the night sky that refused to heal for a long time. The atmosphere on either side glowed with a faint violet light, unable to withstand the overloaded magical energy.
Sensing mortal danger, Hagoromo-Gitsune roared and erected layer after layer of defenses.
But none of them mattered.
Her cursed tentacles were shredded directly by the spiraling magical energy surrounding Caladbolg II. Before the fragments could even fall, they were sucked into the vacuum trail behind the arrow, ground into dust, and scattered on the wind.
The outer barrier was like a thin sheet of paper before the spiral sword. After being pierced, it burst into pale-blue flames.
The middle barrier of resentment attempted to assimilate, corrode, and crush Caladbolg II, but the sword spun faster than the resentment could react.
Before the corrosion could even begin, the barrier had already been torn apart and reduced to scattered black fragments.
As for the defenses of the cursed cocoon itself, they were even more fragile.
The cocoon wall, formed from the resentment of generations of the dead, began cracking the instant it came into contact with Caladbolg II.
All of this happened within a single breath.
Then the spiral sword pierced straight through the cursed cocoon.
No words could describe the sight at that moment.
The cursed cocoon ignited from within.
Pure magical energy erupted violently, transforming into rainbow-colored light.
The radiance burst from inside the cocoon and spread outward along its vein-like patterns.
Every vein became a ribbon of multicolored light. The ribbons grew thicker, brighter, and denser, transforming the entire cursed cocoon into a supernova on the verge of erupting.
Then—
BOOM!!!!!!!
A tremendous explosion shook the entirety of Nijō Castle.
The cursed cocoon exploded.
The roar should have spread throughout Kyoto, but it was contained by the barriers Medea and Serie had erected.
Centered on the cursed cocoon, a gigantic sphere of light expanded rapidly.
The rainbow-colored sphere swallowed every inch of underground space. It expanded faster than sound itself, so quickly that even the roar of the explosion was left trailing behind it.
From the surface, the instant the explosion occurred, the ruins of Nijō Castle seemed to be struck by an invisible giant hand and were blasted into the sky.
Boulders weighing several tons were thrown into the air, tumbling beneath the moonlight. Then the sphere of light caught up to them, vaporizing them the instant they touched its edge without leaving even ashes behind.
The shockwave followed, spreading outward from Nijō Castle.
When Nurarihyon saw this, he sucked in a sharp breath and erupted with yokai aura, protecting every member of the Nura Clan.
He had no intention of letting his subordinates be killed by the aftershock of the explosion.
Nyanko-sensei also rushed over to help, releasing powerful yokai aura and joining Nurarihyon in resisting the blast.
Hagoromo-Gitsune's yokai, however, had no one protecting them.
Many were torn apart in an instant.
The aftershock slammed violently into the surrounding barriers, like enormous waves crashing against them one after another.
Yet the barriers did not move in the slightest.
They stood like towering mountains, completely unaffected no matter how fiercely the waves struck.
Hagoromo-Gitsune, on the other hand, suffered an unprecedented impact from the explosion.
When the blast erupted, the shockwave struck her head-on.
At the final moment, her nine fox tails instinctively wrapped around her body, forming a black barrier.
But the force of the shockwave far exceeded her expectations.
The first fox tail was torn apart the instant it came into contact with the blast, exploding into a cloud of black blood.
The second followed immediately afterward, sliced into several pieces by fragments of magical energy within the shockwave.
The third and fourth tails were not directly shredded, but the flesh upon them was scorched black by the intense heat. Their fur caught fire, and the flames spread along the tails toward her body.
Only the fifth tail barely endured.
It had been burned down until only remnants of tendon remained, yet it still stubbornly protected Hagoromo-Gitsune's head and heart.
After the shockwave passed, Hagoromo-Gitsune was hurled into the air.
Her body tumbled through the sky, passing over the flattened ruins of Nijō Castle, the collapsed walls, and the dried-up moat before falling into the distance like a discarded rag.
There was not a single uninjured place on her body.
Her magnificent kimono had been reduced to a few charred strips hanging from her. More than half of her body had been severely burned, her skin blackened and split, blood seeping from the cracks.
Her left arm twisted at an impossible angle, clearly broken.
A wound deep enough to expose bone cut across her right thigh, caused by rubble driven through it by the shockwave.
At the final moment of her fall, she thrust her remaining right arm into the ground.
Her five fingers carved five deep trenches through the earth before she finally stopped herself from flying any farther.
She knelt on the ground, gasping heavily. Every breath forced clots of blood from her throat.
After a long while, she raised her head.
The sight before her caused her remaining pupil to contract sharply.
Nijō Castle was gone.
The palace maintained by generations of Tokugawa shoguns for centuries, one of Kyoto's grandest fortresses, had been transformed into an enormous crater.
The crater was over three hundred meters wide and dozens of meters deep, its edges steep and sharp as if carved by a blade.
At its center, the rainbow-colored pillar of magical energy was slowly fading.
Its lingering glow cast wavering shadows across the walls of the crater, making the entire pit resemble the entrance to Hell.
Before long, Nurarihyon slowly walked over.
Having exhausted all his power, he could no longer maintain his youthful form and had returned to the appearance of an old man.
Hagoromo-Gitsune raised her head and slowly looked toward him.
Nurarihyon stared at her without expression.
One stood.
The other crawled on the ground.
The outcome was obvious.
Hagoromo-Gitsune suddenly laughed.
It was a relieved smile, as though she had abandoned all resistance.
"Several hundred years ago, you stopped me."
"I never expected that several hundred years later, it would be you who stopped me again."
"You damned nurarihyon. You truly are detestable."
Nurarihyon shook his head and calmly said, "This time, it wasn't me who stopped you. Humanity stopped you."
"You underestimated the humans of this era, you filthy fox."
He understood Hagoromo-Gitsune's strength very well.
Combined with the trump card she had just revealed, if Rowan and his companions had not acted in time, the ones who would have suffered heavy losses and fled in disgrace would have been Nurarihyon and the Nura Clan.
Therefore, Nurarihyon did not claim the credit for himself.
"Humanity?"
Hagoromo-Gitsune looked around and saw Rowan slowly approaching.
Tilting her head, she asked, "Was it you who led those powerful warriors and defeated me?"
Rowan nodded.
"You could say that."
"I have never met you before. Why did you come looking for trouble with me?" Hagoromo-Gitsune asked in confusion.
Rowan said, "Because you wanted to exterminate humanity."
Hagoromo-Gitsune suddenly understood.
"I see."
She wanted to exterminate humanity, so naturally humanity wanted to kill her.
This had nothing to do with personal hatred.
It was a battle for humanity's survival.
Rowan said, "Tell me, Hagoromo-Gitsune. Where is your son, Abe no Seimei?"
In the original plot of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Hagoromo-Gitsune's greatest wish was to give birth to her son once again.
But now, she possessed no such obsession and was entirely focused on exterminating humanity.
What did that mean?
Did it mean Hagoromo-Gitsune no longer cared about her son?
No.
It proved precisely the opposite.
Abe no Seimei had never died.
Or perhaps Hagoromo-Gitsune had already given birth to him again long ago.
When Rowan immediately asked about Seimei's whereabouts, Hagoromo-Gitsune's pupil trembled violently.
"You seem to know a great deal."
"You could say that."
Rowan had no intention of wasting words with her and once again demanded that she reveal Abe no Seimei's location.
However, Hagoromo-Gitsune remained unmoved.
"You are clever, but I will never tell you where Seimei is."
Abe no Seimei was her son.
He was her hope, her light, her everything.
How could she possibly betray him?
No matter who questioned her, she would never speak.
"I knew it."
Rowan sighed, switched to the Slow-Slow Fruit, and fired a beam of slowing light.
It struck Hagoromo-Gitsune, causing her movements to become slower than ever before.
Rowan then stepped forward and stopped in front of her.
First, he sealed her power.
Then he switched to the Memory-Memory Fruit and pulled her memories from her mind with a whoosh.
Since you refuse to tell me, I'll look for myself.
A thousand years of Hagoromo-Gitsune's memories unfolded completely before Rowan.
Nurarihyon also walked over and began examining them.
He too was curious about what exactly Hagoromo-Gitsune had been plotting.
Before long, Nurarihyon's expression darkened.
Because within Hagoromo-Gitsune's memories, he clearly saw one fact.
The one who had always wanted to exterminate humanity was never Hagoromo-Gitsune.
Hagoromo-Gitsune held no affection for humans, but neither did she possess any overwhelming hatred toward them.
She certainly did not despise humanity enough to want to wipe it out.
The reason she sought humanity's extermination was ultimately because her son, Abe no Seimei, wanted to destroy mankind and establish a world inhabited only by yokai.
The true culprit was never Hagoromo-Gitsune.
It was Abe no Seimei.
This was seriously fucked up.
What kind of sickness did Abe no Seimei have that made him want to exterminate humanity and establish a world of yokai?
Moreover, the death of Nurarihyon's son, Nura Rihan, was also closely connected to Abe no Seimei.
In fact, it could be said that Abe no Seimei was the one who had killed him.
The revelation made Nurarihyon grind his teeth in hatred.