Chapter 81: Kidomaru's Gambit, the Resentment of a Slain Demon
The night over Kaede Village was a thick, oppressive blanket. It was the dead of night, and the darkness still had a long, cold road to travel before the first hint of dawn.
Kikyo stood atop the shrine, her gaze fixed on the aged figure walking slowly toward her. Her long, pitch-black hair drifted in the wind, tied back but with ends that scattered like a waterfall of ink, or perhaps like feathers melting into the night itself.
Her expression was a mask of perfect calm.
But the white-knuckled grip on her longbow, the fingers tensed against the bowstring, and the unceasing ripples of spiritual power glowing around her betrayed the turmoil beneath her placid exterior.
It was all because of the name she had just heard: Kidomaru. Because of the very existence of the creature before her.
As the legends told, hundreds of years ago, the Demon King of Mount Oe, Shuten-doji, had reigned as the undisputed lord of all monsters and spirits. He led the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons in a devastating rampage across Kyoto, the capital. At that time, the Onmyoryo had been deployed in full force, and even the legendary warriors of the Minamoto clan were mobilized. In the end, they only barely managed to seal the great demon by relying on the divine power of Minamoto no Yorimitsu, a man hailed as an incarnation of the god Indra.
Under Shuten-doji's direct command were three other Great Yokai: Ibaraki-doji, Hoshiguma-doji, and Toriguma-doji.
And then, one tier below them, was Kidomaru.
Unlike the three great doji, Kidomaru's origins were not illustrious. His path to power was not a grand, magnificent saga of conquest. He was simply a demon born from the resentment of an infant abandoned in the mountains. It was said that in life, he had been left by his parents to be devoured by wild beasts. After death, his vengeful spirit absorbed the souls of countless other abandoned infants who had suffered the same fate, eventually coalescing into the ancient demon he was today.
He was not the strongest of Shuten-doji's lieutenants.
But he was, by far, the most troublesome.
His evolution, his demonic transformation, had not focused on power or size. It had focused on one thing: speed.
"It seems you are aware of this old one's existence," Kidomaru's voice rasped, dry and brittle like wood scraping against stone. "In that case, I shall skip the self-introduction."
He raised his hand. A simple, innocuous gesture.
But Kikyo's pupils constricted.
In her spiritual perception, that hand took less than a fraction of a second to move from being raised to falling. It was a movement so swift that even her sacred power could not fully trace its trajectory.
"A transformation of speed," Kikyo whispered, her voice low.
A flicker of surprise crossed Kidomaru's ancient eyes. "The transformation of a demon's essence… You know of such things?" he mused. "You are indeed well-informed."
"Correct," he continued, a hint of pride in his grating tone. "My transformation is different from those fools who chase raw power."
Though he hadn't systematically categorized the stages of demonic evolution from weak to strong as Hikaru had, the concept wasn't entirely foreign. Among the vast hordes of demons, there were naturally those who possessed intellect and foresight. Hikaru was not the only one capable of deducing the principles behind a demon's essential transformation. Kidomaru, and indeed many of the demons hailing from the sophisticated courts of Kyoto, understood this principle to some degree, even if they hadn't codified it themselves.
Kidomaru then took a slow, deliberate step forward.
And yet, the world around him seemed even slower.
The lesser demons in the distance were frozen in place. The very air had become still. The leaves on the trees no longer swayed. It all proved one terrifying fact.
He hadn't made himself faster.
He had made everything around him… slower.
"Demons have many paths of transformation. After reaching a certain realm, this old one chose to transform my very speed," Kidomaru explained, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather. "Fast and slow are but two sides of the same coin."
"This old one can make himself fast, and I can also make my enemies slow." A dark smile played on his lips. "I can even make time itself… stagnate."
This was not a transformation of the elements. This was the manipulation of a fundamental property of the physical world—a world of power far beyond mere Materialization.
Judging by the sheer density of Yao Qi emanating from Kidomaru, Kikyo knew the number of his transformations had long since exceeded ten. Eleven, twelve, perhaps even more—he was approaching the threshold of thirteen transformations that marked a true, 'Gaseous' Great Yokai. This was no longer within the scope of an ordinary high-level demon. This was a creature teetering on the very precipice of becoming a Great Yokai, an existence infinitely close to what Hikaru had classified as the highest tier.
For the first time that night, Kikyo's expression became sharp, her composure hardening into solemnity. Though she was regarded as the strongest priestess of the Sengoku Period, this was an era where Great Yokai were scarce, and even those who approached that level were few and far between. This was her first time facing a demon of this caliber directly.
"However—" Kidomaru's tone suddenly shifted. He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the four cardinal directions where his vanguard demons had been stationed. Now, the Yao Qi in those four locations had completely vanished.
"You have all managed to surprise this old one," he admitted. "Thunder Beast, Gakimaru, the Venomous Flood Dragon, Nekomata… Those four were all demon leaders who had lived for hundreds of years."
"To think they were all slain in a single night. And you," he looked back at Kikyo, "are still here. You did not make a move."
His gaze sharpened. "Was it the work of that companion of yours?"
Kidomaru sounded surprised, yet… not entirely. An inexplicable feeling, a sudden premonition, caused Kikyo's heart to skip a beat.
A chilling realization dawned, and she spoke, her voice cutting through the night.
"You did it on purpose."
The priestess's voice was calm, as cold and clear as the evening breeze.
The corners of Kidomaru's mouth curled upwards, his lips rising into a faint smile framed by his neatly groomed beard. He halted his advance, his expression one of genuine interest. "You saw through it?"
And Kikyo had. She saw it all with dreadful clarity.
"Those four demons were pawns from the very beginning." Her white robes fluttered, the cuffs of her red hakama rustling as she spoke with grim certainty. "You didn't send them to besiege us."
"You sent them… for us to kill them."
Silence.
Kidomaru did not deny it. He simply laughed, a dry, rattling sound that was exceptionally eerie on his aged face.
"You are very clever," he said. "Even cleverer than I imagined."
"A pity—" He raised a hand, gesturing to the world around them. "What does it matter if you know?"
Something was condensing in the air. It wasn't Yao Qi.
It was Resentment.
A thick, surging, almost tangible wave of pure, undiluted malice.
"I knew you realized my goal in summoning those demons was to gather Yao Qi… but you seem to have forgotten one crucial detail," Kidomaru's voice dropped, sounding as if it were echoing from the depths of the underworld. "Humans leave behind Resentment after death. Demons are no different."
"You slew the Thunder Beast, and its dying curse now stains the western sky."
"You slaughtered Gakimaru, and its malevolence now shrouds the southern lands."
"The Venomous Flood Dragon and the Nekomata are the same."
"Four demon leaders, each with two or three hundred years of life behind them. The Resentment left after their deaths, pouring in from all directions, is more than enough to blanket the entirety of Musashi Province."
Kidomaru had been setting the stage from the very beginning. Those four vanguards were never meant to win.
They were sacrifices. Sacrifices to generate the Resentment he needed.
Kikyo immediately understood the next piece of the puzzle. A demon's 'Awe' was a power drawn from the fear they spread—an opposing force to faith, yet similar in nature. It was a form of nourishment, a catalyst that could amplify a demon's strength for a short time. If a demon could maintain a constant source of fear, that temporary boost could become their new, permanent state.
And the Resentment of dead demons was fear incarnate. While it was a directionless Awe that no single individual could command, it was the perfect vessel to carry the power of an existence that should not be in this world.
"Exactly," Kidomaru confirmed as black mist began to surge around him. "Upon this land, saturated with the Resentment of four formidable demons…"
"Only then can I unleash my true power."
That swirling darkness wasn't just Yao Qi.
It was a Domain.
With Resentment as the medium and fear as the foundation, Kidomaru's territory expanded, shrouding the entire area in his suffocating influence.
"I am a ghost who died once, entered the Underworld, and clawed my way back," he declared. "I have no physical body; what walks this earth is merely my remnant soul. While this allows my speed to rival that of a Great Yokai, I require 'Awe' to sustain my presence and exert my full might."
This was his true purpose. From start to finish, he had been preparing for this single, decisive move.
He raised his pitch-black long sword. The scabbard fell away without a sound, revealing a blade that gleamed with an eerie, blue light.
"Hand over the Shikon Jewel."
Kikyo did not speak.
She simply drew her bow to its full extent and nocked an arrow. Pure spiritual power condensed at the arrowhead, blossoming into a blinding white light that pushed back against the encroaching darkness.
"Then let's see," her voice was perfectly calm, "if you can take it from me."
Kidomaru laughed, the sound echoing within his newly formed domain.
"You will regret this, Priestess."
In the next second, he vanished.
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