Two women, two lords of provinces, were bleeding each other out on this plain for the sake of a demon.
Absurd.
But, just as the slaughter at the front line reached its peak—
Fog began to rise.
Hojo Ujiyasu was the first to notice something strange.
The fog didn't drift in from the mountains, nor was it water vapor rising from the ground.
It rose out of thin air from the very center of the battlefield—the contact line where the two armies clashed.
A red fog, faint and almost colorless, but Hojo Ujiyasu could smell that scent.
Rust.
The smell of blood.
"What is this..."
The retainer by her side hadn't even finished his sentence.
Boom!
Thunder crashed down from the clear sky.
Directly... landing between the two armies.
Purple lightning exploded in the center of the plain, turning an area of ten zhang into scorched earth.
The soldiers fighting on the front lines were blown away by the shockwave, and the front ranks of both the Imagawa and Hojo sides collapsed simultaneously.
A second bolt of lightning.
A third.
The purple electric light was like a wall, forcibly splitting the two armies apart.
"—What on earth!?"
Hojo Ujiyasu took a step back.
She saw it.
In the scorched earth where the lightning had fallen, white Bone Spikes erupted from the ground.
One, two, ten, a hundred...
Bone Spikes drilled out from the ground in dense clusters, forming a forest between the two armies.
A forest of white bone.
Those Bone Spikes were scattered at various heights; the shortest reached waist-level, while the tallest towered overhead, cutting the entire front line into an insurmountable barrier.
Any soldier attempting to cross would be blocked by the Bone Spikes and driven back by lightning.
The battle was forcibly halted.
It wasn't because of a retreat order from either side, but because a sudden, external force had pressed the pause button on the war itself.
A bloody mist began to spread through the bone forest.
A deathly silence fell.
The sounds of slaughter and shouting vanished without a trace.
The soldiers retreated again and again, their faces filled with horror as they realized they were surrounded by a vast mist, with the sky itself stained the color of blood.
And in the center where the battlefield had been split apart...
Bone and blood paved the way like a forest path.
A figure stepped out from the mist.
Grey robes, long pale hair.
A crimson oni mask covered his face, and from beneath the mask, his eyes glowed with an eerie red light.
His left hand rested on the hilt of the blade at his waist, while his right hand hung at his side, his fingertips entwined with dense purple arcs of electricity.
He stood between the two armies.
Standing in the center of the bone forest and the thunder.
One person.
Blocking a battlefield of three thousand people.
Ending the war with his presence alone!
...
Hojo Ujiyasu's breath hitched for a moment.
That figure, that long pale hair, those crimson eyes.
Without a doubt, that was the one she had seen in her dreams.
On that night when Odawara Castle was shrouded in nightmares, deep within the dream she had thought was a hallucination, that figure had appeared.
"It's him..."
She murmured, "It's that yokai."
Her hand unconsciously tightened around the armrest.
...
To the south.
At the Imagawa Clan's main camp, the curtains of the palanquin were pulled open.
Imagawa Yoshimoto stood up.
Her twelve-layered Junihitoe kimono billowed, her dark brown hair fluttered in the wind, and the golden butterfly ornament in her hair shimmered under the sunlight.
A smile, so brilliant it was almost out of control, bloomed on her charming and delicate face.
Her hands were clasped at her chest, her slender fingers trembling slightly with excitement.
"He's here."
Her voice wasn't loud, yet it carried an irrepressible joy: "He's finally here!"
The maidservant beside her was startled by her reaction: "My Lady? That person ahead... is a yokai, isn't he?"
"That is no yokai."
Imagawa Yoshimoto shook her head, her bright eyes fixed intently on the grey figure in the center of the battlefield: "He is a Kishin."
"He is my Imagawa Clan's Kishin."
She lifted her skirts and stepped down from the palanquin.
"Prepare a horse."
"My Lady!? You intend to go personally—"
"Prepare a horse!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's voice suddenly rose, her charming face full of determination.
"I've been waiting for that guy for nearly a month."
"Now that he's right there, do you think I'll let him slip away again?"
The maidservant opened her mouth, but ultimately said nothing and turned to lead the horse over.
Imagawa Yoshimoto stood at the front of the formation, the wind whipping her luxurious sleeves.
She looked at that lonely figure standing between the thunder and the bone forest; the smile at the corners of her mouth pulled back slightly, becoming softer.
And more serious.
"Lord Kishin."
She whispered, "This time, I won't let you slip away."
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