Chapter 38: You fool Kasyapa, you actually didn't come to save me this time...

I do not know why, but as Kayamu Utada gazed at the room crisscrossed with red threads, he felt a sliver of terror take root in his heart.

It was the hair-raising instinct of a living creature facing the threat of death.

It reminded him of the day before he was lucky enough to transmigrate—that moment he had peered through his window and caught sight of a cold, pale yellow light. Even with his electric blanket beneath him, his entire body had felt deathly cold, as if he had stumbled into a place where no human being should ever go.

*Slap!*

Kayamu Utada struck his own cheek hard, snapping back to his senses. He looked at the girl who remained silently kneeling on the floor, despite the ear-piercing ringing.

"Fujie!!"

With a roar, Kayamu dropped his belongings, raised his flashlight, and charged toward the room where she was.

Yet, halfway there, he skidded to a halt. In the dim, sickly light of his flashlight, a withered, dried-out half-corpse—as if charred halfway through in an incinerator—suddenly detached itself from the rafters, swaying like a dead leaf in the wind.

Kayamu’s eyes widened in horror, and his instincts forced him to take a step back.

*Crack.*

The long-neglected floorboards gave way, and Kayamu’s left foot sank deep into a jagged hole. A searing, blinding pain shot straight to his brain.

"Hiss..."

He looked down to see a deep, bleeding gash carved into his left leg by the rotting wooden splinters. Ignoring the wound, he instinctively looked back up at the horrific entity.

It was moving silently, slowly stretching its body like a cicada emerging from its shell. Below it, Fujie remained bowed and motionless.

"Dammit!"

Just as Kayamu had crashed through the floor behind her, Fujie had wanted to turn her head in alarm, only to find her body seemingly shackled by some unseen force, unable to move a single inch.

She had encountered the real thing.

Fear flickered in Fujie’s heart, quickly followed by a surge of worry. The good news: she had found a real supernatural threat. The bad news: that idiot Kayamu was still inside!

Fujie did not fear death, for she knew she could not die. But that idiot Kayamu could. He was just a fool, and he was *her* fool; if he died, where would she find another?

At that thought, a long-dormant rage and malice, mingled with regret, flooded her mind. The intensity of her emotions twisted her beautiful face into a terrifying mask.

Unaware of Fujie’s internal turmoil, Kayamu gritted his teeth, ignoring the re-tearing of his wound, and wrenched his leg from the hole. Seeing the evil spirit drawing closer to Fujie, he took a deep breath, forced himself to stay calm, and limped toward the exit.

Inside the room, hearing Kayamu’s retreating footsteps, Fujie let out a long, shaky sigh of relief.

While she felt a sense of relief, a tinge of sadness welled up. *You idiot Kayamu, you didn’t come to save me this time...*

But soon, she understood his actions. After all, this was not a mere thug; this was a supernatural force that humans could not face head-on. She sighed, shifting her focus to the malevolent spirit she had yet to face.

*It’s all your fault. If it weren’t for you, that idiot wouldn’t have run off like that. Because of this, I’m going to ignore him for days!*

The more she thought, the angrier she became. Her face twisted further, and she stopped holding back. Beneath her shrine maiden robes, bumps began to bulge along her arms, like mushroom spores ready to erupt.

However, just as she began to madly stimulate her cells to sprout clones and launch a counterattack, she caught a glimpse of something in her peripheral vision.

A figure stood nearby, wearing diamond-patterned white socks. Her skin was a deathly gray, devoid of any color, as if she had just stepped out of a morgue. Her hair obscured most of her face. Around her, the very air seemed to warp, making it impossible to discern her features.

*Danger!*

With just one look, Fujie and her cells instinctively sensed a threat capable of killing her instantly. The last time she had felt this was when she had been dismembered by her classmates. Since then, she hadn't felt danger; even when her body had been paralyzed earlier, she had only considered it a nuisance. But now, this mysterious figure had brought back that long-forgotten sensation.

Before Fujie could even process why, a pitch-black darkness that swallowed all light surged from the figure’s feet, instantly consuming the entire room.

Despair, agony, resentment, jealousy, obsession.

A torrent of negative emotions flooded Fujie’s body, and unbearable mental torture radiated from every single one of her cells.

"Aaaah!!"

She could not suppress her scream. Outside the door, Kayamu, clutching his exorcism items, felt his heart skip a beat. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his clothes around an exorcism arrow and, with trembling hands, used his lighter to ignite it.

"Fujie!!"

He roared, his expression savage as he held the torch high, clutched his amulets, and limped back into the shrine. He was prepared to die to bring Fujie—or at least a part of her—to safety. He was just about to hurl the torch into the room to distract the spirit when he stopped dead.

In the orange glow of the torch, he saw a head lying quietly on the floor, shattered like a watermelon hit by a baseball. Looking up, he saw fragments of a body, no larger than fingernails, scattered everywhere in the light of his flashlight.

Inside the room, Kayamu’s roar pulled Fujie out of that sea of unspeakable agony. She gasped for air, drenched in cold sweat, and looked toward Kayamu, who stood frozen in place.

Recovering slightly, Fujie fought through the discomfort and shouted.

"You idiot Kayamu, run!"

Fujie’s voice snapped Kayamu back to reality. Seeing her struggling to prop herself up, he didn't stop to think. He rushed in, scooped her up, and limped out of the shrine.

Only after their silhouettes had disappeared down the stone path at the foot of the mountain did the figure that had warped time and space appear at the shrine’s entrance. She slowly raised her hand, then let it fall in silence.

Halfway down the mountain, Kayamu, his lungs burning, set Fujie down.

"Are you okay?"

Fujie, her eyes vacant, heard his labored breathing and looked up at him blankly. As her senses returned, she suddenly stood up and grabbed him.

"Run!"

"Hiss..."

Kayamu’s pained gasp made her stop. Seeing the gash on his leg, nearly as long as a forearm, her eyes turned red instantly.

"I can't die, so why did you come back to save me!?"

Complaining through her tears, she knelt to examine the wound. *Rip.* She tore a piece from her shrine maiden robes and pressed it against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. But the blood didn't stop; the pressure only made it flow faster.

"If you keep doing that, he won't die from blood loss—he’ll die from the pain of your violent treatment."

A calm, emotionless voice came from below. Fujie looked up to see Kayamu gripping a patch of weeds in agony, and she hastily let go.

"A shrine maiden? No, you have no spiritual power."

Chiharu Biga looked coldly at Fujie and Kayamu, her gaze lingering on the black bracelet on Kayamu’s wrist.

"Two lucky little things. You won't be so fortunate next time."

Without waiting for a response, Chiharu Biga, dressed in a white suit, lit a cigarette and began walking toward the mountain.

Reaching the ruins of the shrine, she felt the turbulent spiritual energy and frowned slightly.

"Dead things should not cling to the world of the living. Go peacefully to where you belong..."

"Floating Annihilation, Break!"

As her incantation and spiritual power erupted, a circular tunnel was blasted through the dilapidated shrine. Yet, Chiharu’s brow did not unfurl. She walked into the ruins and looked at the remnants of the evil spirit on the ground.

"Pure, violent, spiritual dismemberment...?"

"How terrifyingly simple..."