Plummeting

At the critical moment when she was about to plummet from the sky, Miketsu performed a deeper syncretism with Dakini-ten. Unlike her previous attempt merely to suppress divine virtue, this time she delved deeper into the syncretism, directly acquiring a portion of Dakini-ten's power.

For instance, she gained the Celestial Maiden Form, allowing her to fly independently, and an Adamantine Body capable of withstanding wind blade slashes. Relying on these abilities, Miketsu swiftly escaped the predicament of falling and pierced directly through Roku's defenses, thrusting her spirit spear into his chest. Subsequently, immense spiritual power surged into him.

“Imprint – Spirit Blast Array!”

Centered on the tip of the spirit spear, spell imprints rapidly spread across Roku's body. Miketsu's spiritual power was eroding his flesh, and the Spirit Blast Array was continuously being drawn. Against Roku, who could quickly recover from injuries using the power of blood sacrifice, Miketsu intended to cover his entire body with the Spirit Blast Array, detonating every inch of his flesh until nothing remained.

Feeling his body being eroded by spiritual power, Roku let out a howl. Realizing he couldn't continue like this, he directly grabbed the flesh on his chest with his broad claws and, with a powerful tug, ripped it off entirely, along with the spear tip. This extremely self-mutilating method forcibly stopped the Spirit Blast Array from spreading across his body.

Roku flapped his wings, and the whirlwind around him intensified. He aimed to blow Miketsu away, but Miketsu simply detonated the torn-off flesh that had already been infiltrated by spiritual power. The violent spiritual explosion shattered a significant portion of Roku's body, and the blast force pushed Miketsu back some distance.

“Aaaargh…”

Roku, having lost a third of his body, including his right arm, let out a pained wail. Blown away by the explosion, he plummeted from the sky and crashed onto a mountaintop.

“Explosive Current Wave!”

Miketsu didn't want to give Roku a chance to recover. Her spirit spear transformed into a Demonic Blade, unleashing a demonic power tornado that swept towards the crippled Roku. Powerless to retaliate, Roku could only be sliced inch by inch by the demonic energy tornado, barely clinging to a fragile life through his immense regenerative power.

Roku, his life hanging by a thread, was filled with shock and confusion.

Why? Why, after gaining the power of Tengu-do and becoming a Great Tengu, was he being beaten like this? As a Yokai Lord, this shouldn't be happening to him!

The only explanation was that he hadn't fully seized the power of Tengu-do yet! To win, he needed to further extract its power, and this… required an even stronger body to endure Tengu-do's greater backlash.

He had to win, had to obtain the power of a Yokai Lord and become a true Great Tengu, no matter the cost! Such intense thoughts surged in his mind, and the will within the broken blade seemed to respond.

An even more torrential power of blood sacrifice surged from the broken blade within Roku's body. His body, ravaged by the demonic energy tornado, rapidly regenerated once more. The previously weak storm shield now surged again, directly dispersing the Explosive Current Wave's demonic energy tornado.

“What?”

Witnessing this, Miketsu was secretly startled. In her previous understanding, this mysterious power of blood sacrifice had the effects of enhancing recovery and eroding sanity. She hadn't realized it also possessed such strong body modification capabilities. Where exactly did this strange power come from?

While Miketsu was secretly alarmed, Roku below had completed another transformation. Compared to before, his size had expanded once more; he was now over three meters tall. His clothes had been completely shredded by the Explosive Current Wave, and his entire body was covered in dark purple veins. His claws and fangs grew thicker, and all the feathers on his wings had fallen off, replaced by fleshy, bat-like wings.

At this moment, Roku no longer resembled a Tengu in the slightest.

“I am… a Great Tengu…”

With a muddled whisper, Roku flapped his wings and took flight again. As he ascended, he stirred up a gale imbued with countless wind blades, sweeping towards Miketsu.

Miketsu, in her Celestial Maiden Form, possessed unparalleled flight capabilities. Both her speed and stability in the air far surpassed those of ordinary Karasu-tengu, reaching a level comparable to a Great Tengu. Although Roku's current assault was faster and more ferocious, Miketsu handled it with ease, dodging all attacks while maintaining perfect stability, not being swayed even slightly by the accompanying gale.

“Not a single feather on you, yet you call yourself a Great Tengu?” Miketsu mocked Roku, who now resembled a monster.

Though his mind was extremely clouded, Roku still let out an angry roar upon hearing Miketsu's words. Immediately, his demonic energy surged, elevating to an even higher level than before. Clearly, he was now extracting even more power from Tengu-do.

As his demonic power intensified, Roku's surrounding storm shield abruptly grew wilder. Its range noticeably increased, and its power significantly strengthened. A violent storm formed a spherical enclosure, dozens of meters in diameter, engulfing Roku, the hurricane even obscuring his form within.

Protected by the storm, Roku's demonic power continued to grow. More and more demonic energy was extracted from Tengu-do, and the violent rejection reaction tore deep, bone-exposing wounds across his body. If not for the body modified and enhanced by the power of blood sacrifice, he would have died countless times over.

Roku's relentless extraction of demonic power had only one purpose: to unleash Feather Blade Storm, a technique only Great Tengu could use, and destroy everything around him to prove he was a Great Tengu. For this, he even grew sharp bone fragments on his back to serve as the feathers he had lost.

His goal was clear: to prove himself, even if it meant resorting to the most extreme methods.

If he could just unleash Feather Blade Storm, then he would surely be considered a Great Tengu, even if it caused severe damage to Sugo Unten.

Miketsu, with ethereal sashes swirling around her, hovered in mid-air, her brow furrowed as she watched the demonic energy continuously gather within the storm sphere.

Clearly, Roku was building up to a powerful ultimate technique, and she should interrupt him. But the problem was that the intensity and range of the storm shield around him had increased significantly. If she charged in directly, she wasn't sure if her Adamantine Body could still endure it.

Even if it could endure, engaging him in close combat wouldn't give her a good way to deliver a fatal blow, short of pulling the broken blade directly from his body as she did with Mokou last time. However, this was difficult to achieve without Makoto and Tsuruha assisting in restricting his movements.

More importantly, while her body could withstand the wind blades, her clothes could not. Miketsu's attire was already somewhat tattered; wouldn't rolling around in that wind sphere leave her completely nude?

Against Roku, who had an abnormal recovery fueled by the power of blood sacrifice, neither the Golden Light Spell nor Explosive Current Wave was sufficient. The process of imprinting spells with her spear would also be interrupted by his self-mutilation. Miketsu now realized she needed to find a way to completely destroy his entire body in one go, otherwise, this battle would drag on endlessly.

Miketsu looked around, searching for anything that could help her solve this dilemma. As she observed the numerous isolated peaks scattered across Sugo Unten, an idea sparked in her mind.

At that moment, Makoto, who had transformed into her human form, flew over anxiously, still bearing many wounds.

“Lady Uka! Please leave this place quickly, that fellow is brewing a very powerful technique!”

“I know, Makoto,” Miketsu said with a faint smile, looking at the approaching Makoto.

“But if that guy unleashes this move, this entire area might be completely destroyed. Not only will the Tengu on that side be unable to escape, but even Nura Rihyon and Seimei might suffer.”

“Then, Lady Uka, you intend to stop him? But that wind…”

“Don't worry about that, I have a plan…”

As Miketsu spoke, she flew towards a nearby, slender, isolated peak. After choosing her spot, she thrust the tip of her spear into the side of the peak, pouring spiritual power into it, rapidly and precisely carving a circle of Spirit Blast Arrays around its waist.

With a roar, Miketsu blasted the peak's summit off its main body. The twenty-meter-tall mountaintop plunged downwards, and just as it was about to fall into the deep valley, Miketsu flew beside it.

The ethereal sashes around Miketsu rapidly lengthened and expanded, wrapping around the entire falling mountain section and holding it up. Miketsu then used the sashes as support, pulling the hundreds of tons of rock straight upwards, soaring directly into the sky, leaving Makoto dumbfounded on the spot.

Dakini-ten is a Celestial Maiden… but beneath her celestial nature lies the essence of a divine demon, and immense strength is her fundamental ability.

After carrying the entire mountaintop several hundred meters into the sky, Miketsu, having confirmed her position, thrust her spirit spear—which had accumulated a large amount of spiritual power beforehand—into the colossal rock, allowing it to automatically imprint spells. Then, she released the support of her ethereal sashes, letting the mountain-sized rock plummet.

Miketsu then followed, pushing the rock downwards, accelerating its descent. Its trajectory was aimed directly at the storm sphere where Roku was located.

The hundreds of tons of colossal rock smashed violently into the storm. Fierce wind blades continuously sliced at the rock, and after about a quarter of it was eroded away, it slammed into Roku's face, disrupting his demonic energy accumulation. The immense gravitational potential energy then pressed Roku downwards, accelerating his plummet directly to the ground.

“Ugh-aaaahhhhhh…”

Under the pressure of hundreds of tons of force, the howling Roku was crushed from a hundred meters high onto the ground. The moment he hit the earth and was flattened into a pulpy mess, the colossal rock—its surface covered with Spirit Blast Arrays carved by the spirit spear—exploded with a roar the second before it shattered. In a flash of white light, Roku, now a pulpy mess, was completely incinerated.