Heian-kyo was shrouded in black clouds as violent forces raged and life withered. The war between Miketsu and the Great Snake continued, but by now, the scales of power had already tipped.
By relying on the Four Symbols Array she controlled, the Great Snake had created four powerful divine general apostles, intending for them to assist her against Miketsu. However, before these apostles could even reinforce the Great Snake, they were intercepted by the allies Miketsu had prepared in advance. By now, those apostles had been completely wiped out.
The Great Snake was now without aid. She would have to face Miketsu alone in her form as a skeletal corpse. As a mere remains, she could not defeat Miketsu, whose strength was nearly that of a Chief God.
...
Inside the Fox Hunt Realm, the battle between the skeletal Great Snake and Miketsu had been raging for some time. Under the ravaging of such immense power, the entire Fox Hunt Realm had been destroyed beyond recognition.
The once-endless rice fields were now a desolate wasteland. Deep fissures spiderwebbed across the earth, and massive craters, each hundreds of meters in diameter, were scattered everywhere. Torii gates were snapped and blown over; the entire place was a scene of total ruin.
The eight-headed bone snake, five or six hundred meters long, raged wildly within the divine realm. Miketsu, wielding a giant sword of light, danced between the eight snake heads. The blade of light in her hand hacked down repeatedly, leaving deep marks upon the incredibly sturdy skeletal remains of the ancient god.
Several bone snake mouths lunged at Miketsu. She dodged one and grabbed it directly, then used her immense strength to swing it, slamming it into the other attacking snake heads. Enraged, the skeletal Great Snake unleashed a powerful shockwave that sent Miketsu flying into the distance. Then, all eight skeletal snake heads turned toward Miketsu simultaneously. Purple energy began to converge within their gaping maws. Seeing this, Miketsu immediately condensed eight massive arrows of light around her.
With a roar, the Great Snake's eight heads simultaneously spat out breaths of purple light. At the same moment, the arrows of light condensed by Miketsu shot forth. The purple and golden lights collided in mid-air, and the resulting explosion of energy and shockwaves swept through nearly the entire divine realm once again. Amidst these countless cycles of destruction, cracks began to appear in the space of the divine realm itself.
After the explosion, Miketsu did not stop. She continued to condense even more arrows of light around her, firing them at the Great Snake. After a round of breath attacks, the Great Snake's recovery was clearly not as fast as Miketsu's. Consequently, she was immediately struck by countless arrows of light, suppressed in place by the continuous explosions of golden light.
Seeing this, Miketsu maintained the suppression with a barrage of light arrows while condensing a bow of light in her hand. She drew the string, and a unique arrow of light formed upon it. Vast divine power poured into it, making its brightness increasingly dazzling. This would be the thunderous strike Miketsu had meticulously prepared for the Great Snake.
"Explosive Demon-Slaying Arrow..."
...
To the east, far from Heian-kyo, stood Moriya Shrine by the shores of Lake Suwa.
Inside Moriya Shrine, the frog god Suwako, wearing her hat and distinctive dress, was currently crouching on the ground. She leaned on her hands, gazing toward the west with concern.
"It has already begun... but it is not yet my time..."
Adjusting the brim of her hat, Suwako murmured to herself. Just then, a youthful voice came from behind her.
"Um... Lord... Lord Suwa Daimyojin..."
At the call, Suwako immediately turned around. What she saw was the umbrella-carrying girl, Minamoto no Kagura, her face filled with unease. Before the war, Miketsu had moved her out of Heian-kyo and sent her here for safety.
"Your name is... Kagura, right? Is something the matter?" Suwako asked, a hint of curiosity in her eyes as she looked at the girl.
"Um... it's nothing much. I'm just a bit worried about Lady Uka's situation. Lady Suwako... can Lady Uka defeat the Snake Evil God?" Kagura asked in a worried tone. Suwako thought for a moment before answering bluntly.
"Uka-no-Mitama-no-Mikoto and the Great Snake, eh... You don't actually need to worry about that. That fellow Uka-no-Mitama-no-Mikoto is absurdly strong, roughly equivalent to a Chief God in mythology. Facing the Great Snake with full preparation, she definitely holds the advantage. A Great Snake that is merely a skeletal corpse and hasn't undergone revival... cannot win against Uka-no-Mitama-no-Mikoto," Suwako told Kagura. Hearing this, Kagura couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief.
"Phew... I see. So that means as long as the Snake God doesn't undergo that so-called revival, she can't win against Lady Uka. And since I am the Snake God's priestess... as long as I stay safe here, the Snake God is bound to lose?" Kagura continued. When Miketsu had sent her here, she had explained many things to her.
"Yes... so long as the Great Snake does not revive, she certainly cannot win against Uka-no-Mitama-no-Mikoto... but the probability of her revival is not zero," Suwako said, continuing to watch the sky. At Suwako's words, Kagura was slightly stunned.
"The probability isn't zero... but Lady Uka said that as long as no priestess performs the ritual for the Snake God, she cannot revive. I am the Snake God's priestess... are you saying the Snake God might send her subordinates here to seize me?" Kagura asked worriedly. Suwako shook her head.
"The problem doesn't lie with you. The Great Snake might revive even without you. Have you ever considered it? There might be more than one priestess of the Great Snake," Suwako said, waving her hand. Kagura's expression shifted visibly at those words.
"More than one priestess... La—Lady Uka once said that a priestess must be born within the Snake God's kin, and our Minamoto Clan is that kin. So you mean... there might be other women of the Minamoto Clan in this world who possess the aptitude of a Snake God priestess?" Kagura asked in confusion. Suwako continued to shake her head in response.
"No... the aptitude for a ritual priest is something that appears only once in hundreds or even thousands of years. It is almost impossible for two ritual priests to exist in the same era within the same kin. Therefore, the chance of there being another priestess of the Great Snake among the Minamoto Clan besides you is essentially zero..."
"Essentially zero... but... but didn't you just say that the Great Snake might have other priestesses besides me?" Kagura said, her face full of bewilderment. Hearing this, Suwako's expression became very stern. She pointed a finger and said solemnly to Kagura:
"It is impossible for a single kin to produce multiple ritual priests in one era. But what if an ancient ritual priest from the past did not die and managed to survive? Wouldn't that mean the Great Snake has multiple ritual priests?"
After hearing Suwako's words, Kagura stood frozen in place. After a long while, she finally spoke slowly.
"The Minamoto Clan of the past... wouldn't that be the Imperial family?"
"It doesn't just stop at the Imperial family. The Minamoto Clan originated from the Imperial family, but where did the Imperial family originate from?" Suwako said, offering a hint. Immediately, a story surfaced in Kagura's mind—the story of the Descent of the Heavenly Grandson from the Kojiki.
That story, which proclaimed the absolute legitimacy of the Imperial family as an unbroken line for ten thousand generations, clearly pointed out the origin of the royal bloodline.
The Imperial bloodline originated from divine blood, and specifically, the most noble Sun Disk bloodline.
And now that the Minamoto Clan, which shared that divine blood, was proven to be the kin of the Great Snake, what about the source of that bloodline? What was her relationship with the Great Snake?
Realizing Suwako's meaning, Kagura stood dazed and spoke woodenly.
"You mean... Amaterasu Omikami..."
"Yes. Since that woman Amaterasu is your ancestor and you are a priestess of the Great Snake, then it is highly likely that Amaterasu is also..." Looking at the shocked Kagura, Suwako continued slowly.
"If this conjecture is true, the initiative for the Great Snake's revival is not in our hands, nor is it in the Great Snake's hands."
...
On a small hillside somewhere far from Heian-kyo.
A woman dressed in simple white robes slowly descended from the sky. She was tall and slender with a beautiful face and jet-black hair cascading down to her waist. She lifted her elegant neck to gaze at Heian-kyo, which sat in the distance within a hazy glow. A strange light flickered in her amber eyes, as if she could pierce through the divine realm to see the scene within.
Between the woman's eyebrows, a faint mark of a sun disk was dimly visible.
"What a truly pathetic and wretched sight... Lord Deity..."
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