The Evil Scripture and the Divine Mantra

Somewhere in Tokyo at night, inside the Hozuki residence.

On the second-floor corridor, Yayoi, Keitaro, and Miko stared in shock at the empty space before them. Just moments ago, Miketsu had vanished before their eyes, taken away by the pale god. This phenomenon left everyone momentarily at a loss.

"She... she'll be alright, won't she?" Keitaro said in a wooden voice. Although he had seen the Miko taken away like that, she hadn't resisted at all throughout the process. Her expression had been incredibly calm, as if she had everything under control.

"I... I don't know either..." Miko responded blankly. Although she knew Fushimi Inaba was an Inari Okami, according to her previous explanation, there were many Inari gods. An Inari god was essentially a type of wild god, and that pale youth was also a wild god. Between wild god and wild god, Miko didn't know what the final outcome would be.

"..."

Yayoi, the purple-haired young medium, stared ahead in silence, her thoughts unknown. At that moment, a sudden noise erupted behind them.

"Aaaah..."

Hearing the disturbance, the group turned around. They saw that inside Yayoi's room, the numerous powerful malevolent spirits—previously heavily wounded by the pale god—were struggling violently amidst wails of agony. They were currently forcing their fragmented spiritual bodies to stand, letting out increasingly terrifying shrieks. A frigid, sinister aura poured out from the doorway, causing the hearts of everyone outside to sink.

"What's going on? What are these guys trying to do?" Seeing the movement of the powerful spirits filling the room, Miko couldn't help but pull a handgun from her sleeve and grip it tightly.

On the other side, Yayoi reacted instantly. She lunged forward, slamming the door shut. Leaning her back against the door, she looked at the confused Keitaro and Miko in the corridor and spoke in a heavy voice.

"It... has begun..."

"Eh? Begun? What has begun?" Keitaro asked, bewildered by Yayoi's actions. Yayoi continued in a low tone.

"After being attacked by the god, these dozens of powerful malevolent spirits are almost all on the verge of collapse. The only way for them to survive now is to devour—to devour each other. Right now, a large-scale cannibalization among the malevolent spirits has begun inside that room."

Yayoi murmured the words. Suddenly, the shrieks and wails behind the door she leaned against surged violently. A barrage of bizarre, grotesque sounds leaked through the cracks of the door, sharp enough to pierce the eardrums of those present.

"Aaaah...!" "Ooooh...!" "Kaka-kaka..."

The shrill, ghostly wailing and howling continued incessantly behind the door, testifying to the tragic scene of spirits slaughtering one another. Keitaro and Miko both swallowed hard. Miko placed her hot coffee on a nearby cabinet and asked worriedly.

"Those spirits... what will they eventually become?"

Hearing Miko's words, Yayoi answered calmly in a low voice.

"Once a large-scale cannibalization begins, it cannot be stopped. They will continue to devour each other until only one remains—the strongest one. Its power will undergo a qualitative change compared to ordinary malevolent spirits... it will become an uncontrollable, ultra-strong spirit. I call them... Graduates."

"Gradu...ates..." Hearing Yayoi's words, both Miko and Keitaro swallowed again. Miko couldn't help but wonder if the ultimate goal of this little girl catching so many spirits and putting them in one room was precisely to create such a thing.

Just as Miko was thinking this, the wails and screams behind the door suddenly ceased. The surrounding space fell into a dead silence—a silence so profound it was frightening.

"It's over..."

Yayoi spoke as she turned toward the door. She reached out her small hand, turned the knob, and slowly pushed the door open. The dim room once again appeared before everyone's eyes.

The room was still filled with scattered items, furniture, and broken dolls on the floor. On the surface, it seemed no different than before. However, to Miko, who possessed spiritual vision, the room full of malevolent spirits had completely vanished without a trace. In the cramped space of the dim room, the most conspicuous sight was a low table in the center. On that table sat the head of a plush doll.

Seeing this, Yayoi dashed forward and picked up the severed doll head. She stuffed it into a salt bag and immediately pulled out ropes covered in incantations from under the table, beginning to wrap them around the salt bag layer after layer. Her hands moved incredibly fast. Seeing this, Keitaro spoke in surprise.

"Yayoi, what are you..."

"A 'Graduate' rank spirit cannot be kept in a room using conventional methods. It must be temporarily sealed immediately and then placed elsewhere using a specific method. Otherwise, the consequences will be unimaginable..."

Yayoi answered while continuing her work. Hearing her words, Keitaro stopped speaking and simply watched as the doll head was sealed under multiple layers.

However, at that moment, the sound of phone ringtones echoed from both Keitaro and Miko simultaneously.

"Someone's calling...?" Keitaro and Miko both pulled out their ringing phones. Just as they were about to answer, Yayoi warned them coldly.

"Don't pick up. If you do, you'll become a vegetable..."

"Eh..."

Miko and Keitaro froze in place, then immediately followed Yayoi's instructions and hung up the ringing phones. Meanwhile, Yayoi's temporary sealing of the great malevolent spirit was nearing its end.

Placing the salt bag, now tightly bound with incantation ropes, into her backpack, Yayoi began searching the room. Eventually, she pulled out an iron chain engraved with spells from under the bed. Just as she began using the chain to bind the backpack for the final seal, Yayoi's eyes suddenly caught a figure outside the window, and her eyes widened in shock.

At the entrance of the Hozuki residence, Hozuki Eiko, who had just returned from shopping, walked under the streetlight outside the house when she heard her phone ring. Seeing the caller ID as Keitaro's number, she prepared to answer in confusion.

At that moment, Yayoi abandoned the ongoing seal and prepared to open the window to warn Eiko. However, she found the window seemed locked by some force and wouldn't open no matter how she tried. Seeing Eiko outside already holding her phone and about to answer, Yayoi picked up a crowbar from the floor and smashed the window directly. The sound of shattering glass gave Eiko a fright, interrupting her attempt to answer the call.

"Hang up the phone, Eiko!"

"Eh...?"

Through the broken window, Yayoi shouted loudly at Eiko. Eiko was stunned for a moment but instinctively followed Yayoi's words and turned off her phone. Yayoi breathed a sigh of relief.

But just as she turned back to continue sealing the remnant malevolent spirit, she discovered that the backpack she had already wrapped twice with iron chains had opened on its own. The salt bag bound with incantation ropes had floated into the air. Inside the salt bag, the doll head was expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye.

'Damn it... the time limit passed. It's too late...'

Seeing this, Yayoi quickly ran toward the corridor. At the same time, the doll head, along with the salt bag and incantation ropes wrapping it, exploded. The powerful malevolent spirit imprisoned within broke free from its shackles.

Amidst a dispersion of black mist, a figure manifested in the cramped, dark space.

Wearing a cassock, holding prayer beads, hands pressed together in a Buddhist salute, a bloated body, completely bald, shrouded in black energy, and wearing a sinister smile... it was clearly the image of a monk. A great monk radiating a horrifying, terrifying aura.

"It... it's out! This guy is..." Seeing this, Keitaro was so frightened he retreated two steps. Yayoi stood beside them and murmured solemnly.

"This is the Evil Scripture High Priest... a 'Graduate' rank malevolent spirit..."

As Yayoi spoke, the Evil Scripture High Priest in the dim room opened its mouth and began to chant scriptures. Suddenly, waves of somber, distorted, and bizarre Buddhist sounds echoed through the space. Hearing this sound, everyone's heads felt heavy, and an irresistible sense of drowsiness surfaced. Keitaro couldn't help but cover his ears, but he couldn't block out the demonic sound piercing his brain.

"This, this is..."

The sinister, distorted scriptures spread from the dim room, instantly filling the entire Hozuki residence and propagating outward. Under this demonic scripture, all the mosquitoes, cockroaches, and spiders in the house and the surrounding area fell to the ground, motionless. Their tiny spiritual fires were extracted and sank into the earth.

As the chanting continued, birds in the sky began to fall to the ground, and the mice in the house collapsed. Tiny black hands reached out from the ground, grabbing their souls and dragging them beneath the earth. The ghosts wandering nearby began to suffer the same fate, dragged into the abyss by mysteriously appearing black hands.

"What on earth is this!? It hurts so much!" Miko said loudly, covering her ears. She felt the stabbing pain in her brain becoming increasingly unbearable.

"This is the ability of the Evil Scripture High Priest... Forced Ascension. Within the range of its scripture, whether dead or alive, all souls are forcibly ascended. Starting from the lowest life forms and weak drifting spirits, it will affect increasingly higher levels of life and spirits. It won't be long before it can directly affect living humans... and the souls ascended by it can only go to hell!" Yayoi explained with a serious expression while clutching her head.

"Find a way to stop its chanting!"

Hearing Yayoi's words, Miko's expression hardened. She gripped her handgun, aimed at the Evil Scripture High Priest ahead, and fired directly.

Bang!

The exorcism bullet flew toward the Evil Scripture High Priest, accurately entering its mouth. The High Priest's tongue and throat, which were almost solidified into physical form, were blown apart. Its chanting came to a halt.

Seeing this, the group breathed a slight sigh of relief. However, at that moment, all their phones, including the landline in the house, rang simultaneously. This time, without them doing anything, the phones and landline automatically answered on speakerphone. What came out was still the distorted, sinister, dark scripture of the High Priest.

In their surprise, everyone scrambled to hang up the phones, but they found they couldn't. Neither turning them off nor smashing them heavily onto the floor worked. Amidst the sound of the scripture, the intense drowsiness and stabbing pain returned to their minds.

At this moment, Miko intended to fire and destroy the phone directly. However, she felt a strange sensation in her throat. She then lost control of herself and began to open her mouth and chant—what came out was also that sinister scripture.

Not just Miko; Keitaro and Yayoi beside her also began to uncontrollably chant the High Priest's scripture. They discovered that this chanting simply could not be stopped!

Witnessing this scene, Miko and Keitaro stared with wide, terrified eyes. As the intensity of the scripture grew stronger, their consciousness began to blur, and countless tiny black hands began to appear beneath their feet.

Slowly, their souls as living humans were being forcibly ascended.

"I didn't expect to come back to more trouble..."

Just then, a soft female voice rang out. Hearing this familiar voice, Miko and the others felt a surge of hope. They couldn't help but look toward the source of the sound. They saw Miketsu, dressed in her red and white miko outfit, slowly walking toward them from the end of the corridor.

'Lady Inaba!' Seeing Miketsu's return, Miko's heart filled with joy. However, due to the forced chanting, she couldn't make a sound and could only look at Miketsu with expectant eyes, along with Yayoi and Keitaro.

Looking at the Evil Scripture High Priest sitting in the dim room and hearing the evil, distorted scripture overflowing the space, Miketsu murmured.

"The Scripture of Rebirth, is it? In that case..."

As she spoke, Miketsu also opened her mouth. Then... waves of ethereal and complex Sanskrit flowed from her lips, spreading through the space. This... was also the Scripture of Rebirth, the Esoteric Mantra Scripture of the Shingon school that Miketsu had obtained from Byakuren a thousand years ago.

Instantly, two scriptures of the same category but entirely different natures intertwined and echoed within the house.

Compared to the High Priest's distorted and bizarre sinister scripture, Miketsu's scripture was profound, mysterious, and filled with righteous majesty. In an instant, it completely overwhelmed and crushed the eerie sound of the evil scripture. Golden characters manifested out of thin air in the space.

The sinister sound could no longer be heard. The forced chanting of Keitaro, Miko, and the others was immediately broken. They began to gasp for air heavily.

"She... she even knows scriptures..." Yayoi said, her mouth agape in shock. She was seeing a miko who not only knew scriptures but had actually suppressed the Evil Scripture High Priest in a chanting confrontation?!

As Miketsu continued to chant, all the souls—large and small—that had been taken by the black hands emerged from the ground and returned to their original bodies.

And it didn't end there. As Miketsu sang the scripture, many small white hands appeared around the High Priest. They grabbed the High Priest and slowly dragged him into the ground.

Finally, during this process, the High Priest's body gradually became transparent and then completely vanished. For a moment, not a single malevolent spirit remained in the dim room; it was completely empty.

The Evil Scripture High Priest... had been ascended by Miketsu.

Keitaro, Miko, and the others stared blankly at everything. Yayoi looked at Miketsu with a serious and shocked expression.

"You actually... you actually ascended the High Priest in reverse... Who on earth are you? An ordinary miko wouldn't know such powerful scriptures."

"Who am I? Haven't I said it already?" Miketsu spoke while picking up the hot coffee from the cabinet that she hadn't finished earlier. After taking two sips of the still-warm coffee, Miketsu pursed her lips, then looked at Yayoi and said with a smile.

"I am but a humble Inari miko... In Esoteric Buddhism, Dakini-ten is considered an avatar of Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami. They are one and the same. So, it's only natural that an Inari miko like me can chant a few lines of scripture, right?"