As the twilight glow faded, night fell. The city of Tokyo was ablaze with lights, yet the residential areas far from the bustling streets remained peaceful and quiet.
On a deserted street, Yura Keikain, the young Onmyoji from Kyoto, was hiding behind a lamppost. She stared intently at a three-story Western-style house ahead, its exquisite decor a clear sign of its owner's wealth.
After being treated to a meal by a mysterious Miko she had met by chance, a satisfied Yura had intended to head home. However, on her way back, she happened upon a young girl followed by a multitude of spirits. Seeing this, Yura, as an Onmyoji, could not simply ignore it. She decisively abandoned her plans to go home and followed the chestnut-haired girl all the way to her residence.
To observe the situation, Yura did not rush into the girl's house. Instead, she hid behind a lamppost not far from the front gate, constantly scrutinizing the building with her spiritual vision. Soon, her brow furrowed slightly.
"Such strong yin energy... the concentration feels comparable to that convalescent hospital during the day... Does that girl really live in a place like this?" Yura murmured to herself. She was curious about what could cause such heavy yin energy; she knew a bit of basic Feng Shui, and this location was not naturally a place where such energy should gather.
'That girl looked back while she was walking... as if she were specifically checking for something. Does she know something is following her?'
Yura pondered this, considering her next move. She wondered if she should just knock on the door and talk to the chestnut-haired girl to see if she knew anything. But just then, the figure Yura had been following reappeared in her line of sight.
The girl, Akiko Shikaku, entered her second-floor room by the window, which happened to be visible to Yura from her spot behind the lamppost.
In Yura's eyes, Akiko Shikaku walked straight to her desk and sat down, resting her head in her hands as if lost in thought. The various spirits were still clinging to her, showing no signs of leaving.
However, at that moment, something happened that shocked Yura. Several long, deformed, pale arms suddenly reached down from above, grabbing the spirits following Akiko and dragging them upward. Yura shifted her gaze toward the ceiling of the room, and what she saw made her eyes widen in horror.
"That... that is..."
In Yura's spiritual vision, a massive, deformed, and hideous creature was coiled upon the ceiling of Akiko Shikaku's room.
It was a spider—a terrifying spider composed of countless human limbs twisted and bound together. Its body was a mass of tangled torsos, and its eight long legs were eight pale human arms. Where its head should have been, five or six heads grew simultaneously, each one ravenously devouring the spirits that had just been snatched up. The spirits that had followed Akiko home were now being torn apart by the many arm-like appendages amidst agonized wails, then shoved into the multiple mouths to be chewed and swallowed.
"This is... an evil spirit... a composite evil spirit formed through devouring..." Yura whispered in shock. As an Onmyoji, she knew exactly what kind of entity she was looking at. It was a composite evil spirit that grew continuously by consuming other malevolent beings!
Seeing the evil spirit on the ceiling gorging itself on the ghosts, Yura instinctively began to form a hand seal to protect Akiko Shikaku. However, she then noticed that the monster ignored the girl below, focusing entirely on its meal. It seemed to have no immediate intention of attacking Akiko.
Yura was momentarily taken aback. Then, recalling Akiko's earlier behavior and the exorcism experiences shared by her clan elders, she quickly analyzed the situation.
'That girl... she has spiritual sensitivity. She's prone to attracting spirits... That evil spirit is exploiting that. It's perched on her ceiling, waiting every day for her to bring spirits home from the outside so it can devour them...'
Yura realized that Akiko Shikaku's spiritual sensitivity led her to conduct various supernatural investigations, which easily attracted all sorts of spirits. This composite evil spirit was taking advantage of this, nesting in her home specifically to eat the spirits and ghosts that haunted her, using them as fuel to grow stronger.
This was why Akiko Shikaku could engage in high-risk supernatural research and emerge completely unscathed. To Yura, however, this was merely accumulating small dangers into one catastrophic threat.
On the ceiling of Akiko's room, the deformed evil spirit finally finished devouring the ghosts brought home that day. Amidst a chorus of hisses from its multiple heads, the human-limb spider's body grew slightly larger. More pale limbs sprouted from its torso of twisted appendages, and another head began to emerge. Clearly, this meal had made it even more powerful.
As the evil spirit grew, Akiko Shikaku, sitting at her desk, seemed to sense something. She looked up toward the ceiling. In that instant, the terrifying nightmare coiled above went perfectly still, its aura rapidly suppressed. When Akiko looked up, she saw nothing but an ordinary ceiling.
"Was it just my imagination...?" Akiko murmured.
She shook her head and went back to planning how to get her revenge tomorrow. Outside, Yura watched this with growing anxiety.
'That thing is already strong enough to actively hide itself in a deeper demon realm. It wants to use that girl long-term...'
'But if she remains under the influence of such an evil spirit, her spiritual awareness will only get stronger. Eventually, she will develop spiritual vision. When that happens, she'll inevitably see the monster crawling on her ceiling day and night... and then she'll be in grave danger...'
Yura hid behind the lamppost, trying to think of a countermeasure.
For various reasons, Yura had lost most of her talismans and katashiro during the day. This significantly reduced her combat strength, making it difficult to face an evil spirit of this caliber.
"In that case, I should retreat for now... I'll find a way to eliminate it once I'm fully prepared..."
Yura decided to withdraw, intending to return only after she was ready. However, an unexpected situation occurred.
As if sensing the gaze from the street, the evil spirit on Akiko's ceiling suddenly turned all its heads toward the window. It locked eyes with Yura just as she was about to leave. Yura realized it instantly.
"Oh no, I've been spotted..."
As she murmured this, Yura tried to move, but at that moment, the evil spirit's many eyes began to flash in unison.
Suddenly, Yura felt a wave of profound weakness wash over her. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to her knees, unable to move an inch. Her mind grew hazy, and a surge of nausea hit her stomach. Faint black mist began to emanate from her entire body.
'This is... a curse!?'
Feeling the changes in her body, Yura immediately understood what was happening. The evil spirit clearly had no intention of letting her leave. She immediately began to chant incantations at high speed to resist the curse.
"Huff... huff... It looks like I can't run... If that's the case..."
Yura reached out and pointed her finger toward Akiko's room, spiritual power beginning to condense at her fingertip.
"If that's the case, then I'll perform an exorcism right here!"
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