Chapter 55: Nijo Castle Vanishes
When Nurarihyon unleashed his full strength to hold back Hagoromo Gitsune's deadly attack, the Heroic Spirit Emiya finally succeeded in locating the core of the cocoon.
Then, he released the arrow.
Caladbolg pierced the speed of sound the exact moment it left the bowstring, yet it produced no sonic boom.
This was because the speed of a sonic boom was simply too slow to catch up with the arrow.
Only after Caladbolg had flown far into the distance did the sonic boom sluggishly follow, echoing through the vacuum.
The racing Caladbolg tore through space, and the vortex of Mana gathering upon the blade reduced everything along its path to absolute nothingness.
The night sky was split open by its passage, leaving a white scar that failed to heal for a long time, while the atmosphere on both sides of the wound emitted a faint purple fluorescence, unable to bear the overwhelming weight of the Mana.
Sensing a mortal danger, Hagoromo Gitsune roared loudly while erecting layer upon layer of defensive lines.
However, it was completely useless.
Hagoromo Gitsune's cursed tentacles were instantly obliterated by the outer Mana vortex of the Fake Caladbolg, and the fragments crumbled into dust, swept away by the vacuum trail drawn by the shaft before they could even touch the ground.
The strength of the outer Bounded Field seemed like a thin sheet of paper before Caladbolg, bursting into light blue flames the moment it was pierced.
The cursed wall in the center attempted to assimilate, corrode, and destroy the Fake Caladbolg, but the rotation speed of the Fake Caladbolg far exceeded the reaction speed of the curse. Before any corrosion could begin, the cursed wall was torn apart, scattering into black fragments.
Meanwhile, the defense of the cursed cocoon itself was even more fragile.
The layers of the cocoon wall, formed from the accumulated curses of dead souls spanning generations, began to crack the instant they made contact with the Fake Caladbolg.
All of this occurred within the span of a single breath.
Then, Caladbolg pierced through the cursed cocoon.
No words could properly describe the sight of that exact second.
The cursed cocoon burned from the inside out.
Pure Mana erupted violently, transforming into a light that resembled a rainbow.
Light radiated from the depths of the cocoon, spreading outward along the path of its meridian vessels.
Every single meridian vessel turned into a multi-colored ribbon of light, and those ribbons grew thicker, brighter, and denser, transforming the entire cursed cocoon into a supernova on the verge of exploding.
And then...
Boom!!!!!!
A colossal detonation resounded throughout the entire area of Nijo Castle.
The cursed cocoon had exploded.
This massive, rumbling sound should have echoed across all of Kyoto, but it was successfully contained by the Bounded Field erected by Medea and Serie.
With the cursed cocoon as its center, a giant sphere of light expanded at rapid speed.
The multi-colored sphere of light swallowed every inch of underground space, and its expansion speed surpassed the speed of sound, moving so fast that the boom of the explosion itself was left trailing behind.
Viewed from the surface, in the very first second the explosion occurred, the entire ruins of Nijo Castle seemed as though they were struck by a giant, invisible hand, suddenly surging up toward the sky.
Massive stones weighing several tons were hurled into the air, spinning beneath the moonlight, only to be overtaken by the sphere of light and instantly vaporized without leaving a single trace of ash the moment they touched its edge.
The shockwave followed immediately, spreading in all directions with Nijo Castle at the epicenter.
Upon witnessing this sight, Nurarihyon immediately took a deep breath, violently exploding his Yoki to shield all members of the Nura Clan.
He did not want his followers to perish from the collateral impact of this explosion.
Nyanko-sensei also ran over to assist, releasing a powerful surge of Yoki, working together with Nurarihyon to withstand the secondary shock of the blast.
In contrast, the yokai belonging to Hagoromo Gitsune's faction were blown to pieces in an instant, as there was no one to protect them.
The secondary impact of the explosion slammed heavily against the surrounding Bounded Field, like giant waves crashing relentlessly one after another.
Yet, the Bounded Field stood firm.
Like a majestic mountain, no matter how the ocean waves battered it, not a single change occurred.
On the other hand, Hagoromo Gitsune received an unprecedented battering within this explosion.
When the blast occurred, Hagoromo Gitsune took the shockwave directly from the front.
Her nine fox tails instinctively wrapped around her body at the final second, forming a black shield.
However, the power of the shockwave far exceeded her calculations.
The first fox tail was torn apart the moment it contacted the shockwave, and a mist of black blood erupted into the air.
The second fox tail followed immediately after, sliced into several segments by the sharp fragments of Mana within the shockwave.
Although the third and fourth fox tails were not destroyed outright, the flesh and skin upon them were charred black by the extreme heat of the shockwave, their fur catching fire as the flames spread to her body through the tails.
Only the fifth fox tail managed to endure with great difficulty.
That tail had been burned down until only muscle fibers remained, yet it still shielded Hagoromo Gitsune's head and heart area with absolute tightness.
Once the shockwave passed, Hagoromo Gitsune was launched into the air by the rushing gales.
Her body spun through the air, clearing the flattened ruins of Nijo Castle, clearing the collapsed castle walls, clearing the dried-up moat, and crashing into the distance like a discarded piece of tattered cloth.
Not a single part of her body remained intact; the luxurious kimono she wore was reduced to a few charred threads hanging from her form. Most of her body suffered severe burns, her skin charred black and cracked, weeping blood from between the fissures.
Her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken.
There was a deep wound exposing the bone on her right thigh, caused by the impact of flying stone fragments within the shockwave.
At the final second before crashing, she violently drove her remaining right arm into the ground, her five fingers carving five deep trenches into the earth, finally halting her momentum.
She knelt upon the ground, panting heavily, and each time she breathed, clots of blood would spill from her throat.
After a long time, she lifted her head.
The sight before her caused her remaining pupil to suddenly contract.
Nijo Castle was no more.
The official residence managed by generations of the Tokugawa Shogun for hundreds of years, one of the most magnificent castles in Kyoto, had currently transformed into a giant crater.
The crater possessed a diameter of over a hundred zhang, with a depth of dozens of zhang, and its edges were as steep as if they had been sliced by a knife.
In the center of the crater, the rainbow-colored pillar of Mana light was slowly fading, its residual glow casting swaying shadows against the crater walls, making the entire giant pit look like the entrance to hell.
Not long after, Nurarihyon walked over with slow steps.
At this moment, having exhausted all his strength, he could no longer maintain his youthful form, reverting back into his appearance as an old grandfather.
Hagoromo Gitsune raised her head, slowly looking in Nurarihyon's direction.
Nurarihyon looked down at her expressionlessly.
One standing, one collapsed.
Victory and defeat were already perfectly clear.
Hagoromo Gitsune suddenly smiled, as though she had relinquished all resistance, a smile that looked like a release from a heavy burden.
"Hundreds of years ago, you stopped me."
"I never expected that hundreds of years later, you would stop me once again."
"You absolute bastard Nurarihyon, you truly make people detest you."
Nurarihyon shook his head, then spoke calmly: "This time it wasn't me who stopped you, but rather humans who stopped you. You underestimated the humans of this era far too much, you rotten fox."
He knew Hagoromo Gitsune's strength incredibly well, compounded further by that trump card of hers. If Kazuma Yumesaki and the others had not acted in time, the side losing their forces and fleeing in utter chaos this time would have been himself and his Nura Clan.
Therefore, Nurarihyon did not claim this achievement as his own.
"Humans?" Hagoromo Gitsune looked around, her eyes landing on Yumesaki who was slowly walking closer. She tilted her head and asked: "Is it you, the person who led this group of powerful individuals to defeat me?"
Yumesaki nodded and said: "You could say that."
"I have never seen you before, why did you seek trouble with me?" Hagoromo Gitsune asked, unable to understand.
Yumesaki said: "Because you want to wipe out humanity."
Hagoromo Gitsune suddenly realized, "So that's how it is."
She wished to wipe out humanity, so humans naturally wished to kill her. A matter like this had nothing to do with hatred, but rather a struggle for human survival.
Yumesaki said: "Tell me, Hagoromo Gitsune, where is your son, Abe no Seimei?"
In the original storyline of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Hagoromo Gitsune's greatest desire was to give birth to her son once more.
Yet at this moment, Hagoromo Gitsune possessed no such obsession, focusing entirely on wiping out humanity.
What was the meaning of this?
It indicated that Hagoromo Gitsune did not care about giving birth to her son at all.
No, this precisely proved one thing, which was that Abe no Seimei was not dead, or in other words, Hagoromo Gitsune had already given birth to her son from the very beginning.
Hearing Yumesaki directly question Seimei's whereabouts from the very start of the conversation, Hagoromo Gitsune's pupils trembled violently.
"You seem to know quite a lot."
"You could say that."
Yumesaki had no intention of wasting words with Hagoromo Gitsune. He pressed her once more to reveal the location of Abe no Seimei.
However, Hagoromo Gitsune remained unmoved, "You are very clever, but it is impossible for me to reveal Seimei's whereabouts to you."
Abe no Seimei was her son, her hope, her light, and her everything. How could she possibly betray her own son? No matter who asked, she would never speak.
"I figured as much." Yumesaki sighed, then switched to the Slow Slow Fruit, raising his hand to fire a beam of Slow Slow Beam. It struck Hagoromo Gitsune, and her movements instantly became unprecedentedly sluggish.
Following that, Yumesaki took several steps forward until he was right in front of Hagoromo Gitsune, first sealing away her power.
Then he switched to the Memo Memo Fruit, quickly pulling the memories of Hagoromo Gitsune out from her mind.
Since you are unwilling to speak, I will simply see it for myself.
The memories of Hagoromo Gitsune over the past one thousand years laid themselves out completely before Yumesaki.
Nurarihyon also walked over to watch, as he too was incredibly curious about what exactly Hagoromo Gitsune had been plotting.
Not long after, Nurarihyon's face turned grim.
Because he saw one matter clearly from Hagoromo Gitsune's memories.
The party who wished to wipe out humanity all this time was not Hagoromo Gitsune at all.
Hagoromo Gitsune possessed no particular fondness for humans, nor did she hold immense hatred, and she certainly did not detest them to the point of wanting to eradicate them.
The reason why she wished to wipe out humanity, if traced back to its roots, was because her son, Abe no Seimei, wished to wipe out humanity and establish a world consisting only of yokai.
The actual mastermind was not Hagoromo Gitsune in the slightest.
It was Abe no Seimei.
This was truly absurd. What sort of massive issue did this Abe no Seimei actually have, that he felt compelled to wipe out humanity just to establish a yokai world?
Furthermore, the death of his own son, Rihan Nura, was also deeply connected to Abe no Seimei; it could even be said that Abe no Seimei was the one who killed him.
This realization left Nurarihyon feeling incredibly furious.
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