Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Sound the Victory Cry

The main temple hall was empty.

The high, spacious interior was dimly lit from the open windows on both sides. The miasma pouring from the vengeful spirit was completely gone.

But where the main altar should have been, a black mass lay on the floor of the inner sanctuary, still seeping miasma that slowly crawled across the floor, spreading its reach.

Minato walked deeper into the wide wooden hall. Holding a notepad in one hand and approaching slowly, the miasma floating near his feet scattered before touching his shoes.

He stood in front of the inner sanctuary, between the round pillars, and looked down. There was a black mass the size of a human head. Its surface squirmed and writhed. The trembling three martens gripped his hands tighter.

No matter how creepy it was or how much they didn't want to see it, they never looked away. They didn't shy away from unpleasant things or run from them. Minato always admired this attitude and tried to learn from it.

He scattered memo paper down onto the mass. White papers fell to the floor one after another. One by one, the writing disappeared during their fall.

Even when he got to the last one, the corruption wasn't completely purified.

Minato could see a black haze even in his own vision. He took one deep breath and pulled out the brush pen from his pocket. One stroke at a time, he wrote with purification power.

He dropped the papers as he wrote them. Multiple paper fragments slid past the mass, their words fading.

Sweat beaded on Minato's forehead he'd already exceeded his daily writing limit. With trembling hands, he poured everything into the last piece.

A pure white paper fragment fell to the floor. The mass had become a lighter color.

It was definitely weakening, but it wasn't completely purified.

He gripped the brush pen tightly. Unlike when he'd written on Harima's hand before, he couldn't write on his own body. Same with the familiars' bodies.

Minato looked around.

"Is there... anything else I can write on?"

"What about that shoulder strap?"

"The bag, the fabric... I've never tried, but let me see."

As he reached down to take off his body bag, "Uh!" Utsugi, who'd been leaning from above, slipped on his hind legs and fell into the hood. As he thrashed around struggling, the collar tightened and Minato arched back.

"Wait, I can't breathe!"

"Oh! A leaf! There's a leaf in there!"

Utsugi's face popped out of the hood with energy, and in his hands was a pointed oval leaf.

A blue leaf from the sacred camphor tree.

Seri and Torika's faces lit up.

"We can write on this!"

"Definitely. It's from a sacred tree. Plus, this has strong divine energy. How didn't we think of it before?"

"Who cares? Now we can completely purify it!"

Utsugi handed it down from above and Minato caught it. Seri peered at Minato's pale, sweaty face from the side.

"Can you write on it?"

"I'll do it."

He answered strongly, but exhaustion was hitting hard. His body felt heavy, but he had to keep going.

Besides. He quickly glanced around. The horrible sound of cracks came from everywhere crack, crack.

This otherworld probably wouldn't last much longer.

He suppressed his urgency, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He cleared his mind and started writing characters on both sides of the leaf. Normal ink would bead off, but the sacred water ink didn't. Crisp black writing was being carved in.

The watching martens held their breath. As the writing increased, the light radiating from the leaf grew brighter. Jade green mixed with the silver of the camphor tree, weaving together and rising like a shimmering veil.

Strong, so strong the light of exorcism.

When Minato finished writing, he looked down. He firmly pressed the leaf against the mass. Like mist clearing, the evil spirit scattered to dust and vanished.

In its place appeared a pearl.

He picked up the soft gleaming pearl with a cherry blossom tint. The familiar pearlescent shine the same as the Sacred Turtle, responding dragon, and qilin glowed dully in his hand.

"This is….."

A loud crack echoed from behind.

He spun around quickly. The large front doors of the main hall burst open. Deafening cracking sounds thundered through the entire building.

The otherworld was collapsing. The whole building swayed hard left and right. The three martens clung to him as his unsteady body wavered. A brief pause in the shaking, and he quickly shoved the pearl into his bag.

"Hold on tight!"

He pushed off the floor. Racing through the main hall as pieces peeled away and crumbled from the corners, he bolted outside. He leaped down the stone steps in one stride.

Another violent vertical tremor knocked him sideways, and he grabbed a nearby stone lantern to steady himself.

Through his blurry vision, the gate dozens of meters ahead seemed impossibly far away.

Tossed around by the endless vibrations, he pushed forward. But reality was cruel.

The sight that appeared in his unfocused vision made everyone stare. The hole the familiars had clawed open was getting smaller. Even a single marten wouldn't fit through anymore.

"How..."

"Why..."

Words of despair fell from their lips.

The otherworld was shrinking and closing. Pressure from all sides, a suffocating feeling of being crushed. Minato gathered all three martens into his arms and crouched on the gravel.

Then….

Divine thunder crashed down.

A roar that shook the earth. A massive crescent-shaped blade of wind descended from the sky. The collapsed temple was split clean in half. The entire otherworld was cut down in a single stroke.

Thunder fell on half the otherworld.

It burst into flames with a deafening roar, and divine fire consumed everything in an instant. Without pausing to breathe, countless bolts of lightning danced across the gray sky. Arranged in a net pattern, they stopped the otherworld's collapse.

The trembling stopped and the sound of cracking electricity filled the air. Minato, sitting on the ground, looked up. Through the white smoke, two small black figures stood in the center. Wind immediately swirled and cleared the air away.

Revealed was the temple hall, half of it now gone.

Beyond it was a path back to the real world. Under the reddish sky, Minato could see roofs of houses stretching into the distance and flocks of birds covering the power lines. He wondered vaguely if they'd been there the whole time.

Several men and women were visible, and Harima stood at the front.

The wind and thunder gods descended smoothly through the air toward the dumbfounded Minato. With their usual carefree attitude, both gods felt like salvation itself, and relieved tears spilled from his eyes. The martens in his arms finally relaxed, their bodies going limp as they stretched their limbs.

The wind god tilted his head lightly and laughed easily.

"Didn't I tell you? You'd get strong enough to slice through some jerk's house in one go."

"Right... I'm embarrassed."

"Looks like there's still a long way to go. Well, let's get out of here first, yeah?"

The reliable gods extended their hands to the exhausted Minato, who sat collapsed on the ground.

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