"Gasp~~~~~~~!"
Like the desperate panting of a drowning person.
The miko was pulled out of the dream.
She rolled onto the grass, her eyes wide as she continued to process what she had just experienced.
The mikos had indeed left behind the power of their thoughts within Mōryō's shell.
However, this power of their thoughts was not the driving force behind Mōryō.
The truth was...
The miko, Mōryō's shell, and Mōryō's soul.
The three had originally been one.
To put it more precisely, the miko, Mōryō as a whole, had originally been an existence known as the "miko."
Of course, this did not mean that combining the three would recreate the original "miko" from back then.
If that were the case,
Mōryō would not have needed to devour the mikos' power one by one.
Mōryō was Mōryō.
The miko was the miko.
They had already split apart.
"So that's how it is..."
Hyuga Sho, who had pulled the miko out of Mōryō's body, learned the truth because of it.
The thousand-year-old otherworldly demon, the miko's tragic sacrifice...
From beginning to end, it had all been nothing more than a boring game caused by the "original" splitting apart.
After learning this,
Hyuga Sho stepped forward and gazed at Miroku, who was sitting on the ground.
"Now... all the questions have been answered."
What remained
was to eliminate Mōryō's soul.
Two days remained.
Mōryō would arrive in two days.
When that happened... its soul would enter its body,
and gain control of it.
Hyuga Sho currently had two solutions.
1. Find a way to turn the shell into a prison and restrain Mōryō inside it.
2. Prevent Mōryō's soul and body from unifying. As long as its soul could not enter the shell, then two days later... when the daimyo of the