There was no helping it.
Abe no Seimei was the candidate Izanagi wanted most.
Another four hundred years had passed since then.
During that time, Abe no Seimei waited for Hagoromo Fox while building the Underworld's official organization.
That was how the present Hundred Demons Netherworld came to be—overly orderly, with almost no freedom to speak of.
Yet he had never abandoned the idea of returning to the Human Realm, and his ambitions only continued to swell.
Abe no Seimei wanted to become a god who ruled over both the yin and yang realms, using darkness to suppress the light!
And recently,
he had been plotting with Yamamoto Gorozaemon, the "Hyakki Yagyō: Demon King" who had come to the Underworld during the Edo Period, to eliminate Rihan Nura.
That way, the bastard would not stop Hagoromo Fox from giving birth to him again.
But just as the two were talking within Heian-kyō,
Abe no Seimei abruptly fell silent.
"Lord Seimei, what is it?"
Yamamoto Gorozaemon, massive and bloated, with a body riddled with deformities, looked utterly confused.
But Abe no Seimei ignored him. Even his gaze had gone unfocused.
His consciousness had been drawn into a strange space of darkness.
"What is this?!"
"An illusion technique? But how did I fail to notice it?"
Abe no Seimei unleashed several onmyō techniques in succession, trying to escape the bizarre illusion.
But none of his methods had any effect whatsoever.
Then, a light suddenly appeared before him and began forming scene after scene.
From his birth, to becoming an onmyōji, to falling into darkness and taking control of Kyoto.
Then, after his death, arriving in the Underworld to await his chance, before becoming its master.
These were the events of his past.
A moment later, the images finally reached the present.
He