Resolving the Crisis; Demonic Blade Evolution

Resolving the Crisis; Demonic Blade Evolution, Land of Hot Water, Northern Territory Ice Valley.

This had once been a naturally formed ice cave rarely visited by anyone, buried beneath snow year-round and chilled to the bone.

But now, a nauseating stench of decay filled the depths of the ice valley.

Miroku stood at the center of the purification barrier she had set up at the entrance to the ice cave, her face as white as paper.

The jewel atop the Divine Staff clenched in her hand, passed down through generations of Miko, had already gone dull, with fine cracks even spreading across its surface.

"Hold on... I have to hold on..."

She bit through her tongue, using the pain to stimulate her nearly exhausted consciousness as she poured the last trace of Spiritual Power into the barrier.

Beyond the barrier lay a scene straight out of hell.

Deep within the ice cave, a gigantic pitch-black tree danced its hundreds of branches madly, its bark pulsing constantly like writhing internal organs.

At the end of every branch hung a corpse wrapped in translucent black slime.

They were patrolmen from the Land of Hot Water who had gone missing here.

Even more terrifying, a huge, twisted human face was embedded in the tree trunk.

Its features shifted constantly, sometimes resembling an old man, sometimes a child, sometimes a woman, but every face was filled with extreme agony and venomous resentment.

Below the face, a massive mouth had split open in the trunk, chewing on something nonstop and producing crisp cracking sounds of shattering bones.

"Hungry... so hungry..."

The giant tree spoke in a low, overlapping voice, as if hundreds or thousands of people were roaring at once.

"More energy... more souls... so delicious!"

One of its branches suddenly pierced through a corpse's