"Is that... the core?"
Inuyasha stared at the dark-green heart.
With every beat of that heart, a thick surge of evil aura poured out from the cracks.
The evil aura churned and gathered in the air, turning into one new Evil Spirit after another.
When those Evil Spirits were first born, they were only the size of a fist, but within a few breaths, they swelled to half a person's height, crawled up from the ground, and joined the encircling attack.
"No wonder we can't kill them all..."
Sakura tightened her grip on the Qinglan Sword. The faint blue glow on the blade looked somewhat dim beneath the reflection of the dark-green evil aura.
Kikyo stood at the edge of the crack, looking down at that heart, her gaze still calm.
Her breathing was a little more hurried than before.
The constant fighting, the repeated drawing of her bow and loosing arrows, had already consumed a great deal of her Spiritual Power.
She drew a talisman from her waist, pinched it between her fingers, and murmured a brief incantation.
The cinnabar symbols on the talisman lit with golden light.
With a flick of her hand, the talisman flew toward the heart inside the crack.
Hiss!
Just as the talisman flew above the crack, a surge of dark-green evil aura sprayed out from the heart like a giant hand and seized it in one grip.
The golden light rapidly dimmed under the evil aura's corrosion. A few breaths later, the talisman turned into ash and scattered through the air.
Kikyo frowned slightly.
"Barrier-type talismans are useless against it."
She paused.
"We need a physical attack to destroy it."
"A physical attack?"
Inuyasha gripped the Red Fang Blade and glanced into the crack.
The heart was at the bottom of a crack