Miko Becomes a Demonic Cultivator
The author is a mess of corrupted text.
Synopsis:
If you can see them, that's a huge problem.
But why choose to run away?
If they're stronger than humans, why not become an even more powerful existence yourself?
Yotsuya Miko, you have the potential to become a Devil Venerable.
(Reader's note: Please don't try to compare different systems of abilities.)
Zhang Qiudao Meets Miko and Entrusts Her with His Legacy
It was another peaceful day at Nanamisaki Academy High School.
But today, Yotsuya Miko had a bit of bad luck: she'd lost the "Eye-Eye" she'd just bought.
"As I thought, I dropped it at school."
After struggling to retrieve the lost doll from under the lectern, she left the school gates again. The sky had already darkened, and rain was pouring down.
Braving the downpour, Miko hurried to the bus stop.
"This is the worst. I really should've brought an umbrella."
As she spoke, she brushed the raindrops from her head and looked at her skirt, which was already soaked through. Her mood soured.
"I'm drenched."
She wrung the hem of her skirt with both hands, and a steady stream of water dripped from her fingertips onto the ground. It seemed she was soaked from head to toe.
Her excellent-quality, pale-yellow jacket had kept out most of the rain, so at least she wouldn't catch a cold.
After wringing her skirt a little drier, Miko looked toward the bus stop and murmured about the next bus.
She took out her phone. The blue case still bore the same "Eye-Eye"—a one-eyed figure with its mouth sewn shut. She had no idea why she liked it.
"My phone should be okay, right?"
She turned on the screen. There was a message from six minutes ago, sent by her friend Yurikawa Hana.
"Did you get rained on?"
"I lost something, and I'm soaked all over."
Yotsuya Miko replied, then sent a photo of herself looking like a drowned rat to show just how miserable she felt.
But the very next second, Hana sent her a photo identical to the one she'd just sent.
"The same photo?"
Yotsuya Miko blinked, confused.
Before she could ask her friend what was going on, Hana sent another identical photo.
"What's going on?"
"Sorry, I didn't catch that."
Before she could figure out what was happening, an unfamiliar woman's voice came from her phone, as if she were speaking to someone.
"What?"
"Sorry, I didn't catch that."
The unfamiliar woman repeated the same sentence, while Hana kept sending the same photo to her phone, again and again.
The eerie situation left Miko at a loss. She stared at the pictures on her phone.
The rapidly appearing photos looked like a video playing. The image of her in them began to twist, growing stranger and stranger.
At last, Miko saw something in the photo that was completely unlike herself: a monster.
A ghostly thing with hollow eyes, dressed just like her.
Rumble—!
At that very moment, a bolt of lightning suddenly flashed across the sky.
The lightning briefly lit up the whole sky, and the thunder seemed to chase after it, booming moments later.
Startled twice over, Miko stumbled backward. The phone slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.
It clattered loudly.
Yotsuya Miko gasped for breath, trying to calm her pounding heart after facing the eerie scene.
It felt like a long time before she recovered from her fright.
She cautiously glanced from side to side, making sure she couldn't see anything strange.
Clutching the straps of her schoolbag tightly, she finally worked up the courage to go pick up the phone from the ground.
She turned it on again. It was still a message from Yurikawa Hana.
The messages looked normal. She had just sent the photo of herself looking like a drowned rat, and beneath it was her friend's concerned message from six minutes earlier.
"Waaah 😭, want me to bring you an umbrella?"
Looking at the normal message, the girl breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking back to what had just happened, she still found it hard to believe.
"I guess I'm a little too tired today."
As she spoke, she rubbed the corner of her eye with her left hand, hoping to shake off her fatigue.
But when she looked ahead again, a face with hollow eyes was staring straight at her.
"Can you see me?"
The ghost, half a body taller than Miko, tilted its head as if a little embarrassed and asked again.
"Can you see me?"
The girl stared blankly at the ghost. When she began to understand what was happening, she forced down her terror, but her left hand gripping her skirt still trembled uncontrollably. It took several seconds for the trembling to stop.
She calmly turned her face away and sighed as if she were an ordinary person.
"Ah, the bus is so slow."
Unfortunately—no, it couldn't be called fortunate at all—
From the other side of her vision, an old man with a blurred lower body stared straight at her, as if he'd seen something unbelievable.
"You can see me?"
Though the old man didn't look like the ghost from before and had an ordinary human face, the purplish aura surrounding him and his blurred lower body still made her realize he wasn't human.
"H-hasn't it come yet?"
Miko felt like she was about to cry. She fought back her trembling, but the ghost on the other side didn't leave her alone either. It twisted its head around to face her.
"Can you see me?"
"Can you see me?"
The old man drifted closer to Miko as well.
And so, Yotsuya Miko chose to ignore them.
"Ah."
She said "Ah," as if she'd just remembered something, and "calmly" picked up her phone.
"I haven't replied yet."
After saying that, she ignored the two Ghosts and pretended to focus on typing a reply.
The trick seemed to work. The towering Malevolent Ghost watched her for a few moments, then turned and left.
"She can't see me..."
"She's not looking..."
"She can't see me..."
Like a lovesick fool who'd been abandoned, it staggered away and faded into the air.
But one ghost was still staring fixedly at her.
"It's gone. That Soul Body is gone."
"You can see me, can't you, little girl?"
The old man stood in the distance, watching Yotsuya Miko, an ordinary person who was still pretending not to see him or the Soul Body. He understood what was going on.
"Fine, you can't see me. My name is Zhang Qiudao. I'm a Demonic Path cultivator from the Xuanhui Realm."
As he spoke, Zhang Qiudao wore a bitter expression. He had still failed.
When the Golden Giant Eye said he "couldn't see the Dao's true form," he had already lost. The Heavenly Dao had shattered the Soul-Devouring Dao Body he'd forged with the power of an entire realm, using a might he couldn't even begin to understand. It had even shattered his True Spirit.
Fortunately, he had still kept something in reserve. Relying on countless contingencies he'd left behind over 2,200 years, he had finally escaped the Xuanhui Realm right under the Heavenly Dao's nose.
Perhaps the Heavenly Dao had let him leave. After all, with only a remnant spirit left, he couldn't do much anymore.
In any case, he had lost utterly.
"The Xuanhui Realm must be one realm among countless others, and I, too, am from beyond this world. I ended up like this after fighting the world to the death. Still, I accept my defeat. I'm simply unwilling to let my cultivation vanish into ashes, and I'm unwilling to let the world's words—'you cannot see the Dao'—be the end of it. Since you... can see—no, since you can look upon it, and you can look upon my remnant spirit, then perhaps you can also look upon... the Dao."
With that, he walked toward Yotsuya Miko. With each step, his form weakened, until by the time he reached her, only his head retained anything resembling a physical form.
Looking at Yotsuya Miko, who couldn't stop trembling, Zhang Qiudao sighed.
"Enter my Dao, and become a cultivator of the Demonic Path. Remember: the Demonic Path fears the strong and bullies the weak."
His insubstantial finger tapped Miko on the forehead, then crumbled to dust.
Only after she was certain both Ghosts had left did Miko finally relax a little.
Her lips pressed tightly together, she kept up the pretense of looking at her phone, while inwardly she ranted wildly to vent her fear.
"That scared me to death! What was that?!"
"I could see them so clearly! So clearly!"
As she ranted, tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
Clearly, she was badly frightened.
The Dream-Borne Teaching
Yotsuya Miko's bad luck continued all the way into the night. Whether she saw a ghost in the bathroom sink or in her bed beneath the covers, she was on the verge of a breakdown.
The piles of salt weren't working at all...
Still afraid, Yotsuya Miko eventually closed her eyes.
Half-asleep, she seemed to hear someone calling out.
"Yotsuya Miko... Yotsuya Miko..."
"Who is it?"
The voice was deep, like an old man's, and it didn't sound much like Japanese. Yet, strangely, she could understand it, just like... back at that bus stop.
Realizing that, Miko abruptly opened her eyes and saw the old man in front of her.
When she got a clear look at him, her fear finally broke her completely.
"Why... why are you after me?"
The stress that had built up from seeing one ghost after another finally shattered the girl, who had no nerves of steel. She knew the monster in front of her had found her for good. No matter how much she ignored him, she couldn't just brush him off.
Tears slid from the corners of the girl's eyes.
"Hm?"
The old man, Zhang Qiudao, couldn't help frowning. Seeing how useless she was, he shook his head.
"As a disciple of the Myriad Transformation Devil Venerable, you shouldn't be like this. Stand up and speak."
Before you continue