If she'd been a little stronger, she wouldn't have fought like that in front of Yurikawa Hana. She would've ended the battle faster and more quietly. Besides, even though the fight had gone smoothly and she hadn't been at a disadvantage, that was only because the Ghost hadn't gotten close to her.
Humans and Ghosts had different physiques. Even low-realm cultivators could hardly claim their bodies were stronger than ordinary people's, since they focused most of their attention on cultivating spiritual energy. Only body cultivators could physically clash with Ghosts at a low realm. A cultivator like Miko, who focused solely on Spiritual Sense, prioritized nurturing it, so all her spiritual energy gathered in her Soul Repository—in her brain. After all, the ultimate goal of her sect was to leave the body behind and become a deity through the True Spirit. Strengthening the body would only make it harder to separate spirit from flesh.
When she fought that Ghost, the only defenses she had were two Soul Screen Talismans. If the Ghost had hit her a couple more times, it was hard to say whether she'd have survived. Fortunately, it didn't know how to deal with a ranged combatant who hit hard but had low defense. It acted only according to its own instincts, and as a result, it missed its best chance to deal with Miko.
But that was all in the past. In truth, she'd gained nothing from the whole operation. She'd used up the talisman patterns she'd spent so much effort creating, and in the end, she'd completely obliterated the Ghost's Soul Body. It hadn't helped her grow stronger at all. If anything, the Ghost had only made Yotsuya Miko realize that she still wasn't prepared to face the worst-case scenario.
She lacked both combat experience and preparation. Even against a Ghost like that, all she could do was kill it by throwing talisman patterns at it. But just because that Ghost could be killed that way, did that mean every other Ghost would be the same?
She'd neglected her strength and the combat experience that should have gone with it. Fortunately, there was still time. Things hadn't reached the point of no return.
As she thought this, Yurikawa Hana had already recovered from the unpleasantness of having passed out earlier. She turned to Yotsuya Miko.
"Never mind. It's all taken care of now. Miko, let's go eat."
"Okay."
Miko nodded. Seeing that Hana didn't suspect she was making excuses, she felt a little less anxious about her own strength. Through her Spiritual Sense, she could still feel the Life Energy radiating from Hana, endlessly spilling outward and announcing its presence to the world. This powerful Life Energy had already brought new trouble her way. And when its host could no longer supply it for whatever reason, then the real trouble would begin.
I have to find a way to hide the Life Energy around Hana.
She silently repeated the thought. At last, she had a plan for what to do next. But for now... she'd let herself relax and stop worrying about Ghosts.
Miko smiled and went over to Hana, chatting with her about what they'd do that day.
As usual, Hana enthusiastically talked about food, declaring which dishes tasted amazing. Miko played along, sometimes agreeing and sometimes teasing her, without the slightest hint of displeasure. For the two of them, this sort of interaction was part of everyday life.
And for Miko, it was also the only way she could ease the pressure weighing on her heart. Since becoming a demonic cultivator, she could no longer live like an ordinary person. Just as her master had said, the Demonic Path feared the strong and dreaded the weak.
Those on the Demonic Path feared the strong, but they feared their own weakness even more, because weakness often brought even greater troubles.
Yuria's New Doll
Futamido Yuria was less a psychic who could see spirits and more a girl with a bad case of chuunibyou. After being ostracized by her peers, she'd become even less sociable than she already was.
But... she still had to take responsibility for what she'd done.
From outside the classroom, she could clearly hear the noisy chatter within. She watched the students gathered in little groups, and discomfort rose in her again. The lively din of people laughing and chatting made her feel extremely ill at ease—she even found it a little irritating. Her gaze moved away from the crowd and finally landed on a familiar figure: Yotsuya Miko.
A powerful psychic with an absolutely awful personality—that was what Yuria thought of her.
There was no denying her strength. After seeing the golden-eyed girl kill a huge Ghost with her own eyes, Yuria had painfully realized how far apart they were. But because of that, she naturally assumed that someone so powerful wouldn't need her, and that all those overly friendly gestures were just a sign of her bad character.
Why was she so awful...?
Yuria gritted her teeth and clutched a bag of bread.
If she thought she could get along with that girl, she'd probably just end up facing another betrayal. She really didn't want to go through that again...
"Um..."
She walked into the classroom and stopped in front of the girl named Yurikawa Hana. Yuria placed the bread she was holding on the orange-haired girl's desk.
"Do you want some?"
Hana, who'd been chatting with Yotsuya Miko, looked toward the voice, surprised.
"You're... Yuria-chan?"
She stood up, entirely without hesitation, and took the bread.
"Is this for me? Thank you, Yuria-chan."
Then she seemed to remember something.
"You ran off in such a hurry that day. I thought you didn't like me."
It wasn't that she liked her, but it wasn't that she disliked her either. It was mostly because of that girl...
Yuria glanced at Yotsuya Miko. The other girl seemed to notice her gaze and smiled at her.
"I didn't expect you to bring me something to eat. Thank you so much."
As she spoke, Hana hugged the petite Yuria. Her chest pressed against Yuria so firmly that Yuria could barely breathe.
"Oh, next time I'll treat you to Butt Mochi."
Butt Mochi? What was that?
The thought flashed through her mind, but the suffocating feeling was still making her uncomfortable. She wanted to struggle free of Hana's embrace, but she didn't seem to have the strength. Her pleading gaze slid toward Miko.
Miko avoided her eyes and turned her attention to the window. The Evil Banishing Talisman had been activated, but its range was too small to keep the Ghosts from wandering around. Outside its perimeter, the Ghosts were still a nuisance. And after what had just happened with the Kimono Ghost, Yotsuya Miko realized it was better to kill them than leave them alone. She needed to get stronger and prepare for the next powerful Ghost to appear, and those weak Ghosts were nourishment not only for her, but for stronger Ghosts too.
It'd be best to wipe out their gathering place all at once.
With that thought, Miko finally reached out and rescued Yuria, who was on the verge of passing out from lack of air. Using the excuse, she took her to the bathroom.
"Sorry. Hana's just like that."
She apologized, but there wasn't a trace of guilt on her face. Instead, she watched Yuria with a smile, as if she were deliberately making fun of her.
Yuria pouted. The fact that the girl in front of her was also a powerful psychic only made her feel more frustrated.
Why couldn't she be as strong as Miko?
As she wondered, Miko's voice reached her ears.
"This might be a little sudden, but Yuria-chan, do you know anywhere that has a lot of Ghosts gathered?"
Compared to Miko, who'd only started seeing them recently, Yuria had been able to see them since she was little. Surely she'd paid much more attention to places like that. Besides, she often fantasized about becoming a powerful psychic.
"A place with lots of Ghosts?"
At that, Yuria suddenly perked up. She looked excitedly at Yotsuya Miko.
"Are you going to exorcise them?!"
Her voice was so loud it was hard to believe it came from such a tiny girl. Miko hurriedly gestured for her to lower her voice.
"Calm down. We can't let ordinary people know about this."
"I get it, I get it."
Yuria gave her an understanding look. The image of a psychic in her mind was becoming clearer and clearer.
"Since you've put it that way, I, Futamido Yuria, will guide you! There's a Cursed Building nearby that I know about. There are lots of Ghosts in there, so even you might—"
"Ah, you don't need to worry about that."
Miko waved her hand. She knew which place Yuria meant.
"Are you scared...?"
Yuria watched Miko's face fall, convinced she'd figured out what the other girl was thinking.
That's right. I knew it. She isn't as...
"No. Actually, that place has already been dealt with."
Yotsuya Miko sighed. Just thinking about it made her heart ache. When she'd counted up her talisman patterns afterward, she'd found that most of them were nearly ruined. And after factoring in the flesh she'd bought to draw them, her allowance had shrunk by more than half. That hadn't been a fight at all. It had been a waste of money.
And on top of wasting all that money, she'd completely obliterated every Ghost in the entire building, leaving nothing useful behind.
"W-What? You took them all out?!"
Her voice rose again, making the girls in the bathroom start to get annoyed.
"Hey, you two..."
"Very sorry. I'll take her outside right away."
Miko apologized without hesitation, then grabbed Yuria by the hem of her clothes and led her to a corner by the stairs. Yuria's loud outburst was giving her a headache.
"The Ghosts in there weren't as strong as the one you saw last time."
Not counting the Kimono Ghost.
"B-But... that was a whole building full of Ghosts!"
Yuria stared at Miko, who'd stated it so calmly. Wasn't Miko's reaction the strangest thing here?
It had been a whole building full of "Ghosts," not a bunch of cats and dogs. Even the psychics in movies hadn't shown that kind of power. That was just ridiculous.
"All right, all right. A whole building. Are there any other places?"
"...There are a few, but if you're looking for strong Ghosts, I'll take you next time."
Yuria felt she had to see for herself whether Miko was telling the truth. If they hadn't still been at school, she'd have run straight to the Cursed Building.
Miko had nothing to say to Yuria, who clearly didn't believe her. She shook her head, then suddenly remembered something and took a small object from her pocket.
"Oh, right. This is for you. Think of it as compensation for breaking your rosary last time."
"What is it?"
A small Amanita Muscaria Charm doll lay in Miko's right palm.
"It's for warding off evil. It can drive Ghosts away. Last time I saw an accessory like this, it reminded me of your hair clip, so I bought it."
As she spoke, Miko placed the doll in Yuria's hand.
"Well, see you after school."
Yuria seemed not to hear her. She stared at the doll in her hand until Yotsuya Miko disappeared from view.
"What's with her... It's just a doll... Godmother's rosary is way better than this."
Even as she said that, she obediently kept it.
Tunnel Trip
It wasn't until Yotsuya Miko truly started paying attention to cultivating the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record that she realized how welcoming her world was to demonic cultivators. Well, to demonic cultivators who relied on Ghosts to cultivate.
Countless Ghosts—or Soul Bodies, called "spirits" in the country where she lived—shared the world with humans, though the two rarely interacted. These Ghosts were numerous enough to sustain a whole sect's cultivation in the Xuanhui Realm, even if their quality might not be the best. Demonic cultivators weren't picky, anyway.
In the Xuanhui Realm, the only places to find large numbers of Ghosts were the Ghost Domain and the Netherworld. To find Ghosts in the mortal world, cultivators would have to slaughter every living thing in an area. Otherwise, they'd have to make do with scavenging remnant souls.
Because the Ghost Domain was ruled by a powerful figure known as its "king," who commanded all the Ghosts there, and because several powerful figures slept or remained awake in the Netherworld—figures that even cultivators in the Enlightenment Realm couldn't handle—demonic cultivators usually made the sensible choice to slaughter villages or cities instead. They'd still attract the attention of the righteous path, but compared to the Ghost Domain and the Netherworld, the righteous path was hardly a threat. After all, those on the righteous path didn't protect mortals out of a sense of justice, so they rarely went to war against demonic cultivators. Still, their sects often had disciples who did care about justice.
In the end, whether righteous or demonic, cultivators stood far above mortals and naturally couldn't look at them as equals. The existence of class divisions was only natural. The righteous path's conduct was still better than the demonic path's, if only because public opinion mattered more. As for the demonic path... it might not have been highly respected, but it was certainly infamous.
If someone was going to take a cut either way, people preferred a dull knife that left them alive at the end. Besides, the righteous path's knives were dull and well hidden; ordinary people didn't have the insight to notice them. They never realized that the government they cursed was using those knives to carve flesh from their bones for the righteous path.
All of the above was Zhang Qiudao's mockery of the righteous and demonic paths.
Zhang Qiudao had always been clear-headed about this. Any kind of supernatural power was a calamity for mortals. Rather than living in a supernatural world, it was better to live in one without it. Yotsuya Miko agreed with him on that point. Before she could see Ghosts, she'd lived in just such a world.
She also silently scoffed at Zhang Qiudao's attempt to indoctrinate her with the "rightness of the Demonic Path." No matter how much that unscrupulous master who'd forced her to become his disciple tried to explain himself, his loyalties still lay with the Demonic Path. Even the cultivation manual he'd left behind repeatedly dissected and denounced the righteous path, trying to shift the conflict between the righteous and demonic paths from one of morality to one of self-interest.
But evil was evil. Yotsuya Miko gazed out the window at the trees rushing past behind them. Their emerald leaves joined together into a green wall, and she couldn't help sighing. In the end, the Demonic Path was still the Demonic Path. Even if she devoured the Soul Bodies of Ghosts, others would still dislike her—and that dislike might soon turn to fear. Besides, the creator of the Nine Nether Profound Soul Treasure Record didn't only consume Ghosts. Cultivators of high realms were much purer and cleaner nourishment than Ghosts.
Trying to justify the righteousness of a cultivation manual that devoured Ghosts and humans was as laughable as discussing human rights in the Lighthouse.
"Rumble—"
The car pulled into the station. Miko pushed aside the questions about the righteous and demonic paths that had suddenly surfaced in her mind and looked at the petite girl beside her.
"Yuria, is this the place?"
"Yeah, this is it."
Yuria nodded. She was about to say something, but when she noticed Yurikawa Hana holding a camera beside her, she quietly swallowed her words and played with the Amanita Muscaria Charm doll.
Hana's enthusiasm still made her extremely uncomfortable, even after they'd met several times. It was as if this person were her natural enemy.
"Wow... is this the place? Miko, are there really any scenic spots here?"
"Yeah, there are."
Yotsuya Miko smiled, making Hana look forward to the sights even more.
Yuria still didn't understand why Miko had brought Hana along for an exorcism.
She looked at Miko in confusion. After interacting with Yurikawa Hana, she knew that Hana was just an ordinary person with a powerful Life Energy. Bringing an ordinary person along for something like this seemed far too reckless.
Miko didn't explain much. Instead, she checked the tiny amount of talisman patterns she'd placed on Hana again, making sure they'd activate the instant she encountered a Ghost.
After what had happened with the Kimono Ghost, the Ram Rabbit charm that had been carrying Hana's Evil Banishing Talisman was completely ruined. Miko had learned that one talisman pattern alone couldn't stop a Ghost from getting in. So afterward, she'd kept improving the safety measures on Hana, eventually turning the results of her research into another talisman-pattern doll.
The new doll Hana carried contained every talisman pattern Miko had ever studied. The reason she'd brought Hana to a place full of Ghosts was simple: to test the new doll. Only after confirming that it could kill all the Ghosts without harming Hana would Miko feel even slightly at ease. Incidentally, the Amanita Muscaria Charm doll Yuria had was about the same.
After checking once more that there was plenty of spiritual energy and that all the talisman patterns were intact, the three of them got out of the car and headed along the mountain road. Miko hadn't lied to Yurikawa Hana. There really was a beautiful view on the mountain, but they'd have to pass through an abandoned tunnel first.
"Ooh! It's already got such a great atmosphere!"
Before you continue