Gashadokuro

"Falling Cherry Blossom Slash!"

Five sword auras instantly cleared the surrounding evil spirits and monsters.

"All evil, begone!"

Kikyo pulled out a string of prayer beads and scattered them forward... the vengeful spirits were instantly purified and dissipated.

"Taste my power! Scarlet Fire Hell."

Higokumaru spread her arms, and a ray of flame swept forward, directly clearing away all the miasma.

"There is too much miasma; this is useless."

Kikyo took out the Gale Blade that Yae Sakura had given her and released a tornado, but... after only a moment, the vengeful spirits and miasma returned.

"Never mind these, let's keep moving..."

Carrying the Spirit Blade, she looked at the endless miasma; continuing like this would be futile.

"This place shouldn't just be a battlefield. It must have been a mass grave before this, otherwise, it couldn't possess such terrifying miasma." Kikyo looked at the terrain, pondered for a moment, and guessed.

"A mass grave... hmm, let's go!"

Ignoring the vengeful spirits and miasma, the three continued forward...

After walking only a few steps, they discovered an ancient well by the side of a crude dirt path, with several soldiers' corpses lying beside it.

As Yae Sakura and the others passed by the desolate well, a terrifying, rattling sound suddenly came from within, making their hair stand on end.

"Be careful."

The three stopped at the same time and looked at the well.

"There is a monster, and it is very strong."

As she spoke, Kikyo took out an arrow, set it on her longbow, and locked onto the well.

Then... a white skeletal claw reached out, and slowly... a second claw followed... a head completely covered by long black hair emerged, and it crawled out of the well at a leisurely pace.

It was just like Sadako from The Ring.

However, this one crawled out of a well, while Sadako crawled out of a television.

"Gaga... do you want to drink some water?"

The monster, surrounded by soul fire and wrapped in white cloth, asked the three of them.

"Drink."

Just as Yae Sakura was about to say something, Kikyo agreed directly.

"This is the monster Kyokotsu," Kikyo introduced to Yae Sakura beside her.

"Kyokotsu..."

Yae Sakura first thought of a certain snake-playing daughter of Kyokotsu.

Kyokotsu was a terrifying skeletal monster that lived in ancient wells. It appeared in the dead of night and would ask passersby to "drink water." If they drank the water as it requested, it would disappear.

If they refused, it would twist its entire body and begin to dance, and anyone who saw the dance would immediately go mad and throw themselves into the well to die.

"Drink!"

A wooden ladle suddenly appeared in Kyokotsu's hand, filled with water.

Except... the water was black.

"Black water..."

Yae Sakura and Kikyo approached Kyokotsu and looked at the water in its hand; no matter how they looked at it, it was nothing good.

"Drink my foot!"

How could they possibly drink such a thing? Who knew what it was.

"Gaga... if you don't drink, you will die."

Kyokotsu's ear-piercing voice rang out once again. The sound it made was like the unpleasant noise emitted by the indiscriminate avenger Kayako from the Ju-On film series after her throat was slit while she was alive.

It was a curse-type well monster.

Yae Sakura finally couldn't take it anymore. Hearing this torturous sound with four ears... she was going crazy.

"Then you can just die."

A flash of pink blade light, and Kyokotsu, holding the wooden ladle, was immediately slain by the Spirit Blade.

Because of the Spirit Blade's specialized properties, the slain Kyokotsu began to dissipate directly, leaving behind only a few withered bones.

"It wasn't it..."

Too weak; it wasn't a great monster.

"Actually, you wouldn't have died if you drank that water..."

Looking at the dead Kyokotsu, Kikyo put away her bow and arrow.

"But we would have been cursed, right?"

"Yes, although it wouldn't have been very serious..." Kikyo nodded.

"Then why keep it around?"

"Sigh... because where there is a Kyokotsu, there must be some terrifying big guy. By eliminating the Kyokotsu... we have definitely been targeted."

Before Kikyo could finish speaking, the ground began to shake.

"An earthquake?"

"No, leave here quickly; that thing has awakened!"

Kikyo immediately grabbed Yae Sakura's hand and began to run back in a hurry, with Higokumaru following closely behind them.

After the three had moved several hundred meters away from the well, the ground cracked open completely, and a pair of giant bone hands reached out. These hands were as massive as a high-rise building.

The ground shook more and more violently, and in a short while... a half-body skeleton over a hundred meters tall appeared before the three.

Why call it a half-body skeleton?

Because it looked as if it had been cut in half at the waist; it only had an upper body, but that upper body alone was a hundred meters tall. If it were a full body...

"Big Sister, what huge bones!!"

Higokumaru gazed at the giant skeleton in front of them, and drool immediately began to flow.

"Ugh..." Yae Sakura had been in shock, but she was rendered speechless upon hearing Higokumaru's voice.

"It really appeared... Gashadokuro. This is the great monster you were talking about, right?" Kikyo held three arrows in her hand, aiming at the giant skeleton's eyes.

Ghostly blue flames burned within the eyes of the Gashadokuro.

"I suppose so!"

Gashadokuro were the souls of those killed on the battlefield whose bones were left unburied, their resentment transforming into a giant skeleton.

Because it was a great monster born from a battlefield, its combat power was far stronger than an average great monster.

However, the conditions for the birth of a Gashadokuro were very harsh; it definitely couldn't be born in just a few months. There must have been some other factors.

But that was fine; Yae Sakura was quite happy that a real great monster had appeared.

"Exorcism Arrow!" Seeing the Gashadokuro crawl completely out from underground, Kikyo immediately fired an arrow imbued with exorcism power toward the flames in the Gashadokuro's eyes.

But... the Gashadokuro simply blocked it with a wave of its hand, and Kikyo's arrow was deflected without causing any injury.

"Kyokotsu... you killed... Kyokotsu."

Because it had no feet, the Gashadokuro could only crawl and move with its hands, but its speed was not slow. After approaching the three, the Gashadokuro's giant hand slapped directly toward them.

"Retreat quickly..."

Yae Sakura shouldered [Tyr's Broken Arm] and fired a blast at the Gashadokuro's bone hand, which was as huge as a small mountain.