Bishamonten did not know what state she was in.
Her thoughts seemed sluggish, as if frozen. She could only passively receive information, and processing it was incredibly, incredibly slow. Once a thought arose, it took a very, very long time to run its course, as though an entire century had passed...
Maybe it was an illusion. After all, she had even lost her concrete sense of time. Without any clear frame of reference, it was naturally difficult for her to tell how much time had truly passed.
It was as if her consciousness were drifting over a pitch-black ocean, muddled and carried along by the waves. Or as if she had awakened in a dark room while half-asleep, seemingly awake yet unbearably drowsy, so groggy that she could not clearly perceive or think at all.
She did not know how long it went on like that. Perhaps, to her, it was only an instant, yet it also seemed like a long stretch of time had passed.
Then she suddenly saw light—
Unlike the pure darkness, the emptiness where she could sense nothing at all, she abruptly felt the weight of her body, the moisture in the air, the warmth of the world. It was as if a cold painting had suddenly come alive, colored in just the right way.
Her willpower instantly condensed along with the return of her senses and the resumption of her thoughts, allowing her clear-minded consciousness to swiftly return.
Along with it came the emotions and thoughts she had held in that instant before being sealed away, even the commands she had issued to her body. Thus, the moment she saw light again and was released, Bishamonten was not dazed at all. With astonishingly sharp momentum, she immediately locked onto the enemy before her once more!