Adaptation

Whoosh—

Mahoraga's senses hadn't deceived him!

The Wheel above his head was being pulled by that gravitational force!

"ROAR!!"

Sensing danger, Mahoraga roared on instinct, then hacked the Yamata no Orochi coiled around him to pieces.

This roar was fundamentally different from every sound and expression he had shown before.

He wasn't trying to create a shockwave to disrupt his enemy, nor was he gloating because he had the upper hand.

He was irritated, furious, and even...

A trace of fear had appeared in his heart.

But that should have been impossible.

A Shikigami was only a tool. In theory, it couldn't...

[The price: remove Mahoraga from the ranks of the Ten Shadows' Shikigami and grant him freedom.]

Mahoraga didn't understand human language, so he couldn't understand what Mo Bai had said when making the Binding Vow.

But the word "freedom" instinctively stirred something in his heart.

Why?

Was it because his Wheel had turned too many times? Had he adapted to so many things that, despite being a Shikigami, he had grown unusually intelligent and begun thinking too much?

Or was it because Mo Bai's Binding Vow had just made him an independent being?

Either way, Mahoraga had no time to ponder it now.

Whoosh—

After he cut the Yamata no Orochi to pieces, the Wheel above his head was still being pulled toward Mo Bai.

Mo Bai wasn't faring well either.

Running Blue at maximum power left him barely able to think.

Heat and pain swept through his entire body.

But he knew that if he stopped halfway for a moment's relief, he would truly be finished.

Like a mindless, human-shaped Black Hole, he instinctively poured out Blue to draw in the power of adaptation that had belonged to Mahoraga.

Mo Bai's reason for making the Binding Vow