The guards pushed open the towering Palace Hall Door, and the quiet conversation inside quickly died away. The leaders of the demon tribes turned their eyes toward the entrance.
The handsome demon, silver-haired and richly dressed, walked calmly inside beneath gazes both familiar and unfamiliar.
Without a single stern word, every demon present tacitly fell silent. That alone was a wordless display of power.
At that same moment, far away in the Demon Fox Tribe's territory, the white-haired woman seated in the place of honor held a fragment of the Shikon Jewel between two fingers and examined it closely against the light. She had taken it from Kohaku's body when he and Kikyo split up to deal with Sō'unga. The boy had long since died, and only that shard had kept him barely able to move. But Kikyo had infused the shard with her spiritual power, which had joined with Midoriko's will to form a pure light. That light could have purified the Shikon Jewel, but in the end, it had chosen to remain inside Kohaku, keeping the human boy from dying again after he lost the jewel's power.
Yan Luo gave a faint snort. That priestess lacked even this much resolve. Faced with the only chance to destroy the Shikon Jewel, her light had actually chosen to save that useless human boy. Still, that was just as well. Otherwise, she would have had to find a way to eliminate that light. As thanks for the priestess's stupidity, she would spare the boy this once. It would not affect the battle anyway.
Listening to the Shikon Jewel's urging inside her mind, Yan Luo's lips curved into a dazzling, soul-stealing smile, and she placed the true final shard into the jewel. In an instant, purple radiance blazed throughout the Demon Fox