Seven Shikon Jewel Shards Obtained!

The Evil-Repelling Talismans stuck to the iron basin burned one after another, turning to ash.

But in the end, two remained unburned.

The nearly flattened iron basin no longer transmitted any force from the struggles beneath it.

Even so, although the Flesh-Bodied Human Face beneath the basin had stopped moving, Li Xia did not relax in the slightest. Instead, he remained intensely vigilant and kept attacking without hesitation for another half minute. Only when all the Enhancement Talismans stuck to his body lost their effects did he stop.

"Whew..."

He let out a heavy breath, suppressed his agitated excitement, and tried to steady his heartbeat and calm himself.

Then he took out all his remaining Evil-Repelling Talismans.

He slapped the whole lot onto the iron basin.

He knew perfectly well that a Shikon Shard was embedded in this monster's forehead.

It was precisely this Shikon Shard's reaction to the several Shikon Shards Kagome had left at home that had triggered this incident.

After all, no amount of caution was excessive when dealing with a monster whose Demon Power had been greatly enhanced by a Shikon Shard.

"That should do it, right?"

But the next moment, two rows of impressions suddenly appeared on the iron basin Li Xia had kept pinned down. They were left by the sharp teeth exposed when the Flesh-Bodied Human Face split open along the bridge of its nose. They looked capable of tearing through even the sheet-iron basin. The two clear, hideous rows of tooth marks on its bottom were proof.

Moreover, over half the Evil-Repelling Talismans stuck to the basin burned up instantly.

Even stranger, the iron basin became scorching hot in an extremely short time, as though it had turned into a branding iron.

There was no doubt that the mask monster had only been pretending to lie dormant.

It had wanted to trick him into moving the basin, then catch him off guard.

Unfortunately for it, although Li Xia was only a novice spellcaster, he was cautious by nature.

Why had it stopped pretending? Perhaps it had realized its scheme had failed, or perhaps it had sensed the threat of being sealed by so many Evil-Repelling Talismans. The Flesh-Bodied Human Face abandoned any hope of getting lucky and simply launched a final counterattack.

"Hmph!"

Li Xia snorted.

Wincing at the expense, he took an Ice Talisman out of his clothes.

He had not made this Ice Talisman himself. A Clan Elder of the Peninsula Li Family had drawn it, and he had obtained it by pleading with his own grandfather. Ice Talismans were beyond the level of beginner talismans, and since he had not practiced the relevant spells, he naturally could not make them. That was why he had always treasured it. He only had four intermediate talismans like this in total.

Considering that he was about to obtain a Shikon Shard, and perhaps even his first shikigami, he could hardly afford to be stingy.

When it was time to act, he had to act...

If one talisman was not enough, he would stick on two.

With the Ice Talisman cooling it, the sheet iron that the Flesh-Bodied Human Face had heated with its Demon Power instantly became freezing cold. Even the surrounding five or six meters were coated in frost.

Then the mask pinned beneath the iron basin suffered another furious barrage of stomps.

Ten... twenty... thirty...

This round of stomping actually crushed the iron basin into an irregular sheet of metal. He felt as though the Flesh-Bodied Human Face's true body beneath it was about to be flattened and shattered by his blows through the metal.

"Woo-ooo, woo-ooo..."

The sound of a fire engine's siren came from the distance.

Li Xia frowned slightly when he heard it. He had originally intended to keep pounding it for another three to five hours.

But the firefighters would soon arrive, so he could no longer stay here.

He hurriedly gave up his insistence on continuing to pound the sheet iron.

Even now, however, he had no intention of simply lifting it away.

Who knew how much strength the Flesh-Bodied Human Face had left?

And so.

Li Xia slowly moved the sheet iron aside by a tenth.

At first, he did not see the Flesh-Eating Mask's true body, so he moved it aside by only another tenth.

This time, a corner of the mask covered in cracks came into view.

It seemed to be the outline of its left cheek.

At the sight, he removed two Evil-Repelling Talismans from the sheet iron and stuck them onto the exposed mask instead.

Using that corner, he quickly worked out the approximate position of the mask pinned underneath. Once he knew its position, the next step was naturally to try extracting the Shikon Shard embedded inside it.

If he remembered correctly, the Shikon Shard was embedded near the forehead, where the scar ran across its face.

With that in mind.

He adjusted the direction in which he moved the sheet iron, exposing only the Flesh-Bodied Human Face's forehead.

He kept the rest pinned beneath the metal.

This way, the two Evil-Repelling Talismans on the mask could both suppress the monster and drain its Demon Power; if they burned, they would also serve as a warning. As for the sheet iron? It would help him restrain this sinister monster as effectively as possible.

Using both methods was safer.

Li Xia took a small fruit knife from his pocket, then began cutting and scraping at the Flesh-Eating Mask's forehead.

His luck was good. After just a few cuts, he found where the Shikon Shard was hidden.

Once it sensed Li Xia's true aim, the Flesh-Bodied Human Face could no longer remain "calm."

But however it struggled, the pressure above held it firmly down like the Five-Finger Mountain, rendering all its resistance useless.

"Flesh... give me flesh..."

Those were the Flesh-Bodied Human Face's final words of resentment.

Come to think of it, when this mask monster attacked Kagome in the original story without a flesh-and-blood body to control, its mask alone could not even handle a young girl whose strength was nothing special. It certainly could not handle him now.

Otherwise, if he had not caught the Flesh-Bodied Human Face at its weakest, before it had obtained a body or had time to grow, he would never have succeeded so easily.

If this monster had already acquired the bodies of several police officers...

Li Xia would have stayed as far away from that version of the Flesh-Bodied Human Face as possible.

He would never have provoked it.

"My first Shikon Shard!"

After extracting the pale purple shard, he clearly felt the pinned mask's Demon Power plummet. The force of its struggles instantly dropped to nothing.

It was as though it had lost its life.

But... even now, Li Xia remained extremely careful. He bent and deformed the basin's sheet iron, wrapping it around the mask, then removed the Evil-Repelling Talisman from his own face and stuck it onto the unrecognizable lump of iron as well.

Without its Shikon Shard, and sealed by this combination of measures, if the mask monster could still break free and wreak havoc, he could only admit that there was nothing more he could do.

He truly had no talismans with great destructive power.

Expecting him to destroy this thing quickly and completely was simply asking too much.

"Woo-ooo, woo-ooo..."

Just as he put away the Shikon Shard, the fire engine's loud siren stopped moving and remained in one place.

Clearly, the fire engine had reached the foot of the small hill where Sunset Shrine stood.

"They really got here fast. Only four or five minutes!"

Although the fire station was not far away, the speed still impressed Li Xia.

He knew he was running out of time.

Glancing at the wooden shed, which was burning more fiercely by the moment, he immediately took a deep breath and ran back to the two-story house where Kagome's family lived. He quickly soaked his clothes, covered his nose and mouth with a wet towel, then picked up the large bucket he had filled by leaving the kitchen sink faucet running earlier and sprinted toward the burning storage shed.

With the threat of the Flesh-Bodied Human Face gone, he plunged straight inside.

After entering the wooden shed, where the flames were growing increasingly fierce, he quickly scanned the scene.

With a single glance, he spotted an elderly man in a corner, one leg pinned beneath a wooden beam.

It was Kagome's grandfather.

Fortunately, the beam was neither particularly thick nor sound, and had snapped in the middle before falling on him. Otherwise, taking the full weight of the beam would most likely have killed the old man outright.

The fire was growing fiercer.

Li Xia naturally would not stand idly by.

After splashing a bucket of cool water over the old man, he immediately lifted the broken beam, hoisted him onto his shoulder, and ran out of the shed.

The flames inside the storage shed were already raging. He could not linger here.

After he left the burning shed, several firefighters and a panicked, beautiful woman rushed up:

"Come help me! I'll call an ambulance. We have an injured man here!"

The instant he saw the woman, Li Xia chose to take the initiative.

Unless he was mistaken, this woman was the mother of Kagome, the heroine of the Inuyasha world.

"Dad!"

At the sight of the unconscious old man, the beautiful woman cried out, and the bag of vegetables and meat in her hand immediately dropped to the ground.

She hurried forward anxiously to support him:

"Dad, wake up..."

Seeing this, Li Xia thought, Just as I expected.

Meanwhile, he slipped into the Higurashi family's house.

Calling an ambulance was one reason; his main purpose was to take the other seven Shikon Shards in Kagome's bedroom while he was at it.

No, that was not right!

He had not actually taken all the Shikon Shards. He had left one for Kagome!

He had such a wonderful conscience... like hell he did!

Before leaving, he glanced at the open window.

"If I hadn't come this time, would the Flesh-Bodied Human Face really have obediently left the shrine just like in the original story, completely ignoring the Shikon Shards in this room at first?"

His intuition told him things would definitely change.

To the Flesh-Bodied Human Face, the temptation of these shards outweighed everything else.

If he had not come to Sunset Shrine this time, the Flesh-Bodied Human Face would definitely have departed from its behavior in the original timeline and taken these jewel shards directly.

It would never have waited until evening, when Kagome Higurashi was home, to double back.

The plot-driven contrivance would no longer hold.

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P.S. Did anyone notice that whenever Kagome traveled through the Bone-Eater's Well early on, she used the power of the Shikon Shards?!

(Having Shikon Shards beside the well counted too.)

Inuyasha, on the other hand, seemed to have no restrictions at all...

The end of episode 19 of the anime mentioned that Kagome could no longer pass through the Bone-Eater's Well after losing her Shikon Shards.