At twenty-two, after a year of preparation, Yomi and the Twelve Houses of Izumo officially launched their counteroffensive. This would be Izumo's most magnificent god-hunting war in centuries, and it would also be the last god hunt.
It would mark the end of the era's lingering glow, like the last remnant of sunset swallowed by the graves of the mountains. From this day onward, there would be no more moon or stars.
In the strategic deployment, the Northern Continent became the first battlefield of the counteroffensive.
Upon this land, savage souls raged, the Black Sun blazed, the sound of blades snapping ceased, and fallen flowers withered and flourished. In merely one month, tens of thousands of edict blades broke here. Against those evil gods that towered between heaven and earth, the blood-smeared ground was redder than the bloodlike setting sun at dusk.
Upon the battlefield built from blood and fire, a lame monk sang an off-key waka, guiding the dead war demons across. Swordsmen bearing divine power stepped over the hell of flesh and blood, yet still retreated toward the gods.
You had swung your blade at Her, at them, countless times. In the pale crimson drops of blood seeping from your sword's tip, their wails sounded as though they came from the abyss of the underworld. At some point, you had begun to hear their voices, to hear their accusations. You knew they were the murmurs of evil ghosts—the backlash of Divine Art after you had slain your companions who had fallen into evil ghosts time and again. They reached out their hands to you, inviting you to return with them to Yomi, their homeland.
You did not refuse their invitation, because you knew that one day, you too, with all manner of evil gods layered upon your body,