Volume 5 Chapter 95
by Need_More_SleepVolume 5 + Chapter 95: The Only Chance
In the middle of the path, a massive suit of armor appeared, kneeling on the ground and blocking Xia Yi’s group.
Little Red ordered the armor to step aside.
But instead of obeying, the armor strode toward her, reached out, grabbed her tail, and lifted her straight into the air.
“Hey, what are you doing?! Put me down this instant!” Little Red shouted. “This is outrageous, absolutely outrageous! A mere shikigami dares to turn against its master?!”
“…”
The armored shikigami simply held her up like she was some kind of radish, examining her over and over.
“Yingyingying! Yingyingying! Yingyingying!”
Little Red panicked, flailing in midair and yelling nonstop, likely unleashing a barrage of colorful insults in the fox language.
“What’s going on?” Xia Yi asked, puzzled.
“Outsider, why are you just standing there watching?!” the upside-down Little Red snapped at Xia Yi. “Hurry up and do something, get me down!!”
“This is your summon?”
“More precisely, a shikigami under my command! Hurry up, stop dawdling!!”
“Got it.”
Xia Yi cast a restrained incantation and summoned an ice spike, which immediately slammed into the armor’s helmet, knocking it back. Little Red dropped to the ground as a result.
The armored shikigami entered combat mode, about to draw its weapon, but suddenly froze.
“…!”
It seemed to recognize Little Red at last. Quickly, it set her down properly and bowed low to the ground in apology.
“You insolent shikigami, such disrespect! Divine punishment!!”
Furious, Little Red delivered her terrifying “divine punishment”, by jumping onto the armor’s head and stomping on it, though it didn’t look particularly damaging.
“What just happened?”
The little fox was clearly out of the loop, unaware of the farce that had just unfolded.
“Did something dangerous happen to the Fox God?”
“Well, it’s like this, the Fox God’s shikigami seemed a bit out of control, ”
Xia Yi had just begun to explain when Little Red cut her off.
“Stop! Don’t say a word!!”
As the Fox God, Little Red felt she had to preserve her dignity in front of her shrine maiden.
“There was just a minor issue. The shikigami didn’t lose control.”
“Then what was it?” Xia Yi asked curiously.
“It simply… failed to recognize me.”
“But isn’t it your shikigami?”
“…Maintaining my existence consumes divine power. I’ve used quite a bit of it, so my presence has become thinner,” Little Red admitted.
Xia Yi suddenly remembered.
When the Orochi had tried to devour both her and the little fox, Little Red had leapt out to block it.
So the barrier she created back then had been fueled by the very divine power sustaining her existence… which meant the cost was…
“Little Red, don’t push yourself like that again,” Xia Yi said.
“Outsider… are you worried about me?” Little Red blinked in surprise. “You’re still annoying, but… you’ve got your likable moments. Relax, I know my limits!”
“Fox God, is everything alright now?” the little fox asked toward the empty air.
“It’s fine now. Follow me, we’re almost there.”
Little Red patted the armored shikigami beneath her.
“Shikigami, lead the way. Take us to the shrine!”
Understanding her command, the armored shikigami stood and began moving forward with Little Red.
Xia Yi and the little fox followed behind.
“Little Red, since we’re walking anyway, why don’t you explain how we’re supposed to defeat the evil manifestation?” Xia Yi suggested.
“…Mm, that works,” Little Red nodded. “Despite how powerful the evil manifestation appears, it has a massive weakness, one that is quite fatal. This is also its absolute secret.”
“A weakness?”
Xia Yi was intrigued, she hadn’t noticed one yet.
In the Peach Blossom Sanctuary, the Azure Fox God’s resentment entity had seemed mindless, driven purely by hatred. But the Red Fox God’s evil manifestation possessed intelligence and self-awareness, making it far more troublesome, an upgraded version, so to speak.
“The immense demonic power it possesses comes from numerous powerful monsters. But within that power remain the curses those monsters bore at the moment of death. Forcing those curses together causes mutual rejection. The evil manifestation suppresses them by force,” Little Red explained. “However, suppression is temporary. At intervals, the curses erupt. When that happens, it can’t fully control the power, it becomes significantly weakened. That is its most vulnerable moment.”
“So that’s how it works?”
At first Xia Yi was confused, but then it made sense.
It was like stitching together countless monsters into one body, each carrying intense resentment and curses. There was no way they could coexist peacefully.
“Whenever the internal curses erupt, the evil manifestation halts its actions and focuses entirely on suppressing them.”
“I understand. That means we wait for a curse to erupt and strike when it’s at its weakest.”
“Exactly. With your strength, that would be enough to defeat it. However, on that day, it will retreat into a barrier it has set up to protect itself. So we must solve that problem first, ”
The armored shikigami stopped.
Ahead of them stood a shrine of the Fox God.
Glowing plants covered the surrounding rock walls, their faint luminescence weaving together like soft moonlight, illuminating the shrine deep within the cavern.
In the darkness underground, the sight was breathtaking.
“…Amazing,” Xia Yi murmured.
“Welcome. You are the first visitors of the past, present, and future!”
Little Red leapt down from the armored shikigami and onto a stone pillar she had prepared when the shrine was built, gazing down proudly.
“This is the shrine of the Red Fox God!!”
The little fox, a devout believer, was overwhelmed with excitement. As if sensing Little Red’s presence, she circled the pillar repeatedly.
“Outsider, have you noticed anything?” Little Red asked, her tone carrying a hint of meaning.
“Hmm?”
Xia Yi felt puzzled, what was she getting at?
Soon, she sensed it. This place was a convergence point of magical power, streams of energy flowing together from all directions.
“That’s right. This is where the magic of the great cavern converges. Any action taken here can influence the entire Sealed Land, even alter the cycle of sun and moon, directly triggering the eruption of the evil manifestation’s curses and forcing it into a weakened state.”
Little Red spoke solemnly.
“The evil manifestation is unaware of this shrine’s existence. But the moment we use it, it will discover us, and after that, we will never have another chance to defeat it…”
“…So this is our only opportunity.”
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