Moving back in time slightly…
Within a certain residential building in Bunkyo Ward.
A room on the second floor of this detached house had been set up as a temporary film studio.
A white-robed cultist of the Miyuan Church was carefully adjusting a high-definition camera on a tripod, ensuring it would clearly record everything in the center of the magic circle.
His movements were highly professional; he even checked the audio equipment.
“The live stream signal is stable. We can start anytime,” he reported in a low voice to the leader.
The Miyuan Church was a notorious cancer in Tokyo’s underworld.
Not only did they collude with politicians and strive to squeeze every penny out of their followers, but they were also one of Japan’s largest human trafficking organizations.
To them, today’s live sacrifice was nothing more than a meticulously planned, paid live-stream performance for many “big clients.”
The leading cultist nodded with satisfaction and pulled an ancient-looking dagger from his robe, preparing to continue processing the sacrificial offering and bring the ritual to a perfect conclusion with the young girl’s heart.
Just as he walked toward the cross, a strange, eerie wind suddenly blew through the room.
Even though the doors and windows were tightly shut, the heavy velvet curtains moved on their own, swaying violently and casting shadows like bared fangs and claws.
On the floor, the flames of over a hundred white candles flickered sharply, stretching and twisting, nearly extinguished by this bizarre wind.
The already sinister scene instantly became macabre and terrifying.
“What’s going on? Didn’t I tell you to shut the doors and windows tight?”
The cultist holding the dagger looked grim, glancing around but finding no source for the strange wind.
Even a cold-blooded killer like him felt a tension that chilled him to the bone in the face of such supernatural anomalies.
“The doors and windows aren’t open. Where is this wind coming from?”
Another person couldn’t help but cry out, his face turning pale as paper upon seeing that the doors and windows remained sealed.
The transformation did not stop there.
On the floor, the hexagram magic circle formed from the girl’s blood suddenly glowed with an ominous red light.
Immediately after, bright red and blazing flames ignited out of thin air from the center of the circle; they didn’t set anything on fire, yet they radiated a heat capable of scorching the soul.
A petite figure stepped slowly out from the hellfire.
Long golden hair, snow-white skin, and a pair of towering oni horns atop her head.
Dressed in a magnificent kimono and barefoot, she stepped out of the flames one pace at a time, as if strolling out of hell.
The newcomer was none other than Ibaraki Doji, played by Hibiki.
“I didn’t expect that there would still be people in the mortal world craving the power of oni and gods.”
After appearing, the golden-haired loli with horns looked around, her golden oni eyes carrying a hint of amusement and arrogance.
“I am the oni of Mount Ooe, Ibaraki Doji!”
“Mortals… you summoned me. For what purpose?”
Ibaraki Doji announced her name grandly, as if she truly had been summoned from distant legends by this live sacrifice ritual.
This scene, which transcended human understanding, left the three cultists staring in dazed shock.
“This… this is…?”
“A magician hired by the cult? The special effects are actually quite good, looks pretty convincing…”
The cultist with the dagger forced himself to stay calm, preferring to believe that everything he saw was a hallucination or some surprise segment arranged by the cult.
Summoning his courage, he even tried to reach out and grab Ibaraki Doji’s shoulder to verify if she was real.
But Ibaraki Doji was faster.
“Insolent!”
“Disrespectful mortal, who gave you permission to touch my body?”
As the cold words fell, an ink-black oni claw covered in eerie patterns instantly pierced through his chest.
*Puchi.*
A heart, still warm and beating, was ripped out alive.
Ibaraki Doji pushed the limp corpse away in disgust, letting it slump to the floor.
She casually crushed the heart in her hand as if she were merely stepping on an eyesore of an ant.
“Impossible… impossible…”
“How could there really be an evil oni… how could there really be oni and gods in this world?”
Witnessing his companion being killed in an instant, the psychological defense of another cultist completely collapsed.
He collapsed to the ground, shaking his head frantically and repeating incoherent words, his face filled with terror and madness.
Ibaraki Doji tilted her head and revealed an innocent smile.
“Hehe, you were the ones who offered a sacrifice and craved the descent of an oni. Now that I have appeared, you react like this.”
“What is it, mortals? Are you playing tricks on me?”
“To fool me… to look down upon us oni of Mount Ooe!”
The oni loli’s capriciousness was on full display at this moment.
She seemed extremely displeased by this hypocritical display of devotion, and she casually waved her slender arm.
The head of the cultist who was still shaking his head in a daze and denying reality went “bang,” exploding like a watermelon struck by a heavy hammer.
Red and white splattered across the entire wall behind him; the shocking scene was even more terrifying than their meticulously drawn hexagram circle.
“No… not human… you aren’t human at all…”
Seeing his two companions crushed like ants by the oni, the sole surviving cultist finally recognized reality.
He scrambled backward on all fours, cold sweat soaking his white robe, as he quietly reached the room’s exit, preparing to bolt through the door.
Ibaraki Doji slowly turned her head, and on her pretty face, stained with a bit of blood, a pure yet cruel smile bloomed.
Sharp fangs were revealed as she smiled, the image of a fickle oni brought vividly to life.
“What? You summoned an oni, yet you plan to just leave like this?”
“Didn’t you say just now that you had a wish to convey to me?”
“If you can please the oni of Mount Ooe, perhaps… I might grant your wish.”
These words brought the cultist’s escape to a sudden halt.
He saw a hope for survival.
The deaths of his two companions were fresh in his mind.
Whether it was disrespecting this oni loli who called herself [Ibaraki Doji] or ignoring her, the only outcome was death.
Survival instinct made his brain work at high speed.
Please the oni…
please the oni!
He scrambled to his knees and prostrated himself, his body trembling violently with fear, yet he dared not be the least bit negligent.
“Great Ibaraki Doji-sama! We… we are faithful believers of the Miyuan Church! Holding this ritual here was precisely to welcome your descent! To see your form with our own eyes is our supreme honor!”
“The Miyuan Church is willing to offer you everything! More sacrifices! More girls! We will revere you as the one and only God of Meiyuan! Just say the word, and we’ll provide as many sacrifices as you need!”
As for the church’s wish, he claimed that only the Grand Master could decide that.
“The Miyuan Church… I see.”
Hibiki noted the name in his heart.
That innocent yet cruel expression appeared on Ibaraki Doji’s face once more.
As she walked with light steps toward the prostrate cultist, she spoke with a beaming smile.
“More sacrifices… in the future?”
“How naive, mortal. Oni are insatiable; I do not believe in your promises for the future!”
“If you wish to please the oni of Mount Ooe, then offer up your lives this very moment!”
Before she finished speaking, the cultist was scared out of his wits; no longer caring about pleasing her, he turned and lunged for the door.
“Haha! Trying to run? It’s too late!”
Ibaraki Doji raised her ink-black oni claw high, her arrogant laughter echoing throughout the room.
“Run wild, Sogenbi!”
Hibiki decided to test the power of this body’s Noble Phantasm.
“[Rashomon Dai-Enki]!”
The moment the True Name was unleashed, blazing black hellfire rose from nothing, and a massive oni hand composed of hellfire tore through space, lunging out with a roar!
*Boom—!!!*
The giant claw slammed down with thunderous force, turning the fleeing cultist and several walls behind him into dust in an instant.
The peerless, formidable power was like a heavy bomb, actually causing half of the detached house’s structure to collapse!
As for the poor cultist who took the Noble Phantasm with his back…
likely not even a speck of ash remained, completely incinerated by the hellfire.
“Ara ara, what an unsatisfying slaughter.”
Having dealt with the three lackeys, Ibaraki Doji sauntered over to the camera fixed on the tripod in the room.
First, she pretended to be very curious about the black mechanical box, bringing her delicate face close to the lens, fully displaying her non-human features like the oni horns and golden vertical pupils to the camera.
Then, she suddenly grinned, revealing a most ghastly smile.
“It seems some little bugs are peeping at me through this mirror?”
“You all saw what just happened, didn’t you!”
“Don’t worry, you won’t escape either~”
This spine-chilling scene was clearly transmitted through the network signal to the other side of the live stream.
With that, Ibaraki Doji reached out with her oni claw burning with black flames and crushed the camera along with the tripod into fragments.
After doing all this, she unhurriedly approached the girl tied to the cross.
Hibiki took one look and judged that there was no longer any point in trying to save the girl.
Multiple organs had been cruelly removed from her body, and her blood was nearly drained dry.
Yet for some reason, she seemed to still possess a final shred of consciousness, perhaps having been injected with some drug to keep her awake before the sacrifice.
He had to give her a quick end.
This was Hibiki’s internal judgment and his most basic human conscience.
“I’m sorry, with my current abilities, I can only send you to the afterlife sooner.”
However, just as Ibaraki Doji’s hand was about to touch the girl’s forehead to end her suffering, the girl’s pale, cracked lips let out a faint, barely audible murmur.
[God-sama…]
Ibaraki Doji’s exceptional hearing clearly caught that plea, which was as soft as a mosquito’s buzz.
“God-sama?”
Ibaraki Doji stopped her movements; she looked directly into the girl’s grey eyes, which had already lost their light, and said in a flat tone devoid of any pity.
“I’m sorry, but there are no gods in this world.”
“And even if there were… they would be vile beings who wouldn’t respond to the prayers of mortals.”
Hibiki didn’t know exactly what the girl had gone through or what tragic story lay behind her.
Extending her slender palm, Ibaraki Doji closed the sacrificial girl’s eyes, letting those lusterless orbs finally rest in peace.
But a nameless fire was smoldering in his chest.
Miyuan Church.
These vile villains, who spoke high-sounding words but acted worse than oni.
It was they who, in this peaceful era, had single-handedly created such a gruesome tragedy.
These people deserved to die a thousand deaths.