[Gate of Opening: 92%] Kamamara skillfully shook the blood from his scythe.
Looking at the progress bar that was almost full, he nodded in satisfaction.
But when he raised his head and saw the sun already slanting west, his brows immediately tightened.
A trace of urgency flashed through his eyes.
“Relying on these small-fry yōkai to fill the bar won’t be fast enough.
I need to find something big.” He could clearly feel that as the progress bar climbed, his physical strength was rising along with it.
His current power and speed were almost twice what they had been when he first emerged from the cave that morning.
This effect of “grinding mobs to temper the body” left him extremely satisfied.
After all, he knew very well that the original Eight Inner Gates required brutal training to strengthen the body enough to withstand the burden of opening a Gate.
The panel, however, directly refined his body by absorbing demonic power, perfectly meeting that requirement.
It was simple, efficient, and saved him a great deal of trouble.
No longer hesitating, Kamamara immediately turned and rushed toward a gorge he had passed earlier.
He understood that in these remote mountains, once night fell, places thick with foul energy would always gather large numbers of yōkai.
Unfortunately, his situation was special.
He could not move around at night so easily.
— “Crack!” A crisp breaking sound came from underfoot.
Kamamara stopped and silently pulled his foot back from the white skull he had crushed.
Looking up, he saw that the ground of the gorge ahead was covered densely with pale bones.
As he walked over them, they made brittle cracking sounds from time to time, filling the area with an eerie, deathly silence.
“Caw!
Caw!” A harsh bird cry rang out.
Kamamara raised his head and saw a flock of pitch-black yōkai shaped like crows perched on the rocks, branches, and piles of bones around the gorge.
They had segmented tails like bone whips.
Their sharp black beaks were filled with rows of fine teeth.
Most unsettling of all, three blood-red eyes were embedded side by side on their heads, all staring fixedly at him, the intruder.
“Corpse-Dancing Birds…” Kamamara glanced at them, then looked away without much concern.
These yōkai were only average in strength, but they could control corpses and use them in battle.
Many of the bones in this gorge were probably their former puppets.
They had even had a brief “highlight moment” in the original story.
After Kagome brought the Shikon Jewel back to the Sengoku era, the Corpse-Dancing Bird was one of the few yōkai that had briefly obtained the complete jewel.
The other two were Mistress Centipede and Naraku.
However, what it was most famous for was becoming the trigger that caused the Shikon Jewel to shatter.
In that sense, it could be considered a “celebrity” among small-fry yōkai.
But Kamamara’s target was not these creatures.
It was another yōkai hidden deep within the gorge.
The farther he walked into the gorge, the thicker the bones beneath his feet became, until they nearly covered his ankles.
Just then, the cracking sounds suddenly became dense and rapid.
The scattered bones around him began to tremble violently and surge like a tide.
“It’s finally coming out!” Kamamara’s eyes sharpened, and he instantly tightened his grip on the scythe.
“Boom!” A gigantic skeletal hand suddenly burst out from the bone piles and slapped toward his position with a roaring wind.
Kamamara tapped the ground with his toes and sprang upward.
His body slipped nimbly through the gaps between the bone fingers.
At the same time, the scythe in his hand, wrapped in demonic power, swung out.
With a wet crack, it directly severed the arm bone connected to the skeletal hand.
But in the next second, the surrounding bones surged toward the broken section like a flood.
In the blink of an eye, the severed arm was pieced back together and restored as if nothing had happened.
Not only that, the white bones on the ground rose and gathered madly.
A gigantic humanoid skeleton yōkai nearly ten meters tall slowly appeared before him.
The yōkai had only an upper body.
Its lower half was fused with the piles of bones on the ground.
Its pale skeletal frame was covered in cracks, and two thick white-bone arms propped it up from the earth.
Inside the eye socket of its huge skull sat a single bloodshot, murky yellow eyeball, glaring at Kamamara with open malice.
“A Vengeful Dead Skeleton.
Just as I thought.” A look of understanding flashed through Kamamara’s eyes.
When he had been searching for yōkai earlier, he had discovered this gorge.
Its soaring foul energy and demonic aura could be seen from far away.
Combined with the field of bones and the Corpse-Dancing Birds he had spotted from above, he had immediately guessed that this place hid a giant skeleton yōkai formed from a massive amount of death energy and resentment, known as a Vengeful Dead Skeleton.
After all, such powerful demonic aura could not possibly come from trash yōkai like the Corpse-Dancing Birds.
Although he had guessed that a Vengeful Dead Skeleton was here, he had not been strong enough at the time, so he had not made a move.
He had only marked the location in his memory.
Now, this big fellow was perfect for filling the last bit of progress needed to open the Gate of Opening.
“Roar!” The Vengeful Dead Skeleton opened its enormous white-bone mouth, which was packed with sharp fangs, and let out a deafening roar.
The powerful sound wave sent the ends of Kamamara’s hair flying backward.
Immediately after, it raised its massive bone hand again and grabbed toward him with the pressure of a falling mountain.
“Too slow!” Kamamara’s demonic power surged.
He stomped down, shattering bones underfoot and sending fragments flying.
His body turned into an afterimage as he rushed straight toward the skeletal hand.
He nimbly twisted aside, dodging the grasping palm, passed through the gaps between its fingers, and leapt onto the Vengeful Dead Skeleton’s arm.
Then he charged upward along the white-bone limb, heading straight for its skull.
“Little insect!” The Vengeful Dead Skeleton let out a low roar.
It raised its other bone hand and swatted toward Kamamara, who was racing up its arm, trying to smash him flat.
“Boom!” The bone palm slammed heavily onto its own arm.
White bones shattered and flew everywhere.
But soon, the bones below squirmed madly and instantly restored the broken arm.
The Vengeful Dead Skeleton lifted its fingers, but it did not find Kamamara’s figure.
Its murky yellow eye began turning, searching everywhere for him.
“I’m up here, idiot!” Kamamara’s voice came from above the Vengeful Dead Skeleton’s head.
It instinctively raised its skull.
At that exact instant, Kamamara’s low shout rang out.
“Thousand-Blade Wind Calamity!” He drew in a deep breath, his chest swelling high, then exhaled violently.
In an instant, a massive surge of wind carrying countless sharp wind blades erupted from his mouth, spraying downward like a storm and completely engulfing the Vengeful Dead Skeleton’s enormous white-bone body.