Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 101: Hyakki Yagyou Emaki

Thankfully, Shae had already completed her fusion with Hellhound at this point, and she blasted an Explosive Fireball straight into Adam's body. The violent force of the explosion coupled with Adam's struggling allowed him to free himself from the restrictions before the arrow reached him.

Even though he had dodged the arrow, the ghostly head projection still grazed his body, and a section of his bandages was instantly corroded.

Her offensive prowess is even more powerful than Oni no Hanzou, but it seems like her psychic body is rather frail.

Adam really wanted to try and retaliate against the witch, but it was unclear whether Hook was dead or alive, so he had no choice but to attend to his friend first.

He rushed toward Hook as quickly as he could, then leaped up into the air before unleashing his Bandage Proliferation ability. The resulting net of bandages cut off all avenues for evasion for Oni no Hanzou, following which he lashed out with his carving knife in a vicious attack.

In the face of Adam's attack, Oni no Hanzou made no effort to take evasive measures, and he blocked Adam's carving knife with his katana, but he was forced back quite a few steps by the impact of Adam's almighty blow. Prior to taking on his Aka Oni form, Oni no Hanzou was inferior to Adam when it came to pure strength.

How has already improved so much since I last saw him?

Oni no Hanzou was quite surprised by the fact that Adam was able to force him back with just a single attack, and he took a quick glance at the net of bandages closing in around him before unleashing his body replacement technique, escaping from the confrontation and leaving behind only a wooden log in his place.

"Are you still alive?"

After Oni no Hanzou made his escape, Adam hurriedly crouched down and picked up the head of the steam robot from the ground.

"I won't be for much longer..." the robot head replied in an extremely feeble voice as it opened its eyes. The special nature of Hook's psychic body had saved his life on this occasion.

"Step aside! I need to treat him right away."

Shota Sato also arrived on the scene, then put his healing ability to use again. His hands began to flash with arcs of electricity, and they resembled an electric welding machine that quickly reassembled the scattered parts of Hook's body.

After surviving close encounters with death, some people became more resilient, while others became more cowardly, and Hook clearly belonged to the latter category.

As soon as he was revived, he immediately burst into tears.

"I should've never come on this mission! Why was I so obsessed with being an internet celebrity? I'm throwing my life away! I should've just stuck to what I do best and earned money the old-fashioned way! Even in the worst-case scenario, I could've gone back and inherited the pub! Why did I decide to get involved in something like this?"

Boom!

Oni no Hanzou and Oni no Miko naturally weren't just going to stand by idly and watch as Shota administered treatment on Hook, and both of them unleashed powerful attacks, but thankfully, Shi Feng was able to step up and keep their attacks at bay with his protective barrier.

How did he do that?

Oni no Miko's offensive prowess was superior to that of the leech monster, yet somehow, Shi Feng was able to block her attack even though he was unable to do the same against the psychic mutant, and that was very perplexing to Adam and the others.

"Why are you all looking at me like that? It's like you're all expecting me to be useless! At the very least, I'm way stronger than Prince!" Shi Feng explained with an exasperated expression. "The reason why I couldn't keep out the leech monster was because I had to protect those tens of thousands of students. Spreading my barrier so far and wide was extremely taxing on my psychic power, and it also made the barrier really thin. Now that I'm only having to protect you lot, I can keep out attacks of this level with ease!"

"That's really impressive! How long can you keep this up for?"

"I don't know. It looks like those two are about to pull out some trump cards!"

In the distance, Oni no Hanzou and Oni no Miko were growing rather agitated by their inability to break through the protective barrier. Oni no Miko pulled out a ragdoll before tossing it onto the ground, and the ragdoll rapidly swelled in size to invoke a shikigami.

There was dense black smoke rising up from the shikigami’s entire body, and it was presented in the form of a samurai that was five meters tall and clad in a suit of Japanese armor.

As soon as the shikigami emerged, it immediately fused as one with Oni no Miko, further increasing its height by a meter. It drew its katana before sending it crashing down onto the protective barrier, cracking the surface of the barrier. At the same time, Oni no Hanzou also adopted his Aka Oni form, then raised his giant mace before delivering an almighty blow onto the already cracked protective barrier, instantly shattering it into pieces.

After the barrier was broken, Adam rose up to oppose Aka Oni, lashing out with his carving knife, only to be sent flying back close to 20 meters by a blow from the giant mace.

At the same time, Nie Yiyi also went on the attack, exploiting a hole in the shikigami's defenses to plunge her blade into its cheek, but a hand suddenly extended out of its cheek to grab onto her blade.

The shikigami then slashed its katana at Nie Yiyi, and she had no choice but to abandon her blade and take evasive measures. However, even though she was able to avoid a direct blow from the katana, she was unable to dodge the power imbued within the attack, and she was sent flying for 20 to 30 meters, sustaining severe injuries that had caused her to throw up a mouthful of blood.

"Run!"

While Adam and Nie Yiyi were attacking the two hitmen, everyone else immediately attempted to escape, but Oni no Miko wasn't about to let them off the hook.

First, she undid her fusion with the shikigami, then pulled out an ancient panting from her witch robes.

The painting seemed to be depicting the Hyakki Yagyou Emaki. It was an eerie painting filled with ghostly energy, and a plume of dense black smoke permeated out of it before forming all types of ghostly apparitions in the air.

There were flying heads, one-eyed monsters, wheels with human faces, demonic creatures with necks as long as giraffe necks…

The formidable army of ghostly apparitions set off in pursuit of Adam and his group, and they seemed to be completely devoid of weight and substance, able to fly through the air extremely quickly. Hook wasn't able to get very far away at all before his body was bound by a giraffe-necked apparition, following which a massive head descended from the sky to flatten him to the ground.

Shae was also caught by an apparition, which swallowed up her entire body, and despite her best efforts, she was unable to break free.

Meanwhile, Shota Sato was chased down by a horse-faced apparition that sank its teeth viciously into his body to inflict severe injuries.

Only Adam and Nie Yiyi were able to hold their own for now amid the onslaught.

In the blink of an eye, the battle had become completely one-sided, and Oni no Miko was very displeased to see this.

"Since when did you become such a coward, Hanzou? Why did you ask me for help against this bunch of weaklings? Where's that powerful anomaly you were talking about?"

"That bastard still isn't using his full power!" At this point, Oni no Hanzou had also reverted back to his human form, and he was watching Adam with a wary expression. "How about we kill him first so he can't spring any surprises on us?"

"Sure. I'm curious to see what other tricks he has up his sleeve."

Oni no Miko was unconvinced that Adam was hiding his true power, and she pulled out her bow and arrow again, while Oni no Hanzou charged directly toward Adam.

As he did so, he was constantly producing clones. His body first split into two, then two split into four, and by the time he reached Adam, the entire street was full of his clones.

Adam had only just hacked a one-eyed apparition into pieces with his carving knife when he suddenly detected a shadow being cast onto him from above, and he raised his head to see countless Oni no Hanzou clones descending upon him. There were hundreds of these clones storming him all at once, and they had even managed to obscure the light of the sun.

After leaping up into the air, the hundreds of Oni no Hanzou clones each fired a grappling hook from their arms, and was instantly bound to the spot, unable to evade. Meanwhile, Oni no Miko let loose another ghost head arrow, and this time, there was no one to help Adam break free from his bindings.

Thus, he could only watch as the arrow struck him square in the face.

1. A shikigami is a type of deity from Japanese folklore.

2. A depiction of a Japanese idiom from folkore, which translates into "Night Parade of 100 Demons".