I Got an Omnipotent Angel - Chapter 74

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 74: Kyoto Night Parade of One Hundred Demons (8)

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The Onmyoji Headquarters had noticed the anomaly as well.

"They're coming."

"Whoa, they're swarming in like a bee colony. They really went all in."

Heian Shrine's main hall.

The courtyard that had been packed with tourists was now completely empty.

The enormous Otenmon Gate stood tightly shut, while thousands of talismans lined the vermilion corridors, waiting like soldiers guarding an iron fortress.

Hummmmm!

A barrier thrummed across the shrine grounds.

The Tsuchimikado Clan's onmyoji hurried about, checking the equipment one more time.

The fans, ritual swords, bows, and talismans in their hands looked outdated, but they were anything but.

"The Claymores and flamethrowers the Vatican sent are positioned properly, right?"

"They send supplies every time, so everyone's used to them. The Holy Temple Church people will know how to use them."

Because they were in the city, the use of serious firearms was restricted. Still, they could unleash brief bursts of firepower under cover of the fireworks' explosions.

The western sky began to turn black.

A great yokai was on the move, bringing storm clouds with it.

"That's a Raiju, judging by the lightning."

"This is going to be a pain. It didn't come last time, so why show up now?"

"Maybe those fox bitches offered it human livers."

The thunder and lightning yokai was not the only thing moving within the dark clouds.

Thousands... no, probably tens of thousands.

Snakes, spiders, centipedes, and other ill-omened creatures poured down like plankton swept up by a wave.

It was a war of numbers.

So that was why the great yokai near Kyoto had been breeding so much. They had brought them all here to unleash them at once.

"Hurry. Once they pour in, spirit banishment will be the least of our worries. The place will descend into chaos."

"Looks like they're trying to wear down our firepower."

At the Tsuchimikado Clan's command, the craftsmen around the grounds sprang into action.

They were fireworks specialists hired by the Onmyoji Headquarters for the matsuri.

Since ancient times, matsuri fireworks had been used to drive away yokai with their powerful yang energy.

The fireworks powder they made with their honed techniques could briefly recreate the power of the sun.

Soon, fireworks shot into the air and exploded in brilliant bursts.

"What? Did the fireworks already start?"

"Wow, pretty."

To the public, they were just fireworks going off during the matsuri.

In truth, they burned alive the yokai that had come flying in with the storm clouds.

SKREEEE!

Screech!

The fireworks detonated one after another.

The more spectacular they were, the more they drew the crowd's attention, and the stronger their flaming blasts became under the matsuri's magical effect.

Even taking that into account, the yokai were burning far too easily.

"Tsukiyo! Something's wrong! Even baby yokai shouldn't die this easily!"

"It looks like... the humans are using consecrated fireworks..."

No, even then, this power was strange.

"Enter the shrine! Advance on the ground, where the fireworks cannot reach us!"

At the command of the seven-tailed fox leading the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, the yokai advanced on Heian Shrine.

Using transformation magic and concealment techniques to hide their bodies, they crept closer.

A torii gate.

Once they passed through it, they would reach the Killing Stone where the Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox was sealed, isolated from modern human society.

When the yokai entered the grounds, they were met by the Tsuchimikado Clan's onmyoji and ninjas.

They were enemies who had faced each other countless times.

In Japan, exterminating yokai and performing spirit banishment on evil spirits fell to onmyoji and ninjas.

Onmyoji born with spiritual power and highly trained ninjas were the yokai's mortal enemies.

Japan was a land where supernatural horrors ran rampant, with its unstable ley lines and isolated geography.

Naturally, humans had no choice but to grow stronger as well.

"Throw!"

The ninjas hurled their kunai.

Tch. Those damned kunai.

They had been throwing them nonstop for centuries. By now, the yokai were sick of seeing them.

"They've probably embedded explosive fire talismans inside. Knock them away with sorcery."

Several yokai used sinister arts to stir up the wind.

But...

"What is that?"

"Why are they just flying..."

Their sorcery did nothing to the incoming kunai.

The blades rained down on the yokai, striking them before they could react.

"Argh!"

"M-My body! My neck is melting!"

The moment the kunai pierced their bodies, they caused lethal effects.

One yokai's muscles and bones melted from the point of impact. Another had a kunai lodge in its arm and instantly stopped breathing.

"P-Poison?!"

That was the only explanation.

Still, it was excessive.

Yokai possessed powerful resistance to poison from the start.

Most poisons were no more than spicy seasoning to them.

Yet these were causing such deadly effects.

And that was not the only strange thing.

"Retrieve them!"

The ninjas began pulling back the kunai by the steel wires tied to them.

They were only kunai.

Considering ninjas usually threw shuriken like bullets without a second thought, it was strange to see them go out of their way to retrieve them.

"Oh, my kunai. You're safe."

"I almost forgot something this precious."

"Damn it! The wire snapped! I can't lose it!"

The ninjas carefully recovered the kunai they had used like disposable tools.

It was not as if they had no other kunai. Still, retrieving the ones they had thrown and using them again was more effective than throwing dozens of fresh ones.

The real disposable weapons were something else.

BOOM!

Every time fireworks burst overhead, the Claymores set around the grounds detonated as well.

Hidden beneath the booming fireworks, Vatican Claymores exploded and tore apart the yokai's blood and flesh.

"W-What? What kind of Claymore is that...?"

Of course, the Claymores they used were no ordinary Claymores.

Each was packed with silver and iron alloy pellets, then consecrated by priests through fifteen days and nights of devout prayer.

They were precious explosives, the kind armies desperately wanted on large battlefields, but a fair number had been supplied through Pastor Park of Korea's Holy Temple Church.

Even so, they should not have been this powerful.

A great yokai that took a direct hit had died instantly, unable even to regenerate.

"What is this? What the hell is happening?!"

The yokai were not the only ones in shock.

The onmyoji and ninjas reacted the same way.

"...Is this right?"

* * *

Among Japanese yokai, many were personifications of natural disasters themselves.

Typhoons, earthquakes, thunder, lightning.

The ancient people of the archipelago feared such things as the wrath of gods, then transformed them into yokai and feared them all over again.

Just as strange entities and urban legends were born when people's negative emotions gathered together, yokai were born from that same fear.

In other words, the more powerful and impossible to deal with the disaster was, the stronger the yokai became.

"Eek! Eeeek!"

At the crackling thunder, the little fox yokai covered her ears and crouched low.

I could not leave Kohaku alone, so I stayed beside her, but that bastard, the Raiju, had an alarming presence.

【Devour!】

Eight-Foot Sister swung Benkei's Iron Staff to keep the Raiju from approaching, but it was only a matter of time.

It was too fast.

It was a yokai that embodied thunder and lightning, and I could not even follow it with my eyes.

There was one reason it could not target us directly.

Gari was threatening it with its enormous mouth wide open.

The Raiju knew that one wrong move would get it eaten by Gari, so it could not approach carelessly.

How was I supposed to catch that thing?

I tried Fudo Myoo's Vajra Lasso and fired the Gutenberg holy sword at it, but it was too fast for either to reach it.

Gari seemed threatening enough to keep it away, but I had no idea when an opening might appear.

KRAKOOOM! BOOM!

Whenever lightning struck from the Raiju's movements, Kohaku flinched in terror.

First, I splashed holy oil around us and formed a barrier.

At that moment, the Raiju slammed toward us, only to stop right in front of it.

Snap! Snap!

Gari rushed forward to swallow the stopped Raiju, but the Raiju fled again, and Gari missed.

Okay.

The holy oil barrier worked.

So something had felt off. This was no ordinary evil thing.

Grrrrr!

Once it realized that speed alone could not hurt me, it began using sorcery.

KRAKOOOM!

Lightning.

It drew lightning from the storm clouds it had brought with it and struck down at us.

Snap! Snap!

At that moment, Gari leaped above our heads and took the lightning strike head-on.

Heh-heh-heh!

A wicked smile spread across the Raiju's face.

Contrary to its expectations, Gari was completely fine.

Grrk?!

Snap!

Gari had taken a bolt of lightning without a scratch. Startled, the Raiju called down lightning again and again.

Yet no matter how many bolts fell, Gari did not go down.

Of course.

Gari was Opha, a Throne Angel among angels.

If thunder and lightning had been seen as God's wrath since ancient times, then Gari was an entity that represented God's wrath itself.

Natural disasters... no, precisely because they were natural disasters, they could never harm an angel.

Still, this could not go on forever.

How was I supposed to catch a yokai as fast as lightning?

"If you had obeyed My statutes and commandments..."

Thunder and lightning. Storm clouds. Nature.

From a superstitious and magical perspective, they were disasters a yokai used to harm people.

"Then I would give you rain in its season, and the land would yield its produce, and the trees of the field would bear fruit."

Rain fell.

Even if the sky had been clear, the yokai had brought storm clouds with it, so naturally it would rain.

"When the Lord opens the heavens, the parched land gains life, and the wilderness becomes a river."

Consecrate water, and it becomes holy water.

Then what happened if I consecrated the falling rain?

Gari's halo shone.

It was the angel's ring, which would carry my prayer all the way to heaven.

"I bowed down upon the earth and put my face between my knees! And I prayed earnestly! Then heaven gave rain, and the earth bore fruit! A great rain is here! This is rain sent by Jehovah, Lord of Life!"

Amen!

Rumble...

Thunder rolled low.

A cool gust swept over Kyoto.

The rain falling from the storm clouds grew heavier and heavier, until it became a downpour that flooded the ground.

It was only a brief shower...

But the moment the unavoidable rain soaked the Raiju, even a yokai as fast as lightning could not escape it.

"G-Graah! Graaaaaaaaaah!!"

Black evil energy welled up from where the holy water touched it as if it were burning, melting the Raiju's body away.

* * *

"Th-The Raiju..."

Kohaku stared at the scene before her in disbelief.

That great yokai... a yokai embodying thunder and lightning, had melted away without putting up a proper fight.

Despite the impossible sight, her master only shook the water from his soaked coat.

"The storm clouds are gone. My spiritual energy too... Ugh, using nature drained it in huge chunks."

Yohan grumbled that he could not use that trick twice.

Kohaku stared at him in shock.

Manipulating nature was only possible for the greatest of great yokai, or beings whose very nature belonged to that phenomenon.

Yet a human had done it.

A grand spell that might not work even if hundreds of sorcerers gathered to perform a rainmaking rite, and he had pulled it off just by reciting a prayer?

Even if he had made use of the storm clouds the Raiju brought, it was not something a human's reserves should have been able to accomplish.

"J-Just who are you, my lord...?"

As Kohaku muttered in disbelief, Yohan approached and asked her,

"Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"Hic!"

She was afraid.

More than the huge mouth attached to him, she feared him now.

She feared the distant being who had gone beyond the limits of humanity.

But to Kohaku, everything was frightening.

Her fox yokai sisters, the other yokai gathered around them, even the humans trying to exterminate yokai.

To a weak, young fox yokai, everything was something to fear.

If that was the case...