"Ahhhh! Help me! Haruto!"
It was Otani Yui who was shouting. She was about to be swallowed up by a different blob. There was more than one.
In fact, they kept appearing one after another as they ate everything in sight.
They didn"t seem to differentiate between forest trees or Sora or Sora"s fans. It was the same with Yazaki and his legions. Everything was swallowed up.
Everything they touched was taken in, melted and absorbed.
Haruto flew.
Wings grew from his back and he rose into the air. This had nothing to do with the sage"s gifts. It was his own trump card.
Once he was high enough, he looked back down.
The semi-transparent blobs were appearing from the center of the demon world. There was a hole there where they were coming out from.
And as they flowed out from the hole, they absorbed everything in sight.
But seen from this height, he saw that there weren"t as many as he thought.
However, they were still increasing in number and spreading.
"What the h.e.l.l… Something must be happening…"
It was so unexpected that Haruto was stunned.
Her breathing became coa.r.s.e and her heart seemed to thump loudly in her ears.
Her body was also drenched in sweat as she shook on her now unstable feet.
This was all the result of fear.
Takato Yogiri.
Romiko was so afraid of him.
But she could not understand why.
What was she afraid of? She did not have a clue.
Yogiri was just standing there calmly. There was nothing about him that looked threatening.
She had heard that his power was used just to kill bugs. He wasn"t particularly intimidating physically either. He wasn"t athletic.
She could use Mokomoko"s power to kill him in an instant.
And yet…
She was afraid.
It was as if waves of fear were crashing down on her with the kind of violence that would drive her insane.
She didn"t know what Yogiri would do.
However, even at this distance, and without showing any intention of acting, it was clear that her life was in his hands.
She wanted to flee.
But her body wouldn"t listen to her.
Her feet were frozen.
The fear was preventing her from running. This was ridiculous. Romiko cursed her own body.
And then she realized something.
This was the fear that Mokomoko was feeling. It had finally hit her.
However, she couldn"t understand why a spirit would feel fear in the first place.
While she was possessed, she was only borrowing the power. No matter what happened to Romiko, it wouldn"t affect the spirit.
And yet, Romiko was sensing the kind of fear from Mokomoko that would suggest the world was ending.
Spirits that were subservient could not go against a necromancer.
And so there was no possibility that Mokomoko was doing this as some kind of ploy against her. She just happened to be spreading the fear.
Romiko was starting to feel confused over what she was doing.
At first, she had only wanted to do the bare minimum, as it was all too much trouble for her. But once the killing started, she had risen above it and decided to do what she had to in order to survive.
That was why she had approached Tomochika and taken Mokomoko from her.
It was supposed to have meant that she had a clear advantage. And yet, she was now experiencing such fear.
The unexplainable despair was threatening to crush her.
Fear was a reaction to danger.
It was a reaction that caused you to want to escape from the thing that threatened your existence. It was something you had to use to aid your survival.
However, Romiko"s ability to think was at an all-time low.
All of her thoughts and emotions had been overwritten by fear. She no longer knew what to do.
She was feeling light-headed. At this point, she had given up and wondered if she was even herself anymore. That"s when she heard it.
"Do you want power?"
Romiko thought she was hearing things.
In fact, it was quite similar to an auditory hallucination. Because it was a voice that came from within.
"This is not the limit of a necromancer"s power."
And then it hit her.
Awakening.
So this is what Shion had been talking about. Sudden growth that allowed you to escape fear and despair. That is what she had meant.
"Now, release the source of your fear."
The voice commanded. And Romiko came to a realization.
The fear she was feeling. It was Mokomoko"s fear. Then that meant she should just release Mokomoko.
It was such a simple thing. But she had been so overcome with fear that she hadn"t been able to think about doing it before.
"Release!"
She unleashed Mokomoko.
All at once, the fear was gone.
It was hard to believe, but her heart was sound again. She was able to see clearly.
The world even looked like it was shining.
The fear had left and what replaced it was an overwhelming sense of power.
She recognized it. The power to control the dead. It was now so much stronger.
Things she hadn"t been able to do before, such as using faint residual thoughts as power, were now possible to her.
She could reconstruct the power of every person who had ever died in this land and use it.
Millions of dead spirits. She could unite them all and use their power. That was the being that Romiko had awakened to.
Perhaps it was because of this overwhelming power, that Romiko made the wrong decision.
Yogiri decided to start his search by the castle walls.
This is where they had been the last time he had contacted Mokomoko. He would find them quickly unless they had moved again. And even if they weren"t there, there would surely be some clue.
As he walked through the forest towards his destination, he started to hear things.
There was the violent crash of a tree. And so he headed in that direction.
That was when he found Tomochika and Jogasaki Romiko facing each other. It seemed like they were arguing.
Yogiri didn"t know much about Romiko, but he could still tell that something was wrong.
Romiko was talking as if she were Mokomoko.
"Oh, sorry. I really am. But I"m the one managing the battle suit. Purge!"
Just as Romiko said this, lines ran through Tomochika"s battle suit.
Yogiri immediately understood what was happening, and so he unleashed a horizontal chop towards Hanakawa.
That must have been very unexpected. As he had been struck right in both eyes, Hanakawa dropped David and held his face as he fell to the floor.
Perhaps it really wasn"t a big deal, but there was a part of him that didn"t really want Hanakawa to look.
"Stay down there and keep your eyes closed. If you open them, I"ll destroy your eyeb.a.l.l.s."
He didn"t know if that was even possible, but he wasn"t actually going to try it. It was just a threat.
"And what do you mean, "good job"?"