I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 816: The Kijin Awakens

The blood inside the trench began to move.

At first, it rippled in small circles around the center of the ritual platform.

Then the ripples became waves.

The fresh blood poured from the altar in thin streams, running through the carved channels in the floor and joining the dark red pool. The bodies surrounding the trench shifted as the black stone beneath them trembled.

Genzo’s face hardened.

“Everyone back,” he ordered.

The shinobi obeyed, though none of them turned their eyes away from the circle.

Nathan stood at the front, Kyomei in his hand.

His entire body had gone tense.

The pressure in the chamber was unlike anything he had felt before.

Mitsuhide’s transformation had been horrifying. The power inside Death God Valley had been corrupt, violent, and unnatural. But it had still been limited. Mitsuhide had only borrowed a fragment of something greater.

This was different.

The air itself was beginning to change.

It became thicker.

Heavier.

Every breath felt wrong, as though the underground chamber no longer belonged to Kastoria. The red symbols carved into the pillars glowed brighter and brighter, casting long crimson shadows across the stone floor.

Then the corpses began sinking.

One of the dead servants nearest the trench was swallowed first.

A black substance rose from the blood and wrapped around the body. It moved like liquid, but it was too thick. Too alive. It climbed over the man’s face, his arms, and his chest before pulling him downward.

The corpse disappeared without a sound.

Then another body was swallowed.

And another.

The sacrificed people vanished one by one beneath the dark substance. It did not matter whether they had been servants, guards, prisoners, or Norihiro’s own soldiers. The shrine accepted them all.

Their lives had become fuel.

Genzo’s fists clenched.

“That bastard,” he muttered.

One of the shinobi behind him covered his mouth as another body vanished into the ritual trench.

Nathan did not move.

His eyes remained fixed on the darkness gathering at the center.

Norihiro stood beside the altar, his ceremonial robe shifting in the unnatural wind rising from the blood. The cut across his palm continued bleeding, though he did not seem to feel the pain.

He was smiling.

Not with madness.

Not entirely.

There was calm certainty in his face.

The expression of a man who believed he had finally reached the end of a road he had walked for years.

The black liquid rose higher.

It swelled from the trench in slow waves, swallowing the remaining bodies and collecting in the center of the ritual circle. The crimson light from the symbols reflected across its surface, but no reflection remained stable for long.

Faces appeared inside it.

Not the faces of the sacrifices.

Other faces.

Ancient faces.

Distorted faces.

Some seemed to scream beneath the surface. Others opened their eyes only for a moment before being dragged back into the darkness.

Then the substance began forming a shape.

Two massive legs emerged first.

They were too long and too thin, made from black flesh that seemed to ripple as though something crawled beneath it. Clawed feet touched the stone platform, and the chamber shook under their weight.

A torso followed.

Broad.

Towering.

Its body looked almost human from a distance, but every detail became wrong the closer it came to being complete. Dark lines ran across its chest like cracks in burned stone. Several scars crossed its body, glowing faintly red from within.

Then its arms emerged.

Four of them.

Two large arms hung at its sides, ending in hands with long black claws. Two smaller arms unfolded beneath its ribs, their joints bending in ways no living creature’s should.

The final shape rose from the blood.

A head.

Long black hair spilled over its shoulders, wet with darkness. Two horns curled backward from its forehead, jagged and uneven like broken branches. Its face was pale compared to the rest of its body, but it was not a human face.

Its mouth was too wide.

Its teeth were too sharp.

And its eyes were empty pits of blackness.

The thing opened its mouth.

The sound that came out did not belong to any living creature.

It was a low distorted breath, deep enough to shake dust from the ceiling. The chamber lights flickered. The red symbols on the pillars dimmed for a moment, as though even the shrine feared what had answered its call.

The Kijin slowly lifted its head.

It looked around the chamber.

Its empty black eyes passed over the bodies, the blood, the altar, and the frightened shinobi standing behind Nathan.

Then it inhaled.

The sound was long.

Hungry.

“So…” it said.

Its voice was distorted, as though several voices spoke through one throat.

The sound echoed from every wall at once.

“Where am I?”

No one answered.

The Kijin turned its head toward the ceiling, as if it could see through the earth and stone above them.

“It has been so long,” it murmured. “So long since I smelled this world’s air.”

The creature inhaled again.

Its mouth stretched into something that might have been a smile.

“Rain. Soil. Blood. Fear.”

Its head turned slowly toward the shinobi.

“Humans.”

The Kijin took one step forward.

The stone floor cracked beneath its foot.

Several shinobi stumbled backward.

Nathan’s grip tightened around Kyomei.

The thing’s presence pressed down against him with terrible weight. His body reacted before his mind could fully process it. Every instinct he had gained through fighting, surviving, and facing monsters told him the same thing.

This creature did not belong here.

It was not like Mitsuhide.

It was not a human who had become twisted by dark power.

This was the source.

A real Kijin.

A being that had been sealed away from the world for a reason.

Nathan looked toward Genzo.

“Leave.”

Genzo stared at him.

“Ryo—”

“Take the others and leave now.”

The command in Nathan’s voice was sharp enough to cut through the fear filling the chamber.

Genzo’s face tightened.

He did not want to retreat. Nathan could see it. The old shinobi leader had spent too long fighting Norihiro’s influence to walk away now. He wanted to strike. He wanted to make the Daimyo pay for the people he had sacrificed.

But he was not foolish.

He looked at the Kijin.

Then at the young shinobi behind him.

The creature had not even attacked yet, and they were already struggling to breathe beneath its presence.

Genzo made his choice.

“You heard him,” he said. “Fall back.”

The shinobi hesitated.

One of them looked toward the line of knights guarding Norihiro.

“But Genzo sama—”

“Now.”

The shinobi moved.

Genzo took a step backward with them, but Nathan raised a hand.

“You too.”

Genzo’s expression hardened.

“I am not leaving you alone against that thing.”

“You cannot fight it.”

“Neither can you.”

Nathan’s eyes remained on the Kijin.

“Maybe not. But I am the only one here who has a chance.”

The Kijin tilted its head.

It seemed amused by the exchange.

“You carry darkness,” it said to Nathan.

Its distorted voice rolled through the chamber.

“Not mine.”

Nathan’s gaze did not shift.

The creature leaned closer.

The empty black pits of its eyes seemed to deepen.

“Yet familiar.”

Norihiro raised the small scepter in his hand.

It was carved from dark red stone, no longer than his forearm. Strange symbols spiraled around it, and at its top sat a jagged red crystal that seemed to hold a drop of moving blood inside.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed.

“Norihiro,” he said. “Have you gone mad?”

Norihiro gave a quiet laugh.

The sound was calm, almost warm.

“Madness is merely the word used by the powerless when they see someone reach beyond the limits they were taught to accept.”

He lifted the scepter higher.

“Kings die. Daimyos fall. Cities change hands. But those who hold real power decide what history becomes.”

The crystal at the top of the scepter glowed.

Red chains burst from the altar.

They spiraled around the Kijin’s arms, chest, and neck. The chains looked like metal at first, but Nathan could see they were not. They were formed from blood and ritual magic, each link covered in glowing symbols.

The Kijin’s body tensed.

A deep growl rolled from its throat.

The shrine shook.

For one dangerous second, Nathan expected the creature to tear Norihiro apart.

Then the chains tightened.

The red light around them flared.

The Kijin’s head lowered.

Norihiro smiled.

“It seems you have not forgotten the old laws,” he said.

The Kijin’s lips pulled back, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

“I remember,” it said.

The distorted voice carried anger now.

“I remember the taste of the ones who dared bind my kind.”

Norihiro stepped closer to the ritual circle.

“You are bound to me by blood, ritual, and name. You will obey.”

The Kijin’s empty eyes slowly moved toward him.

“You believe that because you hold a toy?”

Norihiro’s smile did not disappear.

“I believe it because I prepared for years.”

The chains tightened once more.

The Kijin’s body jerked.

Its claws gouged deep lines into the stone floor as it resisted. The ceiling trembled. Dust rained down around them. But after several seconds, the creature stopped moving.

Its head turned toward Nathan.

Norihiro followed its gaze.

“There,” he said.

His voice was quiet.

“Kill him.”

Nathan moved immediately.

Dark magic burst from beneath his feet.

He crossed the chamber in an instant, Kyomei raised toward Norihiro. He needed to destroy the scepter. If Norihiro controlled the Kijin through it, then taking it away was the fastest path to ending this.

The knights stepped forward.

Nathan passed them.

Kyomei flashed once.

The first knight’s sword broke apart.

Nathan struck him aside with his shoulder and moved through the opening before the others could close around him. A second knight swung from Nathan’s left. Nathan turned, caught the blade against Kyomei, and sent a wave of dark power through it.

The knight was thrown into a pillar.

Nathan was only a few steps from Norihiro.

Then the Kijin moved.

It did not run.

It simply appeared in front of him.

The creature’s massive hand came down.

Nathan raised Kyomei.

The clawed palm struck the blade.

BAAAAAADOOM!

The impact was beyond anything Nathan expected.

Dark magic erupted around him, but it did not stop the Kijin’s strength. The force traveled through Kyomei and into Nathan’s arms, shoulders, chest, and legs all at once.

His bones felt as though they might break.

The ground beneath him vanished.

Nathan was launched backward.

He crashed through one stone pillar.

Then another.

The chamber wall split apart as his body struck it, and he was thrown through the broken stone into a narrow corridor behind it.

He could not stop.

The force carried him upward through the underground passage, smashing through carved walls and stairs. Stone shattered around him. Dust filled his lungs. His body hit the ceiling, then the floor, then another wall.

Finally, Nathan broke through the earth itself.

The ground above the shrine exploded.

He flew out into the open air beneath the darkened afternoon sky.

For a second, everything was silent.

Then he fell.

Nathan twisted in the air and forced dark magic beneath him just before he hit the ground.

Even with the magic slowing him, the landing tore a crater into the hillside.

Earth and stone exploded outward.

Nathan lay still for a moment at the center of the impact.

His chest burned.

His left arm had gone numb.

Blood ran from his mouth.

He coughed hard and spat red onto the dirt.

The pain from Shiina’s cuts had been nothing compared to that single strike.

Nathan pushed himself onto one knee.

The air around him had changed.

Birds had stopped calling.

The wind had stopped moving.

Even the distant sounds of Minami Kyoto’s battle felt faint beneath the terrible silence spreading through the hills.

Genzo and the shinobi emerged from the hidden shrine entrance farther down the slope.

They had barely reached the surface before the underground chamber began collapsing behind them. Daichi and the others stood frozen, staring at Nathan’s crater.

“Ryo!” Genzo shouted.

Nathan rose slowly.

“I am fine,” he said.

Genzo looked as though he wanted to argue.

Then the earth shook.

Once.

Twice.

The hillside split open.

A jagged crack raced across the ground from the buried shrine. Trees near the entrance bent and broke. Rocks rolled down the slopes. The entire hill rose slightly, then burst apart in a violent eruption of stone and crimson light.

The Kijin emerged.

It climbed through the ruined earth as if the mountain itself were nothing more than soft ground. Its four arms pushed aside massive slabs of stone. Its horns appeared first, then its long black hair, then the pale monstrous face with its empty eyes.

The creature rose above the destroyed shrine.

It stood taller than the trees around it.

Red chains coiled tightly over its body, glowing brighter in the afternoon darkness. Norihiro stood on one of the broken stone platforms behind it, still holding the scepter.

His robe snapped in the unnatural wind.

The Kijin lifted its face toward the sky.

It inhaled deeply.

Then it laughed.

The sound was wrong.

It was not joy.

It was the sound of something ancient recognizing freedom, even if that freedom came wrapped in chains.

“At last,” the Kijin said.

Its voice rolled over the hills.

“At last, this world breathes before me again.”

Genzo and the shinobi stood behind Nathan.

None of them moved.

The Kijin’s empty eyes lowered.

They fixed on Nathan.

Nathan wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

His eyes narrowed.