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They've been completely won over.

Suer pondered silently, but it didn't seem strange, since even he had to admit that those two slippery characters did indeed possess a unique personal charm.

“Now that you’ve made your decision, just stick to it,” Sue patted Araragi Koyomi on the back. “Do what you believe is right… By the way, did you win easily that day?”

Speaking of this, Sull is a little embarrassed. It was Sull who recommended Araragi Koyomi to the Nura Clan for training, but he was forcibly dragged there by Kagome Higurashi because of the Time Gate, and he basically forgot about it. He didn't even find out that Araragi Koyomi had won until later.

“Aside from being caught off guard at the beginning, I got better and better as the fight went on,” Araragi Koyomi said with a smug yet shy smile. “Thanks to your recommendation, Mr. Sue, and the training from the Nura Clan, I successfully retrieved Kiss-Shot’s limbs. And those vampire hunters and Mr. Oshino were surprisingly trustworthy.”

They dare to break their promise and see what happens?

"That's good... Don't do anything outrageous, just live well." Without pointing this out, Su'er's gaze fell on the shadow behind Araragi Koyomi. If his senses were not wrong, then Kiss-Shot should be hiding there right now, but it seemed that she had no intention of coming out to meet him.

"That's settled then. Since you've chosen to live as a vampire, remember not to forget your true self, and think things through when you encounter problems... I'll be going now," Sue said, standing up.

"Ah, I will, thank you very much for your help," Araragi Koyomi bowed sincerely, and was helped up by Sue.

Without saying anything more, in Araragi Koyomi's eyes, the man, who was so young that he didn't look like an old monster at all, waved goodbye and then disappeared into thin air.

"Finally gone..." Kiss-Shot's figure slowly rose from Araragi Koyomi's shadow. This vampire had clearly regained her complete body, but strangely, she still maintained the appearance of a young girl.

It's hard not to wonder if it's Araragi Koyomi's unique taste.

"Shall we do it, you or me?" Kiss-Shot asked with an evil laugh as she poked Araragi Koyomi's leg with a finger.

"...I'll do it, since I don't have any pocket money left to buy donuts this month."

As the two were talking, a tentacle-like shadow was lurking in the distance in a deserted alley, its claws outstretched and two crimson spots peeking out.

Araragi Koyomi moved closer.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Severe

There are more and more monsters in the city.

After the spring break, schools across the country started the new semester. When the students gathered together, they were surprised to find that in just one holiday, urban legends had exploded in number, and everyone could tell a completely different story.

Everything from the visuals to the details is incredibly clear, as if they were right there on the scene.

In the dead of night, you might hear someone knocking on the handrail of a stairwell, but when you go out to look, you'll find no one there; in the countryside at dusk, a tall, thin shadow might peek out from the fields, only to disappear again when you look closely; at midnight, picking up a landline and pressing four zeros will connect you to hell...

There were too many to count. Araragi Koyomi even felt that this could no longer be called a simple urban legend, but rather a horror and supernatural story.

He no longer doubts the authenticity of these stories, but tries his best to remind any classmate who is willing to listen to him not to let their curiosity get the better of them and to avoid doing anything that looks strange, and to try not to go out after dark, etc.

Although most of his classmates who heard him took his words as a joke, or regarded him as a fanatic who believed urban legends to be true, this made his already gloomy image at school even more peculiar.

But Araragi Koyomi knew that what he said was true... Oh right, Hanekawa Tsubasa must believe it too.

What made him give up the idea of ​​returning to being a pure human was the monsters or strange creatures he could encounter even while strolling around at dusk. Some of these monsters were reborn in a new era because of human desires, fantasies, or fears, while many more were things that had disappeared and become extinct but had reappeared in this world.

He wanted to protect his family, his sisters—to hold the knife in his hand when danger came.

The black smoke shimmered ominously in the twilight sun. The strange manifestation of the core that Araragi Koyomi had grasped in the outside world was nothing more than its menacing black tentacles. Even the struggles of these tentacles gradually weakened, and they could only limply pat Araragi Koyomi's wrist.

The scars on his arm were disappearing at a visible speed. Araragi Koyomi silently watched as the monster he held in his hand grew weaker and weaker, until it crumbled into dust with a gentle squeeze, like a clump of dry firewood, and disappeared completely into the air as it fell.

The vampire's unique ability to absorb energy makes clearing out these minor monsters or goblins incredibly easy.

The government seems to have also discovered these things, or perhaps the national level has known about the existence of these anomalies for a long time, but because they have always acted calmly, they have not taken much action. In any case, in this era that is gradually showing signs of turmoil, they have also introduced corresponding defensive measures.

While this was an exceptionally swift response given Araragi Koyomi's understanding of the Japanese government, it was better to rely on them...

'...Hopefully Mr. Sue can resolve these matters as soon as possible...'

Clap his empty hands, Araragi Koyomi looked up at the sky, where faint black demonic energy seemed to linger, and pondered silently.

Tonight, Araragi Koyomi will join the hunt.

--------------

With Araragi Koyomi, the Nura Clan, and all sorts of oddballs like Onmyoji and supernatural experts around, it shouldn't be too difficult for human society to maintain stability on the surface for now. In addition, the Japanese government, which is aware of the situation, has also released its magic weapon called 'expert explanation' at just the right time. Overall, urban legends remain urban legends.

As for Suer, he found himself in an extremely troublesome situation.

To put it bluntly, Saigyouji Yu's story is about human sacrifice. Human sacrifice has never ceased in any country or dynasty. Moreover, this is not a fake human sacrifice, a deception to swindle money or status, but a human sacrifice that can truly benefit the people of this region.

Although it is cruel, it is unreasonable to judge ancient things from the perspective of modern people, not to mention that Suer is sure that he has no intention of bearing the casualties and impact on the future after the sudden collapse of this situation that has been maintained for hundreds of years.

He already knew that every time he returned to the past, he was changing the future, and he didn't want to become a sinner who helped monsters become extinct or suppressed humanity, even if he didn't want to personally participate in human development anymore.

then……

"Are you really not going to reconsider?"

"..."

"What about now? The weather's so nice today, how about we look at it from a different angle?"

"..."

"Ah~, such a beautiful and kind girl, she was about to give up her life because of the decisions of those who came before her. This world is so cruel!"

"..."

"Please have some water, please have some snacks."

"..."

Good morning! How are you feeling today? Want to talk about the lovely You?

"..."

The above dialogue, and similar dialogues, can occur anytime and anywhere. Relying on her increasingly proficient and advanced skills in using her gaps after tens of thousands of years of evolution, Yakumo Yukari can always emerge from an unexpected angle to spur on Sul's soul.

Suer felt like Sun Wukong being subjected to the spell of Tang Sanzang tightening the headband.

You can't hit her, you can't scold her away. No matter what she says, Yukari Yakumo will always smile and offer the most sincere service and the most genuine comfort. There's no need to make a big fuss about it. Sue would call this female demon's tormenting skills the strongest.

It's strange that the female youkai Yukari Yakumo cares for an ordinary human far more than Sue does for an ordinary human.

Even though Sull discovered in their occasional conversations that Saigyouji Yuu had already accepted her fate, Yakumo Yukari still did not give up, even if it meant going against the wishes of the person involved.

Is this the power of love?

However, when Suer asked Yakumo Yukari this question with a strange look, she received a denial from the female youkai without the slightest hesitation.

"I just couldn't bear to watch such a pure and kind person die so easily."

Suer still remembers the gentle smile on Yakumo Yukari's face when she said those words; it was very calm and composed.

Without even needing confirmation, Suer believed her.

The relationship between humans and monsters... is really interesting.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Interweaving of Past and Future

Xin Ke immersed himself in the study of the entire formation and the earth veins, which also required Su Er to stay in the ancient world at all times. But to be honest, as time went by, he could even see the shadowy modern high-rise buildings in his line of sight when he was in the ancient world.

The ever-expanding portals of time and space have become so vast that they can hardly be concealed anymore, regardless of the era.

Modern governments rely on information control to restrict the spread of various supernatural phenomena, and have even reinstated curfews in modern society. Ancient societies, on the other hand, relied on the inherently slow and unreliable flow of information to restrict the information from the portals of time and space. Even so, the news of the magical creations within the Saigyouji family's territory still spread among the yokai, and yokai from afar could often be seen arriving there out of curiosity.

And so time continued to pass.

In the eyes of the immortal race, it was only a little over two years, but these short two years had already affected the lives of two worlds.

Even though Xin Ke had tried her best, the mirage-like bubble continued to slowly expand until it enveloped the entire city.

The ordinary people in the city had long been evacuated. Now, the only people left in the city are Onmyoji, monks, shrine maidens, various kinds of yokai, and a very small number of experts on the strange. These seemingly chaotic beings are the last guardians of the city.

Well, we should also include the Self-Defense Forces and U.S. troops that have come in, plus scientists from all over the world.

In just two years, things that had been covered up were brought to the surface. After all, the migration of a million people was no small matter, and people were nervously and expectantly wary of everything in the mirage—the menacing monsters, the antique buildings, and the humans with accents from hundreds of years ago.

The shells are so effective that this once-human city is now armed like a military fortress, with large amounts of supplies being delivered to it every day, along with all sorts of new weapons... new weapons yet to be tested.

It was like a different kind of carnival.

Even those defending the city were wary of each other. Surprisingly, the Onmyoji family from Kyoto, the Kagein family, formed an alliance with the Nura Clan. Instead of guarding against them, they were also wary of the army or scientists who stared at them with predatory eyes.

What allows them to maintain a semblance of stability are only those mirage-like scenes. The modern and the ancient can stand face to face, but when they reach out, they find nothing.

For a moment, the city seemed like a fortress full of illusions and traps. What you thought was a meadow was actually just a phantom from the past, and stepping on it might actually make you fall half to your death. What appeared to be a lush forest was actually a wide road, forcing everyone walking in the city to be extremely careful.

Ancient humans and monsters faced similar situations: towering reinforced concrete buildings, blocks that inexplicably moved on their own, people who resembled them but dressed indecently, and monsters that appeared exceptionally weak.

The two sides cannot hear each other's voices and can only guess each other's words through facial expressions and lip movements. However, this has become extremely difficult due to the development of language. This is precisely the advantage that modern society, which has gathered the power of the whole world in a certain sense, has.

Well, that only applies when dealing with ancient humans, since it's really too much to ask someone to read lips from monsters that don't even look like humans.

Xin Ke didn't come away empty-handed. This situation, where both parties could only see each other in real time but couldn't touch each other, was the final measure she took after she couldn't make the time portal disappear. It prevented the forces from modern society from rushing into the ancient world all at once, and also prevented the existence of the ancient world from silently entering the modern world.

This is also a kind of balance, but this balance has reached its most fragile moment.

The echoes of death are reappearing in this modern society, in a form no one could have imagined—like blue ghosts emerging from summer fireworks.

They travel across oceans, through forests, through the concrete jungles of cities… and not just to this city that has been turned into a military fortress, but also to its surrounding islands and other islands of Japan.

They have even appeared in other countries around the world, though for now they are still scattered.

When you're on an airplane and looking down from high above, especially at night, you can see those blue lights shimmering and converging into a sea of ​​light. But when you think that this beautiful sight is actually the soul of one dead human after another... it becomes a nightmare that can stop a child from crying at night.

Their final destination was this city, now shrouded in the illusions of the past. They wandered aimlessly, as if some mysterious voice was calling to them, drawing their consciousness in.

Even the calls of their living relatives and friends could not wake them. They did not harm anyone, nor could they be stopped by anything; they simply kept moving forward.

Such scenes of sanity are not only found in modern society, but also in mirage-like phenomena.

From electric shocks to flames to magnetic fields and other energy weapons that were thought to exist only in people's imaginations, all sorts of weapons that even Sull found eye-opening appeared in the city. These military technologies were definitely twenty or even thirty years ahead of civilian technologies.

"Ready for battle at any moment" is perhaps the only idiom that can describe the two sides. It is undeniable that some gentle methods were used at the beginning to try to communicate with the other side. However, after communicating with those aliens who usually hide in the city, the higher-ups of human society decided to try other kinds of dialogue after the first battle.

One side is a hegemon who has completely conquered the entire planet, while the other side is a monster who cannot comprehend the future hundreds of years from now and still regards humans as food. Only blood and power can calm both sides down again.

"As a sage of monsters, is it really alright for you to keep talking about humans instead of leading those monsters?"

"My existence is irrelevant; those monsters know better than anyone what they want."

"……Yeah?"

Silence returned, and Suer simply stared solemnly at the thin, veil-like mirage... until it shattered.