Chapter 158: A Deadly A-Rank Threat, The Living Fortress, Shirogami no Yōkai!

-----

Riven clicked his tongue in clear annoyance as he finally faced the man behind everything. Ryujin’s true appearance was that of a mountain of a man. He possessed long dark brown hair that fell like a lion’s mane, a thick hairy chest, and a cocky, arrogant smile. He laughed loudly while wearing ornate red samurai armor and held a giant cursed naginata in one hand.

Ryujin was controlling a monster one full rank above himself purely through the familial bonds the creature had formed with his father over generations. As Riven demanded to know what the thing was, the Japanese man answered with a boastful, wide smile.

"It’s a powerful Legendary Yokai that has served my family for generations! Hahaha!" Ryujin finished with a proud, booming laugh. "The Living Fortress, Shirogami no Yōkai! A spirit that possesses and animates the very architecture of our ancestral castles. For three hundred years it has protected the Kazama bloodline... and today it will crush the Claymore pretender into paste!"

[The Living Fortress, Shirogami no Yōkai – A-Rank.]

Nepo baby until the very end, huh?

Well, it did not truly matter. Riven had already detected that the creature was drawing its strength from the Spiritual Realm itself. In the end it was little more than an animated wooden house.

He simply had to destroy its energy source, and the entire construct would weaken dramatically.

"GROOOOHHHHHH!"

The giant wooden titan roared with a sound like collapsing temples and snapping timber. Its dozens of massive arms swung in a coordinated storm of crushing fists and lashing beams of soul-corroding spiritual energy.

BOOM!

CRASH!

BOOM!

CRASH!

The ground shook violently as Riven quickly stepped back and used all four of his weapons to parry and block the relentless blows. Wood splintered apart in every direction, yet the spiritual rays were becoming increasingly annoying. His soul was far stronger than before, but these attacks came from a true A-Rank monster and were bound to carry immense power.

Then...

TRUUUM!

One enormous wooden hand slammed down exactly where Riven had been standing only a heartbeat earlier. His eyes widened as he disappeared from the scene just in time through the combined use of Abyssal Shift, Abyssal Assault, and several other movement skills. His own living Shadow dragged him clear of the impact as well.

As he blurred aside, his tentacled wings flared wider and grew more perfect. He infused even more energy into them, causing black feathers made of his own Death Mithril to sprout along their length. The moment he leaped away, the ground cratered deeply. Dust and shattered stone exploded outward in a wide radius.

He quickly glanced at the rest of his group.

"Label—Noir—Kagehisa! Split!" Riven barked the order.

Noir twisted mid-air while carrying Label, disappearing into pure darkness and avoiding the incoming series of gigantic wooden hands that rushed down toward them.

Kagehisa’s body flickered with multiple afterimages as he activated his highest-speed Shunshin — the Body Flicker Technique that every true ninja was required to master. The technique allowed him to move and vanish from one place to another in less than a single second. He reappeared on the fortress’s opposite shoulder and immediately threw dozens of explosive kunai into its structure, blowing apart half of the rooftop in a series of sharp detonations.

Ryujin sneered from the castle’s highest remaining roof. "You think mere speed will save you? Formations—full deployment!" He laughed like a tyrannical shogun issuing orders from on high.

FLAAASH!

Glowing red seals ignited across every surface of the living fortress. Spiritual pressure crashed downward like an entire mountain. Riven felt the same draining sensation as before, but this time it was layered, multi-directional, and far denser than anything he had previously experienced.

He was genuinely shocked by Ryujin’s ingenuity.

"This bastard packed the living fortress yokai full of Formations!"

However, he refused to let those formations stop him.

His new Evolving Cellular Hivemind flared in response across his entire body. His skin turned a pale gray for a brief moment.

Every single cell in his body began to adapt on pure instinct, rewriting their energy pathways in real time. In a sudden flash of insight, the energy that was being drained from him connected back to the fortress itself. Through his connection to the Noosphere he could not only see the pathways of energy flowing all around him but actively interact with them using his Psionic Avatar.

"This is it... right?!"

His psionic hand reached out and seized control. Instantly the drain slowed... then completely reversed!

"What the...?!" Ryujin noticed something was terribly wrong. The immense spiritual aura of the castle diminished and weakened in mere seconds. "Huh?! What are you—"

The fortress was desperately trying to suck away Riven’s power... yet Riven’s cells had begun sucking back even harder, rapidly draining the gigantic yokai of its powerful spiritual aura.

Riven suddenly appeared directly in front of Ryujin and swung all four weapons at once. Ryujin desperately sidestepped in a clumsy fashion, revealing that he was not particularly well-versed in close combat. Riven planted both feet firmly, expanded his Psionic Avatar to its fullest, and pushed with all his mental might.

RUMBLE!

"Nnnggghh?!"

An invisible shockwave of pure mind-force erupted from him. The nearest wooden arms convulsed violently and then exploded into countless splinters as the yokai’s own spiritual circuits short-circuited under the feedback.

Ryujin staggered on the rooftop, blood trickling from his nose as his carefully prepared formations shattered one after another. "What the—?! HOW?!"

He was completely unable to understand what Riven was doing anymore. Yet Riven had no intention of giving him any time to figure it out.

Riven launched himself upward with explosive force. Four arms of black-red chimera flesh and two metallic feathered wings propelled him through the air like a living missile. He dual-wielded Fenrir’s Fang and the Netherworld King’s Blade while his remaining two hands formed razor-sharp claws of condensed psychic energy. The Headless Knight Swords, now possessed by Kagehisa’s spiritual energy, had already entered the castle’s interior and were systematically shattering several critical crystals — the cores of various formations and runes.

Then Riven’s weapon technique evolved in the heat of battle.

Quadruple Abyssal Assault Art — Second Form: Guillotine Cascade.

A storm of crossing death-waves carved deep trenches through the living fortress. Wooden flesh and spiritual sinew parted cleanly under the relentless assault.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

-----