Chapter 495: Template For The Next Avatar

If they invoked a God renowned for battle, strength, and valor, even shrine maidens whose bodies were naturally frail could become immensely powerful and virtually indestructible, allowing them to adapt to a far wider variety of environments and enemies.

From that point onward, this visualization method became the core cultivation practice of the shrine maiden lineage.

It was also why the shrine maiden lineage came to be known as the Divine Officials, humans who acted on behalf of divine authority, serving and summoning the Gods they themselves had created.

But how could anyone enjoy only the benefits without suffering the corresponding costs?

As the saying goes, all things possess two sides, and Dark and Light give birth to one another.

How could faith in those seemingly benevolent Gods possibly be so easy to bear?

Those who prayed to the Gods were human.

The shrine maidens who created those Gods were also human.

And humans inevitably possessed the seven emotions and six desires, along with countless emotions that could never be completely suppressed.

Even though every generation of shrine maidens envisioned only hope and goodness, creating only righteous Gods devoted to protecting the world, the negative emotions they forcibly suppressed still had to go somewhere.

Anger, fear, hatred, jealousy, despair… all those dark emotions that generations of shrine maidens had abandoned, rejected, and buried deep within their hearts over the course of countless years of cultivation had never truly disappeared.

They believed that severing those emotions would bring purity.

Little did they know that those fragments quietly gathered together in places beyond anyone's notice. Nourished by endless time and accumulated over generation after generation, they ultimately condensed into a monster.

By the time their ancestors realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

The monster had already fully taken shape.

That was the origin of Moryo.

It also explained why Moryo constantly insisted that it and the shrine maidens had originally been one, why it could never truly be killed no matter how many times it was slain, why it always escaped again someday after every sealing, and why every time it broke free, it frantically sought to devour the very source of each generation of shrine maidens.

Because Moryo itself was a monster that existed as the other half of the shrine maiden lineage.

The shrine maiden was the light while Moryo was the shadow.

The shrine maiden embodied righteous thoughts while Moryo was the aggregate of every abandoned evil thought.

As long as the shrine maiden lineage continued to exist, Moryo would never truly perish. Sealing it merely forced it back into the abyss of consciousness for a time, while destroying it would only allow it to regenerate within the inner darkness of some future shrine maiden.

Theoretically, the only way to eliminate Moryo was to destroy the shrine maiden along with it.

However, that remained only a theoretical method.

Whether it would actually work was something no one could say with certainty.

After all, Moryo was not formed solely from the negative emotions accumulated by generations of shrine maidens. Mixed within it were also the countless impure thoughts and darkness accumulated over centuries by the ordinary people who prayed to the gods.

No one could be certain that even if the shrine maiden and Moryo perished together, that monster would truly disappear forever.

And if Moryo did not completely vanish, while no shrine maiden remained capable of restraining it, the consequences would be unimaginable.

It was precisely because of this uncertainty that, throughout the past centuries, the shrine maiden lineage had never been able to make a final decision, remaining uncertain about what should be done.

Furthermore, because of Moryo's emergence, the visualization method that had once been their core cultivation practice had long since been forced to cease.

That was also why sacred relics passed down through generations of shrine maidens since ancient times, such as the Demon-Slaying Sword and the Demon-Repelling Bow, had now been placed in storage, with no one able to wield them anymore.

Without the blessings of the many deities, the shrine maidens, whose bodies were naturally frail, no longer possessed the strength to wield those heavy sacred relics.

Yet although cultivation through visualization had ceased, Moryo, which had already fully taken shape and become inseparably bound to the shrine maiden lineage, would not disappear because of it.

Its rebirths and escapes from its seals merely took longer than before, but that was only a delay, not a true severance.

As long as the bloodline of the shrine maiden lineage remained for even a single day, or, to exaggerate slightly, as long as negative emotions continued to exist among humanity, there would never be any hope of completely eradicating Moryo.

(Author Note: It isn't actually that extreme; this is simply the concern of the shrine maiden lineage.)

That was precisely why Miroku was so desperate to find that True Lord.

Because in the prophetic dream she had half a year ago, it was the first time she had ever sensed fear from the arrogant and invincible Moryo.

That monster had even knelt on the ground and begged for mercy.

That meant the True Lord possessed the power to completely slay Moryo.

"Could it be... That the True Lord is a genuine God?"

This thought surfaced in Miroku's heart, shocking even herself.

In her view, not only did this True Lord possess what appeared to be a sacred invocation, but he was also capable of completely killing Moryo.

Surely only a God could accomplish such a feat.

After all, Moryo had once arrogantly claimed that even the Sage of Six Paths could not kill it.

Whether that was mere boasting or the truth, no one knew.

After contemplating the matter for a long time, Miroku carefully tucked away the note left behind by Genjo, taking a deep breath before raising her gaze toward the distant world shrouded in wind and snow, silently making up her mind.

"I must find the True Lord as soon as possible."

Although Genjo had asserted that the True Lord would definitely arrive in the future, she still could not put her mind at ease.

Because she and Moryo had originally been one and the same.

Although Moryo's power of foresight was far inferior to hers, when it came to a matter as crucial as its own life, there was no telling whether that monster might vaguely sense something and make its move in advance.

To prevent any unforeseen circumstances, she had to seize the initiative as early as possible.

Unfortunately, Miroku's worries were completely unnecessary.

At this very moment, Moryo was still sleeping soundly in the depths of its seal, utterly ignorant of what the future held.

Just as Genjo had said, this True Lord possessed boundless divine powers. The only reason she was able to glimpse those fragments ahead of time was that he was willing to let her know them.

If he did not wish it, then she could not.

...

So it really was this True Lord.

So it really was me.

While the shrine maiden Miroku's thoughts were in turmoil, Shinichi was likewise recalling his conversation with Miroku just now.

Born sacred, bearing an extraordinary presence, majestic like a God of War descended into the mortal world.

And finally, that mountain-cleaving axe.

Wasn't this the Illustrious Sage, True Lord Erlang?

Naturally, this world had no Illustrious Sage, True Lord Erlang.

The Illustrious Sage, True Lord Erlang was the template he had chosen for the next avatar of the Priest system.

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