Chapter 208: Greed, Hatred, and Ignorance

After returning to her senses, Oni no Miko quickly inspected the cracks that had appeared on her armor, then turned her attention to the other members of Adam and Ikkaku's teams, who were making their way up the hill, and she immediately waved a hand through the air, instructing the Hyakki Yagyou and the shikigami to adopt a defensive formation.

"Diamond, stay by my side and protect me!"

"I'm on it!"

After hearing Oni no Miko's request, Diamond immediately abandoned his pursuit of Ikkaku and Clown before rushing over to her side.

Things aren't looking good...

In the sky above, Ikkaku took a glance at Oni no Miko and Diamond, and he couldn't find any openings to strike at.

He had faced Diamond in battle on many previous occasions, and neither one of them had been able to get the better of the other.

Diamond possessed no special abilities, but his body was like an impregnable fortress. Even a powerful lightning or fire style ninja with extremely high destructive capabilities would've struggled to break through his defense, let alone a wind style ninja like Ikkaku.

Ikkaku could easily outrun Diamond with his wind style ninjutsu, but there was nothing that he could do to hurt Diamond.

Not only was Oni no Miko protected by her armor and her shikigami guardian, Diamond was also now fully committed to ensuring her safety, and that made it virtually impossible for Ikkaku and Clown to strike at her effectively.

Furthermore, as long as she remained safe, her invoked entities and those powerful arrows of hers were all capable of severely harming Adam and Ikkaku's teammates.

Adam had also identified this.

Even though his mind was in a rather foggy and inebriated state, he could see that the Hyakki Yagyou had claimed the high ground under Oni no Miko's orders before raining down attacks upon Nie Yiyi and the others.

Some were releasing toxic mist, some were throwing up torrents of black sludge, some were pushing large rocks off the top of the hill...

Their inability to effectively deal with Oni no Miko placed them in a very disadvantageous position in this battle, and what was even more daunting was the fact that Oni no Miko still had Yamata no Orochi up her sleeve.

Adam wasn't familiar with the serpent's abilities, and if they were to continue to force the issue, there was a very good chance that Nie Yiyi and King Arthur would meet their demise in this battle.

They still hadn't made it to the final zone yet, and Adam wanted to avoid taking such significant risks before that point.

Ikkaku's thought process was also quite similar to Adam's. Down below, Fire Elemental and Ice Elemental were struggling to deal with all of the attacks launched at them by the Hyakki Yagyou. The two of them possessed extremely impressive offensive prowess, but their bodies were quite heavy and clumsy, and their defenses were also rather mediocre. Once Oni no Miko began directing her arrows at them, there was a very good chance that they would be killed on the spot.

With that in mind, Ikkaku immediately declared, "Let's retreat!"

It was important to be decisive in situations like this, and Ikkaku conjured up a dust storm as he spoke to obstruct Oni no Miko's vision.

At the same time, all of Clown's clones began to unleash a ferocious barrage of attacks upon the Hyakki Yagyou, quickly blowing a hole in their formation.

"Let's see who can run the fastest! If you're not fast enough, you'll die!" Clown cackled as it fled the scene, and everyone immediately followed suit, rushing through the opening in the Hyakki Yagyou's ranks.

The combination of the firepower output from Clown's clones and the dust storm formed the perfect smokescreen, and by the time the dust settled, Adam and Ikkaku's teams were nowhere to be seen, leaving only the severely ravaged landscape behind them.

Oni no Miko naturally wasn't going to give chase. The game still hadn't truly entered its climax yet, so she didn't want to take any excessive risks, either.

Even though Ikkaku and Adam's attack had ultimately ended in failure, they had managed to force Oni no Miko to reveal another one of her abilities. At the same time, their actions caused a chain reaction in the entire penultimate zone.

They were the first group of people to attempt an attack on a vantage point, and given how much of a commotion the battle had caused, it had drawn the attention of many teams that were lurking in the distance, such as Medusa's team and the four mecha brothers.

The four mecha brothers had failed to find an exit card, so they had no choice but to enter the penultimate zone. At the moment, they were the most eye-catching figures in the area. Even in their disassembled form, they were still a group of four bulky mechas. In addition to that, they had no concealment abilities, so they were unable to hide themselves from any of the teams that passed through.

Fortunately for them, everyone was thinking about how to get into the final zone, so no one attacked them.

"That was quite the battle!"

"Indeed. Judging from that storm of tornadoes, it looks like Ikkaku was involved."

"That final round of firepower output was also pretty ferocious. I think that was Lean Mean Killing Machine at work."

"That makes sense, considering both of them have a vendetta against Oni no Miko. Why's it suddenly gone quiet? Is the battle over?" The four mecha brothers were a little disappointed. "Let's get out of here. It looks like we'll have to try our luck against Dead Wood."

……

The four mecha brothers weren't the only ones who intended to attack the vantage point that Dead Wood's team was occupying. There were still dozens of participants left in the battle royale, and everyone wanted to go after the weakest possible target.

In the wake of Adam and Ikkaku's failure to defeat Oni no Miko's team, almost all of the remaining participants had gathered at the foot of the hill that Dead Wood's team was occupying.

"What the fuck is wrong with these people?" A turret architect on Dead Wood's team was looking into the distance through a pair of night vision binoculars with a disgruntled look on his face. "Why are there so many people here? Are they all looking down on us? What do we do?"

The architect turned to Dead Wood as he spoke.

"Don't fret, everything is going exactly as we planned."

Dead Wood was seated on the ground in a completely still manner, and with his withered appearance, he truly did resemble a dead tree with not a single hint of vitality in his body.

"The more the merrier!"

Beside Dead Wood was a portly monk and another monk who was extremely, but had an enormous mouth. Just like Dead Wood, both of them were also wearing monk robes, but their faces didn't hold the calm and placid expressions one would expect to see in a monk. Instead, their expressions betrayed strong emotions and desires.

.

Each of them had a tattoo of an ancient character on the backs of their necks, and those who could read that ancient language would know that the characters represented "greed", "hatred", and "ignorance".

These were the three poisons of Buddhism. Much like the seven cardinal sins of Catholicism, the three poisons were considered to be the root of all sins in the Buddhist religion. Greed, hatred, and ignorance relegated one to be eternally trapped in the cycle of reincarnation, unable to attain peace or freedom.

In Buddhist beliefs, hell didn't exist. Instead, the human world itself was hell, and only by casting aside green, hatred, and ignorance could one liberate oneself from this hell.

Greed referred to a desire for all things considered to be good, such as wealth, beautiful women, immortality, delicious food... If those things couldn't be obtained, then one would be tormented by their greed, but if those things were to be obtained, one's greed would ensure that they were never satisfied and always wanting for more.

Hatred encompassed all negative emotions, such as anger, envy, and jealousy.

Ignorance was the root of all troubles, and those who were ignorant didn't know right from wrong, or good from bad, leading to boundless troubles and worries.

"I invited the two of you here with the objective of winning this battle royale." Even though Dead Wood's lips weren't moving, sound was coming from his throat. "I'm about to leave Shadow City, and I'm going to obtain the director's bequeathment before I leave. It's about time that we began."

"Indeed. Now that everyone's here, it's time to get the ball rolling," the portly monk agreed. "I was worried that not enough people would show up, but it seems my concerns were unwarranted."