35 Parasitical Egg That Feeds On Spirit

By the time Mr. Ikeda arrived at Reimei Temple, it was already lunchtime. 

His thought on Reimei Temple remained the same, even though it was located deep in the Yoyogi Forest. The moment he saw Baishi Shu, he fell to his knees. Laying his head on the ground, he pleaded, "Master Baishi, please help us!" 

"Don't worry, Mr. Ikeda. I will do what I can," Baishi Shū assured him as he helped Mr. Ikeda up from the ground. 

The hatred in Mr. Ikeda's heart far exceeded Baishi Shu's expectations. If Baishi Shū did not do anything, the hatred in his heart would grow to a point where his temperament would change. At that time, he would become an entirely different person and would easily be set off by the slightest matter.

When Mr. Ikeda rose to his feet, his forehead was bruised and his eyes were red-rimmed as he held Baishi Shu's gaze intently. 

"Master Baishi, I appreciate you allowing me to stay beside you when you eliminate that damn creature, but I am a normal person. I don't have any spiritual power and I can't see ghosts. Is there anything you can do about this?"

"Rest assured. I have it all figured out," Baishi Shū replied. After that, he pulled out the clairvoyance talismans that he had created earlier on. 

"These are clairvoyance talismans. I learned to make them from a fellow friend at the shrine. With these, you will be able to see the ghost. Concurrently, I will chant the meditation curse when we are at the scene. The meditation curse helps to calm down your mind in case you get agitated when you see the evil spirit." 

'Clairvoyance talisman?'

Mr. Ikeda was perplexed. His belief did not waver when he saw the location and size of the temple, but after Baishi Shū showed him the clairvoyance talisman, he began to grow suspicious. A monk using a paper talisman? How absurd! 

Nevertheless, his suspicion soon vanished. After all, he just wanted to see the evil spirit destroyed before his eyes. He didn't really care what kind of measurements Baishi Shū was going to use. Be it a paper talisman or Buddhist mantras, as long as he could help him achieve his goal, he was fine with anything and everything. 

If Baishi Shū could eliminate the evil spirit, he would hand over the 50 million yen without any complaints, just like he had promised. On the other hand, if Baishi Shū failed to do his job, he would not give even a penny. He would go away and look for other people who could help him. 

After Baishi Shū finished speaking, he fell into a short silence before continuing, "Before we go to the scene, there are several things that I would like to say. Normal people like you, who do not possess any spiritual power, are especially susceptible to the evil spirit's grudge and yin energy. It might cause you to have several nightmares, or even worse, become sick. Mr. Ikeda, I have to be very honest with you. My spiritual power is limited. I can assure you your safety, but I cannot protect you against the yin energy. Are you fine with that, Mr. Ikeda?"

After hearing the thing he said, Mr. Ikeda nodded without any hesitation. 

Seeing his determined look, Baishi Shū knew there was nothing that could change Mr. Ikeda's mind. He let out a sigh and said, "Well then, let's get moving."

...

Tokyo, Shibuya, a parking lot. 

The uniformed men did not give them any trouble when they saw it was Mr. Ikeda who brought Baishi Shū here. They just told them to take care not to damage the scene before letting them in. 

Baishi Shū swore that the inside of the car was the most grisly scene he had ever seen. The interior was soaked with blood and there were human remains and all sorts of gory things that he could not name splattered here and there. It was only when Baishi Shū saw the scene did he understand Mr. Ikeda's anger. 

Ikeda Shinn was his only son. To see his dear son, who he had nurtured with great care since he was young, reduced to nothing more than a pile of flesh pulp, must be very hard for him. At the same time, Baishi Shū could also imagine how much pain both Ikeda Shinn and his girlfriend had to go through before they died. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes and began chanting the Rebirth Mantra. 

After he finished chanting the mantra, he activated his Divine Eye and opened his eyes. This time, the world had taken an entirely new form. There was a layer of black matter that seemed to be hair, enveloping the car like a cocoon, but it did not end there. The hair extended out from the car in every direction, as far as his eyes could reach. It crawled over the entire parking lot in a crisscross fashion, dying everything in its wake black and forming a huge spiderweb-like structure with the car at its center. 

The atmosphere took a harsh turn and became exceedingly eerie and spooky. With the hair hanging in front of him like a spider web, it seemed as if he had entered a spider's lair.

'Is this… an illusion?' This was the first thought that surfaced in his mind. 

However, he soon rejected the idea. If all of these were illusions, there was no way he would not know. After all, no illusion in this world could escape his Divine Eye. Therefore, he knew everything that was happening right before his eyes were real. It was just that without the Divine Eye, nobody could see it. Truth be told, Baishi Shū was somewhat surprised. He had never seen anything like this and he was intrigued by it. 

Without wasting any more time, he quickly used his Divine Eye and began analyzing the composition of the hair. It took him no more than a few seconds to find out the true color of the hair. The hair was not a material, instead made up of grudge, yin energy, and a kind of negative energy substance that he had never seen before. It was invisible, nobody able to touch or see it. 

Suddenly, Baishi Shū heard a groan somewhere in the wind, snapping him out of his thoughts. The sound was very faint, as if an unconscious patient was moaning. He pricked his ears and listened, trying to discern the source of the sound. After a few seconds, he found out to his surprise, that the groaning was coming from the car.

'Somebody is in the car? No, that is impossible! Both Ikeda Shinn and his girlfriend's bodies had been reduced to nothing, so it is impossible that there are people in the car. Could it be a spirit?' 

Without wasting any time, Baishi Shū quickly went towards the car. With his Divine Eye, he easily looked through the layers of hair in front and saw a spirit inside. 

It was the spirit of a young man, bound to the chair by a large amount of hair. The hair could not be touched by normal people but it was a different case for him. The hair was like the strongest of shackles, leaving him unable to break free from it no matter how hard he tried. 

Baishi Shū could see that the young man's spirit had begun to transform, having been eroded by the grudge from the hair for a long time. Theoretically speaking, the process should have been completed long ago and the spirit should have become an evil spirit already. 

Upon closer inspection, Baishi Shū found that there were many eggs in the young man's body. Those eggs were formed by a grudge. They fed and grew on the negative energy generated by the young man's despair and pain. At the same time, they also halted the transformation process. 

It was easy to foresee that the moment those eggs reached the maturity stage, whatever burst out from the eggs would crush the young man's soul. They would consume his soul to nourish themselves until there was nothing left. 

'This is beyond savage… Just how much enmity did the perpetrator have towards this young man?'

The soul should be that of Mr. Ikeda's son, Ikeda Shinn. His soul did not dissipate instantly, instead of turning into a breeding ground to feed the eggs. Meanwhile, his girlfriend's soul was nowhere to be seen. She had completely disappeared, probably already devoured by the evil spirit who had killed them. 

Baishi Shū wondered why the evil spirit killed one but left the other to live. 'Why not keep both of them? The evil spirit would have had two hotbeds instead of one. Wouldn't that be more efficient? Or could it be that the evil spirit had some personal grudge against Ikeda Shinn?' 

Looking at the scene in front of him, Baishi Shū began to question whether the thing that killed Ikeda Shinn and his girlfriend was really an evil spirit. Regardless of how many times he went through the Record of Demons and Spirits in his mind, he could not find any adjacent evil spirit that could commit an act like this. 

'What could it be if it is not an evil spirit? Could it be…' 

In this world, other than evil spirits, there was also another existence known as yokai.

Although yokai rarely came to the city and only roamed about in the forest, they were, without a doubt, a force to be reckoned with. In ancient times, some of the yokai kings held the same status as the other kami-sama. They accepted offerings from people, and in return, they gave divine protection to those people and shielded them from the plague and other bad things. Nowadays, very few people would mention them, most of their anecdotes lost in the course of time. However, Baishi Shū was still able to find something about them while looking through the ancient records in Reimei Temple. 

Now was not the right time to talk about this, however. He had to take the chance and ask Ikeda Shinn about the demon that killed him before his soul completely dissipated. 

"Ikeda Shinn? Are you Ikeda Shinn?" Baishi Shū called out. 

Inside the car, Ikeda Shinn remained conscious. The moment he heard somebody calling his name, he jerked up and shouted, "Who's there? Please, I beg of you. Save me!" 

Concurrently, Mr. Ikeda heard Baishi Shū call out his son's name. He could not hold himself back anymore and pulled Baishi Shu's arm. 

"Master Baishi, did you see Shinn?"