The ride back to the dorms was silent.
Gojo vanished the moment we stepped outside, probably on his way to tear into the elders for letting someone like Kurosu walk free. Nobara walked a few steps ahead of me, her hands clenched in her pockets.
"He was serious," she said without looking back. "That former vessel."
"I know," I replied. "But I won't let him touch you."
She stopped.
"Don't make promises you'll need to become a monster to keep," she snapped—and kept walking.
Behind my eyes, Valthazar laughed softly.
The train ride to Nagano was a descent into a cold, mist-shrouded silence. As the urban sprawl of Tokyo gave way to jagged peaks and dense, suffocating forests, the atmosphere between Nobara and me shifted. We sat in a corner car, the only passengers left as the sun began to dip behind the mountains, painting the sky in a bruised, sickly purple.
I flexed my fingers, feeling the tight, cold embrace of the [Shadow-Wrap Gloves]. The violet runes etched into the leather pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
"You look like a soldier preparing for a funeral," Valthazar's voice hummed in the back of my mind. "Is it Kurosu you fear? Or the fact that he's the ghost of your future?"
'He's a ghost I plan on exorcising,' I thought back, glancing at Nobara.
She was staring out the window, her reflection ghosted against the glass. She hadn't spoken since we left the station. She was focused, her hammer resting across her knees, her thumb tracing the grain of the wood. She was preparing herself—not just for a curse, but for the version of me she might see in the mountains.
"Oubari Station," the automated voice announced, sounding tinny and far away.
We stepped onto a platform that looked like it hadn't seen a traveler in decades. The air was thin and smelled of wet earth and rotted cedar. There were no taxis, no lights—only a winding dirt path that led upward into the fog.
As we reached the gates of the village, the fog parted just enough to reveal the first row of houses. They were ancient, leaning against each other like tired old men. But it wasn't the architecture that made my blood run cold.
In the center of the village square, a dozen villagers stood perfectly still. They weren't talking. They weren't moving.
Every single one of them was wearing a white clay mask. The masks were carved with a singular, terrifying expression: a wide, toothy grin with three eyes—two where they belonged, and one vertical slit in the center of the forehead.
It was the face of Valthazar.
"Ren..." Nobara whispered, her hand sliding toward her nail pouch. "Tell me that's a coincidence. Tell me your 'roommate' just has a very common face."
"Coincidence?" Valthazar laughed, a sound like grinding stones. "Hardly. This was one of my altars, centuries ago. It seems the seeds I planted never truly died."
One of the villagers, an old man with a hunched back, stepped forward. He didn't take off the mask.
"The King has returned to his mountain," the man rasped, his voice sounding like it was being forced through a throat full of sand. "We have prepared the offerings, Great One. The maiden is pure, and the blood is ready."
He bowed low, but his third "eye" seemed to track me with a mind of its own.
"I'm not your King," I snapped, the violet energy of my gloves beginning to hiss. "And there aren't going to be any offerings. We're here to exorcise the curse and find the people who went missing."
The villagers didn't react with anger. They reacted with a synchronized, eerie tilt of their heads.
"The Vessel is confused," a woman's voice drifted from the back of the crowd. "He thinks he is the master. He doesn't realize he is just the cup."
[WARNING: TRAP DETECTED]
[ACTIVATING: DEMON'S INSTINCT]
The world suddenly turned grayscale. I felt a spike of killing intent coming from the shadows of the roof above us.
"Nobara, up!" I shouted.
I grabbed her waist and used [Phantom Step - Lv. 3]. Thanks to the gloves, the transition was seamless. We didn't just teleport; we flickered through the air, appearing on a balcony ten meters away.
CRASH.
Where we had been standing a second ago, a massive iron stake had impaled the ground. It was wrapped in black talismans—the same kind used by the Zenin clan.
"Ah, the Shadow-Wrap gloves," a voice purred from the darkness of the rafters. "You've been spending your points well, Ren. But gear can't save a soul that's already half-eaten."
Kurosu stepped out of the shadows, his milky white eyes glowing in the moonlight. He wasn't alone. Standing behind him were four figures in Kyoto uniforms—Zenin enforcers.
"Gojo isn't here to save you this time," Kurosu said, raising a hand. The shadows beneath his feet began to rise, forming into long, jagged blades. "And the 'Mountain God' is hungry. Why don't we see how much gravity you can pull when your heart is pierced?"
[NEW QUEST: THE TRIAL OF THE ALTAR]
* Objective: Defeat the Zenin Enforcers.
* Objective: Neutralize Kurosu.
* Reward: 1,000 OP & Unlock: [Valthazar's True Domain - Fragment]
Nobara stood beside me, her hammer glowing with a fierce blue light. She looked at the villagers, then at the Zenin, and finally at me.
"Hey, Ren," she said, her voice steady now. "Don't you dare let that demon take over. I'm going to show you how a real sorcerer handles a bunch of masked creeps."
I nodded, feeling the 12.5% sync hum in my chest.
Nobara stepped beside me, her hammer glowing faintly blue.
The villagers didn't move.
They only watched.
Smiling behind their masks.
The fog thickened, curling around our feet like something alive. Somewhere deep within the mountain, the ground let out a low, resonant groan—not a roar, not a scream.
A breath.
Valthazar went silent.
For the first time since I'd met him, there was no mockery. No laughter.
Only hunger.
"Ren," he whispered.
"This place isn't a shrine anymore."
The shadows stretched.
The talismans ignited.
And the mountain began to wake.