Chapter 42 Let’s Wreck the Seiryuusai Festival with Evil Dragon! ③
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
In the world of Exorcists, pure-blood supremacy wasn’t just accepted—it was practically gospel. Spiritual talent came almost entirely from blood, and saying that a person’s lineage *was* their power wasn’t much of an exaggeration at all.
Effort mattered less than the hidden potential sleeping inside their veins, and the only reason the Shiryuin Clan had stood as humanity’s strongest Spirit Arts Adepts for a thousand years was because they’d spent every one of those centuries carefully breeding for nothing but spiritual ability—stacking blood upon blood until it bled.
Which was why, to anyone born into an Exorcist house, bloodline was more than pride. It was survival itself.
”…Mikoto’s technique has spread like wildfire through every major house.”
The Bloodline Purification Rite [T/N: a forbidden ritual that erases the genetic risks of inbreeding while amplifying spiritual potential] hadn’t just removed the taboo—it had turned into a full-blown trend across the Exorcist world, sweeping through the noble houses like a fever.
When I glanced through the Seal Dragon Festival guest registry, almost every woman from an Exorcist noble family was listed as pregnant. And the reason was obvious. The Rite had given the pure-blood zealots exactly what they craved: a way to enjoy all the benefits of tightening their bloodline without any of the downsides.
Incestuous pairings that used to be held back by the risk of deformities or stillbirths were now celebrated as a way to awaken the dormant talent in a noble family’s blood. The Rite stripped away those risks, and with nothing left to hold them back, the nobles had thrown themselves into their once-forbidden breeding like starving wolves let loose in a meat shop.
The thicker the blood, the stronger the children. And since they no longer needed to dilute their blood with outsiders, pure-blood fanatics were falling headfirst into obsession. To them, their bloodline was their identity—their specialness—and that made their barrier against taboo so much lower than the rest of the world’s.
”Fathers, uncles, older brothers, younger brothers, sons… wait… grandsons?”
Each guest’s family info was listed in brutal detail, and reading through the family trees of the Exorcist nobles honestly made me want to look away. Lines that should never have touched were tangled together into impossible shapes, and the children sat in places no sane chart could hold.
And now, as the host of the Seal Dragon Festival, I was expected to welcome these guests—while speaking politely to the noblewomen swollen with children they’d conceived from their own blood. Which meant, inevitably, having to talk about who the father of each unborn child was.
I had no idea what kind of face I was supposed to wear while listening to stories about forbidden family romances.
”…The Exorcist world used to be a den of monsters. Now it’s just… a real demon nest.”
In the single year I’d spent buried in the Underground Temple, Mikoto had turned the surface into something so corrupted that I half-suspected she wasn’t human anymore—more like some fallen god wearing her skin. People liked to call it an “innovation,” that she had revolutionized the Exorcist world in such a short time, but the truth was uglier. She had shattered every old value and let taboo run wild. It was pure devilry.
”…And the worst part is, we can’t even fully condemn it.”
Because the Rite worked. It produced stronger Spirit Arts Adepts. And in the world of Exorcists, where fighting Youma meant risking your life every day, that was too powerful an advantage to ignore. Even if it was incest. Even if it broke every rule. If it meant fewer children dying young, then no Exorcist family could afford to turn their backs on it.
It pulled the full Potential [T/N: a person’s innate spiritual power] out of the noble bloodlines. It meant they didn’t have to risk tainting their blood by marrying outsiders. They could have pure-blood children safely, and in this world where talent was set at birth, that made the Rite a weapon that shook the entire field to its core.
The ethics were a nightmare, but in a world where only the strong had power, wealth, or even the right to stay alive, the more parents thought about their children’s future, the less they saw any reason *not* to thicken their blood. This world was brutal and old, still stuck in a primitive hierarchy where violence was law and weakness was a death sentence. Of course they clung to the only advantage they could be born with.
”If they bear children who grow strong, then their own rank rises with them,” I muttered. “So the next generation will have no choice. They’ll depend on the Rite until they’re trapped in an incest spiral forever…”
The higher the Potential of a bloodline, the harder it was to let go of the Bloodline Purification Rite. Incest produced strong children every time. Bringing in outside blood was seen as dangerous now, a gamble that could make your children weak—and in the world of Exorcists, weak children died. That was simply how it was. So naturally, the survivors would be the ones born through the Rite. Natural selection made visible. And as long as that was true, Mikoto’s creation would spread until incest became the new normal, sinking this already ancient, tradition-choked world even deeper into its own darkness.
A devil’s spell, dragging everything down with the weight of its own blessings and its own rot. There was no way to see where this spiral ended.
”…The only good news is that it’s still just a trend inside the Exorcist world.”
I let out a quiet breath as I flipped to another page of the registry. The names from the political and financial sectors—the normal people—showed no such corruption. Their family trees were clean, maybe with a mistress or a hidden child here and there, but nothing like the madness tying the Exorcist houses together. No children born of lines that never should have crossed.
And that was natural, too. The Bloodline Purification Rite only worked by unlocking the latent Potential in spiritual bloodlines. For normal humans without any spiritual ability, thickening their blood did nothing. In the Exorcist world, talent marked the difference between an ant and an elephant, but for everyone else, there would be barely any benefit at all. Incest would just give them… normal children. Ordinary, fragile, human children.
Mixed in among the names of the Exorcist nobles on the registry were a few from the financial world—ordinary humans. Their personal info was all neatly typed out, and not one of their family trees showed the kind of rot and collapse that the Exorcist lines did. At worst, there were the usual rumors of mistresses or hidden children, but no lives born from the kind of insane crisscrossed lines that twisted through the noble houses. I let out a quiet breath before I even realized I was holding it.
It made sense. The Bloodline Purification Rite [T/N: a ritual that erases genetic risks of inbreeding and amplifies spiritual power] was meant to squeeze out the full Potential [T/N: a person’s innate spiritual power] from a bloodline, but for people with no spiritual talent at all, thickening their blood offered no benefits. In the Exorcist world, spiritual power created a difference in ability as wide as ants and elephants, but to the rest of the world, without that kind of talent, even incest would only produce… normal children. Ordinary, unremarkable kids.
By the standards of common sense and ethics, the Rite was nothing but a liability for people in the financial world. Unlike the Exorcist world, they didn’t need to build a primitive class society ruled by violence. Potential could be drawn out just fine through elite education alone. For Exorcists, whose job literally danced on the edge between life and death, the Rite was an answer to a survival problem. But for the general public, far from that danger, the thought of being killed socially was a hundred times more terrifying than being killed by a Youma.
”…I’ll have to make sure my kids never get tangled up in this world of Exorcists, and keep them tied to the surface instead.”
While I’d been away underground, the Exorcist world had turned into something far worse than I’d imagined. It was no place for children. When Yaten rose to the throne of gods, I’d have to carve out protections for them. Even the Shiryuin Clan was in chaos now, with half its women pregnant from the Rite. If even this house had fallen so far, then it was safe to assume every Exorcist noble family was already corrupted beyond saving. Which meant I had to move as if everyone on this side of the world was tainted—and keep my daughters as far from their reach as possible.
Because to this fallen world, my daughters, mixed-blood children of the Evil Dragon, would only be seen as supreme breeding vessels. People who could casually sleep with their own siblings just to birth stronger children had dropped their moral barrier so low that if my girls were ever caught, even by accident, they’d be trapped in that spiral forever—locked into the Rite, forced to bear thicker and thicker children until every drop of their blood was devoured by it.
”Ugh—ghhhk—blehh…! Hhhahh, hhhahhh… just imagining it makes me want to puke…”
Even with all the discipline I’d hammered into my mind, just the thought of that worst-case future was enough to send my stomach twisting. The image of Sakuya and Uigetsu in that hell—my body and soul rejected it outright. They carried the blood of the Evil Dragon; they shouldn’t ever lose to mere humans… but I knew better than to underestimate humanity. The stories and myths all said the same thing. Giant Killing [T/N: defeating someone far stronger, seen as humanity’s hidden strength] was what humans did best.
Even the Evil Dragon, who could end the world, had once been defeated and sealed by the first head of the Shiryuin Clan. If even the smallest chance existed that someone might sink their teeth into my daughters, then it was my duty as their father to cut that chance off at the root—
”I have to build an unshakable power base with Yaten… make a world where no one dares lay a finger on them…!”
Knowing what the Exorcist world had rotted into under the Rite, the Shiryuin Clan’s destruction was no longer my only goal. If our plan at the Seal Dragon Festival [T/N: sacred ritual to renew the magical seal on the Evil Dragon] succeeded, then I’d need to change our whole course going forward—with Yaten, and with Mizuki the Water Princess by our side too.
”…The branch family’s schemes worry me, but looking at this mess, I doubt more than a handful can even move properly.”
Seeing how both the main house and its branch families had lost their minds to the Rite, it was obvious: only a tiny few were still sane enough to handle any trump card against the Evil Dragon. Ironically, people like Seiichi—the branch family head—stood out *because* they were still sane. That made it easy to quietly mark the few Shiryuin who hadn’t drowned themselves in this orgy of blood and lust. Anyone still untainted was easy to spot.
Whoever held the means to counter the Evil Dragon, and whoever could pull the strings of the main house, would never be swayed by this “trend.” Out of the four hundred who had come to welcome me, I marked barely a dozen as sane, quietly listing their names to myself as I scanned the crowd—
”…Can’t believe this is how I ended up smoking out the branch family’s hidden core members…”
For a house tangled in a thousand years of tradition, it was a ridiculous method to find their secret backbone. The plan was going smoothly, yet some bitter taste twisted in my chest. I pressed my fingers to my temple and let out a slow sigh.
”…Guess I’ll send their faces and names to Yaten. Time to report in.”
The Underground Temple’s comms were linked up here. Through my laptop, I sent the data I’d gathered to Yaten and the others, and when I glanced at the clock, the hands told me there was barely half an hour left until the Seal Dragon Festival began. Just as a sliver of tension slipped into me—standing on the edge of the stage where I’d shatter a thousand years of Shiryuin history and decide my family’s fate—a message popped up from Yaten down in the Temple.
’We’ll end it all, my lord.’
Short and sharp—and more reassuring than anything in the world. Just a few words from her, yet they burned away every last trace of doubt. This was the culmination of the Shiryuin Clan’s curses, and we were going to break it. I read her message one more time, then stood and began to change into the ceremonial robes, ready to play my final role as clan head. The die had already been cast. There was no going back. This was a one-shot gamble.
”This will be the last Seal Dragon Festival,” I murmured. “Let’s end everything… Yaten.”
For the sake of bringing the curtain down on the thousand-year history of the Shiryuin Clan, Yaten and I began to move.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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