After sitting down on a nearby chair aing for a long time, Ran and Sonoko finally felt their emotiole a bit.
"Evil spirits… they're far beyond what I imagined…"
Sonoko now truly uood that the real supernatural world wasn't just fasating, it was terrifying.
Though each evil spirit had a different appearahey all shared simir traits.
Their jagged teeth seemed designed for tearing flesh apart.
The eerie red glow within their pitch-bck eyes felt like the very core of their rese.
And their forms… always reflected the moment of their death.
The instant you id eyes on them, you could feel the sheer horror of human malice.
You could immediately uand why they had bee evil spirits.
"Evil spirits are born from human malice."
"That's why they symbolize despair and cruelty."
Reurned from a nearby venieore with two bottles of Coke and hahem to the two girls.
Without thinking too much, Sonoko took a bottle, twisted off the cap, and took a few steady gulps.
The fizzy carbonation made her throat itch, but it also helped suppress her lingering disfort.
"Haah…"
"So, Amamiya, you've been dealing with things like that all this time?"
"?"
Ren noticed the plicated look in Sonoko's eyes ahe o crify before she misuood.
"No, you're overthinking it."
"I've seen evil spirits before, but only three, and all of them were in the house I rented."
"…Doesn't that mean your situation is just like ours, Amamiya?"
Sonoko suddenly looked at him in disbelief.
"Then why is your rea so different from ours?"
"Well… I think the reason is pretty simple."
Ren casually raised his hand and caught an evil spirit floating above them.
A thick mist instantly stretched out like tendrils, ing around the spirit and pulling it toward him.
Then, he squeezed.
Bang!
Like a silent explosion in a muted video, the evil spirit burst apart just like a watermelon being crushed.
"…"
Seeing the spirit shatter in an instant, both Ran and Sonoko fell into stunned silence.
Now they uood why Amamiya wasn't afraid of evil spirits.
To him, they were no more threatening than balloons easily popped with a squeeze.
How could he possibly fear something like that?
Wasn't that just a joke?
"So… this is your trump card?"
"Yeah."
"…That's terrifying."
Even though she had no idea what kind of trump card Amamiya was hiding, Sonoko now fully uood why he o keep it a secret.
Because this level of power was simply too overwhelming.
"Power doesn't e for free."
"Most of my abilities require a price."
"It's just that I've been lucky enough not to pay an unbearable one."
Equivalent exge.
Sonoko had heard Amamiya mention that cept before.
A trump card like this was something that had to be kept hidden.
Sonoko sighed.
"If it's such a dangerous secret, why did you show it to us?"
"I trust that you and Ran will keep it for me."
His fident tone made the tw each other before smiling.
"…Alright."
Sonoko quickly suppressed her grin and grew serious again.
"Ran and I will keep your secret. But you should also be careful, you 't just show your cards every time you give us proof of something."
"That's right."
"A trump card is called a trump card because it o stay hidden."
Ran agreed, following up on Sonoko's words.
Even if they promised to keep quiet, there was always a risk that someone else might witness something they weren't supposed to.
That was why a trump card had to be kept deeply hidden, only to be revealed when there was no other choice.
Seeing the two of them slip into "lecture mode," their pale plexions finally returning to normal, Ren smiled.
"Feelier now?"
The two girls blihen realized they actually did feel better.
"Yeah."
"That awful feeling is mostly gone now."
Sonoko could tell her disfort had faded signifitly.
"Yeah."
Ran, too, no longer felt the overwhelming nausea from earlier.
But her of them knew why.
So, in silent agreement, they both turo Amamiya.
"…Amamiya, what exactly happeo us just now?"
"Your fear of evil spirits was induced."
"Induced?"
They uood the word, but they didn't quite grasp how it had happened.
Ren expined.
"Evil spirits are born from obsession. So, when they enter someone who's afraid of them, they instinctively amplify that fear."
"The strohe evil spirit, the easier it is for them to manipute fear, paralyzing their target."
He poi the evil spirits still floating above.
"Their current range of activity is too broad."
"If they were fio a smaller area, they could bee even more dangerous."
"If they fully trol you and fuel your fear, they even pull you into a nightmare and torment you to death, bit by bit."
"And while you're suffering, they tinuously absorb the ive energy you gee, growing stronger in the process."
"That's why most evil spirits are extremely dangerous."
Even the weakest evil spirits were beyond what an ordinary human could handle.
Their supernatural abilities were more than enough to kill any regur person in an instant.
Only someone like Saginomiya, a shrine maiden with exorcism abilities, could stand against them.
"And evil spirits don't just have those abilities, some particurly troublesome ones unleash a scream that directly affects the mind and soul."
"If you get hit head-on by that scream, there's almost no ce of survival."
If you were lucky, you'd die instantly.
If you were unlucky, and the scream didn't kill you ht, then the real horror would begin, the proloorment that followed.
That was why the threat of evil spirits was so high.
Ren wao make sure that Ran and Sonoko uood this clearly.
Though, to be fair, after what they had experiehey probably already had a pretty firm grasp of it.
"…Then did you deliberately let us experie just now?"
Sonoko narrowed her eyes at him.
Ran also turo look at him.
"No."
Ren shook his head.
"I inally po let you gradually observe the evil spirits, allowing your fear to rise slowly so I could help yute your emotions and trol it."
"But…"
He sighed.
"…Your dad interrupted that process."
And sidering she had been one of the people affected, Ran suddenly found herself at a loss for words.