The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page B

five-story pagodas, some as high as ten meters. They towered like huge stone monoliths.
    It was a magnificent gathering; there were graves of the Heian nobility, of the feudal lords Uesugi, Takeda and Tokugawa from the Warring States, even nameless peasants had graves here. The weight of distinct layers of history was stacked one on top of the other. The whole area of necropolis encompassing the massively ancient trees emanated a powerful, humid energy--a Psychic Barrier.
    Beyond the Hall of Lanterns was the inner sanctuary, the resting place of Kukai. The mausoleum had become his home after he attained Buddhahood over 1200 years ago. Kukai, the man also known as Kobo Daishi, was the founder of the Shingon Sect; his charisma transcended mere legend, reaching almost mythical status.
    Jichiei stood on the verge of the Mimeyo Bridge, beyond was a flight of stone steps. The Hall of Lanterns was at the top. His night robes had grown heavy with moisture absorbed from the fog. Since coming outside, he had been fighting an unpleasant sensation of weightlessness. It was not fear, more like he had been cast naked into the energy that had accumulated in the air around him. Something was disturbing the area’s delicate balance. There was something foreign--a sense of magnetism that lightly hugged his skin. The layers of energy were in flux. Jichiei was certain that the changes originated from the energy field’s center, from Kukai’s shrine. Should I call someone?
    No, I need to find out what’s happened first.
    Jichiei clasped his hands together in prayer and stepped onto the bridge. There was a sudden rustling in the darkness, the sound of people running through the woods behind the shrine. Jichiei broke into a sprint. He was halfway up the stone steps to Lantern Hall when he heard something shuffle in the darkness above the top of the trees. Something crashed onto the steps before him--a dark, nebulous lump. Jichiei skidded to a halt, pitching forward as he took in the fallen object. It flinched. It was large and spindly, like an oversize bug antenna. It was alive, but its arms and legs were too long to be human. Jichiei was unable to see much in the darkness, but the thing was clearly aberrant, as though something once normal had been purposefully twisted into this form; a misshapen, human-sized black spider.
    It started to move, its motion like that of an arthropod. It stood before him, a physical embodiment of anxiety, lust, horror, and all the muddy dregs of human consciousness; the deep-seated, slumbering source of nightmares. A ghostly pair of eyes glared out from the center of the black mass, trained on him. Jichiei felt his hairs prickle. It took flight, flowing elegantly upward. Jichiei screamed at the top of his voice. The creature leaped over his head and Jichiei’s scream died. His neck had been wrenched to a grotesque angle. His body collapsed onto the stone steps.
    By the time the other monks rushed to his side, he had already stopped convulsing. He lay face up, mouth frozen in a silent scream, eyes staring at the sky. His head hung parallel to his shoulders, broken.
    2
    It was a puzzling room.
    The layout was atypical, neither Japanese nor Western in style. The space was shrouded in deep curtains of darkness. A peculiar scent drifted through the air, faint, almost not there at all. It was Kokujinko, the incense used by the Shingon sect during the Rite of Kongobu. Inhaled through the nose, it felt like it would dissolve the human body into darkness from the inside.
    The fragrance that extends to the corners of a thousand worlds, greater in value than the riches of three thousand realms. Such is the heart that aspires to Buddhahood.
    It was the incense mentioned in the Kegon Sutra.
    The ceiling, floors and walls of the room were unified black. There was a faint light, but it was absorbed into the pervasive blackness of the room, isolated in the darkness. The light burned in a small votive dish on top of a black