"I'm glad you finally found time for healing practices," grumbled Hideo, who had been complaining for hours. "How many months has it been since I last saw you? Is this how things should be?" But if he thought his words would affect Stas in any way, he was sorely mistaken.

For the sake of the old warmaster's knowledge, Ordyntsev was willing to listen to him for days on end, not just hours.

In fact, it would be more probable for Hideo to become hoarse than for Stas to show any sign of irritation.

"But I am indeed surprised," admitted Kizashi's grandfather in a more or less normal tone. All this time, he had been showing Stas some subtleties of the Healing Palm technique depending on the emotions used.

As it turned out, on top of the desire to help, one could add a little something extra, altering the final outcome.

"Usually, gifted warmasters who discover their talent instantly forget about healing and rush, without looking back, for more powerful techniques."

"Jun has offered me something similar many times," Stas chuckled, looking up at his other sensei. "But every time I refused, choosing what would be most useful for survival."

"And in that, you have succeeded more than many," Hideo nodded. "Surviving an encounter with a dragon is impressive. They are considered legendary for a reason, as those who have seen them and managed to escape alive can be counted on one hand."

Ordyntsev merely shrugged.

"But still, to neglect healing for so long is simply unacceptable," the old man began again, frowning.

"Sensei," Stas placed his hand over his heart. "I would have been glad to spend more time on this art, but our world does not favor the weak. Now that I have become stronger, I can afford to return a bit more to healing."

"You all say that," muttered the head of the hospital. "And as soon as you see a skirt, everything else goes out the window."

"Sensei," Stas protested. "Shouldn't you know better than anyone that for me, progress is above all else now, not some love affair?"

"But it would be worth thinking about love, too," Hideo smirked triumphantly, watching his too-cunning student's face stretch out in agony. "I told you so..."

The floor under the warmasters' feet trembled, and a prolonged rumble came from below.

The interlocutors exchanged tense glances.

No sooner had they listened than a new series of explosions followed, dust falling from the ceiling.

"By Kami! An attack!" gasped Hideo. But his uncertainty was immediately swept away by fury. The old man's face resembled the mask of some ancient demon, and despite missing some teeth, his snarl did not look comical. "Shiro, as the senior in rank, I summon you to aid the hospital. Follow me!"

"Hai!" Stas nodded decisively, following the swiftly descending elder.

Passages flickered by, and chaos reigned everywhere. Doors opened, releasing stunned people. Calls, commands, and orders sounded from all directions.

Many rushed to the battlements, searching for the treacherous attackers.

Some jumped onto the outer walls and stairs, continuing to run downward. Hideo and Stas did the same a couple of times when it became clear that some sections were impassable due to the crowds.

There wasn't exactly a panic. People knew what they were doing. For example, some warmasters led women and children closer to the citadel's center, where there was the least chance of being hit by enemy techniques.

Nevertheless, due to the overall number of people, jams occurred from time to time.

As he ran along the vertical wall of the fortress, looking down dozens of meters, Stas felt as if the attackers stirred up not a human castle but a bizarre giant termite mound.

And now, the bloodthirsty termites were descending from the upper floors.

"What's happening?" Hideo burst into the heart of the Sumada hospital and immediately demanded to be updated. "Who is attacking?"

"We don't know yet!" Michiro Sumada, Hideo's first disciple, crisply reported, appearing from the side. "So far, we know that the attackers struck the main family's quarters very swiftly and severely..."

The floor trembled again, more violently than before. There had been explosions while they were running, but nothing so strong.

"... The attackers, disregarding their own losses, overpowered the main family's guards and penetrated inside!" continued Michiro.

"Kizashi..." whispered the old man. His face paled slightly. He staggered.

"Hideo-sama!" Stas and Michiro exclaimed simultaneously, rushing to the elderly warmaster.

"Which floors took the hit?" Stas quickly asked, demanding an answer from the hospital's deputy head.

The man frowned, eyeing the unfamiliar warmaster with a scrutinizing gaze. The latter had arrived with the hospital's head, which meant something. He did not know how powerful this young man was, but the serpentine eyes hinted at some lineage.

"From the eighth to the ninth," he finally said.

"See, Hideo-sama," Stas began speaking quickly. "Your grandson was supposed to be on the eleventh floor today. And his residence is on the fourteenth. He's safe."

"Let me go; I'm not made of glass," the grandfather irritably snapped, pushing away the surrounding warmasters. He clearly felt better now and was embarrassed by his moment of weakness. "What are you standing around for, loafers?!" he roared, looking at the medical staff who had slowed down. "The injured will start coming soon, and you're not ready for them!"

Hideo was right.

Moreover, the stream of injured turned out to be even bigger than expected. And it quickly became clear why.

"Cursed Deathbringers!" growled one of the main family's guards on a stretcher. "These dishonorable scum send explosive dead in front of them, stuffed up the ass with all sorts of metal crap. If you're anywhere near, they blow up, injuring everyone around! You can't even get close!"

"That's nothing!" another voice came from a different bed. "These freaks, as soon as they pass, they immediately blow up the walls and corridors behind them. It's still possible to follow them, but new creatures are waiting once you get through! How did they manage to get inside in such numbers?!"

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

'What do they even want?' This question concerned all the Sumadas, from the very top to the ordinary ranks.

"What are they hoping for? They broke into the very heart of the citadel with surprise and audacity, but no one will simply let them back out."

Right now, the great clan's forces were blocking even the slightest chance for the attackers to retreat.

Moreover, experienced warmasters were already clearing the rubble and defusing walking bombs, moving forward.

As such, there were very few dead. Despite the explosions and flying metal, it was still difficult to kill even weak warmasters in this way. The explosive artifacts purchased by Stas were not the best on the market. And they certainly paled in comparison to the explosives from Earth he recalled.

To add to that, Ordyntsev was not a professional bomber.

Nevertheless, even what had been done was enough to disable the enemies, forcing their comrades to provide first aid and drag them to medics, which bought time.

"Lay him here," Stas calmly ordered the next rescue party. The injured man had several deep penetrating wounds in the abdomen and chest, but the tissues infused with prana had localized the damage, and the vitality of warmasters would have allowed him to live with such wounds for a long time.

Hands adeptly tended to the wound, removing shreds of clothing and fragments of armor. Blood was wiped away with a cloth soaked in a special antibacterial solution.

The next step was extracting the shrapnel left after the explosions and cutting away the damaged tissues.

After all, when hit by shrapnel or bullets, there are often extensive areas of tissue necrosis. These also need to be removed to prevent infection.

The task was simple, at least because Stas could heal all the damaged vessels and arteries with a flick of his finger, stopping the bleeding. Once done, he would properly reconnect them, finally sealing the wound.

Of course, the injury was still there. But considering the number of casualties, it could be left as is.

"Hideo-sama," Kizashi burst into the operating room with utmost determination. Seeing that his grandfather was alright, he relaxed a bit, and when he saw Stas, he even smiled.

"Go to your table. Take Shiro with you as an assistant. He's still new here. With you, at least he'll get used to working," the hospital head's order made the other medics pause for a second from their duties and look at this Shiro.

The further actions did not impress them much. If Kizashi, upon arriving here, immediately demonstrated excellent skills and knowledge of various healing techniques, then the unknown Shiro was just a weak-to-average healer.

On the other hand, he worked briskly, clearly knowing what to do, didn't talk too much, and followed orders precisely, so in the eyes of the community, he was accepted for the time being.

Besides, someone among the healers had overheard something about a friend of Kizashi's with whom he used to spend a lot of time. Now, all these people would try to find out more.

Meanwhile, Stas worked diligently, showing everyone just how much he wanted to help.

Needless to say, he even exhausted himself to the point of prana depletion.

"Hey, take him somewhere to the side, so he doesn't get in the way," Hideo grumbled, glancing at the pale, haggard earthling who had collapsed on the floor. "And give him something for exhaustion!"

Ordyntsev mentally smirked. He had done everything he could to ensure the attack wasn't linked to him; the rest was up to the yokai.

*****

Minoru took a deep breath. Despite her immense experience, she was nervous right now. Too much was at stake. The ancient yokai understood that if she failed today, the Sumada would call the accursed Shigero, and they would renew the seals.

What was Stas Ordyntsev's plan, known in this world by the majority as Shiro and by some as the Serpent, based on?

The key point was that in creating the technique of the Deathbringers, or, as they were called back then, Kuchisagine, spirits were also involved. This meant that the yokai also planned to control their undead warriors.

Of course, exerting control while sitting under sealing spells was difficult, but Minoru was no ordinary yokai.

Moreover, she had a kind of amplifiers in the form of vampires.

Focusing, Minoru's consciousness flowed into the heads of two dead advanced warmasters. This process felt almost natural, if you discounted the imaginary sensation of touching rotting flesh.

Afterward, she spread her control nets over all the other zombies.

It took a little more time to get used to the bodies, but once done, she was fully ready. Zombies that had been moving their arms, wandering around, and squatting - suddenly froze in neat rows.

The yokai recalled the map given to her by Shiro. He had done a lot of work, developing a clear path bypassing most of the posts and leading directly to the places of interest.

'Time to start.'

At her command, a hundred dead feet stepped forward, immediately breaking into a run.

Staircase, corridor, corridor, staircase – the dungeon stone flashed by so quickly it was hard to focus on it.

The dead golem of a hundred bodies turned into a single centipede with one master.

The moment when the natural stone turned into man-made masonry felt surprisingly sweet, even though she was not yet in her true body.

As much as the yokai disliked it, she was forced not to kill the servants she encountered.

The dead under her control knocked them away with powerful strikes, hardly even slowing their run. Of course, blows of such strength did not come without consequences, but the servants were alive.

Unfortunately, it couldn't go on like this forever.

"Hey, who are you?!" one of the two guards cried out. Both warmasters were way too young. That's why, seeing what was running at them, they hesitated.

Minoru saw the gray face of one of the boys as her vampires knocked out the guards with a couple of blows.

'How have I come to this?!' the lamia lamented mentally. 'To spare my enemies? Could this be senility?'

Fortunately, Stas's request mainly concerned ordinary warmasters, and he was much more relaxed about the main family's clansmen.

The central pillar of the plan was speed. If Minoru had given the warmasters just ten minutes, they could have formed a barrier so strong that even with several hundred dead, she wouldn't have been able to breach it. But she had no intention of doing so.

The moment the first experienced warmasters blocked her way, she activated the explosives with vindictive pleasure, scattering the opponents and sowing disorder in their ranks.

The warmasters' usual tactic of engaging in close combat failed, leading to numerous casualties.

Into the breaches created, the following dead broke through.

Speed was what mattered, and Minoru felt the last minutes slipping away.

Once they reached the eighth floor, one of her vampires stayed there while the second group moved to the ninth.

How joyfully she watched as the clan gates exploded and her enemies' home burned. The civilians had already been evacuated, so she could indulge in destroying everything around her, including the hated spells sealed in the walls.

The accursed papers flew away in tatters, and Minoru delightedly felt the bonds disappear, dissolving.

The vampire on the eighth floor burned the penultimate onmyodo amulet when the warmasters, bursting in from all sides, made Minoru sigh and activate the explosives on all the dead on that floor.

The blast was grand, adding a touch of glorious chaos.

But it was too early to celebrate.

"Halt! Here's where you'll die, you carrion-lovers!" The yokai felt a chill as she realized that the path to the last seal had already been blocked. And not by just anyone, but by advanced and even a couple of supreme warmasters.

But having seen a glimpse of freedom, the yokai was not about to give up so easily.

"Forward!" The zombies, filled with the fury of their mistress, charged ahead. Some dove into side corridors, trying to slip through in time.

But with each dying servant, Minoru realized there was simply no chance.

The Sumadas acted precisely and cohesively, not letting the zombies get a meter close to them. Apparently, unlike the beginning of the conflict, they now knew about the explosives. In addition, they did not hesitate to block the way with emerging walls and shifting floors.

She had to sacrifice servants even to take one more step forward.

No wonder that very quickly, the yokai's "reserves" hit bottom, and only the vampire was left. The controlling Minoru fought desperately, using all the possibilities and advantages of the dead body.

Ether techniques flew one after another but kept breaking against the dozens of protective techniques of the Sumadas. The speed of movement of the former Shuji far exceeded his own when he was still alive.

But it was not enough.

"Take the Deathbringer alive!" the panicking Minoru took this phrase as a personal insult.

'Detonate!' In the eyes of the warmasters celebrating their victory, the last of the attackers placed his hand on his chest, then blew up into a thousand bloody shreds. Stas had not added metallic pieces to the "Deathbringers" so that their charred pieces could be mistaken for living people.

The ancient yokai, lurking in the darkness, opened her eyes, burning with fury.

"No! No way! I almost succeeded!" She rushed towards the exit with fury, but as thousands of times before, she was entwined with hundreds of glowing ropes that prevented her from moving forward. "No!"

She watched in horror as the exit from her prison was wrapped in energy lines, in which the hated hieroglyphs were easily recognizable.

The will of the ancient onmyoji continued to poison her life even after centuries!