When everyone rushed to the foot of Mount Fuji, the sight before them was blood-curdling:
Thousands of Shinto priests clad in white sacrificial robes surrounded a massive, bloody formation. Wielding ritual implements crafted from human bones, they chanted obscure incantations. The central altar was piled high with the corpses of children—a rough estimate numbered them at no less than a thousand. The blood of these children flowed along the carved grooves of the altar, outlining a gigantic eight-headed serpent pattern on the ground.
What made the scene even more hair-raising was that the faces of the dead children were frozen in eerie smiles, as if they had witnessed some ultimate blissful vision right before death. Between their brows was a cherry-blossom-shaped bloody mark that emitted a faint red glow.
Chapter 237