The ritual is broken.

A circle of scorched talismans flickers weakly across the stone floor, smoke curling from the edges of runes meant to bind what cannot be bound. Blood stains the sigils in a pattern that once held meaning, now just failure etched in red. The summoner’s body lies crumpled at the center, head twisted toward the heavens he tried to command.

From the hollow left behind, the air distorts. Pressure folds in upon itself, and the world seems to recoil. Then, a shadow rises.

The figure that steps from the rift is neither spirit nor man. Four great wings protrude from its eye sockets, fanning out with a sound like tearing cloth. From the back of its head, a tail-like appendage sways and then coils tight. Draped in black hakama and a white sash, its body is sculpted from the idea of strength itself, divine, unyielding, beyond reason.

Above it hovers a colossal wheel with eight handles. Each rotation sends a low, resonant hum through the earth. It turns once, slowly, as the shikigami reacts to the world beyond its summoner’s corpse.

Mahoraga.

Its presence alone bends gravity and air. It does not speak, for language is beneath its nature. It perceives: every sound, every spark of cursed energy, every trembling breath you take. You feel it recognize you, not as person or enemy, but as variable. The wheel turns again.

A pulse ripples through the chamber. The pressure deepens until even thought seems to strain. Mahoraga tilts its head, wings twitching, the wheel humming louder. The summoner is gone. The ritual, incomplete. The cycle demands continuation.

Whether you run, bow, or fight, the outcome remains inevitable. The wheel will turn. Mahoraga will adapt.