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Mortals! The Gohma have defiled your land. Before your tarnished souls fall to Naraka, I shall guide you to Heaven. | 
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| — Kalrow harvests the humans' souls | ||
Willing Sacrifices is the 8th episode of Asura's Wrath.
Overview
Asura awakens on Gaea again, but this time at a small village shrine. His body has been enshrined by the local villagers. The Gohma then attack the village, and soon after, Kalrow's forces approach from the skies above.
Story
500 years after Asura's second death, at a small shrine on Gaea lies Asura's petrified body, fused with stone at the base of a mountain. A young girl holding a baby that came to visit the shrine sings a lullaby to the baby and prays to Asura's enshrined body. Amidst her praying, the markings on Asura's body begin to glow, leaving the girl in awe. As the entire mountain begins to tremble and Asura's unanimated body glows even more, Asura returns to the mortal world again and bursts out of the mountain.
Asura asks the girl where he is, but his question is left unanswered, as they don't speak the same language. He notices the girl's striking resemblance to his daughter Mithra. The girl introduces herself as "Ahria". Just as she wishes to offer the demigod flowers, the Gohma appear once again, inciting the baby Ahria is holding to cry which in turn annoys Asura. The chieftain of the Gohma drops in and kidnaps the girl along with the baby, prompting Asura to pursue it.
After Asura disposes of the Gohma chieftain and safely catches Ahria and her baby, they happen to arrive at the local village, now being attacked by the Gohma. An enormous Gohma, known as Gohma Squasher, appears to continue the onslaught. Nonetheless, Asura decimates the monster. Having saved the village and their lives, the villagers, including Ahria herself, begin to worship Asura as their savior. However, Asura is displeased with their prayers and orders them to stop.
Asura then looks over to the sky and observes an arriving fleet of the Seven Deities, commanded by the Septentrion "Phecda". Pods from the ships drop directly to the village and release Shinkoku soldiers, to whom the villagers eagerly pray to. Another one of the Seven Deities arrives into the village to investigate, Kalrow. He finds out that Asura is the reason for the unusual concentration of Mantra in the area, though he is unimpressed.
He decides to start harvesting the souls of the villagers present by commanding his soldiers to kill them, giving the humans the pretext that he will guide their souls to Heaven before they fall to Naraka. Agitated after watching the scene, Asura demands to know why they are killing humans, which Kalrow refuses to answer by claiming he would not understand, taunting his status as "The Fallen One". The grateful villagers gladly continue to pray even as they are crushed to death by the Taisons of Kalrow's army and their souls are collected, believing that having their souls harvested by the demigods is ascending to heaven. Furious at it, Asura lunges at Kalrow, who turns out to be only a hologram. The hologram vanishes as Kalrow taunts Asura and tells him that he will accomplish nothing by trying to hurt the Seven Deities.
Before Ahria and her mother could also be crushed, Asura impedes the Taison and swiftly strikes him in anger, killing him. Indignated at the treatment the villagers were subjected to, Asura threatens the Shinkoku soldiers. Another Taison of the army tells Asura to surrender his soul, but Asura goes on to decimate them.
Following the massacre, Asura ponders if his anger can be quelled, as he approaches a lone, terrified Doji soldier. He punches him all the while the Doji pleads for his life and claims that they are only saving the souls of the mortals. Unconcerned, Asura goes in to throw another punch, but his intentions are halted when he looks back and sees a distressed Ahria beating an already dead soldier repeatedly with a stone. He notices the corpse of the woman he had previously saved as well, Ahria's mother, and her baby nowhere to be found. Asura decides to spare the Doji.
Asura stops Ahria from continuing to stone the corpse of the soldier and empathizes with the girl. Watching Kalrow's fleet in the sky, Asura assures Ahria that he will take care of them.
Interlude
The tale of Asura's petrified body at the base of a mountain, on a village on the outskirts of Shinkoku, is recounted. Within the stone of the mountain lies the remains of the fallen demigod, Asura, who defied the Seven Deities long ago. He succeeded in killing one of the Seven Deties, Wyzen, but at the cost of his own life. After their divine battle, the remaining Deities abandoned this area, declaring it cursed for all eternity. Instead, the fallen demigod Asura continues to watch over this land, for the Gohma rarely appear there. For this reason the villagers enshrined his body and worship him from afar, for they do not dare approach the shrine out of fear.
However, there was a young girl who regularly visited the shrine and offered flowers to the fallen demigod. Long ago, when she and her father went off to a nearby village, they were attacked by the Gohma. Just when they thought their lives were over, the Seven Deities came from the heavens and purified the Gohma, which deeply relieved the girl for having saved them. Nonetheless, many humans were caught in the Deities' purifications and perished, and the girl's father was one of those victims. But rather than defy the Seven Deities for their tyranny, the villagers saw it as an honour, and rejoiced that the Deities would lead their souls to heaven, gladly giving their lives. Hopeless and full of despair, the girl walked until she came across the shrine of the fallen demigod. The old tale had it that the stone had an aura of anger, yet the girl was not afraid. Somewhere in the fallen demigod's face she saw a resemblance to her late father. Since then, the girl has been visiting the shrine to offer flowers.
In the present day, Ahria says that while everyone did nothing but pray, Asura took action against the Deities' tyranny. She wants to go with Asura to fight against the Seven Deities too.
Characters in Order of Appearance
- Ahria
- Asura
- Mithra (Vision)
- Gohma Howler
- Gohma Stinger
- Humans
- Gohma Squasher (Debut)
- Doji
- Taison
- Kalrow
- Ahria's father (Interlude) (Death)