Gyuki
Overview
One of the strangest of Azumese yokai, gyuki are vile hybrids of bull and spider; yet unlike either of their components, they largely inhabit the seas, coasts, and mountain waterfalls. Savage and cruel, gyuki relish the opportunity to devour or simply kill humans, and even experienced yokai hunters have found a gyuki to be more than a match for them.Raw strength is not the only weapon in a gyuki's arsenal. Despite their feral appearance, they are intelligent yokai, even capable of speech, and many act as ambush hunters in murky water. Their bites are venomous and they can breathe a corrosive gas, and through eye contact or licking a victim's shadow they can inflict terrible diseases from afar. Some have even been seen with wings like a horsefly that take them aloft for brief periods, and a very rare few have transformed into ordinary human forms.
Some gyuki make lairs in lakes and coastal caves and only attack those who wander too close to their homes, while others form sadistic campaigns against particular villages, ravaging them over and over with illness and death. Despite their largely malevolent acts, however, a few rare tales exist of gyuki who have saved humans in return for some benevolent act. Universally, these gyuki have uttered the last phrase “saving a life requires another to be taken in exchange,” only for their bodies to bubble and melt as they sacrifice themselves.
by 餅餠
