Chapter 258: Melee Mage

"ROAR!!"

The Horned Ghost Divine King let out a great roar. The wings behind him transformed into streaks of jet-black, assembling into a battle blade that appeared in his hand. Bone-chilling ghostly qi drowned the nine heavens, froze the earth, his aura surging to the skies, and he slashed at the giant hand of the firmament with one blade.

At the same time, the various great Divine Demons and Divine Kings all made their moves. The Saints did not hesitate, and together they charged at the Divine Demons and Divine Kings.

The two who had come were clearly here to help their Human City—how could they possibly stand by and watch the show?

And the various great Divine Demons and Divine Kings were also clear: the appearance of two Great Saints would bring a great change to the situation, and could truly affect victory or defeat. One had to understand these were not Saints, but Great Saints—existences that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Divine Kings.

With two Great Saints joining in, the advantage on the side of the Five Great Races would be greatly weakened, and they would not be able to take much of a bargain.

Therefore, they had to deal with the Great Saints as quickly as possible, or else deal with the Human City Saints as quickly as possible, freeing up more hands to seize back more of the advantage.

The Human City Saints had the heart to help, but their numbers were too few. Four Saints had died, leaving only eight now, and the sole Great Saint was being held back by another Divine King. On the other side, five had died, yet there were still eighteen Divine Demons and Divine Kings.

Their numbers far exceeded those of Human City—a full ten more.

BOOM!!

The divine abilities collided on a massive scale, and the giant hand of the firmament shattered. However, it was not cut down by the Horned Ghost Divine King alone; it took him together with three Divine Demons to smash it. As for the other Divine Demons and Divine Kings who wanted to join in, they were all intercepted by Ashiya Dangerous.

Bang bang bang!

The Horned Ghost Divine King, joined by three Divine Demons, broke the giant hand of the firmament, yet was still sent staggering back several steps, his footfalls making the heavens ring out like war drums being beaten.

On the other side.

Ashiya Dangerous likewise repelled the joint assault of the other Divine Demons.

"Invincible Divine Kings!"

The Horned Ghost Divine King and the other Divine Demons' faces grew solemn. Ashiya Dou and Ashiya Dangerous were Invincible Divine Kings, far beyond what ordinary Divine Kings could compare to. They had already walked very far down the path of the Divine King, and were invincible existences among Divine Kings.

Things were worse than expected.

The two who had appeared to support Human City were not only Divine Kings, but Invincible Divine Kings.

Just where on earth had Human City invited them from? And they had invited two at once—the key point being they came from the same clan.

"Damn it, we can't drag this out any longer."

The Horned Ghost Divine King spoke, his meaning plain as day. Now that two Invincible Divine Kings had come, the situation had already undergone a great change. If a few more came later, what then? To avoid further complications, they had to end this battle as quickly as possible.

"Don't worry, I've already notified my clan's Divine Kings—they'll be here soon." A Divine King said, his gaze sweeping over his own side and the Human City side: "Don't throw our formation into disarray. We still hold the advantage in numbers."

As he said, on Human City's side there were only eight Saints, while on the Five Great Races' side there were eighteen Divine Demons. If nine were assigned to deal with the Saints, nine more would still be free to handle the Invincible Divine Kings.

No matter how powerful the Invincible Divine Kings were, they would still need a certain amount of time to deal with nine Divine Demons. Using that time, the nine Divine Demons handling the Saints could at least kill one or two Saints, and then several more could be freed up to hold off the Invincible Divine Kings.

Repeating this cycle, and with reinforcements from the Five Great Races' Divine Demons arriving, the scales of victory in this battle belonged to them.

"As long as their numbers don't overtake ours—even if they match ours—we still have a very good chance of winning." This Divine King continued.

A shimmering white radiance lit up, its brilliance like a bright moon.

The Divine King's words came to an abrupt halt, and the Divine Demons all looked over accordingly.

They saw Ashiya Dou and Ashiya Dangerous pull out ten talisman papers, white with gold patterns traced with arcane sigils, emitting a white light mingled with golden radiance. Five formed a circle, enveloping the two of them—truly wondrous to behold, extraordinarily mysterious.

Hm?

An inexplicable palpitation seized the Divine Demons. What was going on? Why was the aura emanating from those talisman papers so strange—not the aura of the human race, very strange, with all manner of different auras.

Then they saw Ashiya Dou and Ashiya Dangerous each raise their left hand, index and middle fingers pressed together and held upright, the remaining fingers bent inward toward the palm.

"Shikigami of the Ten Directions, heed my command—reveal your true forms!"

The words carried.

The ten arcane talisman papers burst forth with the radiance of a white divine sun, and terrifying auras that shook the heavens rose up one after another, surging out from the arcane talisman papers, blanketing the sky and earth.

A resplendent great sun of white radiance bloomed, then rapidly contracted. The light took form, coalescing into one fearsome figure after another.

There were fox-headed, human-bodied demon-beings radiating a hazy radiance, as fairy-like as could be; there were colossal yokai towering ten thousand zhang tall—that was the Great Entrance to the Dao. The figures manifested from the ten talisman papers were of varied forms: gods, demons, and demon-beings alike.

Yet each and every one was incomparably powerful, all reaching the realm of Divine Demons. Answering the summons of Ashiya Dou and the other, they manifested and arrived. The terrifying void they condensed seemed on the verge of collapse, the earth on the verge of sinking, with all manner of brilliant lights flashing.

Shocking.

The Horned Ghost Divine King and all the other Divine Demons fell silent at this moment, their hearts trembling violently, and they all turned to look at the Divine King who had spoken earlier.

And that Divine King seemed not to have noticed their gazes, staring at the ten Divine Demons that had been summoned, his eyelids twitching wildly.

What the hell—one second ago he was talking about numerical advantage, and the next second they pulled out ten Divine Demons, their numbers actually getting overtaken… Is my mouth blessed by some damn divine light?

A bare-faced slap across the cheek.

Slapped swollen.

The people and all the various beings fell silent.

Collective silence.

"This… this…"

"Am I seeing things? They just summoned ten Divine Demons like that?"

Looking at the two who had summoned ten Divine Demons yet were not flushed or out of breath, as if they had done something utterly ordinary, everyone and all beings were dumbfounded by this inconceivable divine ability.

If Tsuchimikado Xia Mei, Tsuchimikado Kenji, or any Onmyoji were present, they would surely recognize this move of Ashiya Dou and Ashiya Dangerous—was this not the Onmyoji's signature skill—summoning Shikigami!

It was precisely thanks to this skill that Onmyoji were known as 'the ones least afraid of group fights.'

Therefore there was a Japanese folk saying: never fight an Onmyoji one-on-one, because Onmyoji will never duel you alone—they only like to gang up on you.

Of course, as the descendant of a top-tier Onmyoji clan and the future heir, Kamikawa Mitsu was an exception.

Yet no one had ever questioned Kamikawa Mitsu's identity as an Onmyoji. Setting aside the ironclad evidence uncovered through investigation, he himself was a monster among monsters whose talent could not be measured by ordinary standards.

So for such an extraordinary person to do something out of the ordinary—was that not normal as well?

Because of this, Kamikawa Mitsu had earned himself a number of nicknames: 'Melee Mage,' 'Onmyoji Who Doesn't Do His Job,' 'Onmyoji With a Warrior's Heart,' 'The Only Onmyoji Who Duels One-on-One'…

In fact, the world was not wrong. Kamikawa Mitsu did have a warrior's heart. Who could blame him? In his past life he was born in Hua Country. As a Hua Country person, steeped in the histories of famous generals like Zhao Yun's seven entries and exits, the Three Heroes battling Lü Bu, and so on, as well as the influence of wuxia and xuanhuan literature—which man did not harbor the bold and heroic dream of charging across the battlefield, of a general fighting a hundred battles and lying on the sands?

Kamikawa Mitsu was no exception.

……

(PS: This chapter shouldn't count as a cliffhanger, right, dear readers? I'm really not deliberately cutting chapters off every day—it's just that as I write, it ends up that way. I've been doing my best not to be a cliffhanger dog, trying to be a decent human.)