Chapter 56: Tamamo-no-Mae's Banquet

Arakawa High School, Class A, Year One.

At this moment.

The classroom was unusually quiet, no one speaking—only the sound of the video playing, and hurried breathing. Their expressions were uniform: shock, horror, curiosity, strangeness…

Tsuchimikado Xia Mei's clear, flawless beautiful eyes shimmered with extraordinary light, her exquisite face brimming with high emotion.

I wasn't wrong—'The Departed King' is no simple matter; he is absolutely no ordinary person.

As early as the NH137 video, she had already had her suspicions that the Departed King was no simple matter. One must understand that the NH137 incident was not a movie—it was a real, genuine real-life accident. An ordinary person could not have predicted it, nor could they have calmly filmed it, let alone filmed it from every angle.

With all these factors, Tsuchimikado Xia Mei was convinced that the Departed King might be extraordinary, very likely similar to her yet also different.

What was the same was that, like her, he was a person of Shinto, Buddhism, and Onmyōdō.

What was different was that his strength was above hers.

"Is he a person of Buddhism, or Shinto? Onmyōdō?" Tsuchimikado Xia Mei personally leaned more toward the Departed King being of Onmyōdō within Shinto.

Being from a prestigious noble family, a drone was certainly something they possessed. Tsuchimikado Xia Mei knew that a drone could not film at an altitude of several thousand meters. To film at such heights without being affected, she thought of a technique from Shinto and Onmyōdō—Shikigami!

Shikigami refers to spirit bodies commanded and employed by an Onmyōji, their power tied to the Onmyōji who controls them.

As for why Tsuchimikado Xia Mei understood Shikigami so clearly?

Besides being a Shinto priestess.

There was also the most important point—her family's ancient records recorded that Shikigami was the Tsuchimikado family's signature specialty!!

Legend has it that Shikigami was first created by the "Japanese Jiang Ziya," the Onmyōji Abe no Seimei, and was passed down through the direct descendants of Abe no Seimei, the Tsuchimikado family. In the Edo period it became an important component of Tsuchimikado Shinto, and was highly esteemed by the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The Tsuchimikado family to which Tsuchimikado Xia Mei belonged was precisely the direct descendants of Abe no Seimei, the foremost Onmyōji of all time in Japan, ancient and modern.

As descendants of the inventor of Shikigami, they could not possibly be unclear about what Shikigami was.

"I'll go back and ask Grandpa which other families besides our Tsuchimikado family are skilled at Shikigami. But I also can't rule out an investigation of the family's elders—perhaps the Departed King is one of my family's elders."

Tsuchimikado Xia Mei made her decision with full conviction.

She had already guessed the Departed King to be a member of Shinto, and further guessed that the Departed King might very well be an elder of the Tsuchimikado family.

However, regarding the Departed King's identity, she did not rule out the possibility that he was a yokai.

The moment it became clear the Departed King was no simple matter, Tsuchimikado Xia Mei, with her clever mind, had already begun using her intelligence to analyze.

At the same time, because the video was unlike the Cloud Lake scene—with sound and visuals, and the viewpoint located at the Sakurada-gumi's position—those watching could see things more directly, clearly knowing what had happened at the Sakurada-gumi that day, and even seeing things that had not been known from that day.

【This is!!】

【Oh my god! What am I seeing!!】

【Huge discovery!! A world-shaking huge discovery!!!】

As the video played, just like the Cloud Lake scene that day, the Sakurada-gumi looked toward the ancient city, their expressions moved, utterly horrified.

They had already seen this scene before, yet now they were strangely astonished, even excited to the point of madness.

All because the video footage was different from the Cloud Lake scene. Both showed the Sakurada-gumi looking at the ancient city, but the Cloud Lake scene only revealed the Sakurada-gumi's shock, without revealing what they saw in the ancient city that astonished them.

But the video was different!

Not only did it reveal the changes in the Sakurada-gumi's expressions, it directly revealed the scenery they were seeing.

In the Cloud Lake scene that day, the ancient city was shown, but not in its entirety. The plaque at the highest point of the ancient city was unseen by the world, blocked by clouds.

However.

The video showed it.

The plaque of the ancient city that could not be seen in the Cloud Lake scene was captured on film!

The question that had plagued countless people—what were the Sakurada-gumi seeing in the ancient city that shocked them—was answered. They were overwhelmed because they had clearly seen the plaque of the ancient city.

【Heian-kyō!】

【The ancient city is Heian-kyō?!!】

【Heian-kyō from the Heian period? Impossible, was it that big?】

【Hey hey, does anyone else remember the three survivors online who kept muttering about Tamamo-no-Mae? Isn't Tamamo-no-Mae a yokai from the Heian period?】

【Hiss!! The ancient city couldn't be Tamamo-no-Mae's, could it?】

【Tamamo-no-Mae? Heian-kyō? Lord of All Demons?! Could Tamamo-no-Mae be the Lord of All Demons?】

【The Lord of All Demons wouldn't be Shuten-dōji but Tamamo-no-Mae, would it?】

Countless people who saw the plaque of the ancient city in the video were all wildly shaken.

The younger yokai scholars frantically lit cigarettes, chain-smoking one after another, unable to stop—they wanted to use nicotine to calm their mood.

The older generation were so激动的 they convulsed all over, their old bones nearly shaking apart; the worst cases foamed at the mouth directly, rolled their eyes back, and fainted on the spot.

No one understood better than they did just how enormous the implications were of the ancient city's plaque reading "Heian-kyō."

Enormous?

No!

It was colossal!

The ancient city being Heian-kyō carried incomparably colossal implications. Not only did it prove that in ancient times—at the very least in the Heian period—humans and yokai had intersected, but also that the Heian period as researched by historians up to now might be overturned.

According to ancient records, Heian-kyō was not as large as the ancient city, nor did it float. In other words, did this prove that the technological and civilizational level of the Heian period was special? Could that era have been as brilliant as the Mayan civilization?

These were only part of the implications represented by the ancient city being Heian-kyō; there were more implications within, involving extremely explosive questions, civilizations, and so on.

Countless people went mad over the plaque filmed in the video, becoming even more curious about the Departed King.

If the filming was not of the ancient city's plaque, not done with special effects, not special effects added by the Departed King himself, but genuine footage.

What kind of figure was the Departed King, and why could he film these things…

Regarding the ancient city being Heian-kyō in the video, the audience, beyond their shock, also had doubts.

With today's powerful special effects technology, one could not rule out the Departed King fabricating it.

However, those who believed the Departed King had fabricated it or used special effects were very few.

The reason was none other than the NH137 video sitting there, that one already verified as not fake, not special effects, truly filmed for the departed King.

For a moment.

With strong feelings of shock, amazement, and a desire to investigate the truth, countless people watched the video footage without blinking an eye.

They wanted to know if the ancient city was truly the Capital of Peace, or a fake, and sought evidence within the video to prove it.

Immediately after.

The video continued playing.

The Sakurada Group encountered youkai and were killed by them.

The scene played out.

Countless people felt their scalps go numb; hearing the screams absent from the Yunhu scene in the video, and the names the youkai used for the Lord of Demons and the Scholar, they went mad, their minds shaken.

Compared to that time at Yunhu, watching this video made everyone feel as if they were there themselves, deeply experiencing the terror of the youkai, and feeling the horror of the Lord of Demons' Night Parade of One Hundred Demons even more clearly.

【The lip-reading translation circulating online is correct; the Scholar is truly Lord Cimu!】

【The Lord of Demons, what kind of existence is he?】

【Is the Lord of Demons good or bad to us humans?】

Many people typed out numerous bullet comments filled with questions.

They were terrified, horrified.

And as the video kept playing, showing Lord Cimu splitting the earth and sending the three survivors away, the video did not end but continued, and everyone saw the Carriage of Birds heading toward the ancient city.

At this moment.

Within the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, the voice of that child youkai rang out.

"Let's go, to attend Tamamo-no-Mae's banquet."

……

(PS: Begging for recommendation votes!! Begging for recommendation votes!!)