Chapter 215

Three minutes ago, Jun'ei County Tunnel.

In the secluded mountain forest, in a single instant, a massive amount of overwhelming demonic Qi surged out from this dark tunnel that had been abandoned for who knows how many years.

Resentment, hatred, unwillingness...

But in the blink of an eye, the tunnel entrance that had almost been cleared by the Special Affairs Bureau staff was filled again by those vengeful spirits and undead.

The quantity, even greater than before.

"How much longer until Uesugi-kun arrives!"

"He said — he's arriving right now!"

After the call and response, Yagyu Shou, whose consciousness was so blurred he could barely stand, gripped the lightly trembling Tachi in his hand and raised it once more.

The surrounding Special Affairs Bureau staff — some had fallen unconscious due to complex spiritual attacks, some had long since exhausted all their Spirit Power, and there were even those who had fallen into a critical state from excessive blood loss.

A sorry state.

Only two or three staff members still retained the bare minimum of combat power.

They had already been fighting bitterly in front of this tunnel — which should have been cleared within half an hour — for far too long.

No one anticipated that this mission, already simple to the point of being a numbers-crushing walkover, would suddenly undergo such a violent mutation.

"Thank goodness for Tamamo's foresight..."

The Dojo successor of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu Shizuoka Prefecture Branch glanced sideways, seeing that girl standing in the absolutely safe rear, still protected by several Kekkai even now.

— "Calling mercenaries over early is just an extra layer of insurance and manpower, anyway someone will reimburse me!"

— That's what she said.

The petite girl called "Tamamo" wore a yellow safety helmet of the elementary school student variety, pacing within the Kekkai, looking somewhat ill at ease.

She was tightly clutching her Mobile Phone, not telling Yagyu Shou that this was already the fourth time Uesugi Toru had replied "arriving right now"!

And before that, the earliest "arriving right now" could be traced back to twenty minutes ago!

At that time, the tunnel's mutation had only just occurred.

Tamamo gazed at the miserable situation before her and the resentment continuously emerging from the tunnel.

She cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone, shouting at the top of her lungs: "Yagyu! Fall back quick, this time we really can't hold!"

"If you die now, there'll be nothing left!"

"— If we fall back now, all these Yaoguai will come surging out!"

Yagyu Shou rasped back: "What about the citizens of Nagumo City!"

He took a deep breath with all his might, causing the tiny wounds on his body surface to spurt blood flowers, then let out a loud shout,

"Hold! Even if it's death! Hold until Uesugi-kun arrives for me!"

Having said that, he charged forward alone towards those mindless dead spirits whose essence was exceptionally weak, yet had surged out by the hundreds and thousands following the mutation just now.

Fierce Gang Qi erupted, causing the swarms of dead spirits to dissolve like snowflakes under sunlight.

But a drop in the bucket.

Having dragged another heavily injured staff member into the Kekkai and now skillfully bandaging him, Tamamo, speaking in Kansai Dialect, cursed loudly,

"Damn it, Yagyu this stubborn fool...

At this rate everyone's gonna be made into living stakes and nailed into the tunnel, eighteen years later it'll be our turn to be killed!"

Having simply finished the bandaging, Tamamo pulled out a small Scroll sealed with a healing Yin-Yang Technique from her Backpack and tore it open over the staff member who was breathing in more than out.

Amidst the pale green light, Tamamo, full of resentment, stared dead at the Mobile Phone that still hadn't recovered.

With nothing to do for the moment, Tamamo, as an Ordinary Person, could only grip the special Mobile Phone tight, preparing to reply to any message at the fastest speed,

"Damn it, pinning everyone's life-and-death hopes on a single outside reinforcement... the other party isn't some Ghost God Level either."

"Just a measly Three-Star about the same as you, don't go trusting them so much just because your brain got hot for a second..."

At this time, the Spirit Power of one of the two remaining Onmyoji at the front was finally exhausted.

The surging firewall vanished abruptly, letting the dead spirits in that area squeeze against each other like a tide, rushing over wildly on hands and feet.

In an instant, the already precarious defense line collapsed completely, swallowing Yagyu Shou who was holding the very front.

Tamamo watched with burning anxiety.

But if she charged up, she'd definitely be torn into "Wang, Cao Zao" in two seconds flat!

Forget being made into living stakes, she wouldn't even qualify as salad dressing!

She could only watch helplessly as the tide of dead spirits... no, far more than just simple dead spirits.

Behind them, the "Black Handprint That Grows Larger" from Nagumo City's Mononoke, the "Ghost That Became a Traffic Light", and those twisted human faces floating up on the cement ground all swarmed out in full force!

Tamamo, who couldn't even launch a single Fireball, could only watch helplessly, watching as her colleagues outside the Kekkai were all devoured by the Yokai.

She asked Uesugi Toru again when he would arrive.

But this time there was no reply.

Tamamo drooped her head dejectedly, opening her mouth with some despair: "What the heck, not even giving a shred of hope..."

She raised her head, silently looking at those Yokai that had already surrounded the Kekkai layer by layer, and would tear her and her colleagues inside to shreds in a few dozen seconds.

"Damn it, death is death, who cares about the ball..."

Tamamo gritted her teeth, pulling out a black Small Ball printed with a skull from her Backpack: "I'm blowing up with you lot!"

But at this moment, her Mobile Phone suddenly vibrated.

The professional habit cultivated up to now made Tamamo subconsciously look at her Mobile Phone, happening to see that one strange message.

【Raise your head and look】

So she raised her head.

Rumble!

Pale, cold, stern Thunder descended along the full moon's light, falling straight onto the ground.

Lightning plasma rained down like rain.

In the snap of a finger, countless souls and human faces evaporated like cut straw, heart-rending screams filling her ears.

But it was far from over.

Because such thunder was not just one bolt, but many, over ten!

Thunder intertwined, thunderclaps shook, leaving even the demons and monsters hiding deep in the mountain forest nowhere to hide.

Like heavenly punishment!

"Ah... huh?"

Coincidence?

Tamamo blinked, looking at the now empty surroundings, confirming what had just happened was not an illusion.

What was that?

The weather forecast didn't say it would thunder here today, and wasn't it not raining either?

Speaking of which.

Could it be that some mountain god in charge of thunder had inexplicably awakened?

Just a moment away from detonating the black small ball in her hand, Tamamo dazedly thought of blowing him to bits.

In her eyes, after these abrupt thunderbolts, another slender phantom split the sky hanging with the silver moon.

Was it a... sword?

Tamamo was stunned.

How could a sword appear in the sky by itself?

The sword blade wrapped in withering pallor and the pure black of plague fell along gravity's pull, slanting straight into the barrier's edge, before Tamamo's eyes.

"You... good, safe... now."

She could hear that stunningly beautiful uchigatana outside the barrier say this to her.

Tamamo felt she must have gone mad.

Presumably all this before her eyes was merely the fantasy of that one moment before death.

Otherwise how could there be so many lightning strikes for no reason, and how could a sword speak?

But no matter how Tamamo thought, the pallid black domain had already unfurled the moment Kaga Kiyomitsu drove into the ground, and crazily surged outward.

The soulless spirits, upon touching the pallid color, were all dissolved without resistance.

Pure numbers meant nothing before the domain of Separation Sorrow.

The remaining demons and monsters all hissed and retreated, letting Yagyu Shou and the others, previously encircled, reappear before Tamamo's eyes.

Yagyu Shou pointed the sword tip down, propped himself up with the sword, and with difficulty turned his gaze backward.

"Not... an illusion?"

"The combat power disparity between enemy and us is so great; if I had come a minute later, you all would truly have been wiped out."

A pale and powerful palm climbed onto the exquisite sword hilt and gripped it tight.

Drew it from the ground.

Tamamo saw the man in casual clothes before her shake his head and sigh: "The head of the Shizuoka Prefecture Special Affairs Bureau is too hardcore."

——Uesugi Toru, transformed into a four-tailed fox and using Thousand Faces Transformation to take human form, withdrew his gaze from the elementary school student of height one meter four and walked toward the tunnel.

The Hannya Mask grinning hideously swayed at his waist, mixed with the light sound of bronze bells.

There were no Ghost God Level figures around, so Uesugi Toru transformed into a four-tailed fox without fear of being seen.

Not long after, he came to stand at the very front beside Yagyu Shou, whose body was swaying on the verge of collapse yet still wanted to hold on: "You are Yagyu-kun?"

Before the latter could open his mouth to answer with difficulty, Uesugi Toru saw it from his eyes.

"Awesome."

Uesugi Toru gave him a big thumbs up—daring to stand so far forward in this situation, it was clear only he and the demons in the tunnel could survive, one of them.

This was a true ruthless person.

"Uesugi..."

"Don't speak anymore, hold your breath."

Uesugi Toru glanced at Yagyu Shou, whose entire body's energy had been squeezed dry and could no longer maintain energy circulation: "Next, just go to the back seat and watch in peace."

He shook the bronze bell, letting the Komainu Hatamoto carry the struggling Yagyu Shou to the side of the barrier.

Uesugi Toru looked back again, gazing at the countless yaoguai driven back to the tunnel mouth by the Hannya Mask's Ghost God aura and the pallid domain.

He snorted lightly,

"A bunch of lackeys."

In Uesugi Toru's eyes, the vast majority were Zero-Star and Half-Star prompts, and even one-star existences were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

Just right, use them to try out the new move he just learned from the nameless Sword Saint...

Just as Uesugi Toru was thinking this, he paused, remembering that Mumyo Ken seemed to be a single-target attack.

At least, for him who had just mastered Mumyo Ken, it was still so.

He raised an eyebrow noncommittally, silently activating the Rin Character Secret in his heart to strengthen himself—this was also a new move he just learned, and he hadn't seen its effect yet.

Silver light faintly bloomed on the back of his right hand.

Uesugi Toru's pupils shrank slightly.

Not because the effect was too weak, but...

Too strong!

The moment the Rin Character Secret was activated, Uesugi Toru could feel a surging power gushing from within his body, and the clarity of his thoughts also rose to a new level.

If one checked the Attribute Panel, they would discover that both Physique and Will attributes increased by a full ten points at this moment!

Simply unreasonable.

You have to understand, the difficulty of raising his already high attributes by another ten points now is worlds apart from what it was at the start.

"So this is the Great Yin-Yang Art..."

Uesugi Toru twisted his neck, grinning at the hundred demons that had fallen quiet at the tunnel entrance: "You lot are really unlucky."

He plucked at his heartstrings,

"Xiao Jia, try that one."

"Y-yes, sir!"

Uesugi Toru spread his palm, using only Gang Qi to wrap around the tail end of Kaga Kiyomitsu.

The Gang Qi lifted Kaga Kiyomitsu, letting it float unsteadily in mid-air.

That's right, what he was going to attempt now was—

Controlling the sword with Qi!

All the yokai before him were intimidated by the Ghost God aura on the Hannya Mask, not daring to move.

They were vast in number, numerous targets, and extremely weak... Kaga Kiyomitsu could pierce through countless yokai with just a casual sprint.

Where could there be a better opportunity to try than now?

Uesugi Toru calmed his mind, concentrating all his attention on the portion of Gang Qi connecting to Kaga Kiyomitsu's sword hilt.

He gave a loud shout,

"Go!"

Accompanied by the rapid consumption of Gang Qi within his body, Kaga Kiyomitsu instantly vanished from its original spot, carving a visible Qi wave through the air.

In just a moment, a pale, straight road had been cleared at the tunnel entrance, leading straight into the pitch-black interior.

The yokai that died because of this couldn't even let out a scream.

Uesugi Toru watched the Soul Spirit Points rapidly rising on the Panel, unable to help but break into a smile.

—This method really works!

When facing hordes of weak yokai, Uesugi Toru naturally wanted to turn them into Kaga Kiyomitsu's Soul Spirit Points.

But holding Xiao Jia and slashing one by one was simply too slow.

This problem has now been solved.

—For ordinary people, the most troublesome vast numbers, and the Yaoguai's extraordinarily tenacious vitality, don't count for anything against Uesugi Toru at all.

Kaga Kiyomitsu's blade surged with four layers of lethal debuffs; counting the Epidemic doubling, that made eight layers.

This one slash down was nothing short of Death's scythe for weak yokai.

As for consumption?

What Uesugi Toru fears least is a war of attrition.

Gang Qi has the already-formed Void Qi Sea within his body as support, and Spirit Power has the Spirit Control Technique continuously swallowing like a whale.

He manipulated the increasingly delighted Kaga Kiyomitsu with growing proficiency.

It rampaged through the yokai pile that had blown up like a boiling pot, like playing some hacked Musou grass-cutting game.

In just a few minutes, the mountain forest originally shrouded in thick resentment was completely renewed.

Only a single yokai remained standing in the very center of the tunnel, looking around in bewilderment, its body pitch-black except for three huge crimson pupils on its surface.

【——Three-Eyed Demon (Two-Star Half)】

Uesugi Toru let out a curious "Oh," having Kaga Kiyomitsu return behind him.

What kind of yokai is this?

A juvenile Hundred-Eyed Demon, an incomplete form?

In any case, this "Three-Eyed Demon" was the most powerful among the hundred demons at the tunnel entrance.

"Regardless, a yokai with eyeballs is a good yokai."

Uesugi Toru revealed a kindly smile.

He just stood in place, at a distance of several dozen meters, making a gesture toward those three eyeballs staring dead at him.

Crack.

The Three-Eyed Demon's slowly retreating body froze.

Formless, substanceless sword light suddenly bloomed inside its body, finely mincing every part except the eyeballs into mincemeat.

Precise and elegant.

Tennen Rishin-ryu Secret Art: Mumyo Ken - Hidden!

Uesugi Toru's Mirror Heart dimmed for an instant; seeing this, he couldn't help but exclaim in admiration: "This Secret Art really isn't just for show."

He cast his gaze once more into the pitch-black tunnel where countless faint stirrings still transmitted from the depths.

Since a Three-Eyed Demon appeared at the tunnel entrance, there must be Five-Eyed Demons, Ten-Eyed Demons, and such from the same family but even more powerful deeper inside.

Uesugi Toru, full of anticipation, was just preparing to clear all the accumulated Prompts, but his gaze paused on the popped-up Prop Prompt,

"This thing... has some substance."

In the Kekkai behind.

The still-awake Shizuoka Prefecture Special Affairs Bureau Staff watched in shock at that back figure not far away.

Relying on a single person, he had exorcised all hundred demons in this tunnel mountain forest...

This kind of thing, even if told, not many people would believe it, right?

"This mercenary big bro is too strong, when did those dead-salary-for-life eaters in HR ever do real work!?"

Tamamo stared wide-eyed and tongue-tied: "Mowing them down like vegetables is one thing, but completely unscathed... this Uesugi Toru's big bro really is Three-Star like you, Yagyu?"

"Wait."

She suddenly realized something,

"Then after we take the Shizuoka Prefecture Champion, won't we have to directly face this monster in the Seed War!"

Tamamo covered her head with her Hand Palms, threw her head back and let out a long howl, emitting a pained scream in Kansai Dialect:

"Then why the hell bother fighting at all!"

End of Chapter