Chapter 534: Izumo Taisha

Five days after Li Miao and his party left Hirado City.

Izumo Province, Mount Moon, Tomita City.

"Matsuura Takanobu, dead?"

"All the soldiers and samurai in Hirado City are also dead?"

The dim candlelight flickered, making the man's face light and dark. He held a "haraegushi" shaped like prayer beads in his left hand, twisting them one by one, while his right hand supported the hilt of his sword, propping up his arm.

The sword was not sheathed, and with the shaking of his arm, it cast a water-like wave of light onto the face of the person kneeling in front of him.

"Yes."

The person kneeling answered concisely and firmly.

The man was silent for a while and continued to ask:

"Killer, reason, purpose."

The person kneeling answered concisely again.

"Two Central Plains people with a Japanese girl. Entered the city at noon, left at sunset."

"Hirado Daimyo Matsuura Takanobu, Lord Kotesashi Yasutsune, and 217 samurai and 2,078 foot soldiers in Hirado City all died, with no one spared."

The man stopped twisting the haraegushi.

"Three people, and they destroyed Hirado City?"

He was already shocked enough, but the answer given by the other party was merciless.

"One person."

"According to the residents of Hirado City, only one man did it. After killing more than a thousand soldiers in the dojo, he killed Lord Kotesashi Yasutsune and the remaining soldiers on the street, captured Matsuura Takanobu into the dojo, and left at sunset."

"Moreover, Lord Kotesashi Yasutsune manifested his 'True Form'."

Swish!

The man grabbed the haraegushi, his eyes gloomy as water.

"How many people saw it?"

"3,712 people, all have been 'handled cleanly'."

The other party's answer was as relaxed as going out for a walk, and the fact was indeed so. The Japanese civilians were thin and small, and for someone like him, cutting off more than 3,000 heads that would only cry and beg for mercy, provided that the military power of Hirado City had disappeared, was not a difficult task.

The man's expression relaxed slightly.

"Is there any news about the background of that Central Plains man?"

When he asked this question, the expression and tone of the person kneeling changed for the first time, seeming a bit happy, and also a bit conflicted.

He took a roll of cloth from his bosom and unfolded it on the ground.

"This is the message the killer left on the wall of the dojo. I made a rubbing of it. He doesn't seem to want to hide his identity."

The man took a look, his pupils shrank, and he muttered:

"Izumo Taisha, Toshodai-ji Temple, Enryaku-ji Temple, Hachimangu. Kyoto... Ise Grand Shrine."

"Li... Miao."

"This is... a route? He wants to tell us that he will walk through these places one by one!?"

"And the next place he's coming to is my territory!?"

The person kneeling answered:

"It seems so, and the other party doesn't mean to hide his tracks. After leaving Hirado City, he has been walking in a straight line toward here, and as long as he meets someone with a sword on the road, he kills them without reason."

"It is estimated that in three days, he will arrive."

The man, or rather the Japanese Daimyo, Danjo-shohitsu, Governor of Eleven Provinces, Izumo Protector Amago Haruhisa, was silent for a moment, his finger pointing at the iron-painted silver-hook name on the cloth.

"I have an impression of this name."

"The Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard of the Central Plains, recognized by the Central Plains Jianghu as the strongest in the world... and also recognized by the Central Plains as the man who has killed the most and whose methods are the most cruel and ruthless."

"Judging from his past actions, negotiation, threats, bribery, and even deception are ineffective against him."

The person kneeling nodded.

"That's right, this person is paranoid and arrogant, disdains to cooperate with anyone, and doesn't believe any information anyone gives him... He only believes in his own interrogation methods."