Chapter 14 Epiphany

Two days later, Sensō-ji Temple.

In the dilapidated main hall, the light of the hexagram alchemy array gradually faded.

At the center of the array, Suren slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath of stale air, looking slightly tired. "Phew... finally, the fusion was successful."

Although it was his first time fusing a "Legendary" quality colonial equipment, the process went smoothly, and he didn't encounter any uncontrollable or distorted accidents.

This [Endless Stomach of the Void Whale] was as the appraisal had indicated; as long as he had a basic understanding of spatial laws, he could successfully fuse it.

Suren sensed his body and immediately noticed the changes. He muttered to himself, "As expected of a Legendary colonial equipment, my spatial affinity and understanding of the laws have increased significantly."

This was expected. After colonial equipment was fused, it would passively add certain related attributes. This stomach was a biological material from a void beast, so it was naturally excellent.

Suren felt that the gains were good. Even if this colonial equipment was truly "useless," at least his spatial abilities were enhanced, and his life-saving abilities were even stronger.

Thinking of this, he made a Warlock's hand seal with both hands, and an alchemy array suddenly lit up beneath his feet: "Colonial Equipment - Release!"

Looking again, he held his palm forward, and a black dot suddenly appeared in his palm. Then, as dark spiritual power was poured into it, the small black dot gradually grew larger. After about half a minute, it formed a fist-sized black hole in his palm, as endlessly deep as the starry sky.

Half a minute... The spellcasting was successful. Enemies could have killed him countless times by then.

Although he was mentally prepared, a trace of helplessness appeared in the corner of Suren's eyes as he looked at it. He thought to himself, "Slow casting speed, high mana consumption... as expected."

Sensing it again, the "black hole" contained an independent space.

It was the "initial point" space described by the All-Knowing Eye, nearly several dozen indoor basketball courts in size.

It was large enough to fit several complete warships inside.

Suren was also very satisfied. At least in the future, when he planned to build super-large combat mechs, he wouldn't have to worry about not being able to carry them with him conveniently.

Moreover, there was still a huge amount of room for growth in the future.

It was like blowing up a balloon. How big it could eventually be blown was entirely up to his own abilities.

Suren thought, and the Warlock's hand seals in his hands changed again. A suction force began to appear in the black hole in his palm. This was naturally the activation of [Void Devour].

As he continued to pour in dark spiritual power, the suction force became stronger and stronger, forming an increasingly large black vortex in his palm. A whistling wind gradually rose in the dilapidated hall, and the wooden Buddha statues trembled slightly.

As the suction increased, sand and stones gradually began to fly...

The commotion and presentation weren't bad.

But the larger the vortex, the more the dark spiritual power invested increased geometrically.

Suren's face turned slightly pale.

This one minute or so of absorption had consumed about 30% of his dark spiritual power. The consumption was terrifying.

But the effect created was disproportionate.

Initial evaluation: this [Whale Devour] could probably absorb objects within a radius of ten meters, but both the suction and casting speed were pathetic.

It might be okay for collecting some dead objects.

If they were alive, they would have run away long ago.

For combat at his current level, it had almost no offensive use.

Hmm... it was indeed quite useless.

It was roughly like using a tractor engine to tow an aircraft carrier.

The thing was good, but he couldn't use it much at the moment.

But fortunately, after the understanding of spatial laws increased, the absorption effect would be greatly improved.

Suren comforted himself with a thought: The future is bright.

......

After successfully advancing, Suren didn't plan to stay in Sensō-ji Temple any longer.

He hadn't forgotten that for the past two days, Chitose and Miko had been chased around by monsters outside.

They had been communicating for the past two days, so it was likely not that they hadn't encountered any danger, but that they were trying their best to persevere and didn't want to disturb his advancement.

He dialed the communicator, and sure enough, Chitose's slightly resentful voice came through: "Oh, you finally advanced! If you hadn't, we would have been driven to the point of no retreat... Hurry up, there's a Ghost King!"

When Suren heard Chitose's tone, he was relieved that she was at least safe.

.......

More than half an hour later.

Suren had set up ambushes in a dense forest, and the black crow totem was circling in the sky.

Before long, he saw two familiar figures being chased by dozens of monsters with bared fangs and brandishing claws.

The group of monsters was accompanied by a storm, and their momentum was terrifying. The leader of the Ghost King was the [Red Yōkai]. It was the "Mountain King" who had besieged Miko at the dilapidated shrine before.

Suren watched the two run over, and as the eight-armed spider lances unfolded behind him, rune puppets appeared in the forest.

This small number of yōkai posed no threat at all.

Chitose rushed into the forest and saw Suren, shouting, "Catch!"

As she spoke, she threw Miko, whom she had been hugging in her arms, over. Then, with a look of excitement on her face, she drew her yōkai blade, released her six-armed colonial equipment, and charged back into the monster horde. Her stance suggested that she wanted to vent all the frustration of being chased around the world for the past two days.

Before Suren could say anything, he saw a person flying over. His eyes twitched, but he caught Miko and put his arm around her.

Miko also knew that she was a burden. She steadied herself and said somewhat awkwardly, "Sorry for the trouble."

Suren smiled and put her aside, "We'll talk later."

With that, he controlled the puppets to fight the yōkai.

There was no suspense in the battle. After Chitose restrained the [Red Yōkai], the small ghosts posed no threat.

In this wilderness, there was no endless stream of yōkai besieging them, and Suren's puppet army quickly killed all the small monsters. He didn't bother chasing after a few small fry monsters with strong life-saving abilities that could burrow into the ground or become ethereal.

After a short while, the battle was nearing its end.

Only Chitose and the [Red Yōkai] were left fighting in the dense forest, but the outcome was already clearly tilted.

Obviously, there was no need for help. Suren and Miko watched from the sidelines.

He watched Chitose's sword ki killing wantonly in the red mist, and the sword ki wrapped around the yōkai blade caused tons of damage to the Ghost King. A look of amazement appeared in his eyes, and he muttered, "Chitose-nee's sword intent has actually improved so much in the past two days...?"

Before, Chitose's slashes had been very limited in their damage to this kind of spiritual monster, and she had relied entirely on the yōkai blade to kill them.

Now, it was clear that even ordinary sword slashes would directly weaken the red mist, causing the monsters to wail repeatedly.

Hearing this, Miko nodded and said, "The [Bodhi Seed] is a treasure of the Buddhist faith, and has a great impact on sword practitioners who cultivate the path of hell. In the past two days, Chitose-nee has fully unsealed the yōkai blade, and her sword dao insights have indeed improved by leaps and bounds."

"Oh?"

A look of joy appeared in Suren's eyes as he listened.

Now it seemed that the value of the [Bodhi Seed] to Chitose was truly immeasurable.

......

Before long, the battle ended.

The [Red Yōkai]'s ghost mist became thinner and thinner. With Miko's talismans, it couldn't escape, and was finally killed with a single strike.

The reason Chitose and Miko had been running away all this time wasn't that they couldn't fight back, but that it was very inconvenient to have a Miko who couldn't fight, and they were afraid of accidentally injuring her. They also had to give the yōkai some illusions so that they would keep coming to their deaths.

More importantly, the Ghost King had to be left for Suren to devour.

Chitose sheathed her blade, exhaled a rough breath, and greeted Suren, "Suren, the rest is up to you."

"Okay!"

Suren saw the "gray mist" left by the Ghost King and didn't delay, directly devouring it.

[You have stripped the soul of the Kurayama Ghost King 'Red Yōkai']

[You have comprehended some skill in performing spells related to 'Summoning Wind and Rain'...]

[You have obtained a piece of information: 'There are some ancient secrets hidden in the underground of the dilapidated shrine...']

[You have learned some secrets of the 'Land of the Dead'...]

[Spirit +...]

[...]

In addition to the soul fragments, just like last time, the Ghost King's dissipated yōkai aura in the forest was also absorbed by the Grim Reaper's phantom.

Suren instantly felt refreshed, and his perception became clearer.

Although it wasn't as exaggerated as the previous [Shuten-dōji] yōkai aura, he immediately felt that his understanding of the law of death had directly increased by a large margin.

The facial features of the Grim Reaper's phantom behind him became clearer.

This feeling of "experience points" increasing rapidly made Suren feel very happy.

But he didn't delay.

The commotion of the battle had already attracted yōkai from other places, and some ghostly mists appeared outside the forest, peeking in.

Suren called out to Chitose and Miko, "Let's go, we'll leave here first."

Chitose asked, "Where to?"

Suren's eyes turned, and he said, "Let's go to Kurayama Shrine. I just stripped a little information from that monster's soul. There seems to be something special there."

Chitose: "Okay."

.......

Suren and the other two headed east towards the desolate mountain with the shrine called "Kurayama".

The local tyrant of Kurayama was the [Red Yōkai]. Now that the Ghost King had been killed, there were no tricky monsters on the mountain, and the three of them ascended smoothly.

As they walked, Suren asked curiously, "Chitose-nee, when I saw you kill that Ghost King just now, your 'Drawing Blade Hell' sword intent was already seven or eight parts similar to Mr. Akutagawa's. Are you about to enter the Sword Saint realm?"

He could naturally see that even without the blessing of the yōkai blade, Chitose's sword intent was already quite impressive.

"I don't know."

Chitose's eyes also contained some sighs as she shook her head and said, "There are only two differences between 'Sword Saint': having crossed the threshold, and not having crossed it. There is no such thing as 'about to cross'. This is a difficult process for any swordsman, and it may take several years, or even a lifetime."

Speaking of this, she frowned and added, "Moreover, everyone's perception is different, and the sword dao is also different. Senior Akutagawa can guide me, but I can't completely follow his path. I always feel like I'm missing something, my qi is scattered and not condensed, but... I don't know where it's lacking."

Suren seemed to understand, but asked casually, "Is the Bodhi Seed useless?"

Chitose said, "It's precisely because it's useful that I understand this difference."

"Oh..."

Suren couldn't help with this problem, so he didn't say much.

The last time they came, it was very rushed, and they didn't have time to take a close look at the scenery on this mountain. Now that they looked, although it was desolate, there were still some decaying scenes to admire. The stone torii gate had already collapsed, and there were some incomplete stone lanterns beside the road. The architectural style was slightly different from the mountain shrines of today, revealing an ancient charm everywhere...

Suren and the other two were fast, and soon arrived at the shrine.

Like Sensō-ji Temple, the shrines in the Land of the Dead weren't visited by any monsters, so only a few dilapidated houses were left.

In the eyes of Suren and Chitose, the two outsiders, all shrine buildings were the same.

But Miko, in her sacred robes, was a shrine maiden. When she saw the architectural details of this shrine, she immediately recognized that this shrine was different from others, and said, "This is an ancient shrine. It looks like the architectural style of the shrines before the 'Great Collapse'."

Chitose asked, "Great Collapse?"

"Yes."

Miko nodded and explained, "Our Shinto religion has a tradition that a 'Great Collapse' happened in this world a long, long time ago, causing the plane to collapse and the gods to fall... But the era is too old, and I don't know much about it either. I just know that Shintoism was prosperous before that, and the gods would often descend to preach and teach the law. So the shrine architecture style has some special styles..."

When Suren heard this statement, he immediately guessed that it was probably the Great War of the Gods during the Dawn Era that collapsed the entire炼金 alchemy plane into pieces.

But they didn't get any more useful information.

Suren even felt that the real Land of the Dead shouldn't have any shrines or temples. It was because Fujiwara Hayato wrote it that they existed.

It seemed to have some special symbolic significance.

He looked at the shrine, his eyes thoughtful, and pointed to a house, saying, "Let's go, let's go in and take a look. There's a basement inside."

In the memory of the [Red Yōkai], it was because of this basement that it had been entrenched here all along.

The three of them came to what should have been a side hall. Looking at the stone slab floor, Suren pointed to a floor tile: "It's right below here."

Miko looked at the layout of the hall and said, "This should be the 'Treasure Hall'. It's usually used to visit shrine implements and treasures."

Chitose was also interested when she heard this, "Are there really any treasures?"

Yōkai were ghosts and could walk through walls and burrow into the ground, but Suren and the others couldn't.

Fortunately, Suren was proficient in various engineering mechanics. He dug out some mechanical parts and quickly assembled a steam drilling machine with a threaded drill bit. As soon as the steam boiler was started, the drill bit pointed at the ground and drilled frantically, and the soil rolled out. Soon, it drilled in.

After drilling about ten meters deep, the machine broke through the rock roof of the underground palace.

Suren heard the special sound of gravel and said, "Let's go down."

The three of them jumped down.

.......

The space in the underground palace wasn't large, and it was pitch-black. When the magic lamp lit up, a golden statue of a god first came into view.

The statue of the god had angry eyes and was as red as flames. It held a sword and other implements. The most eye-catching thing was the eight magatama-patterned thunder drums on its back.

Miko recognized it at a glance and exclaimed, "This is the descent body of the great deity 'Takemikazuchi'!"

Suren had already known that there was such a statue here, so he didn't find it strange.

Hearing Miko say the name, an introduction about this god immediately appeared in his mind.

This was a god worshiped by the mountain residents as the "God of Thunder" and the "God of Swords".

Although he wasn't as famous as Amaterasu, he was also a contemporary god with a high status. It was said that his death had something to do with Izanami.

In the memory that Suren had stripped before, the Red Yōkai had been entrenched here because this statue had a special "divine power".

But Suren stared at it for a moment now, and didn't see anything special. The All-Knowing Eye identified it as [A statue containing the remnants of Shinto].

But after sensing it, the remnants didn't let this alchemist see anything special.

Suren thought Miko knew something, so he turned his head and asked, "Miss Miko, what is a descent body?"

Miko explained, "Legend has it that before the Great Collapse, Shintoism was prosperous. When gods wanted to come to the world to bless believers, they would descend on the golden bodies of the statues made by some believers. These golden bodies usually retain the divine power of the gods."

"Oh."

Suren felt that this thing had nothing to do with him and would probably be of some use to Miko.

But suddenly, he felt a storm of sword intent erupting around him.

"Huh..."

He turned his head and saw that Chitose's expression was extremely serious, and her gaze was fixed on the statue like lightning. She had her hand on her yōkai blade, and the phantom of the six-armed Rakshasa had already appeared behind her.

Looking closely, a layer of protective qi condensed from sword energy was surrounding her body. And that layer of qi, like a jumping thunder snake, gradually exploded with traces of lightning.

Suren immediately realized something: "Sword qi transforming into罡 Qi, Chitose-nee's dominance is about to be completed?"

Moreover, it wasn't just dominance. The hellish sword intent was like a volcanic eruption, so strong that even standing next to her felt like the sharpness was pressing on her. The yōkai aura of the [Demon・One-Hundred Eyed Oni King] she held in her hand was leaking out like a tide, and a snow-white phantom of a centipede with a thousand eyes was wrapped around her left arm.

Looking again, the [Demon・Bodhi Seed] hanging around her waist was shining brightly, seeming to protect her mind.

The corner of Suren's eye twitched, and he thought of something, thinking, "She's enlightened?"

The Buddha's enlightenment couldn't be explained or expressed, it was mysterious.

But here it came.

[Takemikazuchi] was the God of Swords. That wisp of "Shinto Remnants" was probably the missing link that Chitose needed to step into the "Sword Saint".

Miko looked at the strange phenomenon on Chitose's body, exchanged a glance with Suren, and revealed a gratified smile.

They didn't know how long this process would last, so the two of them didn't disturb Chitose and silently moved away.

.......

This underground palace was not small, so the two of them walked to the other side of the statue.

Suren thought of something and said softly, "I remember that there are some Shinto stone carvings and murals on the walls..."

With that, he shone the magic light source over.

Although the light yellow light wasn't bright enough, it illuminated a set of lifelike reliefs.

Suren didn't need to look to know that the content above was similar to the actions and sacrificial scenes of "Kagura Dance". These things were useless to him.

But when Miko saw the content of the murals, she seemed to have seen something incredible, and her beautiful face couldn't hide her shock.

She quickly covered her mouth and exclaimed, "This is the Shinto shrine maiden's unpassed secret from before the Great Collapse--'Shrine Maiden's Dance'!"

When Miko saw these stone carvings, a sense of responsibility seemed to fall on her. She quickly checked all the murals and was shocked: "Heavens, our Iga Shrine has only left a few fragments, but there are actually twenty-four complete pictures here!"

This was the first time Suren had seen Miko in such a state, and he asked, "Is this secret technique very powerful?"

"Yes."

Miko's bright eyes trembled with light. She didn't hide anything from Suren and said excitedly, "It can be said that almost all of the traditions of our Shinto shrine maidens originate from the content on this stone slab. This path... can communicate with the gods!"

"Shrine Maiden" was a profession,

"Saiō" was a status,

And "Divine Shrine Maiden" was a level of strength.

These few pictures were more precious than those that Suren had seen in the royal family before.

Hearing this, Suren thought, "This Land of the Dead really has a lot of treasures."

Looking at Miko's happy expression, he sighed at how coincidental the opportunity was.

But what he was even more amazed at was that Fujiwara Hayato, the great writer and adventurer, had really collected a lot of good treasures!

.......

Chitose had fallen into enlightenment in front of the statue of [Takemikazuchi], and Miko had discovered the secret technique on the stone slabs of the underground palace. Both of them had fallen into a state of extreme infatuation, and it seemed that they wouldn't be free for a while.

Suddenly, Suren was the only one left with nothing to do.

He wandered around the underground palace. After finding nothing else useful, he drilled out.

Thinking that he would probably stay in this shrine for a few days, Suren set up some barriers in the underground palace to isolate the aura. He prayed that no big yōkai would come to disturb him before Chitose finished her enlightenment.

After doing all this, Suren opened his notebook again and drew a mountain on the rough map of the Land of the Dead that he had drawn, writing the words "Dilapidated Shrine".

The ghost town was in the center, Sensō-ji Temple was in the south, and Izanami's shrine was in the north.

Suren wrote a few more strokes in his notebook, analyzing all the possible ways out.

Although he had gained a lot from this trip to the "Land of the Dead",

He hadn't forgotten that if they couldn't get out, no matter how many treasures they had, it would be useless.

The three of them, and the treasures they carried, would instead add some collections to this world.