Chapter 153: The Land Of Demons Joins
Cold moonlight like silver frost sprinkled on the knife-scarred floor of the shrine’s main hall, with candlelight flickering before Miroku.
Shion’s small body curled up in her mother’s arms, her large violet eyes no longer filled with pure fear, but replaced by a deeper confusion.
Her mother’s words about “the evil of the human heart” and “the miko’s destiny,” though the young girl still did not understand them.
Miroku held the pottery jar, her gaze piercing through the flickering candlelight, falling on the silent dark red figure a few steps away.
That white three-eyed fox mask blocked all possibility of prying.
The air in the great hall was stagnant to the point of suffocation, leaving only the whimpering wind sound outside the hall and the faint, muffled sounds of battlefield cleanup from afar.
At that moment, the figure moved.
Under the astonished gazes of Miroku, Shion, and Ashikaga, Shura slowly raised his hand, his fingers landing on the edge of the cold mask.
“Click.”
A faint mechanical snap rang out exceptionally clearly in the deathly silent great hall.
The mask was gently removed.
Moonlight and candlelight intertwined, illuminating a face that surprised everyone.
No imagined weathering or ferocity; it was an extremely young face, even handsome, that of a boy.
Black spiky hair short locks fell messily over his forehead, his skin a healthy light wheat color, with clean, sharp lines.
However, what was most shocking was that pair of eyes—the right eye deep black like night, the left eye even stranger, a pure blood-red as if burning with lava!
Calm, indifferent, with a sense of alienation beyond his years, as if overlooking the mortal world, quietly meeting the gaze of the three in the hall.
Ashikaga, kneeling to the side, suddenly drew in a sharp breath, instinctively leaning back, hardly daring to believe his eyes.
The “Shura” who terrified the ninja world with his infamous reputation had such a young true face?
Miroku’s pupils contracted instantly; she had foreseen starlight, foreseen darkness, yet never clearly seen this face in the prophetic dreams.
Shion’s eyes widened even more, her small mouth slightly agape, curiously looking at the mysterious boy nearby; she had thought it was an uncle, but it turned out to be a big brother.
Menma casually placed the white three-eyed fox mask, symbolizing fear and power, on the low table beside him, making a faint clinking sound.
His voice remained flat, but without the mask’s barrier, it gained a clear, youthful crispness, though the cold core within remained unchanged: “In the Warring States Period, the Senju and Uchiha ended the melee of the clans, creating the ninja village system. But warfare was not eradicated; it merely shifted to a larger battlefield.”
His gaze swept over the pottery jar in Miroku’s arms.
“The evil of the human heart originates from the soil of chaos and injustice. As long as the ninja world remains divided, as long as daimyo and nobles strive against each other for private gain, and ninja villages wage war for their own interests, oppression, war, and displacement will be endless. The root of the mōryō will always have fertile ground to breed.”
Menma stepped forward, moonlight illuminating half his face, those heterochromatic pupils like whirlpools, carrying a powerful and mysterious oppression.
“There is only one way to end this cycle.” His voice was clear and firm.
“End the division, achieve great unification of the ninja world! Just as the ninja clans once moved toward ninja villages, ending the Warring States Period, establish a single nation!”
“All ninja, all commoners, living under a unified system and laws.”
“The privileges of daimyo and nobles must be eradicated, resource allocation must be fair, only then can oppression disappear!”
“When humanity’s wars vanish, when order replaces chaos, when the children of the next generation and the one after, from birth, know not hunger or the flames of war… After two or three generations, the hatred flowing in the bloodline will naturally dissipate greatly.”
“Humanity’s… wars?” Miroku keenly caught this qualifier, surprise appearing on her pale face.
She stared tightly at Menma’s heterochromatic eyes.
“Lord Shura, do you mean? Besides our human conflicts, there are other threats?”
Menma’s gaze shifted from Miroku’s face to the cold moon hanging in the deep night sky outside the high window.
Clear glow fell, plating a silver edge on his young profile, also making the blood color of his left eye even more demonic.
“Lady Miroku,” his voice lowered.
“The enemies of the ninja world are far more numerous and ancient than you imagine.” His gaze turned to that vast, boundless starry sky full of unknowns.
“Black hands lurking in the shadows of history for a millennium, coveting this world. And from beyond the heavens, in the depths of that endless sea of stars, greedy eyes watching covetously. Humanity’s wars, in my view, are mere child’s play.”
“Beyond the heavens?!” Miroku’s body trembled slightly, her breathing quickening.
As a miko, her perception far exceeded ordinary people.
When the words “beyond the heavens” came from Menma’s mouth, an indescribable force made her soul tremble.
Miroku’s purple pupils bloomed with Mangekyo-like patterns.
She “saw” as if countless eyes, in unimaginably distant places, were coldly watching this tiny planet beneath their feet!
This perception flashed and vanished, yet it instantly soaked her back in cold sweat, her face turning deathly pale.
Shion seemed to feel her mother’s sudden intense fear, her small body jolting, tightly hugging Miroku.
Ashikaga was even more ashen-faced; he couldn’t understand those profound words, but Lady Miroku’s unprecedented loss of composure shocked him.
The hall fell into an even deeper silence than before.
Menma withdrew his gaze, letting it fall again on Miroku’s face, drained of color by horror.
He offered no further explanation, simply waiting quietly; he knew this miko who could sense the evil of the human heart and foresee parts of the future had touched the tip of the iceberg at the edge of the truth.
Time seemed to freeze, candlelight flickering uneasily, casting swaying shadows on Miroku’s heaving chest and the pottery jar.
After a long while, Miroku took a deep breath, as if using all her strength.
She slowly raised her head, her gaze no longer confused, replaced by a near-tragic resolve.
She gently straightened Shion in her arms, then, under Ashikaga’s shocked gaze, this miko of the Land of Demons, holding the pottery jar sealing the mōryō, deeply bowed to the young Shura before her.
“Miko Miroku of the Land of Demons…” Her voice was slightly hoarse, yet exceptionally clear and firm: “I pledge to lead all of the Land of Demons to join the Land of Stars!”
The first ray of dawn light struggled through the haze enveloping the Land of Demons, sprinkling on the shrine’s broken rubble and dried bloodstains.
The air still lingered with gunpowder smoke, blood, and faint corpse stench.
But a new order was quietly descending with the rising sun.
A ninja team of about thirty appeared in the forest outside the shrine; they wore unified deep blue-near-black uniforms, star ninja headbands on their heads, moving swiftly and silently, eyes sharp, exuding the refined aura of well-trained elites.
Leading them was Uzumaki Kushina.
She strode forward, nodding slightly to Uchiha Hikari standing quietly at the hall door, her gaze sweeping over the exhausted Kimimaro and White, quickly issuing deployments.
“Medical squad! Immediately treat the wounded!”
“Sealing squad! Set up multiple alert barriers!”
“Cleanup squad! Handle the battlefield, collect all bodies, be careful of secret techniques lingering in enemy corpses!”
“Guard team! Take over defense of the shrine and surrounding key points, clear out remaining enemies!”
The commands were concise and powerful; the star ninja moved like precise gears, instantly operating.
Medical ninja with medicine boxes quickly entered the great hall; sealing ninja began setting up barriers around the shrine; cleanup personnel silently and efficiently started collecting the strewn corpses; fully armed ninja rapidly dispersed, occupying the high ground around the shrine.
Miroku, supported by Ashikaga, held Shion as she walked out of the main hall.
The cool morning air surged into her lungs, dispelling some of the blood and stuffiness inside the great hall.
She looked at all this before her: the disciplined, well-trained star ninja army, worlds apart from the arrogant, bullying private soldiers of the Land of Demons’ nobles who only oppressed commoners.
The focused eyes as they treated the wounded, the silence and caution as they collected bodies, all made her heart, chilled and weary from the mōryō and millennial destiny, feel a long-lost warmth and hope.
Menma had put the white three-eyed fox mask back on, standing quietly on the high steps before the shrine.
His dark red miko robe slightly swayed in the morning breeze.
He overlooked the shrine below beginning to renew, and also Miroku holding Shion, her expression complex.
Beneath the mask, no one knew his expression at that moment.
Uchiha Hikari appeared soundlessly a step behind him, like the most loyal shadow.
Her deep blue high-collared clan robes appeared especially cold in the morning light, her gaze calmly sweeping over the busy star ninja.
