Chapter 240: One Kick To Kill, Utterly Overpowered With No Chance To Fight Back! 【deep Space Online】, Live Stream Begins!
Tamome Mototada no longer smiled.
He solemnly furrowed his sparse white eyebrows, his remaining turbid eyeball glaring fixedly at Shangshan Che, who was indifferently watching him.
—When did this guy get here?
Why did he have absolutely no impression of it?
Tamome Mototada flipped through his memories from back to front and discovered that Shangshan Che had somehow walked from the waiting area to his current position in the blink of an eye.
But this guy…
Among the Five Color Reserves, the Black Reserve had not sensed any aura of a powerhouse from this young man at all.
Forget a powerhouse; in Tamome Mototada’s eyes, this youth with a vermilion daito at his waist was no different from the lowliest ashigaru seen everywhere in the army.
No matter from which angle, he seemed utterly feeble.
But could an ashigaru cover dozens of meters in a single step?
A chilling sensation rose from the end of Tamome Mototada’s spine.
Something was off; something wasn’t quite right.
—Actually, had this youth, who hadn’t even made a move yet, grown so strong that he exceeded his perception range?
Such a thought flashed through Tamome Mototada’s mind.
But he quickly dismissed it.
Because this youth before him was definitely not Ghost God level; that much was certain.
But if he wasn’t Ghost God level, nor one of the elites from the Mortal Realm’s Three Great Families that he remembered, nor a direct heir from an ancient Onmyoji family, nor someone connected to a contemporary Sword Saint, nor one of the core disciples from a major dojo…
If so, what was he afraid of?
Aside from those true geniuses of the Mortal Realm, no one below Ghost God level in the current Mortal Realm should be able to beat their Five Color Reserves.
Even if he himself was severely injured from the previous battle, he could still probe some of this youth’s moves.
—Worst case, if he couldn’t win, he could just flee the Fighting Arena’s boundaries.
With that thought, Tamome Mototada gripped his sharp iron staff tightly again, mentally recounting his hidden weapons once more in his thoughts, and revealed a ruthless smile anew.
Sizing up the motionless Shangshan Che, he thought darkly: “However, this youth’s state of mind is far superior to the previous two; no matter what I say, he shows no fluctuation.
How old is he? Not even twenty…”
“Done thinking?”
Shangshan Che gazed at him calmly, his tone flat: “Have you figured out how you’ll die?”
As he spoke, the Half-Star and One-Star lesser demons in the audience seats started jeering along.
“Black Reserve? Looks like a coward to me!”
“Old maggot! Old maggot! Scared by a pretty boy!”
“A guy with such skinny arms and legs! I could take ten of him!”
The two in the Fighting Arena were completely unaffected by such idle chatter.
But Shangshan Che still found it excessively noisy.
These small fry were noisy no matter what they said.
He took out a Hannya Mask from his backpack and hung it on the side facing the rowdy lesser demons.
In an instant, the audience seats fell deathly silent.
The lesser demons froze stiff, as if their souls had fled; some even involuntarily prostrated themselves on the ground.
Shangshan Che nodded in satisfaction.
Audience should act like audience.
Noisy was one thing, but constantly pointing and commenting would dissatisfaction even the most even-tempered competitor.
Tamome Mototada’s gaze was similarly drawn to the Hannya Mask.
“A Hannya Mask carrying Ghost God aura… his trophy?”
In the silence, the cunning Black Reserve had already quietly retreated toward the edge of the Fighting Arena, ready to flee at any moment.
Regardless of whether the Hannya was killed by this youth personally, he had no chance of defeating this Hannya head-on—the residual aura on the mask made that clear.
But before Tamome Mototada could retreat a few steps, he suddenly realized the force supporting his body was missing one part, and his balance vanished.
Caught off guard, the world spun.
Only when the leaden gray sky peeked through the gaps in the ancient wood branches and leaves into Tamome Mototada’s pupils did he realize he had fallen.
Black Reserve jerked his head up, discovering his left leg had somehow separated from his body, lying whole on the ground, spurting blood nonstop.
Tamome Mototada hurriedly sealed the wound with Qi Barrier, then looked in shock at Shangshan Che, who remained standing in place unmoved.
When?!
When did he draw his sword?!
Shangshan Che patted the hilt at his waist, speaking in a coaxing tone as if to a child,
“Good, good, isn’t it just holding back power for once? An old man with eight layers of debuff couldn’t possibly withstand a single slash.”
Shangshan Che followed his gaze, his eyes full of pleasantness,
“Don’t accidentally kill this old thing.”
Tamome Mototada’s breath hitched, finally realizing the vast gulf in strength between them, wider than a chasm.
So… his earlier guess was right.
—In the audience seats, the samurai from the Edo Period jolted in shock, instinctively rising from his soft rattan chair, eyes wide with tremors.
What sword technique was that!? Which school’s Secret Technique!?
From start to finish, he had kept his eyes unblinking on the two in the Fighting Arena, yet he still hadn’t seen how that leg-severing sword strike on Black Reserve was executed.
Fast! Too fast!
So fast it was impossible to see clearly!
With just this one sword, the samurai believed the youth on the field could already be a Dojo Master.
“Lord, Tamome is going to die.”
Beneath the pale Noh Mask, White Reserve’s voice was hoarse.
“I know.”
Hojo Ujiyasu lowered his gaze, exhaling a long breath: “I never thought I’d misjudge someone one day.”
The Hojo Clan’s lord of revival closed his eyes and snapped his fan shut heavily.
“—The deed is done; now we can only see Tamome’s fortune.”
In the arena, eighteen types of hidden weapons, wrapped in Qi Barrier from Tamome Mototada’s entire body, shot toward Shangshan Che at high speed.
Clang clang clang—the momentum was impressive.
But it was useless.
No matter what poison the hidden weapons were coated with, if they couldn’t touch Shangshan Che’s physical body, they were meaningless.
Under Spirit Control Technique’s command, a high-strength terrifying Qi Circulation formed from intertwining pure spiritual power with Qi Barrier of various Sea of Qi attributes.
All manner of hidden weapons that ordinary people couldn’t block were effortlessly stopped mid-air and fell to the ground.
Instead, the sword lights from Shangshan Che’s Darkness Sword Secret Technique—low in power but full of taunt—kept landing on Tamome Mototada.
Bloody gashes bloomed across the aged skin.
“Tch… out of options, huh.”
Feeling the pain from the faint sword lights again, Tamome Mototada realized he couldn’t continue like this.
In an instant, dust billowed everywhere, obscuring Shangshan Che’s vision.
Tamome Mototada’s suppressed-to-the-limit Qi erupted downward, propelling him at extreme speed toward the Fighting Arena’s edge.
“Trying to escape?”
Then, a descending size 42 shoe sole crushed his nasal bone, slamming him heavily back to the ground.
“Damn it…”
Tamome Mototada cursed angrily, purple-black blood surging from his mouth.
He immediately recited the incantation for the blood-burning secret art in his mind.
—For now, only a desperate last stand!
The next instant, Shangshan Che sensed an abnormal fluctuation in Black Reserve’s entire aura.
He raised an eyebrow: “Trying to ult? Think this is a magical girl set?”
Shangshan Che reached out, grasping an ordinary plain spear from the void.
The spear tip traced a cold gleam in mid-air.
Slicing Tamome Mototada from top to bottom, from head to crotch—
In two.
Boiling crimson blood sprayed into the air, pattering down, only to be completely blocked outside Shangshan Che’s body by the Qi Circulation.
“In reality, no one waits for you to finish transforming before striking.”
Under the gaze of the crowd and demons, Shangshan Che stomped and crushed half of Tamome Mototada’s skull.
Just like the old man had done at the start to the corpse, he spat on it and wore the same mocking expression,
“That’s it?”
Shangshan Che looked up, puzzled: “What’s the difference between this old thing and the maggot I kicked to death by the roadside?”
In the Hojo Clan’s waiting area, dead silence reigned.
Hojo Ujiyasu gripped his fan tightly, cold pupils surging with deep killing intent.
Behind him, White Reserve was silent; the even younger Blue Reserve smiled cheerfully, seemingly unaffected by Black Reserve’s near-humiliating death.
“Second one, come on up.”
Shangshan Che glanced at the nonexistent watch on his wrist and said earnestly to the Hojo Clan group,
“I’m in a hurry.”
“Lord, let me go.”
In the silence, White Reserve’s voice was as steady as ever.
He took out a medicine jar from behind and poured several glistening brown pills into his mouth.
In moments, White Reserve’s previously unsteady aura stabilized, restoring him to peak strength.
As Hojo Ujiyasu was about to tell him to stand down, White Reserve spoke,
“If I go, it can let Lord gauge the opponent’s strength more clearly, to play the right cards.”
The eyes beneath the Noh Mask showed no fluctuation: “Victory is what we and Lord both desire, isn’t it?”
Hojo Ujiyasu fell silent.
Moments later, he drew a small doll from his waist, stripped off its white cloth, and handed it to White Reserve Kasahara Yasukatsu.
“Kasahara, sign your name on it with blood.”
White Reserve didn’t hesitate, bit his fingertip, and wrote his name with swift strokes on the white cloth.
Hojo Ujiyasu took back the cloth and doll, breathing a sigh of relief.
He said softly,
“Kasahara, martial fortune.”
White Reserve nodded deeply to him, dragging his long kusarigama toward the Fighting Arena.
—White Reserve didn’t know, but Shangshan Che standing in the arena had clearly seen what Hojo Ujiyasu solemnly produced earlier.
Life-Replacing Doll.
From the nearly identical style and white cloth, it was undoubtedly a Life-Replacing Doll that this Hojo head had taken out.
“Really generous to his subordinates.” Shangshan Che remarked.
Perhaps it was this generosity that allowed Hojo Ujiyasu to stand out among all the Hojo heads from ancient times to now.
On the towering audience seats, the samurai from the Edo Period, who had witnessed hundreds or thousands of life-and-death duels, held his breath.
He suddenly realized the Ring of Ages Arena was about to make headlines.
And not now, but when White Reserve failed and retreated, and the Hojo Clan’s third was slain by this youth.
—【Hojo Five Color Reserves’ three consecutively crushed by an unknown young upstart?】
That was topical, extremely topical.
Having been in the City of Disorder for some time, the samurai had seen many in the Fighting Arena using strange devices to start 【live streams】.
【Live stream】, said to be the best way to let people from all over pay attention to this duel.
Apparently, having hundreds or thousands watching such a stream was normal.
That many people could fill this small Fighting Arena!
The samurai’s breathing quickened.
He turned his head, hurried to a nearby man in advanced clothing, and asked: “Your Excellency, hello! Do you know how to live stream?”
The man from the Taisho Period looked baffled: “What’s that?”
The samurai was at a loss for words and had to ask others.
But there weren’t many audience members for the Hojo vs. Yagyu Dojo matchup, and even fewer people.
After asking around, the samurai found the “youngest” was a boy from the Showa Period.
But even that boy had no idea what “live stream” meant.
As for the lesser demons, forget it; they were weak and inexperienced, many having arrived in the City of Disorder inexplicably.
Before this, these lesser demons didn’t even know they were holed up in some corner of the Eternal World!
At that moment, a girl with a thick Kinki accent came running over: “Hey, samurai Your Excellency! What are you asking about!”
She thumbed at the shy Showa-era boy: “I heard that guy say you’re asking about ‘live stream’?”
The dejected samurai sprang up,
“Your Excellency! You know live stream!?”
“Of course we do.”
Tamamo patted her chest: “We see tons of people live streaming every day, though we rarely watch!”
“But…”
She looked around suspiciously: “In a remote place like this with no net or signal towers, can you even live stream?”
The samurai didn’t understand the jargon in her words, but that only made him more convinced this girl was the one he needed.
“【Deep Space Online】!”
The samurai shouted a term utterly mismatched with his attire and speech, addressing Tamamo: “With this thing, you can live stream in the City of Disorder!”
“If we can stream what’s happening in the Fighting Arena, lots of people will watch!”
Tamamo scratched her head, feeling it rang a bell.
She didn’t correct the samurai’s mistake but opened the search bar on her offline mobile phone and typed 【Deep Space Online】.
The next instant, the phone screen went pitch black.
Just as Tamamo thought her privately bought phone, costing 20,000 yen, was about to brick and overheat,
A pure black screen suddenly showed an eyeball LOGO wrapped in a triangle.
The logo vanished, replaced by a line of golden prompt.
【Welcome to Deep Space Online】
【Detected first entry, currently in “City of Disorder”. Change location?】
Huh? It actually works?
Tamamo blinked, finally recalling what this thing was…
No, this company or platform was the largest live stream platform even counting the Mortal Realm, though most business was outside it.
But there’s clearly no net now!
What principle is this?
Tamamo tapped the screen a few times, then saw the platform first promoting to her not hot streams or big streamers.
But four words—
【Start Live Stream】
……
Meanwhile, White Reserve Kasahara Yasukatsu had already stood before Shangshan Che.
For this top of the Five Color Reserves, Shangshan Che wouldn’t humiliate him like he did Black Reserve.
On the contrary, though insidious in battle, White Reserve gave opponents sufficient respect as a samurai both before and after fights, so Shangshan Che held a bit of respect for him.
Gazing at White Reserve’s indifferent resolute eyes, Shangshan Che saw him cup his hands slightly,
“Hojo Clan, Kasahara Yasukatsu.”
Shangshan Che opened his mouth, instinctively about to say “Imagawa Clan, Che”.
But the words normalized before reaching his throat,
“Yagyu Dojo, Shangshan Che.”
Kasahara Yasukatsu hooked his finger over the kusarigama,
“Please.”
“Surrender now and you won’t have to die.” Shangshan Che’s plain spear tapped the ground, not yet raised.
White Reserve’s eyes cooled.
“If Shangshan Your Excellency wants to toy with me like Tamome, say it directly; no need for circumlocution.”
“Just advice.” Shangshan Che said, “If you die, your lord will consume that precious Life-Replacing Doll, which should be his life-saving tool.”
—In history, the Hojo Clan was one of the Imagawa Clan’s allies.
And with the Imagawa Clan not yet present, Shangshan Che didn’t want to sour relations too much with this potential Hojo Clan ally.
—Tamome Mototada insulted Tsuchiya Yu, so he had to die without a whole corpse, humiliated no matter what.
That was enough.
Beyond that, better to have many friends and few enemies; that was the wiser approach.
The remaining Hojo Clan members were just first-time acquaintances.
Hearing this, White Reserve paused briefly.
But he soon shook his head: “If so, I must not betray Lord’s trust.”
Thus, Shangshan Che, who inexplicably felt his power increase a star level, raised his spear tip.
Just before stepping toward White Reserve, Shangshan Che’s peripheral vision caught Tamamo holding her mobile phone aimed at him.
—Weird, is there net here?
—No net here, but Deep Space Online live stream still works.
Though with only one phone, this emotionless stream was unprofessional, no commentary, and shaky as hell.
But the stream title was explosive.
【Eighteen this year, beats down Hojo!】
The thumbnail was Tamamo secretly zooming in on Hojo Ujiyasu’s cold blurry face.
So not long after Tamamo one-clicked start stream, the top-right online viewers hit dozens.
Seeing this, Tamamo got excited and began commentating: “Now on the field is White Reserve Kasahara Yasukatsu of the Hojo Clan’s Five Color Reserves…”
And the viewers drawn in by the title and thumbnail soon discovered…
This stream wasn’t clickbait!
Because that unfamiliar young Mortal Realmer was genuinely and effortlessly beating the Hojo Clan’s White Reserve into the ground.
No flashy techniques or Onmyōdō, just superior raw power, complete read on intentions, and vastly superior detail control.
All combined into an utterly solid foundation.
Plain, unadorned domination.
—The stream’s heat kept rising.
Hojo Ujiyasu frowned slightly, sensing a familiar feeling in his mind: “Feels like I’ve seen the guy facing Kasahara somewhere before.”
In the Fighting Arena.
Shangshan Che swung the ordinary plain spear, using the tip to deflect every attack from Kasahara Yasukatsu one by one.
Under Eye of Interpretation, all the opponent’s thoughts were crystal clear.
Kasahara Yasukatsu retreated step by step, feeling a strange powerless frustration.
This young Shangshan Che was odd!
White Reserve’s eyes glanced at the vermilion daito still sheathed at his waist; he realized Shangshan Che was holding back considerable strength against him.
—If so, he’d fail Lord’s expectations.
After a short breath, Kasahara Yasukatsu’s Qi and blood boiled in an instant.
The same secret art as Black Reserve earlier.
But compared to the latter, Kasahara Yasukatsu activated it far faster, giving Shangshan Che no time to interrupt the “transformation”.
“Come!”
Blazing white aura rose from beneath the Noh Mask; the red label above Kasahara Yasukatsu’s head deepened slightly.
“Good!”
Shangshan Che’s eyes widened, yet he still didn’t draw the Kaga Kiyomitsu at his waist.
Instead, the plain spear’s tip wrapped in a streak of chilling purple-black lightning.
This lightning exploded in scale instantly, surging along with the overwhelming spiritual pressure around Shangshan Che toward Kasahara Yasukatsu.
Rumble!
Heart-shaking thunder roared.
As the spear tip flexed out like a great bow, the brewing lightning in the sky obediently rained down, compressed to that single point at the tip!
Kasahara Yasukatsu’s eyes bulged, his entire vision filled by the surging purple-black thunder.
In his roar, blood-colored Qi-wrapped sickle blade and flintlock gun bullets shot forward!
Dead ahead, cold gleam like a dragon lunged!
Pure lightning forged from vast spiritual power shattered all obstacles in its path.
Finally, the near-broken spear tip pierced Kasahara Yasukatsu’s throat, protruding a small grayish tip from the back of his neck.
Plop.
White Reserve collapsed powerless, lifeless.
But his body had almost no visible wounds, looking as if merely asleep— a stark contrast to Black Reserve’s crushed corpse nearby.
In the silent Fighting Arena, Shangshan Che turned his gaze, meeting Hojo Ujiyasu who was looking right at him.
He let go, allowing the ordinary plain spear in his hand to turn to ash and scatter in the wind.
—Different attitudes lead to different ends.
That was what Shangshan Che wanted to tell Hojo Ujiyasu.
And at this moment, the stream viewers were surging amid Tamamo’s exclamations!
“He didn’t even draw his blade!”
That was the most common barrage on screen.
Shangshan Che activated Spirit Control Technique, voraciously absorbing the Fighting Arena’s spiritual energy—thicker than the Mortal Realm’s—quickly replenishing his nearly half-depleted spiritual power.
He glanced at Blue Reserve behind Hojo Ujiyasu, with thick finger joints, still smiling cheerfully.
—The third should be the bow expert “Tominaga Uemonjo”.
But against Shangshan Che’s expectations, the third entrant wasn’t this third of the Five Color Reserves.
With Hojo Ujiyasu expressionlessly waving his hand, the shadow at his side gradually condensed and rose into humanoid form.
A mysterious figure wrapped entirely in black cloth appeared in Shangshan Che’s view.
Above his head popped a name famed in later eras alongside Hattori Hanzo!
—【Fūma Kotarō】!
