Chapter 286: Obscure Moon Hall’s Eldest Disciple Sword Of Death! Gen Shinsui Watches, 128 Seats Filled, Elimination Begins!
In the Sky Castle, the massive venue capable of seating over a hundred thousand people was already scatteredly half-filled with audience members.
The reason they didn’t have the Ghost Gods skilled in construction build the venue even larger was that if the number of people doubled again, it would become hard to control.
“Yagyu, the plate lit up!”
In the slightly noisy environment, Tamamo abruptly stood up, staring at the number plate marked “62” in her hand.
She glanced at the back of the number plate and lowered her voice,
“In another six hours, it will begin.”
“I know.”
Yagyu Oshi took the number plate and walked toward seat number sixty-two, which had already lit up among the circle of tall, isolated seats in the venue.
After a dozen seconds or so, the commotion and cheers in the venue finally arrived belatedly as seats lit up one by one, making Tamamo feel the seat under her butt tremble a few times.
Yagyu Oshi couldn’t hear these noises.
He simply walked to the seat with his head down, then silently closed his eyes and sat down.
Yagyu Oshi’s Spirit, Energy, and Vitality had been continuously polished over the 168 hours of this past week until it shone smoothly like a pearl.
Everything was just waiting for the moment he drew his sword.
Next to Tamamo, Chisa—who had long stopped speaking to avoid disturbing Yagyu Oshi—was blinking her big eyes, holding up a large, brick-like mobile phone and doing a 360° panoramic shot.
To record the wonderful life and share it with her previous classmates.
It was only a few days ago, when Chisa received a work phone from Nanjo Emi, that she learned through Tamamo that most of her former classmates actually had mobile phones.
They just never showed off in front of her to spare her feelings.
Click.
The thirty-second short video finished recording. Chisa sent it to the Line group chat, then stood on the VIP seat with an excellent view and added 【So many people, it feels a bit noisy】 Versailles words.
“Little benefactor, is this seat taken?”
“No one.”
The exchange between her sister and the stranger drew Chisa’s attention.
She blinked and saw a fair-lipped, white-toothed little monk slightly taller than her by half a head, and a “giant” wearing a duckbill cap and sunglasses, sitting next to Tamamo.
They were precisely Hozoin Inrai, who had said yesterday he would come to watch the matches, and Okabe Motonobu, whom he had run into on the road.
After sitting down, Okabe Motonobu remained completely still and silent, fully restraining her Qi and using her peripheral vision through the dark lenses to secretly observe the surroundings.
At first glance, she looked purely like a passerby who happened to end up in this row.
The little monk Inrai had no such reservations. He sat with his legs crossed, fiddling with his newly acquired mobile phone, taking a couple of photos of the surroundings and sending them to who-knows-who.
Tamamo asked curiously, “You’re just a little monk who isn’t even familiar with mobile phones—aren’t you afraid of running into danger or getting lost coming here alone?”
She paused, her expression somewhat suspicious,
“Could it be you snuck out without telling the elders at the temple?”
Hozoin Inrai put down his mobile phone, looked Tamamo over, and raised his tone with an “oh”: “Aren’t you too?”
“Besides… you two are probably not even older than me in elementary school years.”
“Huh? I’m not an elementary schooler!” Tamamo blurted out in her Kansai dialect in a fluster.
She thumped her chest and pulled out perfectly ordinary identification: “Look closely, little monk—I’m a bona fide adult! A reliable Special Affairs Office agent!”
Now it was Hozoin Inrai’s turn to be surprised. He cupped his hands,
“Turns out the little benefactor is just malnourished and short in stature. My apologies, my apologies.”
Tamamo （blushing state）: …
She was just about to say something when the little monk Inrai’s mobile phone vibrated on his leg. He picked it up, looked, then stood and waved into the distance, shouting,
“Brother Enshō—over here!”
Brother Enshō… Enshō?
Tamamo, who had been about to flush red, froze, feeling the dharma name sounded familiar.
Calming down, she quickly retrieved the information from her mind… The Enshō she had heard of was naturally the Hozoin Enshō!
Tamamo narrowed her eyes and, after examining Inrai’s kesa for a moment, confirmed one thing.
—This little monk was also a monk from Hozoin?
When the bald, burly man with the dharma name Enshō finally approached, sweating profusely and carrying popcorn, Tamamo’s pupils suddenly shrank to pinpricks as if she had remembered something.
Sky Castle’s VIP seats, Hozoin, Enshō, a little monk about Chisa’s age…
To verify her astonishing guess, Tamamo thought it over and couldn’t hold back from slowly asking the smiling little monk who had sat down,
“You’re that Hozoin-ryu’s ‘God-Given Treasure,’ the legendary Hozoin Inrai who was born knowing the truths of martial arts…?”
At the instant she uttered the last five words, Tamamo suddenly felt her whole body stiffen, as if she had awakened some utterly terrifying monster.
Hozoin Inrai, with his back to her, slowly turned around,
“So that’s what they call me out there.”
The little monk was still grinning, but his tone made one instinctively shiver.
He extended his hand, like some writhing, twisting monster opening its deep maw toward Tamamo,
“Nice to meet you. I’m Hozoin Inrai.”
Tamamo didn’t respond, because she couldn’t even move a finger.
At that moment, Chisa yanked Tamamo back to her side, followed by a childish angry voice,
“Hey! Little monk, don’t scare big sis!”
Hozoin Inrai froze at the words, then rubbed his cheek and wiped away the chilling smile.
He sighed softly,
“Um… sorry, I just reacted that way because a stranger suddenly mentioned it…”
The little monk Inrai scratched his cheek embarrassedly, turned and grabbed a bucket of popcorn from Ensho Monk’s hands, and placed it in front of the Tamamo sisters,
“As an apology, please have some popcorn.”
Chisa, who had been about to bring up Shangshan Che to throw some tough words, also paused, then thanked him after taking the popcorn.
Chisa thought to herself, so the little monk isn’t a bad guy.
The atmosphere on the VIP side began to warm up, while tension rose at the venue’s doorway.
It was a dispute between schools.
Two boy competitors with swords at their waists faced off, their undisguised sharp killing intent making the ordinary audience around them quickly scatter, even breaking up the halfway-formed line.
Just as the killing intent peaked and both tachi were drawn simultaneously, a golden-light-emitting mountain of flesh appeared between them.
More precisely, it gripped both descending tachi at once.
Those seemingly soft giant palms clenched the blades tightly, without even a drop of blood appearing on the skin.
Amid the boys’ incredulous gazes, the mountain of flesh stood up and spoke in a low voice,
“You can fight to the death later, but don’t disgrace your masters here.”
The newcomer was the number one seed from Ota Ward, the legendary rikishi with 126 consecutive sumo victories—Raikō!
In the previous puppet test, Raikō had turned it to dust with a simple push, earning a TOP7 score.
Raikō’s hands trembled slightly, transmitting terrifying force through the blades to the two boys.
The rikishi released his grip and said flatly,
“Now, are you sober?”
The two boys, who could barely stand, said nothing and silently sheathed their swords, following the rikishi into the venue.
In a “gap” invisible to all audience members, Kamo Kiichi from an ancient Onmyoji family and Tsuchimikado Ran calmly took their silent seats at TOP3 and 4.
The only ones who could truly pique their interest were geniuses from other ancient Onmyoji families or people from the Three Great Families…
The two casually glanced past the TOP2 seat and locked onto the highest TOP1, on that yet-to-appear figure.
In the venue’s entry passage, the sword-bearing youth ignored by the two family Onmyoji walked in with half-open eyes, looking sleepy.
His presence was so low, and without a profile photo or publicity, he had little fame.
Even having secured TOP2, few surrounding audience members recognized him.
Of course, Hozoin Inrai was not among them.
The little monk glanced up and locked his gaze on the swaying youth.
Chisa, who had been playing Gomoku on her mobile phone with him as a beginner, also looked up,
“Little monk, what are you looking at?”
Inrai chuckled, “A Katori Shinto-ryu expert.”
No sooner had he spoken than the youth, previously over a hundred meters away, slowly walked up to them.
Kitada Kei first smiled warmly at Chisa in greeting, then looked at Inrai and asked expectantly with open eyes, “Are you a competitor too?”
Inrai the little monk shook his head: “No, I’m just here to watch.”
Kitada Kei nodded: “That’s too bad.”
With that, he didn’t linger and walked a few steps to the TOP2 seat, sitting down quietly.
Almost no one in the venue even noticed someone had been added to the seat.
…
At this time, at the doorway of the Tokugawa family’s Tokyo branch.
“Great-Grandfather, we could just watch the live stream. There are really too many people there.”
Tokugawa Ryuji said, looking up toward the Sky Castle.
Beside him, the gaunt old man rasped a laugh: “Even so, isn’t there still you, Ryuji?”
Understanding the answer, Tokugawa Ryuji helplessly opened the car’s back door first, then got in.
The car started silently.
Tokugawa Ryuji stared out the window.
Actually, he was a bit curious just how far his little sister, whom Seiko had praised to the skies, had grown.
Though he had previously tested her Sword Domain with his Sword Realm, it was ultimately just a greeting that didn’t even count as “testing hands.”
One couldn’t sense the ultimate extent of a person’s growth just from meeting face-to-face and exchanging a few words.
It required seeing the “sword.”
Tokugawa Ryuji wanted to see with his own eyes what level Lili Zi’s sword had reached.
Besides her, Minamoto Shizuka from the Minamoto Family was decent too… Right, and that Shangshan boy he had met before was passable.
With that thought, Tokugawa Ryuji silently closed his eyes.
It was a pity that Shangshan boy couldn’t override his own little sister and forcibly take her away from this place of trouble, away from these pointless conflicts.
…
On the rooftop in Tokyo Shinjuku District.
Minamoto Shizuka, Saito Ryuichi, and Takizawa Kai stood there, each taking out their glowing number plates.
Minamoto Shizuka rubbed the hilt of Hotarumaru with her fingertip and spoke to the two before her,
“From now on, we’re enemies.”
Takizawa Kai, fully recovered, took a deep breath and fully retracted his viscous Spiritual Power Fluctuation into his body.
The boy grinned confidently and shook his number plate: “Miss Gen, don’t get defeated before I arrive.”
Minamoto Shizuka simply replied,
“Takizawa Jun, that’s a nice thought, but save that talk until after you defeat Shangshan Jun.”
Takizawa Kai laughed heartily and slapped his chest hard,
“Of course!”
Saito Ryuichi hadn’t spoken from start to finish.
These past days, though he had developed some new moves, he hadn’t gathered much intelligence on other opponents or potential rivals.
Having fallen behind in the information war, Saito Ryuichi still harbored a bit of worry.
—A spell that could instantly summon everyone from the Mortal Realm was just too overpowered.
The head of the Saito Family activated his number plate and appeared in the Sky Castle amid a sigh.
Seeing the two vanish before him enveloped in pillars of light, Minamoto Shizuka also pinched her number plate and activated it.
The girl who had never been favored in the Minamoto Family gripped her hilt tightly, recalling her elder sister’s evaluation of Shangshan Che as “very good.”
A pillar of light flashed, and Minamoto Shizuka opened her eyes at the Sky Castle entrance.
Vast Sword Intent hung precisely over everyone’s heads, ruthlessly suppressing all probing gazes from around.
She would prove who was the strongest.
Takizawa Kai, about to retort, let out a “whoa” and smacked his lips: “Miss Gen, you’re too ruthless—that’ll draw everyone’s ire…”
Saito Ryuichi hadn’t cared about such trivialities from the start.
He scanned around, found the entrance direction, and said to the two, “Let’s go.”
Under the gaze of countless eyes of various colors.
Minamoto Shizuka and the other two entered.
On the high platform where the Ghost Gods were seated, Nanjo Emi touched her chin and said, “The Minamoto Family’s new generation is pretty good.”
“It’s a pity they’re still one step short of forging Sword Heart.”
Huijue also cast his gaze down, saying with slight regret, “In my view, that one still harbors deep obsessions and demonic barriers in her heart… At this rate, it may be years before she forms Sword Heart.”
“Master, saying that—aren’t you treating Sword Heart like common cabbage, grabbing handfuls?”
A rough voice sounded behind Huijue. A burly man chewing dry straw, with disheveled black hair over his eyes and clad in thin, tattered dōgi, emerged from the darkness.
The man, with arms wrapped in dark red bandages as thick as normal thighs stuffed in his pockets, casually nodded his chin at Nanjo Emi,
“Yo, long time no see, Nanjo young… Haha, should I call you Great Officer now?”
“It’s not work hours, so any title’s fine.”
Nanjo Emi glanced sideways: “Rather, you—Obscure Moon—shouldn’t your master come pick some good seedlings?”
“Anyone who can enter here isn’t just ‘seedlings’ anymore.”
The man snorted lightly: “Besides, she said she’s too lazy to move, so she sent me to look after little Chihaya.”
Kujō Rōgetsu stomped his foot in annoyance,
“Damn, that old coot is lazier than death… Hasn’t moved her butt in years—wouldn’t know when she actually keels over in the dojo.”
After praising the master-disciple bond, Nanjo Emi recalled the man’s information—
Obscure Moon Hall’s top disciple, also the one with the highest achievements there, nearly rivaling Kujo Obuya herself—Kujō Rōgetsu.
Many years ago, the young him had a rather infamous creepy nickname.
—”Sword of Death.”
As the name implied, no person or demon who had seen him draw his sword survived.
But Nanjo Emi knew that rumor was baseless.
Kujō Rōgetsu slowly swept his gaze around the entire venue and smiled: “There sure are a lot of experts—it’s got me itching a bit.”
Noticing Nanjo Emi’s look, he waved it off: “Relax, Nanjo. I’m not my idiot little brother—I won’t bully the small with the great.”
With that, Kujō Rōgetsu changed tack,
“But how about you two, Nanjo and Master…”
Before he finished, both rejected him outright.
“Sorry, can’t spar—overtime alone is killing me.”
“This monk isn’t that idle yet, benefactor Kujo.”
“Tch, boring.”
Kujō Rōgetsu leaned against the wall, biting his straw root: “So strong, yet not even willing to spar.”
Ignoring this guy with excess energy to vent, Nanjo Emi continued watching the entrance, then her eyes lit up.
Because the entrants now were Shangshan Che, Lili Zi, and Akechi Yuya, whom they had arranged to meet earlier.
—Shangshan Che had just entered the venue without looking around when he saw a tall, sturdy man in a black suit charging over with resolute momentum, hugging a large foam box.
What was this? Looking for trouble?
Shangshan Che was about to flick him flying to avoid trouble when he heard the black suit shout loudly: “Shangshan Ge Xia! Shangshan Ge Xia!”
The black suit ran up to Shangshan Che panting, already drenched in sweat from the surrounding gazes.
He opened the foam box, revealing bottles of lemon tea and a pile of ice packs inside, and gasped,
“—This is lemon tea from our young master, er, Kyuuketsuin Kin Your Excellency, for you.”
Kyuuketsuin Kin… sent lemon tea.
This stuff was even cold-chain transported.
Shangshan Che was a bit dazed.
The black suit explained: “The young master said he’s afraid you’ll get thirsty mid-watch without a beverage, so he had me deliver a box of lemon tea now.”
He said awkwardly,
“Since Sky Castle doesn’t allow boxes inscribed with cooling spells, we had to use physical cooling—please forgive us…”
The black suit bowed deeply.
Shangshan Che blinked, looking at the nearby now-empty vending machine, and farther off, the long queue forming.
He exchanged a glance with Lili Zi, both seeing the same thought in each other’s eyes.
—Good stuff!
Shangshan Che smiled and took the box solemnly, saying to the black suit, “I’ll take the lemon tea. Please convey my regards to Kyuuketsuin Your Excellency.”
The black suit let out a surprised “ah.”
Seeing the genuine smile on Shangshan Che’s face, he hadn’t expected the lemon tea to work this well.
As expected of the young master!
So, what was that Kyuuketsuin young master doing at this moment?
—Like a replay, Kyuuketsuin Kin was still wearing the same clothes, rubbing the same controller, drinking the same beverage, sitting in the same spot.
Only the BOSS on the TV screen was different.
Beep beep beep!
Having just dodged the last fast-slow slash of a phase-two BOSS, broken its poise bar, and entered the frantic DPS phase, Kyuuketsuin Kin’s mobile phone beside him vibrated.
He glanced at the screen with his peripheral vision.
【Sister Shinsui】
The unexpected call made Kyuuketsuin Kin’s sleepy eyes snap wide; he had to reach with his right hand to pick up the phone.
And naturally, he couldn’t neglect the BOSS down to its last sliver of health.
In that case…
Kyuuketsuin Kin set the controller on the ground and answered the call with his right hand.
Finally, he placed his right foot where his hand had been!
The switch left an opening, and Kyuuketsuin Kin took a light hit, making the deeply immersed gamer yelp in pain.
The call connected, and an indifferent, watery voice came through,
“Little Kin, where are you now?”
“Home.”
“I knew it.”
“Um, Sister Shinsui, is something up?”
“Nothing to do, wanted to watch the Tokyo Seed Battle.”
Amid extreme rolls, Kyuuketsuin Kin laughed: “Sister Shinsui, you can just say you want to watch your own little sister.”
Silence on the line.
Kyuuketsuin Kin, sweat beading on his forehead, stiffly changed the subject: “Sister Shinsui, where are you? Should I come to you…”
Thump thump thump.
The indifferent voice returned,
“I’m in.”
Accompanied by the creak of a wooden door, a girl in a black dress walked in expressionlessly.
Gen Shinsui looked down thoughtfully at Kyuuketsuin Kin’s odd posture and the huge monster’s wails on the 100-inch screen.
“Sister Shinsui… this… I…”
Kyuuketsuin Kin tried to wave and explain, but Gen Shinsui cut him off,
“Relax, no one noticed I came.”
After tidying up, the somewhat awkward Kyuuketsuin Kin poured Gen Shinsui a cup of cheap iced barley tea, finished his own first, then asked,
“By the way, Sister Shinsui, why come all the way to my place to watch?”
Gen Shinsui replied: “Mobile phone’s too small, and I don’t have one—hard to watch.”
Hearing this, Kyuuketsuin Kin realized the Minamoto Family was quite ancient and traditional, with few modern facilities.
Rumor had it even air conditioning wasn’t widespread!
Gen Shinsui, for focused cultivation, hadn’t touched any electronics.
Ugh, terrifying.
Kyuuketsuin Kin stuck out his tongue, unable to imagine such a dull life.
He laughed: “Sister Shinsui, don’t worry—I’ll switch channels to the Seed Battle right away.”
With that, under Gen Shinsui’s puzzled gaze, Kyuuketsuin Kin tossed aside the “remote” and picked up his mobile phone instead.
In seconds, the 8K Seed Battle live stream was cast to the 100-inch TV.
Gen Shinsui first tilted her head in confusion, then praised: “Little Kin, you’re pretty good with electronics.”
Just then, close-ups of TOP10 appeared, from Saito Ryuichi to Shangshan Che, ending with Gen Shinsui indifferently looking down at everything below.
After brief opening remarks, the Onmyo Assistant from the Minamoto Family announced loudly,
“I declare—the first Eastern Region Seed Battle Elimination Tournament!”
“Officially begins!”
Still 6K, monthly votes please!
