As Yu Chanzi’s words fell, the command tent fell so silent that a dropped needle could be heard.
The charcoal brazier crackled, the Grand Marshal of Anti-Japanese’s brows were tightly knitted, and several generals looked on in bafflement.
Hearing this, Li Yan’s heart tightened as well, and his gaze turned toward the Wudang Sect Leader.
Wang Daoxuan and Sha Lifei were still holding out in that desperate place, men falling with every passing moment, yet Yu Chanzi now claimed that this New God they had spent such immense effort to invite was not meant for the Evil God and Ghost Soldiers before their eyes?
The oppressive silence in the tent was broken by Yu Chanzi.
The old Daoist lightly rested his horsetail whisk on the crook of his arm, his expression grave. He did not indulge in mystifying words, but spoke bluntly: "I understand the doubts in your hearts. Yet the strangeness of the situation far exceeds that Liaodong corner."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone present before finally settling on Li Yan. "The storms at sea have cut us off, making the transmission of messages arduous. But just before the waves first rose, the Hidden Scale Guard agents lurking in Japan staked their lives to send out a single top-secret report."
The breathing of the generals in the tent unconsciously stalled.
Li Yan clenched the hilt of the Duan Chen Blade at his waist; the cold touch of metal kept his mind clear.
He knew that anything serious enough for Yu Chanzi to treat with such gravity could never be a trivial matter.
"Toyotomi Hideyoshi,"
Yu Chanzi uttered the name, carrying a hint of chill, "That Japanese ’Taige’ had already burned his oil to its end, yet the Jianmu Demon intervened. They used some extremely wicked, terribly costly secret technique to forcibly extend his life. Now, not only has he again taken firm hold of power, but his temperament has grown ever more violent and sinister."
"Nor is that all." Yu Chanzi’s voice dropped lower still, and the temperature in the tent seemed to plunge with it. "A dead man, Oda Nobunaga, has also returned to fortune and misfortune."
"Oda Nobunaga?" One grizzled old general frowned, clearly familiar with the name.
"That very man!"
Yu Chanzi inclined his head and looked around at them. "He has returned to the world in the form of a ’Demon King’, and is no mere Wandering Ghost."
"The foundation of his power lies in the Netherworld filth that leaked out when the Jianmu tore open the seams of the Dharma Realm, blended with the native grudges of Japan. Under Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s command, all those discontented, ambitious men have flocked to his banner."
"In a brief span of time, his force has already taken shape, entrenched in one region, standing on equal footing with Toyotomi."
Li Yan’s heart sank.
Internal chaos in Japan ought, on the surface, to be a blessing, yet with Jianmu’s hand in it, it would never be so simple.
He thought of those twisted Evil God phantoms in White Tiger Gully, thought of the polluted Dark Five Immortals, and an ominous foreboding surged up within him.
Yu Chanzi went on: "The truly strange thing is that Toyotomi and Oda have not presently turned their blades upon each other, but are instead each lying low. Toyotomi sits in the Capital City, Oda entrenches himself in his old territory at Azuchi, and the two have tacitly halted large-scale clashes."
"The Hidden Scale Guard reports that within their respective domains, they are indulging in frenzied licentious worship!"
As he spat out the last two words, the old Daoist’s voice carried deep disgust.
"This is not ordinary Tribute to Ancestor Gods. In deep mountains, on Ancient Battlefields, at Chaotic Burial Mounds, and even inside towns, they erect evil altars, using living human flesh and souls as Sacrificial Offerings, to pay Tribute, awaken, or summon those things long forgotten—or that never ought to exist in the Human World at all."
"The Hundred Ghosts Night Parade is no longer mere legend: Bone Women devouring men, Green Monks roaming the hills, River Monsters stirring up Evil Spirits... Strange occurrences have multiplied more than tenfold across the land!"
"Worse still, some agents on remote isles have witnessed Sea Master phantoms vast as mountain ridges..."
A chorus of sucked-in breaths rose within the tent.
The generals were hardened veterans of the battlefield, unafraid of steel and shot, but before such eerie, unfathomable Evil Spirits spreading beyond human comprehension, chills inevitably crept into their hearts.
They might not know the details, but even at a glance it was trouble.
"These summoned and empowered Hundred Demons are no rabble."
Yu Chanzi continued: "The Hidden Scale Guard has discovered that they are being driven and organized by some invisible force, gathering from all directions toward several key nodes where the Earth Vein Yin Sha converges. By the look of it, this is no petty skirmishing—they are clearly being marshaled into an army!"
"An unprecedented, foul host composed of demon ghosts and evil fiends!"
His gaze flashed like lightning across their stunned faces and finally settled upon the three-zhang-tall outline of the Sui Lun True Monarch Statue, shrouded in Restriction. His tone weighed heavy as a mountain: "This is where the true threat lies."
"Jianmu aided Toyotomi in extending his life, revived Oda, and stoked their internal strife as a diversion; using their respective influence to stir this vast licentious worship across all Japan, and to gather this demon army—that is the real design!"
"Once this Ghost Soldiers host is fully formed, then combined with the ’Grinding Plate’ evil formation, and with the storms at sea cutting off our court’s Navy... Then my Liaodong army, and even the entire Northern Border of the Divine State, will be under attack from front and rear!"
Yu Chanzi drew a deep breath and looked to that silent giant of steel and Steam, his voice carrying a break-the-cauldrons-and-sink-the-boats resolve: "The incense of Sui Lun True Monarch is not bound by mountains and Earth Veins, nor does it fear the isolation of formations that invert Yin Yang."
"When I and the court officials petitioned for this Divine Statue, it was not for these common ghosts and Evil Gods nourished by the Earth Vein, but for the day when that demon army crosses the sea—or joins with Zhao Changsheng inside and out—so that we may then shatter its foul vapors, burn its demonic flesh, and set the cosmos right!"
In the command tent the charcoal crackled and popped, light and shadow flickering across the gravely set faces of those present.
The Grand Marshal of Anti-Japanese spoke in a deep voice: "True Man, I understand your intent. If we were to use the Divine Power of Sui Lun True Monarch now to forcefully break the enemy formation, it would be no different from startling the grass and scaring off the snake, merely giving that Hundred Demons army in Japan time to gain its guard. And yet..."
He suddenly raised his head, his gaze falling upon ’White Tiger Gully’, heavily encircled in vermillion on the map, his expression darkening. "Thousands of loyal and brave in Liaodong are cut off from rations, grievously wounded, and besieged in that lonely gully! Are we to sit and watch our comrades all perish in the maws of Evil Spirits?!"
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