The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 609 The Age of Gods Returns
Within Kyoto, with the chaos of war among the daimyo and the gradual decline of the emperor's power, Suzaku Avenue, the city's main axis, had long been abandoned and turned into a long, muddy strip of ruins.

Many displaced people and bankrupt merchants set up shacks amidst the ruins on both sides of Suzaku Avenue to barely survive.

It was already high in the sky. Normally, this place would have been bustling with activity by now, but because of the fire and loud noise at the Imperial Palace last night, the people here were staying indoors in fear.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

On a narrow path beside the densely packed shacks, a boy sneakily made his way along the shadows and secretly stole a salted fish hanging on the wall.

Chaos brings opportunity. For the boy, a salted fish was enough to make him take the risk... He could have his mother stew a bowl of fish soup so she wouldn't have to worry about being hungry at night, and perhaps she could even tell him some of his favorite stories.

What kind of monster were we talking about last time?

Oh...it seems to be "meat person".

To be honest, it had been more than half a year since his mother had last been in the mood to tell a story, so he couldn't quite remember the story about the "flesh man".

What does it look like again?

The boy groped his way back while recalling what he had come from.

"Shout!"

Before he could take more than a few steps, a shrill scream suddenly came from afar, like the howl of a wounded wild beast. It was exceptionally loud, and even the ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble along with the scream.

He instinctively turned around to look.

pat.

The salted fish he was carrying fell to the ground.

The boy's eyes widened as he watched the blurry human figure fly backward from the edge of his field of vision and crash into the Vermilion Bird Avenue.

The plain white priest's robes had become nothing more than a tattered rag wrapped around his body, and the crimson, unguarded sword was reduced to a mere inch of blade. Fortunately, the humanoid figure had completely lost its mind; it rolled over and got to its feet, letting out a roar in the direction from which it had been thrown.

"Ouch!!!"

The sound was extremely mournful, and the lament lingered for a long time.

The boy suddenly shivered.

A humanoid figure, devoid of skin, hair, ears, eyes, and mouth, covered in blood... a fleshy human!
He finally remembered the story his mother had told him... that blurry human figure was clearly the fleshy person his mother had mentioned!

The monsters in mythology really exist!
The boy collapsed to the ground with a thud, trembling uncontrollably. He tried to get up and run away, but his legs and arms were paralyzed with fear.

"No, no... I have to escape..."

"Run! Run! Run!"

He stared intently at the end of the passage, where the exposed surface of the Vermilion Bird Avenue stretched for several meters, his body trembling as he tried to support himself.

"Flesh-man is a monster that eats people!"

"If it finds us, we're dead!"

"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!"

The boy trembled, but finally managed to stand up half a foot.

Before he could even stand up straight—thump!

A muffled sound!
The fleshy man who had just disappeared from his line of sight flew back again at a speed ten times faster than when he pounced!
Wow!

No, it's not just flying upside down.

He was slammed to the ground by a force far exceeding his weight! His tailbone, which hit the ground first, shattered instantly, followed by his spine, back of the head, torso, and limbs, all scattering with a crash.

"!!!"

The boy had just gotten up a bit when his legs gave way again, and he sat back down.

what's the situation!
Why did the fleshy man die?!
Who killed him!

Are there other monsters besides the flesh-eating human?

As if echoing his innermost thoughts, the next moment, another figure flew backward from outside his field of vision. In that instant, the boy saw its appearance clearly.

"Wood Spirit?"

He shuddered again.

Wow.

The monster called "Wood Spirit" also shattered on the ground.

Then came the second, the third... The monsters flew backward one after another. Most of them turned into a pile of mangled flesh and blood upon landing, but a few powerful monsters were only injured. They flipped over and rushed back the way they came—and then flew back even faster.

"Umibozu, Aoandon, Ameonna, Kosora, Eri-tachi... they're all dead!"

"The Great Tengu, the White Powder Granny, and the Beautiful Maiden are not dead... but they can no longer move!"

"In the end what happened!"

One by one, monsters that only existed in stories appeared, one by one were seriously injured, and one by one died. The boy was so shocked that he could not speak.

As he was shocked, a thought gradually took hold of his mind.

Who killed the monsters?

Is it some great demon, like Tamamo-no-Mae, Shuten-dōji, Yamata no Orochi, or Emperor Sutoku? Or has the Age of Gods descended once more, and those gods who only exist in Shinto scriptures have reappeared in the world?

The answer was quickly revealed.

The monsters crashing to the ground became more and more numerous, and the process of rushing back and being blasted away became shorter and shorter. Finally, the battle circle shifted into the boy's line of sight.

It was a semi-transparent, hemispherical sphere, covered with countless monsters that were constantly attacking it.

Due to the losses along the way, the quantity has been greatly reduced, but the sphere is still completely blocked.

Suddenly, a bulge appeared on the sphere composed of dense monsters, as if a wooden stick had been propped up inside a balloon, supporting the sphere—and then it exploded with a bang!

Bang!
The monsters surrounding the protrusion let out a shrill scream, and then flew away like fragments of a burst balloon.

The shattered flesh outlined the shape of a fist in mid-air.

In that instant, the boy's gaze followed the opening created by the fist and penetrated into the interior of the sphere.

"……people?"

The boy uttered a hoarse question.

At the very center of the sphere was a man, a man with an air of nobility even greater than that of the Emperor, dressed in a black robe and with a heroic appearance!

"people?"

The boy asked another question.

In the stories my mother told, most of the time humans were unable to deal with monsters, let alone such a dense horde of monsters as there were now!
Only a god could do that! It should be someone like Michon Myō-no-Mō, or Susanō, or at least a great demon like Tamamo-no-Mae or Shuten-dōji!

How could it possibly be a person!
Thinking this, the boy forgot all about escaping and just stared intently at the man.

The breach that had been blasted open earlier was once again filled by the arriving monsters, obscuring the view once more. Before the boy could even lament, a voice came from afar within the sphere.

"Ugh, it stinks."

"Are you trying to suffocate me because you can't beat me?"

As the boy's incomprehensible voice rang out, another extremely jarring sound, like metal scraping against porcelain, followed.

"It's been a long time since I used this trick, I don't know if I've gotten rusty."

The voice spoke lazily, then paused, as if making some kind of movement.

A moment later, the voice, carrying a chilling killing intent, uttered four words.

"Black Pole - Floating Pagoda".

(End of this chapter)