Tokyo: Proving one's position from behind the scenes

The earth spider's corpse lay on its side on the rubble, its eight legs still twitching slightly. The grayish-white fluid that had seeped from the fissure in its abdomen had gradually dried, leaving a large dark brown stain on the ground. Moonlight shone on the massive corpse, and the grayish-white chitinous exoskeleton lost its life-giving luster, turning into a dull, old plaster-like color.

Its entire body was pushed from the inside by something, and the edge of the crack in its abdomen turned outward. The dried bodily fluids were re-wetted by new grayish-white mucus, which gushed out from the crack and flowed down the curve of the abdomen. Inside the crack, something was squeezing out.

Murai was the first to notice. He stood at the edge of the dirt road, the detector still in his hand. The waveform on the screen, which had been calm after Tsuchigumo's death, suddenly started to flicker again. The beeping sound resumed, sharper and more rapid than ever before. His gaze shifted from the screen to the corpse, seeing more and more viscous fluid gushing from the abdominal fissure, the edges of the fissure being stretched open from the inside, emitting a wet, sticky tearing sound.

Something floated up from the crack.

That was a finger.

Dry, dark brown fingers, the skin clinging tightly to the bone. About ten centimeters long, the nails were still there, dark yellow, slightly curved, the cut at the base of the finger jagged, with fine cracks at the bone's break. The fingers emerged from the earth spider's corpse, hovering about a foot above the abdominal fissure, slowly rotating as if displaying themselves in the moonlight.

Grayish-white slime dripped from the surface of my fingers, falling drop by drop onto the earth spider's abdomen with a soft pattering sound. The slime couldn't stick to its surface at all, like water droplets rolling off a lotus leaf.

Murai opened his mouth, as if he wanted to shout something, but the sound got stuck in his throat.

His eyes were fixed on the finger suspended in mid-air. He recalled the description he had read in the Metropolitan Police Department's classified files: the finger that the shrine maiden of Hoshimiya Inari Shrine had retrieved from the building in Ayase was exactly the same as the one in front of him.

His finger pressed a button on the side of the detector—a real-time communication switch specially installed by the Metropolitan Police Department for this type of mission. Once pressed, the detector would automatically package the current data and send it back to the Operations Division's server, along with the location coordinates and timestamp. A very short electronic beep mingled with the beeping sound; the data had been sent.

The spider's fangs shattered without warning.

The two chelipeds that King Kong had broken off and thrown to the ground were already covered with cracks on their black, hard shells, left by King Kong's grip. Suddenly, those cracks all widened, extending from the base of the chelipeds to the tips, at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye. As the cracks spread, the grayish-white soft tissue inside the chelipeds began to expand, as if some compressed gas was being rapidly released. Fragments of the black shell peeled off the surface, making a fine, cracking sound like ice breaking, before exploding violently.

The debris from the explosion traveled at incredible speeds—black, hard shell fragments, grayish-white soft tissue pieces, and residual venom—spraying in all directions within the blast wave. Fragments struck the collapsed ruins of the temple, denting the wooden pillars. They hit the soil, kicking up small clouds of dust. They struck the crooked gateposts of the temple, chipping away at the lacquered wood, leaving raw, white streaks.

One of the chelicerae fragments, about the size of a palm, with edges as sharp as a rough obsidian knife, traced an arc in the moonlight and spun as it flew toward the dirt road.

The monk Dilu stood on the dirt road, his crimson robe billowing backward in the shockwave of the explosion. His right hand remained in the posture it had been in after casting the spell, fingers spread, palm facing outward. The golden thread connecting the Vajra image had just been retracted, and the golden light was slowly fading from his palm. His body was slightly turned towards the direction of the earth spider's corpse, his left shoulder exposed.

The shards cut in from behind, slicing through the multiple layers of the crimson robe, then through the dark gray monastic robe beneath, and finally piercing the muscle behind the left shoulder. Blood seeped from the wound, soaking the gray fabric of the monastic robe, then the crimson fabric of the robe, turning a dark brown that was almost black in the moonlight.

Monk Dilu swayed slightly.

He looked down at his left shoulder. The shoulder section of his crimson robe was soaked with a mixture of blood and poison, the fabric clinging to his skin and outlining the contours of the embedded fragment. He raised his right hand, his fingers gripping the small protruding edge of the fragment, and pulled it outward with force.

The fragment was pulled from the wound, accompanied by a liquid somewhere between dark red and purplish-black. The liquid gushed from the wound slowly but steadily. Monk Dilu threw the fragment on the ground; the black, hard shell struck the gravel of the dirt road with a crisp sound. His body swayed again, this time more violently than before. His right foot took half a step back, the teeth of his wooden clogs sinking into the mud, stabilizing his body.

"master!"

Maeda Shunichi's voice came from the edge of the rubble. The old monk struggled to his feet from his kneeling position. The hem of his robe was covered with mud and gravel. He trudged through the rubble, his wooden clogs stumbling and nearly falling several times, but he did not stop.

The monk Jiraiya turned to face Maeda Shunichi. Moonlight shone on his face, revealing that on the left side of his aged face, exactly as it had been over sixty years ago, a faint grayish-white tinge had begun to appear. This grayish-white tinge spread upwards from the edge of his left jaw, past his cheekbone, and was approaching the lower eyelid of his left eye. His left eye was more cloudy than his right, and the pupil's reaction was slower, as if a very thin layer of gray mist veiled the surface of his eyeball.

But his posture remained upright, like an old tree that had been struck by lightning but had not yet fallen. His crimson robe swayed slightly in the night wind, the hem of which was stained with a mixture of blood and venom dripping from his wounds, leaving a few dark, damp stains on the dirt road.

Maeda Shunichi walked up to him and reached out to take his arm. Jiraiya shook his head slightly, as if to say no.

"I came here to check if the seal is secure, and now I can repay a debt of karma." His gaze moved from Maeda Shunichi to the ruins of the collapsed temple, and then to the grove of mixed trees outside the mountain gate, which was grayish-white in the moonlight. "When I was at my lowest point, your ancestor gave me a bowl of porridge and a roof to shelter me from the rain."

"This humble monk possesses all his skills, which are a gift from the benefactor's lineage. Now that my life is nearing its end, it is only right that I return them to the benefactor."

The monk Jiraiya raised his right hand and placed it on the top of Maeda Shunichi's head.

The moment his palm landed, golden light surged from the monk Dilu's entire body, enveloping him from head to toe in a layer of pure golden light.

The light was so bright that Maeda Shunichi had to close his eyes, that Murai and the technician simultaneously shielded their faces with their arms, and that the colleague in uniform lowered his head and turned his face to the side. The four of them could see nothing but pure, unblemished gold in this golden light; their vision was filled only with a single, unmixed hue.

Akira Nagayama stood in the center of that golden light.

His right hand rested on Maeda Shunichi's head, while his left hand reached into his storage bag, his fingertips touching the small porcelain bottle labeled with the character "Yang".

The "Heavenly Yang Qi" flowed out of the bottle, radiating a pure, unadulterated warmth.

The warmth flowed from Nagayama Akira's left palm, along the meridians to his right arm, then from his right arm to his right palm, and finally into the palm that was pressed on Maeda Shunichi's head. 【Tianyang Luoqi】is the fifth grade, the True Qi of the Sun Virtue, which is derived from the image of the sun gradually setting in the afternoon.

The practice path of the "Buddha Speaks of the Sutra of the Light of Relinquishment" unfolded in his consciousness. The practice of Ri De Shi Xiu follows the path of using light to dispel darkness, and also includes the method of feeding a tiger with one's own body. The "Empty Sun" is the sun that is gradually setting, hanging in the void, with its light contained and its heat not scorching. Its compatibility with this practice is just right.

The magical power flowed along the meridians he had opened. Starting from the Baihui acupoint on the top of Maeda Shunichi's head, it descended along the Du meridian, circulating through a complete cycle.

Maeda Shunichi's body trembled slightly in the golden light. The [Heavenly Sun Falling Qi] flowed through his body, and the warm magic power slowly circulated along the newly opened meridians. With each inch of circulation, the chill in his body was dispelled a little.

Warmth replaced the chill.

Within his dantian, a wisp of pale golden magical power condensed from nothing into form. It resembled a thin cloud pierced by the afternoon sun, with golden edges and a warm, moist core.

Early stage of Qi cultivation.

Akira Nagayama moved his right hand away from Shunichi Maeda's head.

The golden light that enveloped the four people's vision began to fade. Starting from the outermost layer, the golden halo peeled away from the edges like a thin mist blown away by the wind, drifting away piece by piece into the night sky. With each piece that drifted away, the moonlight once again illuminated a small patch of ground.

Murai was the first to lower his arm. His eyes still retained the visual persistence caused by the golden light, and a blurry golden spot in his vision was slowly fading. He blinked, then blinked again, and then saw the scene on the dirt road.

The monk Dilu remained standing in the same spot. The color of his crimson robe appeared slightly paler in the golden afterglow, as if the light had drawn something away from the fabric. The hem of the robe still swayed slightly in the night breeze, but his body was no longer moving.

Maeda Shunichi knelt before him. The old monk's hands were on the ground, his forehead pressed against the soil, and his shoulders were trembling violently.

The body of the monk Dilu began to shatter.

Starting from the hem of the robe, the crimson fabric transformed into a layer of extremely fine, grayish-white powder, which dissipated with a gentle night breeze. The powder, drifting in the moonlight, resembled the last wisp of smoke rising from an incense burner, growing fainter and thinner until it merged with the night. Behind the robe was the monk's robe, behind the robe was skin, behind the skin was muscle, and behind the muscle was bone. From head to toe, from the outside in, layer upon layer, it turned to ash.

The whole process was eerily quiet, with only the faint rustling of the night wind blowing across the dirt road and the almost inaudible rustling of the grayish-white powder being swirled by the wind.

The last wisp of grayish-white powder drifted from where the monk Dilu had stood. Moonlight shone on the empty dirt path, revealing two shallow wooden clog imprints on the ground. The edges of the imprints were clear, with wooden teeth embedded in the soil in the middle. Scattered around the imprints were a few drops of a mixture of dark blood and poison, still glistening damply in the moonlight.

In the middle of the imprint lay the ghost-faced mushroom and a withered finger.

It was the section that emerged from the corpse of the earth spider, with the same dark brown skin, the same shrunken texture clinging to the bone, the same slightly curved, dark yellow fingernails, and the same jagged, uneven cut at the base of the fingers as described in the Metropolitan Police Department's files.

The third finger, or rather, in the records of this world, will become the third Ryoumen Sukuna finger to be recycled.