The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 92 We finally meet! Steam Demon! Sword Demon Okita Souji

"Pfft!" Zhang Chang'an decisively raised his hand to deliver the finishing blow. The Bingzi Jiaolin sword was more than one level sharper than the previous steam-powered longsword. It would be entirely accurate to describe it with words like "cuts hair in two" or "slices iron like mud".

But at this moment, he inexplicably wished that the knife was a little duller, and preferably had more serrations.

"Pfft! Pfft!" The large iron hook that the fat man was about to put into the pot fell to the ground. His hands and feet were stabbed into them by extremely sharp blades, and then he was suddenly spun around.

Unfortunately, his mouth was completely pierced from the start, so he couldn't utter a sound. Only the blood in his mouth was sprayed out by the airflow from his lungs, surging continuously.

"Pfft!" After inflicting a few more stabs, Zhang Chang'an decisively slit the throat, causing the guy's head to roll a few times on the ground to confirm that the guy was truly dead.

Then, he decisively turned around, immediately took out the iron can and syringe he was carrying, and directly used the steam to turn off the valve of the copper pot, and then began to extract the blue agate inside.

"You have discovered a historical secret: whaling in the vicinity of the island nation of Japan has a long and protracted history, so their technology was even more advanced than that of the Western world to some extent, which enabled them to capture the ancient agate whales located in the deeper parts of the Pacific Ocean."

These whales, which originate in the Orient, and their deeper-colored oil, are sometimes called jadeite above agate, commonly known as jade whale, and there is also blue jadeite, which is even more valuable than blue agate.

Zhang Chang'an stopped looking up at the whale hanging above, but although he was also extracting the oil, the whale above inexplicably calmed down.

It let out a few mournful cries before its eyes slowly lost their luster. After having its head torn apart for so long, it finally found relief.

Zhang Chang'an moved with incredible speed, unaware that, far away, the night at Kyoto Station was being torn apart by firelight.

From the direction of the station's main entrance, the sounds of fighting, including roars, screams, and the clash of swords, were accompanied by flames shooting into the sky.

Dozens of figures carrying torches broke through the guards' lines and surged into the station square. They were dressed in all sorts of clothes, carrying knives, bamboo spears, and wooden clubs, and some even had homemade Molotov cocktails. They charged forward while shouting something.

"Burn down this hellish place belonging to the Westerners!"

"Give me back my son."

"Shogunate dogs! Get out here!"

These people weren't all organized ronin from the Zunyao faction; many were local residents. There were old men, middle-aged men, and even a few women.

Their faces showed no political fanaticism, only a more primal anger. An anger tinged with despair.

-

For them, what they have recently experienced can be described as hell, or a great tragedy.

It's a pity that they were all poor people from remote urban areas, so whether it was one person's tragedy or a group's tragedy, it simply wouldn't get out and reach anyone's ears.

Only a small number of the pro-imperial faction knew that several people had recently gone missing in the lower city. At first, they thought it was ronin causing trouble, or perhaps some samurai lord with a proper title had indiscriminately killed people again.

But then they realized something was wrong. The missing people were all ordinary citizens, and more importantly, there were clearly no bodies left behind.

The relatives, friends, and lovers of these people searched frantically, but they found only a few remains in the Kamo River or on the nearby barren mountains.

The wound was clean, so clean that it didn't even look like a knife cut, but rather like it had been surgically severed.

Combined with the recent unusual activity of the research institute, and with the instigation of radical ronin within the pro-revolutionary faction, this sentiment completely exploded.

Their minds were already filled with strong xenophobic and anti-foreign sentiments, so this incident naturally caused a huge uproar.

Train stations built entirely with foreign technology were the primary targets of this attack.

"Burn it down! Burn this godforsaken place down!"

Torches and crowds surged toward the warehouses and platforms, scattering the guards; some resisted, while others simply fled. Torches, shouts, and flashing swords were everywhere.

Several villagers were banging on the warehouse door with wooden stakes, once, twice, three times—

boom!

The door opened.

The crowd surged in.

At this moment, Zhang Chang'an had just shrunk to the edge of the warehouse and was hiding behind a pile of wooden crates.

Inside the warehouse, the enormous carcass of the agate whale still hung in mid-air, appearing particularly eerie in the torchlight.

The wooden crates containing fat were not far away.

A group of people were surrounding them, but after making a ruckus for a long time, no one actually attacked them. They were just aroused by the bloody and disgusting scene, which made them even more ferocious, and they rushed deeper into the warehouse.

Zhang Chang'an seized the opportunity, decisively turned over and got up, preparing to leave.

Unexpectedly, a shout suddenly came from the doorway: "Ah! A ghost—"

"Thud!" The sound of a blade slicing through flesh suddenly rang out.

The man's body was about to fall down when another warrior on the other side immediately turned around. But before he could make any move, the sound of a long sword cutting through the air came from the arena once again.

"puff!"

At first, Zhang Chang'an thought he had been discovered, but now, hearing these noises, he instantly sensed something was wrong and decisively turned around to look.

There was a person standing at the door.

The man, dressed in a light blue haori worn by the Shinsengumi, was thin and stood out awkwardly in the chaotic firelight.

But he was clearly holding a knife in his hand, which he had just pulled from a man's abdomen, and the tip of the knife was still dripping blood.

Behind him, several ronin from the Zunrao faction were staggering and falling to the ground one after another. Each of them had been killed with a single blow, and their wounds were so neatly arranged that they looked as if they had been measured with a ruler.

He entered the warehouse, his steps slow yet carrying an undeniable sense of oppression. He carried nothing superfluous, only wisps of smoke occasionally emanating from his kimono.

The firelight danced on his face, illuminating his handsome features.

Pale skin, calm eyes, and even a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.

Okita Souji.

Zhang Chang'an's grip on the long sword tightened slightly.

Then Okita's gaze swept across the warehouse, over the terrified people, over the giant whale suspended in mid-air, and finally landed on him, on the Nuo mask.

"Steam Ghost"

He spoke, his voice not loud, but exceptionally clear in the noisy warehouse: "We've finally met."

He took a step forward, slightly raising the hand holding the knife, the tip pointing diagonally at the ground. The posture looked very casual, but Zhang Chang'an dared not be careless at all. Having already climbed a short distance up the wall, he decisively let go and sprang up from the wall.

Then I heard a series of gusts of wind beside my ears: "Whoosh—whoosh!"

"Crack!" Okita Souji's body bounced twice, and the long sword instantly pierced the wall panel he was clinging to.

But that wasn't the limit. He actually pushed off the wall in mid-air, spun his knife in a backhand motion, and thrust it forward with the tip pointing straight at Zhang Chang'an!

Natural Rishin-ryu, Pingqing Eye Stance, Nameless Three-Stage Thrust.