He changed Tiwat

So let's finish them off together.

Han Fulai brandished the Salt Sorrow Spear.

Along with the Salt Sorrow Spear, a celestial star also fell.

"The heavens are shaking—"

"All things!"

The desolate star he summoned this time wasn't very large; it just happened to cover the area where the four "Relic Mechs" and the "Constant Mechanical Array" were located.

This perfectly timed strike turned the "Relic Mechs" and the remains of the "Constant Mechanical Array" into rock statues, rendering them immobile.

A smile unconsciously appeared on Han Fulai's face.

Yes, a very precise "finishing blow," without using an ounce of extra force.

This is a kind of fun that only time travelers can understand.

In the game, when farming materials for this boss, you usually need to bring Zhongli with a shield. Han Fulai's favorite thing to do in the game used to be to reduce the boss's health to just the right level and then unleash a Heavenly Movement.

If a seasoned player had seen this last-hit, they would have given it a thumbs up and exclaimed, "Excellent!"

Since he learned "Heavenly Movement of All Phenomena", he has basically used this ultimate move when he is going all out. Moreover, the fact that he would use "Heavenly Movement of All Phenomena" means that the battle situation is very critical. Where would he have the leisure to "be careful"?

It feels really good to be "fussy" once in a while.

Ying then held up a small, fair hand in front of him: "Hey, aren't we going to give each other a high five to celebrate? This is our first time fighting side by side!"

Han Fulai smiled and reached out his hand, giving Yingmei a quick "slap".

"Happy cooperation!"

In fact, Han Fulai's relaxation only lasted for a few seconds.

Even after completely defeating the "constant mechanical array," he still didn't put away the Salt Sorrow Spear in his hand, and remained on high alert, watching the changes in the hall—if his guess was correct, changes would occur soon.

As if to prove his conjecture, the petrified remains that had been "moved by the heavens" suddenly disappeared.

Instead of them, the roots of a withered cherry tree appeared.

Like the Divine Cherry Tree roots they had seen along the way, which had been attacked by "Beast Hounds," this tree root was also oozing "sap."

However, the "sap" they saw outside was white, but the "sap" flowing from the roots of this tree was pitch black.

"What's going on?" Ying was now completely puzzled.

The huge iron lump that she had finally managed to defeat suddenly turned into a tree... Was she fighting this tree just now? Ying really found it hard to accept.

Han Fulai didn't seem surprised at all: "Actually, if you think about it carefully, you'll understand. That 'constant mechanical array' shouldn't still be active. Even if the Fox Palace couldn't destroy it back then, it should have been completely sealed to prevent it from escaping from the underground palace. Otherwise, what if it dismantles this underground palace, given that it can both fly and burrow underground?"

"Moreover, the Divine Child had already arrived before us. No matter what happened to the Divine Child, or what she was planning to do... if this big iron lump is blocking her way, she can't do anything. She has to get rid of this thing first."

"So when I saw it, I thought—it wasn't the source of the anomaly, but rather a product of it, something that appeared after the God Child disappeared."

He pointed to the tree root in front of him.

“What we just defeated was not the Kanria mechanical creation that invaded Inazuma five hundred years ago, but a memory from the ley lines, something similar to a ‘fallen warrior’.”

Upon hearing this new term, Ying couldn't help but ask, "Wait, what is 'Fallen Warrior'?"

"It's a type of 'evil spirit,' a kind of 'filth and miasma' accumulated in the earth's veins. You can think of it as 'vengeful spirits causing trouble'..."

Han Fulai immediately put together the vocabulary he had learned from Hirazo Kanoin in the Snake Bone Mine.

“Do you remember what Shadow told us before? ‘The Divine Cherry Tree can absorb and purify the impurities in the earth’s veins. The impurities leak out through cracks in the tree trunk and condense into a physical form…’”

At this moment, Shadow, who had just arrived beside them, interjected: "The filth that has been purified will appear in the form of memories, while the filth that is intense will manifest as highly aggressive entities. What we just saw was the filth that has not yet been purified."

“No wonder the 'sap' here is black… Ah, speaking of which, Shadow originally came to Shadow Mountain to check on the condition of the Divine Cherry Tree…” Paimon understood now.

However, this raises a new question—

"Then, how do we purify this root system?"

Paimon and Ying both looked at Ying. Since Ying came here for this matter, he should have a way, right?

Shadow shook his head in response: "I can only remove the filth flowing from the earth's veins. As for the maintenance and purification of the Divine Cherry Tree's root system, that has always been left to Narukami Taisha."

Ying looked at Paimon: "See, Shadow said from the beginning that you should go to the magistrate's office to find someone to meet you..."

Paimon clutched her head in anguish... Another errand? Why is she always running errands since she came to Inazuma... Even though she flies, it still gets tiring!

Han Fulai silently took out a die from his pocket.

"No need to trouble yourself, I can purify these impurities."

Then he very professionally began to perform hand seals and chant incantations.

Paimon stared in disbelief as "Master Han" performed the ritualistic steps, and couldn't help but whisper to Ying, "Have you noticed that he not only knows everything, but he can do everything..."

“Because he’s a civil servant in Liyue.” Ying said knowingly. “Xingqiu told me that the civil service exam in Liyue tests everything, so civil servants have to know a lot. If a resident of Liyue Harbor tells the General Affairs Department that their house is haunted, the General Affairs Department will even send civil servants to exorcise the ghost…”

"No wonder Han Qing suggested to me that the shogunate should establish a civil service examination system." Ying also looked quite moved.

—The Inazuma Shogunate later actually included questions on Onmyōdō (the art of exorcism) in the first civil service exam, which was personally set by the Raiden Shogun. Countless candidates failed as a result, completely unable to understand why civil servants needed to know how to exorcise demons...

After the "Heming Mantra" was completed, the black "sap" gradually turned white.

Then, new human figures emerged from the white "sap".

"I wonder who I'll meet this time..."

There was a subtle hint of expectation in Ying's voice; she always felt that perhaps she would have a chance to see her relatives and friends who had died five hundred years ago...

From Kitamura to Koyama, and then to Araki Otogi… the figures appearing in the memories of those ley lines became increasingly connected to her. Perhaps the next one to appear would be Kosai-gumi?

As if in response to her expectations, a figure appeared before her, dressed in a white hunting robe and wearing a fox mask.

Fox Temple has always loved to wear fox masks and play around with the people during festivals.

Most of the people she tricked didn't know that the woman wearing the fox mask was the real fox spirit...

"...Is that you? Zhaigong?" Ying's voice even trembled slightly involuntarily.

The person wearing the fox mask seemed to pause for a moment upon hearing her voice.

Then, the man took off his mask, revealing his face—a refined and handsome face, belonging to a man.

He bowed deeply to the shadow.

"General, I am honored to meet you. My name is Yuijin Harunosuke."

Happy Spring Festival

I've already spent three Spring Festivals writing this series without even realizing it.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Guotu wishes all his book lovers a Happy New Year!

For the Lunar New Year of the Snake, following the tradition of the previous two years, I also wrote a couplet:

Ambitious enough to swallow an elephant, already possessing the spirit of a serpent.

Ambitious to transform into a dragon, I add a divine brush to illuminate the stars.

Horizontal scroll: Auspicious Year of the Snake

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all your wishes come true!

Chapter 225 Harunosuke Yuugami [4k]

Lei Yingdian's gaze lingered on Yuijin Harunosuke's face for a moment before he finally retrieved a fragment of memory about the man: "So you're the 'Yuijin' who created 'Yuijin Onmyojutsu'..."

She had only met Harunosuke Yuugami twice in the past.

One instance was when Harunosuke was still young, when the Great Tengu Reizenbo introduced his three disciples to the Shogun. Kage was also with his sister at the time.

She remembered that Harunosuke Yuuki was the most clever of the three children. Back then, he boasted that he would master all the supernatural powers in the world, surpassing Tengu-sensei and Kitsune-sai-gu... Kitsune-sai-gu had apparently made a promise with him to have a magical duel in the future, just to tease him...

When they met for the second time, Kage had already entered the "Pure Land of One Heart" in seclusion, and it was the Doll General who received Harunosuke Yuugami.

At that time, Harunosuke Yuugami was already an old man with a full head of white hair. He went to the castle tower to hand over a "Secret Register Yin-Yang Bureau" to the shogunate, which embodied his life's work.

The "Onmyōryō" was founded by Harunosuke Yuugami after he returned to Japan from studying Asura in Liyue. It is said that the original intention of establishing the Onmyōryō was to fight against the monsters left over from the "Dark Calamity" and to train the samurai of Inazuma with Onmyōdō so that they would have the ability to fight against the monsters.

If this training program is successfully implemented, Inazuma will have a continuous stream of powerful warriors, enough to protect Inazuma forever in the future.

But the plan did not yield the results he had anticipated—

He indeed trained a group of warriors comparable to those who possessed the Eye of God. They could manipulate elemental power with "divine skill" without needing the Eye of God, and they had a thorough understanding of the weaknesses of various monsters, enabling them to achieve considerable success on the battlefield…

But those people were just survivors of the training.

—More than 60% of the samurai died because of the harsh training in that Yin-Yang Bureau.

It's important to understand that even on the most brutal battlefields, it's rare to encounter a situation where more than 60% of the soldiers are killed. Compared to this staggering casualty rate, the achievements of the "Jue Lu Yin Yang Liao" seem rather insignificant.

No general would allow more than half of their soldiers to be lost on the training grounds. Moreover, the benefits of such training are far from enough to offset the sacrifices made… The Inazuma demon race possesses various supernatural abilities and techniques; which race's strongest members are inferior to those wielding the Eye of God? Yet, they still perished in the “Dark Calamity.”

Moreover, during the time he painstakingly used Yin-Yang techniques to "train his troops," the remaining demons on Narukami Island had all been wiped out by the returning Thunder General with a single, thoughtless strike.

In the end, all his efforts seemed meaningless before the power of the gods...

Disheartened, Harunosuke Yuugami dismissed the trained samurai, sealed the "Yin-Yang Bureau of Secret Codes," handed over the talisman controlling the "Yin-Yang Bureau of Secret Codes" to the shogun, and then bid her farewell, disappearing without a trace.

What impressed Lei Movie most about this great Onmyoji was his aged appearance—it had only been a few years since the end of the "Dark Calamity." Given that Harunosuke had successfully trained his supernatural powers under the guidance of Reizenbo and had even gone to Liyue to seek the path of immortality, he should at least have had little time left on him, if not immortality.

...He must have poured everything, including his life, into the "Spiritual Techniques" and the "Yin-Yang Clan of Incantations".

At the request of Harunosuke Korekami, the general sealed the talisman controlling the "Yin-Yang Bureau" deep within the castle tower, and the "Yin-Yang Bureau" was never opened again for the next few hundred years.

Speaking of which, she had seen Harunosuke as a boy and as an old man, but she had never seen Harunosuke as a young man.

Who would have thought that this great Onmyoji dressed like this in his youth? He doesn't look like a disciple of Tengu, but rather like a successor of the Fox Spirit Temple...

What is the "Only God Yin Yang Technique"?

"And who is he?"

Both Ying and Paimon looked at Ying with blank expressions and asked.

The two of them haven't actually spent much time traveling and exploring Inazuma, and their understanding of Inazuma's history is basically limited to what Ayaka mentioned. What Ayaka didn't mention is a blind spot in their knowledge.

Han Fulai answered on behalf of the Shadow: "He is none other than the great Onmyoji, Yuijin Harunosuke, one of the renowned 'Three Shadow Performers' from five hundred years ago. During General Raiden's expedition to Kanria, the three disciples of Reizenbo followed their master to protect the people of Inazuma and made many contributions. To this day, many legends about these three still circulate among the people of Inazuma..."

"As for the 'Only God Yin-Yang Technique,' you've all seen it; it's the talisman used by those sea monsters—they don't have the eye of God, but they can use elemental power, thanks to the 'Only God Yin-Yang Technique' developed by this Mr. Harunosuke."

His mention of it immediately reminded Ying and Paimon of something. Previously, when they were escorting Hiiragi Senri, the eldest daughter of the Hiiragi family, to the main island, they had encountered bandits from the sea demons. Those sea demons had pulled out talismans and smeared them on their swords, causing flames to erupt. Ying had been quite surprised at the time… apparently, it was a technique left behind by this Onmyoji.

"Five hundred years ago... Ah, so I'm already gone. What I am now is just a memory left in the earth's veins? Haha, this is quite an interesting experience."

However, after overhearing their conversation and looking around, Kami Harunosuke suddenly understood his situation.

The ley line memories they had previously encountered—such as those of Kitamura, Koyama, and Arataki Otogi—had not noticed anything amiss with them, remaining stuck in memories from five hundred years ago. Only Yuugami Harunosuke instantly understood his current situation and even quickly accepted the fact that he possessed ley line memories… truly worthy of being a renowned Onmyoji for hundreds of years.

After Harunosuke Shinobu grasped the situation, he took out several talismans from the wide sleeve of his hunting robe, and with a wave of his hand, the talismans turned into small paper figures that flew to various parts of the underground palace, and then quickly flew back to his hand.

He held the talisman and listened intently for a while, muttering to himself, "Hmm, this is the underground palace built by the Fox Palace... The scent of a fox, ah, it must be her retinue... Is there a problem with the spiritual veins? Oh, even the 'suppressing object' has been contaminated, how terrible, how terrible... No wonder the General has come..."

Then, he suddenly put his hands into his sleeves and bowed deeply to Lei Yingdong again: "I have a question, and I hope that you, General, will answer it without hesitation—could it be that since Huzhai Palace failed to return... I will also fail to fulfill my duty and pass on the 'Divine Cherry Blossom Purification' ritual?"

Lei Yingdian was silent for a moment, then said softly, "Zhaigong... she has already sacrificed herself in that disaster."

Han Fulai noticed that when Shinobu Shinobu heard those words, his hands, which were hidden in his sleeves, seemed to tremble slightly.

"As for the 'Divine Cherry Blossom Great Purification' ritual... it should be passed down from generation to generation by Narukami Taisha. However, the current chief priest of Narukami Taisha, Yae no Miko, is missing, and the ley lines of Inazuma just happened to have a problem at this time, so we rushed here to check."

"The Eightfold Divine Child? Ah... she, she actually became the Palace Master?!"

However, Harunosuke suddenly looked up with a "the sky has fallen" expression, muttering, "No wonder the Great Exorcism went wrong if a guy who only knows how to eat fried tofu can become a priest."

Han Fulai exchanged glances with Paimeng and Ying. Although they didn't voice their complaints, they were all thinking the same thing—what exactly was the image of the divine child from five hundred years ago...?

Lei Yingdian stared intently at Yuijin Harunosuke and asked seriously, "Do you know anything about the 'Great Exorcism of the Divine Cherry Blossom'?"

“Yes.” Harunosuke Yugami nodded naturally. “Back then, we were here with our teacher, escorting the residents of the shelter to escape. As for Lady Saigu… Lady Saigu is preparing for the ‘Great Purification of the Divine Cherry Blossom’. She said that in case of unforeseen circumstances, she needs someone to help her pass on the ritual of the ‘Great Purification of the Divine Cherry Blossom’.”

"I have received some of my teacher's true teachings and can barely understand this great purification ritual. She then wrote down the 'words of the Great Purification Ritual' and the ritual method into a book called 'The Essentials of the Great Purification Ritual,' and instructed me to deliver it to Ms. Inashiro Miri, the acting priest of the Grand Shrine, in the future."

"Well……"

As he spoke, he reached into his sleeve again, but couldn't find anything...

"I'm sorry... it seems that I no longer have the book 'The Great Exorcism Guide of Divine Cherry Blossom'."

Upon hearing this, Ying tilted her head slightly and thought for a moment: "The Inashiro family... The descendants of the Inashiro family still serve as priests at Narukami Taisha. I think you should have definitely handed over the ritual to the Taisha."

"That's good, that's good..." Harunosuke Yuugami patted his chest, as if he had finally breathed a sigh of relief.