A Pawn's Passage

With the oguji slain, the Tenmon Sect shinkan were routed. The Daoist Spirit Guards, led by Li Changge and Yao Pei, charged into Ise-jingu.

Qi Xuansu did not join the fray. Instead, he let Zhang Yuelu rest in his arms and simply found a place outside the shrine to sit down.

The two of them had already earned more than enough merit, so such scraps no longer mattered to them.

No one would accuse them of cowardice. On the contrary, others would thank them and regard their absence as an act of humility.

The sounds of clashing rang continuously within Ise-jingu. But it was nothing more than a desperate, doomed defiance, irrelevant to the larger outcome.

After a while, Zhang Yuelu opened her eyes from within Qi Xuansu’s embrace and asked in a weak voice, “Is it over?”

Qi Xuansu replied, “Not yet, but the outcome is basically decided.”

Zhang Yuelu gave a light nod in response.

Qi Xuansu asked gently, “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, just a little sleepy.” Zhang Yuelu could not hide her weariness, nor did she try to get up.

Qi Xuansu murmured, “Then you should sleep a while. I’m right here.”

Zhang Yuelu grunted disapprovingly, “This is a battlefield.”

Qi Xuansu quoted an old verse. “Mock not the drunk who sleeps upon the battlefield, for how few come back from war?”

Zhang Yuelu chuckled. “In that case, where is my grape wine in a luminous cup?”

Qi Xuansu answered, “It’s at home, my love.”

Zhang Yuelu fell silent. She lay in his arms, her half-lidded eyes gazing upward.

Only then did she notice that Qi Xuansu had chosen a beautiful spot. This cherry tree had miraculously survived the harshness of war and had sunken into the mountain’s belly with the shrine. Since it was spring, the blossoms were in full bloom, and petals drifted gently down.

The cavern resembled a midnight sky, and the droplets from the stalactites above shimmered like scattered stars. Ignoring the distant clash of battle, it was a breathtaking scene of cherry blossoms beneath a night sky.

Zhang Yuelu murmured, “Each year comes the light of late spring, and in this foreign land, fallen blossoms still carry their fragrance.”

Just then, a sword light illuminated the faux night sky and tore open a fissure in the cavern’s ceiling.

A mirror flew out from the rift, scattering streams of brilliance as it fell. It was even smaller than an ordinary mirror.

This was none other than the Yata Mirror, foremost among the Three Divine Artifacts of Fenglin. Now, it was beaten back to its original form, and there was no trace of the Three Great Kami.

In truth, the Imperial Preceptor had needed more time to finish off the divine incarnations of the Three Great Kami. However, the Daoist Spirit Guards’ assault on Ise-jingu hastened their downfall. The Imperial Preceptor prevented their incarnations from returning safely to their divine kingdoms. Instead, he annihilated them completely. For a long time to come, the Three Great Kami would be powerless to meddle in the mortal realm, unless they descended in their true bodies.

Moments later, a portal opened above Ise-jingu. The Imperial Preceptor, holding the Skycaller, stepped out slowly, walking across the void as he gazed down upon the shrine.

Wherever his gaze fell, formations collapsed one after another, accelerating the Spirit Guards’ conquest of Ise-jingu.

At last, the Imperial Preceptor descended before the Ise-jingu’s main gate and walked inside, which enshrined a statue of Himiko-no-Mikoto, garbed in imperial attire with a blazing sun suspended behind her and the Yata Mirror cradled in her hands.

Now, the Yata Mirror was dull and lifeless, its surface marked by faint cracks. Its damage was severe, and only long nourishment with divine power could restore it.

The Imperial Preceptor raised a finger toward the statue.

With a thunderous rumble, the statue turned on its own, facing the wall with its back to the gate.

......

Over in Donghai, Sage Qingwei voluntarily dispersed the Star Sword Formation, while Tamamo-no-Mae withdrew her tails, appearing once more like an ordinary woman.

A fox’s phantom ran from the direction of Mount Omikami and merged into Tamamo-no-Mae’s body.

Tamamo-no-Mae asked, “Did the Great Sage of the Taiping Sect get involved?”

“Most likely,” Sage Qingwei replied.

Tamamo-no-Mae sighed. “So it seems the Three Noble Children have been defeated, or rather, the failure of the Tenmon Sect is inevitable.”

Sage Qingwei said calmly, “My earlier promise still stands.”

Tamamo-no-Mae did not answer directly. “During the peak of the Tsuchimikado School Onmyoji, its leader, Tsuchimikado Yasuchika, had never known defeat, save for once being wounded by a heavenly tribulation. With his strength alone, he led Onmyodo to suppress both the Tenmon Sect and the Buddhist Sect, becoming the leader of the alliance. He freely wielded the Tenmon Sect’s and the royal family’s Three Divine Artifacts. If it had been one-on-one, I might not have lost. But Tsuchimikado Yasuchika had many helpers, and he used the Yata Mirror to seize one of my souls. Even after I’d fled from the Heian Capital, the Tenmon Sect still wouldn’t let me go and hunted me down three more times.”

To win Tamamo-no-Mae’s surrender, Sage Qingwei had studied her records in detail.

In the first stage, the Fenglin court dispatched 130,000 troops in pursuit, attacking with volleys of arrows. Tamamo-no-Mae invoked her innate powers, raising a hurricane that swept away the rain of arrows. She then summoned a fiery rain that incinerated over 30,000 soldiers at once. The pursuers brought shielded wagons strengthened with frost barriers to encircle her. But with a flick of her third tail, she unleashed an earthquake, killing another 20,000 in the vanguard. Following that, 70,000 men retreated through a valley in Nasuno. But when she lashed her fourth and fifth tails, a giant meteor blocked the way, and a flood followed soon after. Out of these 70,000 troops, only 7 survived. This concluded the first phase of the battle.

In the second stage, Tamamo-no-Mae took the offensive. The court sent another 300,000 troops, who returned to Nasuno. They had barely settled their camp when a bolt of lightning struck the command tent, killing all the generals in an instant. Without a leader, the army fell into chaos. Then came a ghastly army of zombies, some with damp corpses, charred bodies, and mangled flesh. These were the fallen soldiers from the first phase of battle. Tamamo-no-Mae had simply raised an army of undead. As panic spread among the army, little fox spirits swarmed the roads. In a single night, another 150,000 perished. Counting the first slaughter, nearly 300,000 were dead.

Fortunately, the monks, shinkan, and onmyoji arrived, purifying the undead army and driving back the fox spirits, forcing a stalemate.

In the third stage, the court dispatched another 500,000 soldiers, joined by thousands of shinkan, monks, and onmyoji, launching a counterattack. The 360 monks cast a demon-suppressing formation, manifesting 360 chains to bind Tamamo, then sealed her in a cage made of sutras. Then, 800 Onmyoji spread their barriers to reinforce the formation while the army pressed the assault. At last, with 200,000 soldiers sacrificed and every exorcist burning their life force, they invoked a Buddhist immortal object to slay Tamamo-no-Mae.

Regardless of what others thought, Sage Qingwei had only one impression after reading this—it was utterly absurd because they disregarded 500,000 lives to kill Tamamo-no-Mae.

It was just like scholars with no sense of numbers, always exaggerating, tossing around “a million troops” or “eight million heavenly gods.” In truth, when the Daoist Order campaigned against Fenglin, fewer than 100,000 personnel were deployed in total, including logistics and support staff. Thus, the number of actual combatants would not have exceeded 50,000.

Though there had been the vast Toyotomi army in addition to that force, neither the Daoist Order nor the Great Xuan Court could casually field a million troops. Supporting such an army was possible, but actually deploying it into combat was another matter entirely. Moreover, to speak of 500,000 dead, not just casualties, was beyond belief.

From his own experience, Sage Qingwei concluded the tale was false.

The key was its contradictions. First, they claimed Tsuchimikado Yasuchika had gravely wounded Tamamo-no-Mae, then they claimed to have deployed a million troops, and half a million of them died to subdue her. So what was Tsuchimikado Yasuchika doing all that time?

As for the real truth, perhaps only Tamamo-no-Mae herself knew.

Sage Qingwei asked, “They say the Fenglin court sent a million troops to kill you, and 500,000 perished in the end. Is that true?”

Tamamo-no-Mae said, “Historians seldom understand warfare, so they cannot record the truth. Of course, there was no so-called million-strong army, only tens of thousands of soldiers plus several thousand shinkan, onmyoji, and monks. In the end, they slew me when I was already gravely wounded.”

Sage Qingwei then asked, “Because the Yata Mirror bound your soul, you had to obey the Ise-jingu’s commands. But how did you come back to life?”

Tamamo-no-Mae smiled slyly. “That must be what the Daoist Order most wishes to know.”

Sage Qingwei did not deny it. “The Daoist Order can create gods, but it cannot bring the dead back to life.”

Tamamo-no-Mae said, “Everything has its shortcomings and strengths. It’s undeniable that the Daoist Order is stronger than the Tenmon Sect, yet the Tenmon Sect possesses what the Daoist Order lacks. The key lies in Yomi-no-Kuni. We all know Ashihara is Fenglin, and Takamagahara is the divine realm of the Three Great Kami. But Yomi is extremely mysterious. It’s not the traditional netherworld, but a unique divine kingdom.

“Since you’ve read the tales about me, you should recall the story that I once turned more than 100,000 slain troops into an undead army. In truth, I had no such power. It was the shinkan who borrowed the strange powers of Yomi that revived the warriors I had slain.”

Sage Qingwei continued, “After your death, you were also revived by Yomi.”

Tamamo-no-Mae replied, “After I was revived, I barely retained the rank of an Immortal, but my strength had greatly diminished. That is one of the prices of resurrection. Even before you had truly attained immortality, I was no longer your match, let alone someone like the Imperial Preceptor. But if I could regain my peak, you would never be my equal.”

Sage Qingwei did not deny this. Instead, he asked, “Why is Yomi so unusual?”

Tamamo-no-Mae explained, “From what I know, Yomi was the divine realm left behind by the first generation of gods, later inherited by the second-generation god, Izanami. After she vanished, Izanagi became master of Yomi, but he greatly feared it, so he sealed it away. There were even rumors saying that Izanagi sealed Yomi because Izanami had been resurrected there. Susanoo once tried to open Yomi, which enraged Izanami deeply. After the Three Noble Children overthrew Izanagi, Tsukuyomi inherited Yomi, but he seldom went there, spending most of his time in Takamagahara instead.”

Sage Qingwei mused, “Tsukuyomi doesn’t seem like the master of Yomi but more like its warden.”