Under one person: I, Zhang Zhiwei, the arrogant Zhang.

Chapter 611: Another Battle Between the Shinto Grand Priest and Zhang Zhiwei

"When did my life begin to change qualitatively? How come I haven't noticed it even though I examine myself every day?"

Zhang Zhiwei said to himself: "Or... I can't say that I didn't discover it. I must have discovered it at the moment of qualitative change."

"The usual accumulation is the support, and the attack of the God of Death is the trigger. It will detonate the previous accumulation, and everything will come naturally together."

The qualitative change in his life was definitely a pleasant surprise for Zhang Zhiwei.

If it was just a simple improvement in means, Zhang Zhiwei would not care too much.

He has many protective techniques at his disposal, and based on the foundation brought by his powerful life, it seems that he is very proficient in each of them, reaching perfection and being unrivaled.

But in fact, only he himself knew that these methods were very varied and complicated. It would be okay if he only used one or two of them. However, once several methods were used at the same time, the meridians in his body would need various coordinated controls, which would make his reaction much slower than usual.

Many people call this kind of control a skill, and are proud of it and pursue it throughout their lives, but this is not what Zhang Zhiwei pursues.

Mediocre people are often intimidated by these powerful skills.

But in front of an equally powerful opponent, if the opponent remains calm and observes carefully, you will be able to find the flaws.

Only the strength of life is flawless. It has no checks and balances with the Qi training system, the alchemy system, or even any other person's power system. It is only the pure sublimation of life.

To suppress others with force and to suppress others with the Way, this kind of power cannot be understood by those who pursue techniques.

Even if he reaches the end of the art, he still cannot fully appreciate its beauty, and this is what he pursues.

Having gained insight into the changes in his body, Zhang Zhiwei completely relaxed himself, lying in the bathtub and waiting to absorb all the medicinal power inside.

Tokyo City, the Spirit-Calling Society.

Now that the shogunate has fallen and the emperor is in power, militarism has reached its peak under his strong promotion.

In order to encourage the people to be loyal to them, they brainwashed the people, saying that as long as they died for the emperor, they would be enshrined in the shrine, revered as gods, and enjoy incense.

Therefore, there are now tens of thousands of shrines of various kinds all over Japan. It is no exaggeration to say that they are as numerous as the hairs on a cow.

The largest of these is the Spiritualist Society.

And tonight, the usually peaceful and solemn soul-calling society suddenly began to shake violently, and the densely packed tablets fell down one after another.

The clergy in the shrine initially thought that it was caused by an earthquake, so they went over to support the tablet. However, as soon as their hands touched it, the tablet broke into pieces and shattered to the ground.

Soon after, they discovered that it was not the surrounding areas that were shaking, but only the shrine. Not only that, the bodies of many statues enshrined in the shrine were cracked, and tears and blood were flowing from their eyes...

All the horrifying and ominous signs made them terrified. They immediately went to the war spirits enshrined in the shrine to find out the details, but they never expected that the magic of summoning gods, which had always worked in the past, did not get any response this time, which made them at a loss.

The Soul-Calling Society is a shrine that was established not long ago. The gods enshrined there are not gods, but soldiers who died in battle. Therefore, most of the clergymen there are from the military and are not very professional. They have no idea what to do.

Moreover, the chief priest of the Shrine, Shigeo Onijima, was not in the shrine. After much thought, they reported the situation to the emperor, and the emperor invited the chief priest of Ise Grand Shrine to come and solve the problem.

Ise Grand Shrine is the ancestral temple of Shintoism and has the highest status. The status of the chief priest of Ise Grand Shrine is second only to the emperor. If ordinary people invite him, he can just ignore them, but if the emperor invites him, he has to come.

Black light surged in the sky, and a group of ghosts descended from the sky carrying a large black sedan chair. The chief priest wearing a black-patterned haori lifted the curtain and walked out.

The priests of the Soul-Calling Society stood in two rows and came over to pay their respects.

When the chief priest arrived, the unusual movements of the soul-calling shrine had stopped. He stood under the torii gate of the shrine and looked up.

To the naked eye, the torii gate is intact and the shrine is solemn and dignified.

Under the Dharma Eye, the bird's nest was broken in half, with one half standing and the other half lying sideways. The shrine inside was burning with raging flames. The solemn and majestic buildings were slowly collapsing. From time to time, black energy hovered in the sky, making sounds like ghosts crying and wolves howling.

At this moment, the chief priest suddenly felt that the entire soul-calling society was filled with great sorrow. The souls who died on the battlefield were wailing miserably and expressing tremendous resentment.

They were all warriors loyal to the emperor. After their death, their souls were summoned to the shrine. They thought they could enjoy incense and offerings and rest in peace there, but they were ordered to go out to fight and die.

It even angered powerful enemies, causing them to cross over and break into their resting places, overturn their tablets, tear apart their souls, and destroy their shrines...

A large number of fighting spirits were torn to pieces, their bodies and souls destroyed, but their unwilling resentment remained.

These resentments turned into evil spirits and entangled some of the surviving fighting spirits, making them crazy and constantly crashing into the shrine, but they could not rush out.

The Soul Summoning Shrine is not only their resting place, but also their place of bondage. These fighting spirits are trapped in the shrine like earthbound spirits, and they can only go out when they are ordered to do so.

The chief priest watched all this quietly. After a moment, he waved his hand and black energy surged around him. A team of warriors wearing black domaru armor with black and white talisman paper pasted on the surface of their armor appeared.

These warriors are the guardian guards of the Ise Shrine and have been enshrined for a thousand years. In terms of strength, they are by no means comparable to the war spirits in the soul-calling shrine who have only been enshrined for a few decades.

To the outside world, in the eyes of the priests who summoned the gods, the Grand Priest was just standing under the torii and doing nothing.

But in fact, he had already traveled into the Dharma lineage with his own Dharma protectors.

As soon as he entered, the resentful souls, whose minds had been invaded by the evil spirits and who had completely lost their sanity, pounced on them and surrounded them.

"The evil spirit has invaded your body. There is no hope for recovery. Rest in peace!"

He waved his hand, and the guardian soldiers behind him rushed forward, unstoppable like a hurricane. The endless stream of evil spirits were as fragile as paper and were torn into pieces in an instant.

After a few encounters, the entire shrine fell into silence as the last crazy resentful soul was blown to ashes. The chief priest waved his hand again, and black and white runes flashed and flew into the ruined shrine's veins.

Under the effect of these runes, the collapsed shrine was restored as if it were upside down. In the blink of an eye, it was back to its original state, but the fighting spirits that were killed could never come back.

After the shrine was repaired, several powerful heroes came out one after another. They were the Three Warring States Knots and the Sixteen Tokugawa Generals who were defeated by Zhang Zhiwei before.

These heroic spirits have been worshipped in many temples for hundreds of years. They can be defeated, but it is very difficult to eliminate them, unless the mountains are cut down and the temples are destroyed, so that they have no foundation, and then they will become floating duckweed in the vastness, with only one way to go, and that is death.

However, there are some side effects when the true spirit is destroyed.

At this moment, Honda Tadakatsu, who was crushed to ashes by Zhang Zhiwei's Tianpeng Zhenjun's kick, was carrying a six-meter-long spear that was extremely inconsistent with his short stature, and looked at the Grand Priest with a dull and numb face.

He couldn’t quite remember his own name, and he kept mumbling to himself, “My name is… I can’t quite remember it, it seems to be… Zhang Fei, yes, Zhang Fei, they all call me Dongying Zhang Fei… My name is Zhang Fei, I am Zhang Fei!”

This is a manifestation of damage to the true spirit. If it wants to recover, it can only rely on the power of faith of the believers. After absorbing a large amount of faith power, the heroic spirit will slowly become what the believers believe in.

But in this era, we are too far away from the Warring States Period, and Honda Tadakatsu doesn't have many followers. The reason why he is still well-known and talked about is not because of the Tokugawa Sixteen Generals, but because of his nickname "Zhang Fei of Japan".

Since The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was introduced to Japan more than a hundred years ago, it immediately sparked a Three Kingdoms fever. From the nobles to the common people, everyone knew all the characters in the novel like the back of their hands, and their level of understanding was even higher than that in China.

Honda Tadakatsu is now more of a Japanese Zhang Fei, and over time, the faith of his followers has influenced him, especially after his true spirit was damaged this time, the impact has become even more serious, making him almost forget himself and think of himself as the fierce Zhang Fei.

Honda Tadakatsu had the most faith among the sixteen generals, but even so, let alone the other generals, who were dull and numb and could not ask any questions.

However, not all gods and generals were like this. Although Oda Nobunaga, known as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, was in a somewhat sluggish state, his true spirit was still stable, and he told the Grand Priest what had happened before.

Oda Nobunaga was a lawless person during his lifetime, and logically speaking, he was still lawless after his death. However, the person in front of him was the chief priest of Ise Shrine, the best man in Japan at exorcising gods and ghosts, equivalent to the Heavenly Master in Shintoism. He dared not disobey the other party's order, nor could he even think of disobeying it.

After hearing what Oda Nobunaga said, the Grand Priest said to himself, "A monster with a beast's head and a human body, armed with weapons, four heads and eight arms, rushed into the Dharma vein. When it started to fight, wind and thunder were moving, and the eight arms were unstoppable. All the heroic spirits of the shrines were no match for it? It sounds like a guardian deity whose origins are unknown."

The Grand Priest's eyes turned fierce. Although the Soul-Calling Shrine was insignificant to him, it was built by order of the Emperor and was related to the promotion of the samurai spirit. Now it was being trampled upon like this. How could he swallow this?
As the leader of Shintoism, he has been exorcising gods and ghosts all his life, but someone actually tried to show off his skills in front of him and simply ignored him. He immediately wanted to fight with the other party and even break into the other party's magic lineage to get revenge.

The battle here had just ended not long ago, and the Qi left behind by the opponent's rampage was about to dissipate. He released his mental power, captured that faint trace of Qi, and was about to cast a spell.

He was quite confident in his abilities, but at this moment, he suddenly remembered the last time he was fortune-telling with that little Taoist priest and was caught off guard and slashed by a knife.

At that time, he used a few insignificant gods as sacrifices, so he did not suffer too serious backlash. However, he learned from his mistakes and decided to be more cautious this time.

He looked at the sixteen generals whose faces looked dull and numb in their lifetime, and narrowed his eyes.

"How can these remnants of the Warring States period be worthy of being worshipped all the time? They should be used as fuel for the new era."

He took a few steps forward, chanting spells and making hand gestures. Although the spiritual power of the sixteen generals was greatly reduced, they still had the instinctive ability to seek benefits and avoid harm. They wanted to run away immediately, but were entangled by a black energy and could not move.

The Grand Priest blocked the sixteen generals in front of him and continued to cast spells. His pupils quickly dilated and turned pitch black, occupying his entire eye sockets. His dark eyes were like deep pools, constantly rippling.

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you.

On the other side, Zhang Zhiwei was taking a bath when he suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of being watched, as if someone was looking at him with malice.

"Um?!"

Zhang Zhiwei suddenly opened his eyes. This kind of spying came from the inside and was inexplicably familiar. After thinking for a moment, he remembered that he had been spied on last time in Changbai Mountain, but he cut off the cause and effect with a sword. Is it happening again this time?

But soon, he noticed something strange. This time the spying was not entirely directed at him. To be precise, it was directed at Tianpeng Zhenjun who was three feet above his head.

He used Tianpeng Zhenjun to plunder the Japanese pirates' Zhaohun Society's lineage, and then someone came to his door. Needless to say, the other party's identity was obvious.

Zhang Zhiwei raised his head, golden flames boiling in his eyes, and he saw the cause and effect lines spreading from the inner scene.

He could cut it off with one sword across the ages, just like he did last time.

But suddenly, he had a better idea. Since the other party was coming for his guardian angel, he would let the other party and his guardian angel have a good fight.

You must know that his guardian angel was the true spirit of Lord Tianpeng who manifested himself during the legal position assessment and blessed him. In short, he was protected by Lord Tianpeng.

Last time, there was no divine general watching over him, and the opponent spied on him, so he could only kill him with one sword. This time, there is a big boss behind him, so if you want to cause trouble, go find the big boss.

With this thought in mind, Zhang Zhiwei did not resist. He moved Tian Peng Zhen Jun out of the hall space and blocked him in front of him. At the same time, he gathered all his Qi and directed all the opponent's cause and effect lines to Tian Peng Zhen Jun.

All this happened naturally because his guardian angel was actually the incarnation of his heavenly soul.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhiwei continued to take a bath.

In the Soul Summoning Society's lineage, the chief priest had some difficulty finding it by following the Qi machine, but suddenly it became clear. He said "Yoshi" inwardly, and his dark eyes rotated.

Soon, he saw the god with a beast's head and a human body, four heads and eight arms, as majestic as a prison. The other party's eight eyes looked at him, and a sharp and explosive energy rushed towards him, shattering his dark eyes.

"idiot!"

He opened his eyes wide and was about to say something cruel, but suddenly the terrifying god stretched out all eight arms, and flames and lightning burst from his four heads, and fire and thunder covered the sky.

In the Soul Summoning Society's lineage, the chief priest's movements suddenly froze, and the sixteen divine generals in front of him showed fear on their faces. Then, their bodies suddenly collapsed, turned into dust, and disappeared into ashes.

"Damn it, these evil gods are too ferocious. The sixteen gods are too weak to be of any use. We must ask the Eight Banners God of War for help!"

(End of this chapter)