Swallow Return

The one named Miyata Mitsuji became quite well-behaved after that.

But another one, named Tomonori Oto, was clearly vengeful, as could be seen at the banquet.

Sure enough, now they're spouting sarcastic remarks again.

Unfortunately, all that nonsense he spouted had no effect.

Liu Yun had no time to waste words with this guy. He just glanced at him with disdain and reached for the hilt of his sword.

Oto Tomohiro's eyes widened immediately. He rolled backward at top speed, retreating more than ten steps before shouting, covered in dust, "What are you doing? This is the city gate!"

Clearly, although this guy dared to use words to his advantage, he hadn't forgotten Liu Yun's unstoppable sword strike.

Liu Yun placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and brushed it aside, saying calmly, "I was shooing away mosquitoes. Why are you unsteady on your feet? Are your legs injured?"

Tomonori Oto blushed immediately and retorted, "It's already winter, where would there be any flying mosquitoes?"

Liu Yun looked him up and down and sneered, "There's one right in front of me, buzzing around annoyingly."

Oto Tomonobu wasn't stupid; he immediately understood what was meant and gritted his teeth in anger.

After saying this, Liu Yun turned and left.

Oto Tomonobu dared not stop him any longer.

The few people watching from a distance all looked like they wanted to laugh but dared not.

……

After leaving the city, Liu Yun, as agreed, went to an abandoned temple three kilometers outside the city gate, where it was quiet and deserted at night, and lit a lantern to wait.

A short while later, a figure appeared.

From a distance, she does indeed appear to be a lithe and tall woman dressed in tight-fitting night clothes.

But upon closer inspection, it turned out not to be Igawa Asagi herself, but the girl who delivered the message during the day.

The two are very similar in build, and might be mistaken for each other from a distance. However, their hair is much shorter, and their appearances are completely different.

What was that girl's name again...? I've really forgotten.

Or to be more precise, I never remembered it.

Seeing this, Liu Yun was somewhat puzzled: "Did you invite me out in the name of Jinghe Asagi?"

The woman, who was originally very beautiful and even somewhat alluring, now had a worried look on her face and said timidly, "Please forgive me, Lord Sasaki. I really had no other choice but to use this method. I did not mean to deceive you. By the way, you may not remember, my name is Oboro."

Liu Yun was already displeased, and from the words he vaguely sensed that the person in front of him was somewhat fake and insincere, so he coldly asked, "What do you want?"

The woman who called herself A-Long slowly lowered her head, sighed softly, and said in a low voice, "Sister Asagi... she has a heart full of passion and wants to do the cause of eliminating demons and protecting justice, but some people join the Demon-Exorcising Ninja just to have enough to eat and wear. Now that she has no Buddhist sect behind her, I don't know what to do in the future. I just want a reliable place to belong..."

Liu Yun thought the other party's words were not entirely true and frowned without saying a word.

Upon seeing this, the woman who called herself A-long had tears welling up in her eyes and was about to cry. Suddenly, she knelt down on the ground and said in a mournful voice, "Please, Lord Sasaki, take me in! I know I have nothing outstanding about me and dare not ask for too much. I only ask to be your slave or concubine and serve you. If I have even a small place, I will be extremely satisfied."

Upon hearing this, Liu Yun felt not pleased, but rather alert.

Because the words of this woman who calls herself Aon are not credible.

If I hadn't failed to sense any hostility from the other party, I probably would have drawn my sword.

As he pondered the woman's intentions, he suddenly noticed movement nearby.

It seems someone is approaching.

Liu Yun subconsciously shifted her attention away.

At that moment, the woman in front, who called herself A-Long, quickly took out something that looked like a talisman, chanted a short incantation, and then her body instantly became blurry and semi-transparent, and she suddenly burrowed into the ground.

Liu Yun was suddenly startled and realized that the other party had ill intentions, so he immediately swung his sword and slashed at them.

The woman who called herself Along, before her figure had completely disappeared, was tragically cleaved in half at the waist. She screamed in agony as her magic was interrupted, and she collapsed to the ground, bleeding profusely.

Originally, the intention of this strike was to inflict severe injury without killing the victim, so as to force the truth out of them.

Unexpectedly, as the woman rapidly lost blood, her face turned ashen and green.

It's practically a deadly poison!

But it's unclear whether it was taken beforehand or hidden inside the teeth.

Liu Yun strode forward, preparing to use the "healing power" within his body to forcefully prolong the woman's life.

However, just as they were about to get close, a violent explosion suddenly occurred on the other party.

It appears that the pre-prepared gunpowder was detonated.

Liu Yun had no choice but to retreat.

After a burst of fire and thick smoke, upon closer inspection, the woman's chest and abdomen had been blasted open with a hole more than a foot in diameter, revealing her bones and internal organs, with her flesh charred and indistinct.

It was clearly dead beyond dead.

Even if Liu Yun absorbs the White Bottle magic treasure with "healing power" into his body, there is nothing he can do in this situation.

At this moment, twenty or thirty ninjas dressed in black night clothes rushed in from all directions and subtly surrounded Liu Yun.

The leader shouted, "Friends from Koshu, if you are willing to lay down your weapons, I will certainly show some mercy for the sake of the past friendship between Oda and Takeda."

Chapter Sixty-Six: The Best Way to Persuade Others (Third update on the day of publication, 1/3)

“Friends from Koshu, if you are willing to lay down your weapons, I will certainly show some mercy out of consideration for the past friendship between Oda and Takeda.”

Upon hearing this, Liu Yun immediately understood.

It turns out they'd been tricked and fallen into a trap, about to be falsely accused of having ties to the Takeda clan. The ninjas surrounding them were very likely Oda's secret force.

It's obvious that the Anti-Majin member named Oboro is problematic.

I just don't know if there has always been a problem, or if they were recently turned against them.

Judging from the fact that the woman would rather die than leave any survivors, she was most likely an undercover agent planted by someone else from the beginning.

Twenty or thirty black-clad ninjas surrounded Liu Yun and cautiously approached.

The leader was still speaking: "Since this friend from Jiazhou is unwilling to lay down his weapons, then we have no choice but to take action."

Liu Yun sighed, pointed to the gruesome corpse on the ground, and defended himself: "I am an innocent person who was lured here by someone. The person who led me here just detonated explosives and committed suicide."

His words were frank and powerful.

It is said that after Ryuun swallowed the white bottle from Enryakuji Temple on Mount Hiei into his body, he possessed a very strong "bewitching power". Even without deliberately activating it, his words and actions naturally carried the power to make people believe and obey.

However, this only works effectively for ordinary people with weak willpower.

The twenty or thirty black-clad ninjas here tonight are clearly not ordinary people.

The ninja leader, in particular, only glanced at Liu Yun and completely disbelieved his words, shaking his head and laughing, "Although there is indeed an exploded corpse in front of you... regardless of whether what you just said is credible or not, we can only go back and study it carefully. Dozens of us have been busy for several days and nights, we can't just go back empty-handed based on a single sentence."

This guy is quite talkative.

People's traditional impression of ninjas is that they are ruthless and taciturn, but tonight we encountered an exception.

On the other hand, the fact that he could chat so easily with the target (whom he thought he was) suggests that this ninja leader had a very strong confidence in his own abilities.

Or perhaps it's a deliberate delay to allow time to prepare the formation.

Liu Yun lowered his head slightly and said in a deep voice, "Now I understand. That woman was willing to commit suicide just now, which was obviously not only to frame me, but also to cover the escape of some other important person. It is a small matter that you mistakenly arrested me; it is a big matter that you let an important person escape."

That sounds reasonable and logical.

Moreover, Liu Yun secretly used the "bewitching power" of the red jade pendant, and his voice carried a subtle power that compelled people to believe him.

Even so, the ninja leader hesitated for only a moment before decisively shaking his head and saying, "Any words are superfluous now. Let's go back together first."

Ryuun remained expressionless and said, "I am a newly recruited outsider in the Kinoshita Tokichiro unit of Yokoyama Castle, and my name is Sasaki Ryuun."

The leader of the black-clad ninjas showed no change in expression upon hearing this. After a moment's thought, he replied, "I have indeed heard of this name before, and you do indeed match the person in the information. However, we are members of the 'Kyoudan' group, directly under the command of Lord Oda Danjo (Nobunaga), and we do not consider any identity issues when we act."

Liu Yun sighed helplessly and said slowly, "I think so too... but you've overlooked something."

The leader of the black-clad ninjas asked curiously, "Which point?"

Liu Yun chuckled softly, stroking the hilt of his sword, and said with a sigh, "A mere twenty-six men, do you think you can capture me?"

The black-clad ninja's expression changed drastically.

……

At this moment, half of the twenty-six black-clad ninjas moved within twenty steps of Liu Yun, arranged in a staggered and layered manner, drawing their weapons and occupying different positions.

The others maintained a distance of thirty to fifty paces, allowing them to shoot or throw long-range weapons, effectively adding another layer of blockade.

These people appeared to be well-trained and coordinated, and they were equipped with a wide variety of weapons, both long and short, and for both near and far ranges.

While the leader of the black-clad ninjas was talking to Liu Yun, the other ninjas took the opportunity to set up a trap.

Liu Yun had no experience in commanding a squad and couldn't figure out the intricacies of the situation, but with his martial arts intuition, he could tell that the positioning of the people around him was highly sophisticated, with each person providing cover and overlapping each other, making them both offensive and defensive.

but--

His individual ability is clearly insufficient.

Liu Yun has been out of the mountains for several months and has gained a general understanding of the level of ordinary civilians and soldiers in this world.

If a normal adult male's combat strength is five, then this group of ninjas is at most between twenty-five and thirty-five. Only their leader might be around forty.

As for Liu Yun himself, he is at least seventy years old.

Of course, this data has no standard and is purely made up.

That's roughly the gist of it.

In Liu Yun's eyes, the attacks of these black-clad ninjas were both slow and weak.

It's like a group of kindergarten-graduates forming what they think is a tight formation to surround a boxer.

Liuyun's advantages are even greater.

If kindergarten children are holding dangerous weapons, even if they are just swinging them around randomly, then boxers are still at great risk of injury.

Ultimately, they are just mortal beings of flesh and blood.

As for Liu Yun, he not only had enough ability to avoid one-third of the close-range attacks and block another third, but also counterattacked the last third. Moreover, he was not flustered at all in the face of the ranged attacks coming from all directions, and did not need to dodge at all.

With twelve people surrounding them and another fourteen people holding them off from the outside, they completely blocked all angles. Obviously, no normal person could withstand all of their attacks.

Liu Yun was clearly no exception.