Tokyo: I am the Lord of All Demons!

The conclusion is that it is rare.

It's still broad daylight, so the ghosts' activities are restricted. They can only hide in shady places like sewers to eke out a living. Moreover, since this area is a factory area, far from the bustling city center, it's still quite safe for the time being.

After determining whether there was any threat from the surrounding spirits, Shimizu Suzune returned to the ground. At this time, Ishikawa Risa followed her up and said, "She didn't answer the phone. When I called a second time, the phone was switched off."

Shimizu Suzune frowned, then slowly typed a question mark: "Huh?"

It's simply unimaginable.

Chapter 176 In Hokkaido

Shimizu Rin couldn't help but mutter to herself, "What on earth is this little girl up to at this crucial moment?"

"Could something have happened to her?" Ishikawa Risa asked uncertainly.

Shimizu Suzune dismissed her words without hesitation: "That's impossible. There's only one person who could get Fujita into trouble, and that's Akane. But Akane said in the text message that she kidnapped Oi, but didn't mention that she kidnapped Fujita as well. So for us, no news is the best news right now."

"Oh!" Ishikawa Risa nodded, flattering him, "You're much smarter than me, senpai!"

"Stop flattering me." Shimizu Suzune gave Ishikawa Risa a disdainful look. "Anyway, let's go to Fujita's house and see what's going on."

“Okay!” Ishikawa Risa nodded in agreement, her smile as bright as the sun.

The two of them don't have a car right now, but whether they have a car or not is not a problem for them. Both of them are divine messengers, and if they use a little divine power to strengthen their physique, then their feet can completely replace the function of a car.

The two are currently in Tokyo. To get to Kanagawa, they need to head southeast under the scorching sun. It should take them about ten to thirty minutes to reach their destination.

However, the further southeast the two young female messengers ran, the colder they felt. Looking up, they saw that the sun was setting, and the last rays of the setting sun were about to be replaced by the night.

What's even stranger is that the sun set far too quickly today, as if time had been compressed from one or two hours into just a few minutes.

Risa Ishikawa called out to Suzune Shimizu, who was running ahead: "Hey, Shimizu-san, I'm starting to feel something's wrong up ahead. Should we call it a day?"

Upon hearing Ishikawa Risa's words, Shimizu Suzune stopped in her tracks and looked around to assess the situation.

This is an unnamed mountainous area, sparsely populated, which is perhaps why it feels so cold.

After repeatedly checking the environment, Shimizu Rinne discovered that a strong ghostly power permeated the area within a radius of several kilometers.

She frowned: "Something definitely isn't right."

Risa Ishikawa pressed further, "So, are we going to turn back?"

After thinking for a moment, Shimizu Suzune decided to retreat and replied, "Retreat."

After receiving the order, Ishikawa Risa turned around to leave, but at that moment she found that the ghostly fog around her had become even thicker, making her unable to distinguish east from west for a moment.

Seeing that her escape route was blocked, Ishikawa Risa became anxious: "What should we do, Shimizu-san?"

Shimizu Suzune did not speak.

Even as the thick fog enveloped them, she continued to observe the situation, remaining vigilant for any ghosts or spirits that might try to ambush them.

There really is.

Countless ghosts, like a secret army, silently approached the two of them.

In this situation, Ishikawa Risa could only move closer to Shimizu Suzune, afraid of losing her.

Shimizu Suzune, unfazed by the danger, asked, "Is it you who's behind this, Akane?"

“…Akane?” Ishikawa Risa’s pupils twitched slightly when she heard the word.

If it really is Akane, then the two of them are probably doomed today. Ishikawa Risa never believed that the two divine messengers alone could contend with the Demon King Akane.

However, "Akane" did not respond to their questions, but the ghostly mist continued to intensify.

At this moment, after some analysis, Ishikawa Risa leaned close to Shimizu Suzune's ear and said, "Perhaps it's not Akane. Didn't Akane tell us to go to Yoyogi Park at midnight? Midnight is when her demonic power is strongest, and the sun has just set. She shouldn't be able to ambush us now."

After listening, Shimizu Suzune did not speak immediately; she was also analyzing the situation.

It's definitely not necessarily Qian.

Even though the ghost fog is very thick now, those surrounding us are all little ghosts.

Now that they had pretty much determined their objective of surrounding them, Risa Ishikawa said, "Then let's..."

Before she could finish speaking, Shimizu Rinne had already clasped her hands together, made hand seals and chanted incantations, summoning a divine light talisman that surrounded her.

Then, a command was given: "Demons, begone!!"

pat!

With a crisp sound like firecrackers exploding, the ghostly mist that had been swirling around instantly dissipated, revealing its original form.

It's nighttime now, but the moon hasn't risen yet, and in this desolate wilderness, you can't see your hand in front of your face.

However, as the ghostly mist dissipated, Shimizu Suzune and Ishikawa Risa were now able to see the presence of the ghosts around them more clearly through their divine power.

They were all weak ghosts. After the ghostly mist was dispelled, they all retreated more than ten meters away, fearing that they would be destroyed by the divine messenger.

However, Shimizu Suzune and Ishikawa Risa hadn't figured out what was going on, so they simply decided to remain unchanged.

In formulaic movies, the gradual retreat of these minor enemies signifies the imminent arrival of a more powerful foe—their sole purpose is to highlight the strength of a particular character.

However, to their surprise, although these ghosts retreated, the powerful ghost they had anticipated did not appear, and the surrounding air quickly became quiet.

And so, several more minutes passed, and Shimizu Suzune and Ishikawa Risa still hadn't seen the Demon King appear, and there was no demonic aura within a radius of several kilometers.

Risa Ishikawa scanned the surroundings several times, thought for a moment, and said, "It looks like no one is coming. Shall we go to Fujita's house now, or go back to the Shinto Hall?"

Shimizu Rin pointed to Ishikawa Risa's pocket, "First, turn on your phone and find out where we are and which direction we're going."

"Okay, I'll check right away." Ishikawa Risa nodded and took out her phone from her pocket to check the map.

As a result, the phone had no signal.

Furthermore, satellite positioning is unavailable!

Risa Ishikawa tried changing her position and angle to search for a signal, but she couldn't find one.

"No signal, is that right?" Shimizu Suzune keenly observed Ishikawa Risa's words and actions.

"Yes, what should we do then?" Ishikawa Risa looked distressed, as if she had swallowed a bitter pill, her stomach filled with endless bitterness.

Shimizu Suzune remained silent. At this moment, Ishikawa Risa spoke again: "Should we ask the High God for help?"

"Again?" Shimizu Rin shook her head. "Wasn't what happened this afternoon enough? It's obvious that the God doesn't want us to bother him too much."

Risa Ishikawa pouted, "Then we're going to be trapped in this unknown mountain forest!"

Shimizu Suzune wanted to say something comforting to Ishikawa Risa, but she swallowed her words back.

Yes, I can comfort her, but who will comfort me?

Regardless, this place is not a safe place to stay; it's just too eerie.

"Shimizu, look over there! What's that?!" Suddenly, Risa Ishikawa pointed to her right and said.

Shimizu Rinne turned her head and saw an entrance to another dimension. The interior of the entrance was dimly lit, and she couldn't see the details.

Shimizu Rin stared at the entrance to the alternate dimension for a few seconds, and quickly came to her conclusion: "That might be the entrance to the Underworld."

Risa Ishikawa's eyes were somewhat blank: "The entrance to the Underworld..."

In Japanese mythology, Yomi refers to the third realm beyond the realm of gods and humans, also known as the "underworld."

But that is ultimately just a myth; no one has ever set foot there, and there is no evidence to prove that the Yellow Springs exist.

Some might ask, if the Yellow Springs don't exist, then where do the ghosts hide during the day?

The answer is that cool, damp places such as sewers are the best places to go, a point that has been verified by the Shinto Office.

However, this argument is not foolproof. For example, there are many ghosts when it is quiet at night, but during the day, the number of ghosts hiding in the dark cannot match the total number of ghosts that roam at night.

The number of ghosts that hide in damp and dark places like sewers during the day is very small. For example, a single administrative ward in Tokyo may only have a dozen or so ghosts.

This means that, besides the dark places in the sewers, ghosts should have another hiding place, which is the "underworld".

Whether it was due to the long period of inactivity or some other reason, the entrance to the underworld did not exist for long. Before Shimizu Suzune and Ishikawa Risa could make a decision, it closed on its own.

Ishikawa murmured these words to herself: "It's shut down..."

Her words reminded Shimizu Rinne of something, so she immediately took out her phone to check the signal.

Upon inspection, the phone signal was indeed gradually recovering, from no signal at the beginning to one bar, two bars, and finally full bars.

Satellite positioning can certainly be used, but when Shimizu Suzune opened the map, she found that she was not in Tokyo or Kanagawa, but had been moved to an unknown desolate mountain area in Hokkaido.

Shimizu Rin stepped forward and asked Ishikawa Risa, "Hey, Ishikawa, check your phone's location, where does it show up?"

"Let me see." When Ishikawa Risa took out her phone, the map she saw was also in Hokkaido.

"Hokkaido?" Ishikawa Risa frowned, looking at Shimizu Suzune's face, wanting to see what she had to say.

It is 8 PM now.

It was only four hours away from the "midnight" that Akane mentioned, but this was Hokkaido, a long way from Yoyogi Park in Tokyo.

"broken……"

Shimizu Suzune frowned and said, "We need to get out of this awful place first, and then take a Shinkansen back to Tokyo."

"Shinkansen? Then why don't we take a plane back?" Ishikawa Risa had just seen on her phone that they were near Sapporo in Hokkaido, and it would probably take five or six hours to get back to Tokyo by Shinkansen.

In contrast, if you can catch a nearby flight, you can get back in as little as two hours.

However, Shimizu Suzune shook her head and objected to the suggestion: "We can't take a plane. If we encounter a ghost attack while on a plane, even if we are divine messengers and can escape, it will harm everyone on the plane."

In Shimizu Suzune's view, although the accident rate of airplanes is very low, they are still major accidents that can be fatal.

If they are attacked by ghosts on the way, the probability of their plane crashing will be almost 100%.

This is definitely not a good thing.

In contrast, if one were to encounter a ghost while riding the Shinkansen, at most it would only cause train malfunctions, and in more serious cases it might cause derailment or overturning. But compared to an air disaster, at least it wouldn't implicate so many innocent people.

As for running back on foot? That's impossible. It's seven or eight hundred kilometers from here to Tokyo. Even with divine power, it's absolutely impossible to run that far on foot.

Shimizu Suzune looked at the map on her phone: "There's a village nearby. Let's rest there for a bit and then explain the situation to the others."

The explanation was supposed to be given to "others," but in reality, there were no "others" left.

In matters requiring combat, the Shinto Office is of no help. The greatest function of this organization is to appease the public and build more shrines, nothing more.

Expecting them to fight?