From Earthbound Spirit to Tokyo Evil

It sounds interesting, but shouldn't the supreme god of Neon Shinto be the so-called Amaterasu? What is Tosho Daigongen?

"I'm sorry, I don't know much about these things. Why don't you explain them to me in detail?"

"Madman!" The ghost suddenly took a step forward, and a huge amount of blood gushed out like a tide, surrounding Xia Chuan. The long sword in his hand chopped down towards Xia Chuan with great power!

Xia Chuan immediately activated the escape technique, but was disturbed by the sea of ​​blood, as if he was stuck to something and could not move as quickly as before. He immediately drew his sword and used the Iron Body and Multiplication Technique to become as huge as before the knife fell. He blocked the knife with his strength. The next moment, a huge fireball fell from the sky and smashed towards the ghost!

"A mere trifle!" The ghost god split the fireball in half with one stroke of his sword. A sea of ​​blood then surged up and engulfed the flames. Several blood pillars suddenly rose from the sea of ​​blood and pounced towards Xia Chuan like tentacles, while the ghost god's sword slashed towards him again.

A wall of fire suddenly appeared beside Xia Chuan, blocking the tentacles. Several huge wind blades slashed directly at the ghost, but were blocked one by one. The next second, Xia Chuan turned defense into offense, and his body suddenly rushed forward, slashing at the ghost with a knife, but was easily blocked by him.

The sea of ​​blood seemed to have some kind of power that could interfere with Xia Chuan's spiritual power, causing his spiritual energy to sluggishly flow and his ability to cast spells to be severely reduced. The only thing that was not affected was the close-range physical attack, but facing ghosts and gods without physical bodies, such attacks could not play a big role.

He is just an unknown ghost in a small shrine. If he is so difficult to defeat, then how was Japan forced to open its borders by European and American warships?

Xia Chuan was thinking about this problem while dealing with Him.

There can be no EMP weapons in this era, let alone weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs, so...

His thoughts turned, and the knife in his hand did not stop for a moment, fighting with the ghosts and gods, but fireballs kept appearing and smashed directly into the surrounding buildings.

"How dare you!" The ghost suddenly became furious, and the sea of ​​blood rose up again, rolling towards Xia Chuan like a tsunami, but a considerable part of it was used to extinguish the fireball, which allowed Xia Chuan to confirm where the opponent's weakness was.

This shrine is the source of His power. If the shrine is destroyed, He will lose his support.

And... Xia Chuan had another guess in his mind. While he swung his sword continuously to cut through the blood waves, he continued to throw fireballs around frantically to distract the ghosts and gods.

The next moment, Xiachuan suddenly distanced himself from the demon god, retreated quickly before the blood wave surged up again, and jumped out of the torii. Sure enough, the demon god roared, but could not attack him as before, and the sea of ​​blood that was enough to make the escape technique ineffective also stayed within the range of the Shimenawa, unable to break through the range of the shrine to continue to interfere with his power.

Just like before he had a body, the ghost who was a god was bound to the shrine by some force and could not leave.

The spiritual power suddenly became smooth again. Xia Chuan stood outside the shrine, and hundreds of fireballs continuously hit the inside of the shrine, making the ghosts and gods exhausted. Several priests and shrine maidens stood inside the shrine and tried to attack him with spells, but he easily blocked them. Not only that, he also took advantage of the ghosts and gods' unpreparedness and suddenly rushed into the shrine, knocked out his most gorgeously dressed priests and shrine maidens, and brought them out as quickly as possible.

He planned to take them to a quiet place later and interrogate them slowly, slowly forcing them to reveal everything related to the shrine.

Under the continuous attacks, the sacred forest in the shrine finally caught fire. Although it was quickly extinguished, the next moment, more fireballs shot towards the shrine, causing more places to catch fire.

"What on earth do you want?!" The ghost's attitude finally changed. "You and I don't know each other and have no grudges against each other. Why are you doing this?"

"Sorry, I just happened to run into you." Xia Chuan told the truth, but it made the ghost even more furious.

At this moment, suddenly several lights and shadows shot towards this side from the sky.

Natsukawa guessed that it could be priests and shrine maidens from other shrines, or even forces from the shogunate that were specifically responsible for handling matters concerning gods and demons.

His purpose was not to disrupt the order of Edo, but to obtain more knowledge and secrets, so before these guys arrived, he dragged the two priests and shrine maidens who were knocked unconscious by him and fled the place directly using the escape technique.

There must be some kind of connection between the gods and their clergy. However, Xia Chuan immediately used the soul jade to make bracelets to prevent being spied on, put them on the hands of the captives, and then took them far away to an uninhabited place outside the city and threw them into the mountains.

The priests and the shrine maidens were both very old and had very tough attitudes, which allowed Xia Chuan to let go of his psychological burden and torture them.

The two persisted for more than two hours, and then, finally, after realizing that the god they believed in could not find and save them, or even respond to their prayers, they chose to answer the questions in despair.

The six Hachiman Shrines, which were chosen by Natsukawa purely out of bad luck, actually enshrine Hachiya Sadatsugu, a Tokugawa family general who was canonized as a demon god by the shogunate. He is also one of the so-called Tokugawa Sixteen Divine Generals. The priests and shrine maidens do not know how to canonize the dead as gods, but they do know that this is an important way for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the patron god of the shogunate, to strengthen his rule and enhance his power.

The canonized ghosts and gods can obtain the power of gods through the faith and prayers of believers, and through specific rituals, this power can be bestowed on warriors and clergy who believe in him and regard him as their patron god.

A considerable number of human warriors obtained strength that was enough to rival the monsters in this way. But in addition to this, they could also obtain such strength through belief in gods and Buddhas, or with the help of certain divine artifacts.

Monsters can also use this to increase their strength, but the extent of the increase is far less than that of humans who are much weaker than them. Therefore, they often choose to increase their strength by devouring evil spirits and practicing. However, after a long period of peace, in the arrogant and extravagant life, monsters also began to become weak and lazy, gradually losing their fierceness and tenacious will, which made many new monsters choose this simpler way to increase their strength, which made the gap between them and humans narrow more and more compared to the beginning of the establishment of the shogunate.

Because their faith is not strong enough and they lack sufficient will, many newly born monsters are not even as powerful as some human warriors who are favored by the gods.

They honestly told Xia Chuan all the methods of practicing and applying magic that they knew. Because they were serving ghosts and gods, Xia Chuan felt that some of the knowledge was not applicable to his own clergy. However, this did broaden his thinking and let him know where to look for the knowledge he needed.

The so-called Warring States Period saw the fall of countless gods along with their followers and supporters, but Japan claims to have eight million gods, so there are always some that the shogunate has not discovered or eliminated.

Chapter 236 Black Ship

Although it was a fantasy and everything was unreal, but considering the ultimate goal of lifting the seal, in order to avoid the seal that Kamio Hitomi had mentioned to him and Kamio Hitomi's subconscious reaction, Natsukawa decided to be a little more cautious.

The two captives were left where they were after he removed the bracelets that concealed their auras. After walking some distance away from that place, he transformed back into "Kinoshita Takaya" and began to search for an inconspicuous shrine in a wider area.

At this time, the crows he had sent to the west to explore the border of this illusion suddenly lost contact, but they were not attacked, but just disappeared abruptly. Xia Chuan was a little surprised, and then began to send out crows in more directions, consciously flying in one direction at the fastest speed.

A few hours later, he finally determined the scope of the entire illusion. It was not a circle, but an irregular piece of land centered on Edo. The north only reached Aomori, which was supposed to be far away from Hokkaido, the west only reached Kobe and Miyazu, and the rest of the place was only a dozen miles away from the coast.

Beyond this area, there is an endless fog that stretches from the ground and the sea to the sky. After the raven flew into the fog, it suddenly lost contact as before, and was never seen again.

Natsukawa specifically found the fishermen at the tip of Boso Peninsula south of Tokyo and asked them about the fog, but they looked confused when faced with his questions and could only kowtow desperately, as if they did not understand Natsukawa's questions at all.

To them, the fog seemed to be completely non-existent?

Natsukawa had no choice but to give up getting answers from them, but on the way back to Edo, he unexpectedly saw several ships that were clearly out of place in this world near Yokohama Port across the Boso Peninsula.

Western gunboat!

Xia Chuan immediately moved over.

Although he didn't know much about Neon's history, Natsukawa had attended high school for a period of time and had tutored Yui Aoki in her studies. He might not know other things, but he had heard of the so-called "Black Ship Arrival" incident.

But, are the black ships in history really so... fantastic?

They were unscientifically huge, unscientifically gorgeous, and equipped with unscientifically huge cannons that were clearly beyond Xia Chuan's cognition. Of course, the most important thing was that Xia Chuan could vaguely feel that there was obvious spiritual energy on several gunboats, and the strength was quite astonishing!

Xia Chuan's cognition has been completely overturned. Even if such a gunboat was placed in modern times, it might be able to fight. How could it appear in such a place at this time?

Could it be a seal that is incompatible with this world and obviously should not appear in this world?

However, no matter how you look at it, it is not enough for Kamio Hitomi to cherish this.

As the weapons that opened the door to Japan, these Western gunboats should be hated by both humans and gods in Edo at this moment. Whether it is for Kamio Hitomi or the demon fox, these gunboats should be targets that must be eliminated as soon as possible, right?

Xia Chuan continued to approach them quietly.

I don’t know if it was for safety reasons, but among the four gunboats, only one was docked at the port, and the other three were anchored in the sea at a certain distance from the port.

Naturally, no outsiders are allowed to approach the port, and it is strictly guarded by armed sailors. In addition to the US sailor's post, there is another post manned by several dog demon flagstone warriors and a dozen human soldiers.

The two sentry posts were more than 20 meters apart, and the sentries glared at each other, obviously not on good terms.

Xia Chuan didn't know how far the Black Ship Incident had progressed, but according to rumors in Edo Castle, sometime last year, a conflict between a Western merchant and a samurai occurred somewhere in the Tokaido near Yokohama Port. It was said that the Western Barbarian country England had just taken a compensation of 100,000 pounds from the shogunate, but still refused to give in. This was widely publicized by the Sonjo faction, who believed that it was a manifestation of the shogunate's corruption and incompetence.

These two sentries were probably to prevent radical ronin from attacking the US gunboats and to prevent the US sailors from leaving the port. However, they now became an obstacle for Xia Chuan to approach, forcing him to blend in with the crowd watching the excitement at the port and quietly spy on the gunboats and sailors from this distance.

From this angle, the four gunboats looked even bigger. The hulls should be made of wood, but they were covered with a layer of black metal armor with a large number of runes and spells painted on them with dark gold patterns. From a distance, they had a mysterious and strange beauty.

Xia Chuan noticed that the sailors guarding the port also had a faint aura, but they did not look like aliens, clergymen or practitioners. So, the only possibility was that they were wearing some kind of props that allowed them to exert enough combat power to resist alien attacks.

There were Christian monks in sackcloth robes on the deck of the docked gunboat. There was no doubt that they were not from the world that Xiachuan lived in.

If this world is not Kamio Hitomi's fantasy but the real situation in the demon fox's memory... Natsukawa can't imagine what happened in this world in the past hundred years to cause such a powerful and widespread alien force to disappear?

His curiosity about these gunboats was even stronger than his desire to discover the power of the shrine.

After all, history has proven that the power represented by these gunboats eventually conquered the entire world and almost completely eliminated and expelled the gods from this world.

The key point is that such power can be mastered by ordinary humans. For the Skeleton Society, whose subordinates are all useless, such power may be more reliable than the power of the shrine.

It seems that the warships cannot be attacked, but the purpose of the US gunboats coming to Japan is not only to show off their strength, but more importantly to force Japan to open up to trade. Therefore, there must be merchant ships and businessmen who want to enter Japan to do business.

Generally, the Japanese had to abide by the strict orders of the shogunate and were not allowed to have rash contact with Western merchants. After a conflict occurred, they were strictly ordered not to attack them. However, Natsukawa had no idea about these prohibitions and of course would not obey them.

So he waited until it got dark, then quietly boarded a Western merchant ship anchored at another port. Before the guards on the ship could react, he knocked them all out, tied them up and gagged them, and took them to the cabin. Then he captured the captain and the first mate, and took them to the captain's room for interrogation.

Naturally, these people had no awareness of defending the secrets of the country and the church with their own lives. Before Xia Chuan could even take action, they had already honestly confessed everything they knew.

Chapter 237 Missionary (1)

At this time, the power of the church was still very strong. Although the power of the church had seriously declined compared to the Middle Ages after experiencing turmoil including the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Sun King, the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic War, and the Polish-Turkish War, the information revealed by the merchants still allowed Xia Chuan to easily piece together the image of a powerful alien organization in his mind.

However, this organization is powerful enough, and the internal strife is also quite serious. Even the church power that appears in Japan is actually divided into different factions such as Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. The most powerful Protestantism is divided into Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Baptist, Methodism, and Evangelicalism, which are multiple interrelated, competing, and independent sects, and they fight endlessly with each other.

If the scene in the illusion was the reality that the fox demon had personally experienced, then Xia Chuan could now barely imagine the reason for the alien's subsequent decline.

The emergence of new weapons leading to the disappearance of the overwhelming advantage of aliens is certainly a link that cannot be ignored, but the infighting among aliens is definitely an important reason, and may even be the main reason.

According to the merchants, not only the warships sailing across the oceans have to be transformed and blessed by clergy before launching, but some powerful ship owners will also pay high prices to ask clergy to transform and bless their merchant ships. Most of the time, they will also hire missionaries and holy knights from the church to travel on board.

However, the merchant ship chosen by Xia Chuan was not so wealthy. In fact, it was just a small merchant ship built in Haojing and blessed by the Haojing Jesuits. Although the ship owner was a Portuguese, he pretended to be a Japanese merchant and had been trading in Japan for a long time. He had close contacts with officials of the shogunate and merchants in Japan. Therefore, unlike other merchant ships, there were no missionaries on board, so Xia Chuan easily captured the entire ship.

They also knew nothing about the fog covering the area, which forced Xia Chuan to conclude that the fog would only work on intruders like himself.

All the Western barbarian personnel on the ship carried cross amulets with a certain amount of spiritual power, which were said to be able to prevent evil spirits from possessing them and to a certain extent resist attacks from evil spirits. However, as there was not much spiritual energy attached to them and the workmanship was not very delicate, Xia Chuan felt that the use of these things would be quite limited.

The first mate and some Western sailors had some kind of magic circle-like tattoos on their bodies, which were said to bring good luck and ward off evil spirits, but Xia Chuan also doubted their effectiveness.

The parts of the ship with the most spiritual energy are the figurehead and the main mast. Xia Chuan studied it and confirmed that there is indeed something special inside. However, it should be a magic circle to shelter from the wind, strengthen the hull and mast, and prevent evil spirits from causing trouble. It doesn't mean much to him, so he finally turned his attention to the muskets, daggers, horns, holy water and Bibles seized from the captain.

There is no doubt that they are all so-called inherited items that are quite valuable later on, but in this era in the fantasy world, they are just necessities for adventurers and merchants.

The dagger is made of fine steel, with simple magic circles drawn on the blade and the handle, giving it a certain spiritual power, enough to cause damage to the evil spirits.

The horn is said to be able to dispel fog and also has the power to kill dead souls.

Needless to say, holy water, when poured out, can not only cause damage to the undead, but also to the so-called "unclean" things. Xia Chuan tested it and found that it was highly corrosive to spiritual energy, but had no harm to the ordinary human body. In this way, it has indeed become an effective weapon for ordinary people to deal with aliens.

The secret of the Bible is hidden in the outer shell. The magic circle hidden inside has a similar function to the bronze mirror made by Xia Chuan, but it has a stronger protective effect than the bronze mirror. Not only will it react to protect the holder when attacked by evil spirits, but when the holder repeatedly recites the words on the title page, it can also actively stimulate a barrier similar to the Maple Dance of the witches to protect the holder from harm.

Unfortunately, it had been a while since the captain bought these things from the Jesuit missionaries, but he had not gone to the church to confess in time or spent money to replenish their spiritual power. There was not much spiritual power left in these items, and Xia Chuan could not conduct research very well.

However, that musket gave Xia Chuan considerable inspiration!

There is nothing special about the musket itself. The magic circle on the handle only makes it sturdy and moisture-proof, and it only uses ordinary gunpowder in daily use. The key point is that in addition to the lead bullets made by himself, the captain also bought a dozen blessed projectiles from Jesuit missionaries. After careful inspection by Xia Chuan, he found that there was some kind of magic circle hidden inside these projectiles. After being attached with spiritual power, the muskets that use these projectiles have the ability to kill dead spirits and demons!

For Xia Chuan, the magic array inside the projectile was not complicated, and attaching spiritual power was even simpler. He quickly made dozens of such projectiles using the captain's lead bullets. Because he continued to test and improve during the production process, the projectiles he made were even more lethal than the original ones!

Only such projectiles can be used in muskets, but what if the same process is used to make the bullets of modern firearms?

Xia Chuan believed that such bullets must have played an important role in the process of humans defeating aliens and becoming the masters of the world. However, such technology itself should not be complicated, so why was it lost?

No... Xia Chuan suddenly remembered Henman, a former member of Scott's team, who was suspected to be an alchemist. He also used a musket that could kill evil spirits with flames. Although the principles were different, this might indicate that certain techniques or spells were still passed down to later generations. However, due to the sharp decline in the number of gods and clergy, these weapons, which were once quite popular, have become expensive "magic props" that only a few people can use.

After knowing this secret, Xiachuan can completely arm the Corpse Mechanism. They will definitely be more comfortable using guns than wooden swords, and their lethality will be greatly increased.

If they were equipped with a large number of these bullets, they might even be useful in a battle against the Watchers.

There is no way to confirm whether this type of bullet can break through the telekinesis of the Watchers, but it should be entirely possible to use it to kill opponents such as pastors of the Church of Life!

We must find a way to catch a missionary!

Such a harvest made Xia Chuan feel warm.

The secrets of the shrine are of course important, but if we can obtain even a portion of the secrets of the Jesuit Order, it will also greatly enhance the power of the Skeleton Order. The technology they master should be more universal and easy to use, and it may be of greater help to the Skeleton Order!

Chapter 238 Missionary (2)

Although the so-called friendly trade agreement had been signed under the pressure of Britain and the United States for almost ten years after the founding of the country, in fact, under the promotion of Mito, Nagasu, Satsuma and other domains, the public opinion for expelling foreigners was becoming increasingly strong, and the conservative forces within the shogunate also had a strong sense of confrontation with the strong return of the church forces after Shimabara. The so-called founding of the country was still just a piece of paper, and there were still not many ports where foreign merchants could reach and stay.

Yokohama, where Natsukawa is now, is actually not the port stipulated in the trade agreement. In order to force the shogunate to speed up the pace of opening the country, and also to demonstrate military force and protect the safety of merchants and merchant ships, these four US gunboats appeared in this place. The merchant ship that Natsukawa captured at this moment was anchored in Yokohama Port because of the protection of the gunboats.

Just as Xia Chuan was interrogating the captain, the first mate and the merchants on the ship and studying what he had obtained from them, a small boat carrying ten sailors and two missionaries was conducting a routine patrol among the merchant ships anchored in the port.

They soon discovered the problem with the merchant ship, and almost at the same moment, Xia Chuan also discovered them through the crow standing on the mast.

How to do?

Xia Chuan hesitated for a second, then he knocked the captain and others unconscious, and quietly escaped from the captain's room and lurked at the stern of the ship.

The sailors had quietly climbed onto the deck and arranged a simple defensive formation, and then the two missionaries also climbed up.

Xia Chuan did not leave enough spiritual energy for them to feel, but the fact that there was not a single sailor on duty on such a large merchant ship was very suspicious in itself.

The two missionaries looked at each other, and the older one took out a short-handled musket, ready to fire into the sky to warn the gunboat for help.

At this moment, a palm-sized black shadow suddenly rushed down from a great height and hit his hand hard, knocking the musket in his hand flying. The sailors were stunned for a moment, but just as they were about to shoot, Xia Chuan suddenly attacked and rushed directly into their formation, knocking the captain and another sailor who were blocking him unconscious.

The missionaries screamed, and the young priest poured the holy water bottle he had been holding in his hand directly in the direction of Xia Chuan, but he dodged it with his escape technique. The next moment, Xia Chuan kept flashing among the sailors and knocked them all out at a very fast speed before they could shoot.

The sailors all wore cross amulets, but the power attached to them was too weak. It might have some effect on ordinary vengeful spirits and monsters, but it was completely meaningless in front of Xia Chuan. It just flashed slightly in the dark and then lost its effect.

The older priest had already opened the Bible in his hand, holding the scripture in one hand and the rosary in the other, and began to recite loudly.

Some strange force suddenly appeared beside Xia Chuan, and the air around him suddenly became heavy, as if it was real, pressing heavily on him, trying to make him lose his ability to move.

Xia Chuan immediately used the escape technique to flash to the side of the older priest. The power became even stronger in the area around him, but Xia Chuan still easily broke free from its restraints and slashed at his neck with a knife.