January 11, 1547, Gregorian calendar.
It was the Sengoku period of Japan, the sixteenth year of Emperor Nara's Tenbun era.
The location was Izu Province, under the rule of the daimyo Hojo Ujiyasu.
It corresponded to Izu City in modern-day Shizuoka Prefecture.
The region was surrounded by high mountains, easy to defend and difficult to attack, forming a peninsula.
There was only one major city, called Nirayama.
It had been built in 1491 under the leadership of Hojo Sōun.
Most of the area consisted of small villages scattered throughout the mountains and wilderness.
[Clang! Clang! Clang!]
Deafening metallic blows rang continuously from within Mount Omuro in Ito.
At this time, Mount Omuro was still an active volcano.
The mountain was bare, littered with rubble, without a trace of greenery.
Thick smoke dyed the entire sky pitch-black.
It bore no resemblance at all to the place people would one day call "lush and green, as if covered in rich matcha powder."
The viewpoint slowly drew closer to the source of the noise.
At the sunken center of the mountaintop stood a crude house made from enormous bones, leather, and the mountain itself.
The pounding erupted from within it alongside scorching flames.
Even more remarkably, a three-eyed bull stood calmly before a "door" lined with fangs.
It seemed utterly unaffected by the heat or the deafening noise.
Inside the house—
An old man with a topknot braid, dressed in a striped green kimono, gripped a red-hot blade barehanded.
At the same time, he used the hammer in his right hand to repeatedly strike the blade's surface.
Strangely, not only did he feel no heat.
Every hammer blow instead unleashed a heatwave powerful enough to suffocate someone.
The blade's red glow also grew increasingly brilliant.
This man was Totosai.
He was a swordsmith,