Hattori Hanzō accepted the blood-stained edict with both hands, his throat parched and cracking.
"Your Majesty, rest assured, once the Hundred Demons Grand Formation, even birds will find it difficult to cross."
"Furthermore, with tens of thousands of loyal warriors defending the city, let alone the twenty thousand Great Yan Army..."
Even if a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers came, they would be reduced to pus and blood Rashōmon.
"Good!"
Emperor Takaichi was breathing heavily, his eyes filled with a frantic calculation:
"As long as we stall Gu Moran Rashōmon, and wait for that person in Great Yan capital of Dayan to launch a coup from the rear..."
" Gu Moran attacked from both sides; that's when he'll die without a burial place!"
He had just finished speaking when the sky outside the palace began to lighten with the first hint of dawn.
"Report!"
A garrison warrior stumbled and crawled into the main hall, his helmet gone, and pointed towards the door, trembling all over.
"Your Majesty, the ninja scouts sent by the Shrine to the Tangshan Manor Rashōmon have returned!"
Emperor Takaichi's eyes lit up, and he took a step forward:
"But have you successfully silenced them?"
The city guard swallowed hard, his face drained of color.
"No... no, only a horse came back, and tied to the saddle was a Shadow Ninja whose bones were all broken, and he was on his last breath!"
"On his back... on his back, someone had nailed a piece of blood-stained paper with Buddhist mantras for the deceased to be reborn in the Pure Land. It said that all the Great Yan agents within a thirty-mile radius were slaughtered by a single monk from the Dayan Sect!"
Emperor Takaichi stumbled, and the imperial dagger he had been given clattered to the altar.
Two days later, at the beginning of Heian-kyō.
The once wide and flat plain Rashōmon was now shrouded in a layer of dark green poisonous fog, at least two zhang high.
The water in the moat had already been filled with thousands of barrels of corpse oil, cinnabar, and mercury, giving it a foul stench and black foam.
Atop the towering Rashōmon tower, an octagonal wooden altar, three zhang high (approximately 10 meters), was erected.
Hattori Hanzō, stood atop the altar, wearing a linen cloak covered in blood-red runes, and shook a string of copper bells made of infant skulls.
Below the altar,
One hundred Onmyoji dressed in white robes surrounded dozens of large iron pots placed on firewood.
He frantically used a large palm-leaf fan to fan away the datura and mercury poisonous fumes simmering in the pot towards the direction of the Great Yan Army formation.
Chancellery,
Thirty thousand Wa fanatical samurai, shirtless and with white headbands bearing the inscription "Seven Lives for the Country," wielding katana and bamboo spears.
It howled and screamed in the poisonous fog, its eyes bloodshot from inhaling even a trace of datura smoke.
On a high slope three hundred paces away from the poisonous fog, the Great Yan Iron Cavalry stood in neat square formation.
Gu Moran rode on the back of the pure white Jade Lion Horse, while Kim Seon-a changed back into her close-fitting silver scale armor and rode a fiery red horse close to his side.
"Chinese devils, have stepped into the territory of God's Kingdom!"
A hundred demons devoured souls; Amaterasu Ōmikami, unleashed divine punishment.
"You all, dismount and prepare to die!"
On the city tower altar, Hattori Hanzō tin megaphone, roared in broken Great Yan, pretending to be a deity.
At his command, dozens of genin hiding in the poisonous fog pulled the iron chains.
Hundreds of paper figures and phosphorescent dolls rose from the soil of the plain, floating up and down in the dark green fog, looking eerie and frightening.
Kim Seon-a tightened her grip on the longsword and turned to look at Gu Moran:
"Your Highness, this poisonous fog is even denser than that of Iwami Silver Mine, and the 30,000 warriors below the city have been enraged by the drug smoke. How are we supposed to fight them?"
Before Gu Moran could speak, a person stepped forward from the front of the formation.
Xie Linyuan's blood-stained monk's robe had been dried by the mountain wind, clinging taut to his muscular frame.
Looking at the billowing poisonous fog ahead and the 30,000 fanatical warriors below the city, his eyes showed no fear whatsoever; instead, a terrifying red light shone in them.
"Your Highness, Princess Seon-a."
Xie Linyuan didn't turn around, holding the Nine-Turn Golden Wheel in one hand, his voice hoarse yet filled with an excited fervor:
" Emperor Takaichi himself gathered these 30,000 samurai outside the city, saving this humble monk the trouble of going into the city to search for them house by house."
"This humble monk will now go and destroy that sorcerer's altar, so that they can line up at the Bridge of Bridge of Helplessness and wait for their wives, children, and elderly parents in the city to come and reunite!"
Gu Moran slapped the saddle and shouted at Xie Linyuan's retreating figure:
"Thank you, Brother Xie, for your boundless compassion!"
" Zhen Meili, load all the gunpowder brought from Iwami Silver Mine into the heavy catapults and three-barreled guns."
Once Brother Xie has disrupted the front lines, I'll raze that charlatan's altar and Rashōmon to the ground!
"Understood!"
At the rear, Zhen Meili stood on the modified mechanical vehicle. With a wave of her small hand, fifty heavy mechanical catapults simultaneously tightened their ox-tendon ropes, their pouches filled with giant Subduing Fire Thunder bundled together.
On the front lines,
Xie Linyuan gathered a breath of profound Buddhist true energy, and a three-foot-thick layer of pale golden protective qi spread around his body, directly repelling the oncoming datura mercury poison mist three feet away.
"Amitabha Buddha, Great Mighty Heavenly Dragon, World-Honored One Ksitigarbha, this humble monk will guide you to the Pure Land!"
Xie Linyuan roared, and his golden figure shot out, single-handedly braving the rain of arrows raining down from the city wall.
He plunged headlong into the very center of the Wa samurai's army formation.
"Kill him, for His Majesty the Emperor!"
The hundreds of Wa samurai in the front row, wielding their katanas, slashed at Xie Linyuan like madmen.
Xie Linyuan didn't even try to dodge. He pushed forward heavily with both hands, and nine pure gold Dharma wheels spun and spread out in a fan shape, rapidly circling and cutting through the dense crowd.
Puff puff puff, snap!
The dozens of bare-chested warriors in the front row didn't even get to touch the hem of Xie Linyuan's monk's robe before their katana swords, along with half of their bodies, were sliced in half by the spinning golden wheel.
Blood mixed with internal organs splattered three zhang away. Xie Linyuan stepped over the severed limbs and broken arms scattered on the ground.
With each step forward, he would chant a sutra for salvation, and the golden wheel in his hand would reap more than a dozen lives.
He didn't bother fighting the common soldiers at all, instead using the heads of Japanese soldiers as stepping stones to leap up, carving a bloody path through the ranks of 30,000 men.
With a few leaps, he rushed to the moat, pushed off the stone tablet on the riverbank with his right foot, and rose five zhang high into the air, heading straight for the octagonal altar on the Rashōmon tower.
Hattori Hanzō atop the city wall, was terrified. He dropped the baby skull bell he was holding and, with a swift movement, unleashed dozens of poisoned bone-piercing nails and three high-explosive shells aimed directly at Xie Linyuan, who was suspended in mid-air.
Stop this madman!
"You dare to hinder this humble monk from performing great acts of kindness with such trivial skills!"
Xie Linyuan, suspended in mid-air with bloodshot eyes, braced his left hand against two bone-piercing nails, allowing the poisoned needles to penetrate half an inch into his palm.
With his right hand, he combined the nine golden wheels into one, forming a giant golden wheel with a diameter of ten feet. With a piercing whistle, he smashed it down on the octagonal altar.
A deafening roar erupted.
The giant golden wheel cleaved the three-zhang-tall wooden altar in two.
Hattori Hanzō before his entire body, along with the altar and incense burner beneath him, collapsed.
It was smashed into countless pieces of flesh and wood chips by the violent Buddhist energy.
One hundred Onmyoji (yin-yang masters) below the altar were knocked down by collapsing logs and boiling iron pots of poison, rolling on the ground scalded.
"Do it! Release it!"
On the high slope, Zhen Meili waved her command flag heavily.