OBS Chapter 787: The road to becoming a god is confusing, and old friends reunite and revenge
Chapter 787: The road to becoming a god is confusing, and old friends reunite and revenge
The morning mist on the top of the west mountain dissipates slower than elsewhere.
When Wang Mian followed Yu Gong around three mountain bends, the blue-gray eaves emerged from the fog.
It was a house that was even smaller than I had imagined, with faded copper bells hanging from the corners of the green tile eaves.
The wooden sign on the door lintel had been worn down by wind and rain, leaving only half of the word "Tea" - it really looked like the remains of an old teahouse.
"We're here." Amemiya stopped in front of the door and knocked on it with his knuckles.
His fingertips were still stained with morning dew, and the knock on the door sounded as light as falling cherry blossoms.
Wang Mian's Adam's apple moved.
He could hear his own heartbeat, hitting the bronze mask again and again.
The thunder breath from last night's spell still lingered in my palm, and now it was drilling into my blood vessels along with my breathing.
He was so itchy that he wanted to clutch the scabbard tightly - but the knife in the scabbard was very quiet and did not buzz like it usually did when encountering an enemy.
The moment the door opened, Wang Mian's pupils shrank into needle points.
The person standing behind the door was wearing a washed-out indigo short.
There is a scar on the left side of his face that runs from his brow to his jaw, like a hideous centipede.
But he would never mistake those eyes - ten years ago in the ruins of the fishing village,
It was these eyes that dug out half of his bloody shoulder armor from the pile of corpses.
Then they dragged the unconscious him into the leaky, dilapidated temple.
"Wu Xiangnan?" The voice behind the mask was hoarse.
The other person's hand trembled slightly on the door frame.
He stared at the bronze mask on Wang Mian for three breaths, and suddenly laughed out loud.
His voice was hoarse like a broken bellows: "Wang Mian? You f*cking... you f*cking still alive?"
Amemiya took a half step back, and the cherry blossom charms fell from his fingertips, turning into a light mist between the two of them. "You guys chat."
His voice was wrapped in the mist, and when the king turned his head,
All I could see were the remaining cherry blossom petals on the bluestone road and the shadows of clothes blown away by the mountain breeze.
Wang Mian took off his mask.
Ten years ago, when he was in the "Masked" team, they always said that his face was too cold, like a piece of jade that had not been warmed up.
At this moment, the morning light shone on the old scar on his brow, which really looked like a piece of jade soaked in blood.
Wu Xiangnan suddenly raised his hand and pressed his knuckles hard against his chest.
"I spent three months digging through the rubble in the ruins of the Divine Palace, and found half a piece of your breastplate from the scorched earth."
His voice trembled. "At that time, I thought that bastard Wang Mian must be going to challenge the big monster again."
"In the end...in the end, not even a complete body was left for my brother."
Wang Mian grabbed his wrist.
The wrist was so thin that it hurt to touch, and the joints were stained with black ash that had not been wiped off - the traces of years of tinkering with talismans or magical instruments.
"That night in the fishing village, I was swept into a reef cave by the waves."
He remembered the suffocating feeling of salty sea water pouring into his nostrils, and the last thing he saw before his consciousness blurred.
It was the silhouette of Wu Xiangnan holding a burning torch and calling his name in the rainstorm.
"By the time I climbed ashore, your camp had already been razed to the ground by monsters."
Wu Xiangnan suddenly let go of his hand, turned around and walked into the house.
Wang Mian followed him in and found that the room was filled with yellowed ancient books and copper instruments.
A pot of tea was boiling on the charcoal stove in the corner, and the aroma of tea mixed with the smell of mold penetrated into my nostrils.
"Sit down." Wu Xiangnan pulled over two benches and sat down first. He took out an oil-paper bag from his pocket.
"You always said the matcha candy I stole from the Onmyoji was too sweet."
Wang Mian took the candy.
The candy wrapper is damp, but the sweetness still penetrates my nose.
He suddenly remembered that when the team was on night patrol, Wu Xiangnan always folded candy wrappers into small butterflies and pasted them in the tent as lanterns.
At that time they always laughed at him as a woman, but later, after every night raid,
The team members would tacitly pick up the fallen candy wrapper butterflies - as if they were picking up scattered souls.
"Amemiya said you were looking for the way to the law." Wu Xiangnan suddenly spoke, his fingers stroking the edge of the tea bowl.
"Ten years ago, of our special teams—Blue Rain, Mask, Green Fly—out of seventeen, only two survived three years."
He looked up, his scar gleaming pale in the morning light. "Do you know why?"
Wang Mian said nothing.
He remembered that the captain of the "Green Fly" team was finally eaten to pieces by the poisonous insects he raised.
I remember that in order to save his teammates, the medic of "Blue Rain" took out his heart and used it as a medicine.
These people have been labeled as "expendable" since the day they put on their team uniforms.
"Because we are too greedy." Wu Xiangnan's voice suddenly turned cold.
"The higher-ups want a knife that can chop off monsters' heads, but we insist on being the ones holding the knife."
"Why do you think the path of a God Slayer is so difficult?
Because someone doesn’t want the knife to learn to find its own target.”
Wang Mian's fingers were picking at the candy wrapper unconsciously.
He thought of the ocean of laws that Lin Qiye had mentioned.
I remembered what Wu Hen said about taking root in the laws - it turned out that behind those words were countless broken knives in their sheaths.
"What about you?" he asked.
"You stayed in Japan just to hide from those who wanted to sheath their swords?"
Wu Xiangnan laughed, and his scars were distorted by his laughter.
He stood up and opened the back window. The mountain breeze blew in the cherry blossoms, making the ancient books on the table rustle.
"I stay here to chop off Susanoo's head."
Wang Mian's breathing stopped.
Susanoo, the ancient god in the records of the Imperial Court, caused a fire on Mount Fuji ten years ago.
Seventeen members of the "Blue Rain" team were burned to death, leaving only Wu Xiangnan.
"Do you know what I learned secretly in the Yin-Yang Bureau?" Wu Xiangnan took out a piece of charred scale from his arms.
He rubbed them in his palms, and suddenly a blue flame rose from the scales, “Susanoo’s life fire.
This is what burned through my teammate's armor.
"I spent seven years planting a seed in its flames—when it consumes the lives of the Eighteenth Special Squad, this fire will in turn burn through its godhead."
Wang Mian stared at the ball of blue flame.
He remembered the breath of thunder in the talisman last night and the blood moon note in Lin Qiye’s phone.
It turns out that the law is not something that can be snatched away, but something that must be planted with one's life - just like the revenge that Wu Xiangnan planted in the divine fire.
Just like the hope he planted in the long river of time.
"Do you want to join us?" Wu Xiangnan suddenly brought the flame in front of him.
"When the blood moon comes again, the laws will be in chaos... We will chop off the god's head and plant a new knife in his temple."
Wang Mian stretched out his hand and let the blue flame lick his fingertips.
The burning didn't hurt, it felt more like carving words on my bones.
He looked out the window at the rising mountain breeze, his bronze mask casting a shadow on his knees.
"I don't just want to kill the gods," he said, his voice as soft as a falling cherry blossom.
“I want all knives that are marked as ‘consumable’ to be able to choose their own targets.”
Wu Xiangnan's eyes lit up.
He grabbed Wang Mian's hand and pressed the blue flame into his palm: "Then let's start with Susanoo."
"Wait until its godhead is shattered into pieces, then we'll go to the ruins of the Divine Court. I've hidden the life tablets of seventeen teams in the broken tower."
"Each card holds within it the unfinished fire of the past."
The morning bell rang from the foot of the mountain.
Wang Mian looked at the fading flame in his palm, and suddenly remembered the bronze lamp that went out in the broken tower of the Divine Court last night, and the blood words that floated in the lamp oil.
It turns out that some seeds have already sprouted when they are just planted - whether it is revenge or rewriting the rules.
He put on a bronze mask, and when he stood up, the hem of his clothes swept off a candy wrapper butterfly.
Wu Xiangnan bent down to pick it up, but Wang Mian picked it up first and gently put the ancient book into his arms.
That was the candy wrapper that he always said was "too sweet to be sickening", but now it looks like an inextinguishable fire.
“Abandoned shrine at the foot of Mount Fuji at dawn.”
Wu Xiangnan slapped half of the breastplate into his hand—it was the one he had picked up from the ruins ten years ago.
"I will make the old men in the Onmyoji Bureau mistakenly believe that Susanoo is going to kill the Eighteenth Squadron.
And you..." His scar was faintly visible in the shadow of the mask.
"Go and help me plant that fire in the heart of God."
Wang Mian clenched his heart guard.
The metal edge hurt his palm, but it reminded him of the team training.
Everyone was pounding on each other's breastplates and shouting "Come back alive!"
He looked at the rolling fog outside the window, and suddenly felt that the confusion of the past ten years was like a layer of torn paper - the answer to the path to godhood,
It is never in the ocean of laws, but in the unburned fires.
"Okay." He said, his voice echoing through the bronze mask.
"I'll light the fire, and you chop off the head."
Wu Xiangnan smiled.
He grabbed the ancient book on the table and stuffed it into Wang Mian's arms. The words on the cover were blurred by the tea stains.
But he could barely make out the words "Supplement to the Laws of the Divine Court".
"Take it. It contains the lives of those who survived the fire in our team."
He walked to the door, and the mountain wind lifted his shorts, revealing the half-broken sword hanging at his waist - it was the emblem of the "Blue Rain" team.
"When the blood moon appears, we'll show all those who have been used as knives... that a knife can also pierce the sky."
Wang Mian turned and walked into the fog.
He could hear Wu Xiangnan's laughter behind him, mixed with the ringing of copper bells.
It sounded very much like the sound of them warming themselves by the fire while wrapped in tattered blankets during the night patrol in the fishing village ten years ago.
The corners of his mouth beneath the mask raised a very faint arc - it turned out to be more tempting than "becoming a higher being",
It is to allow all the fires that are trampled into the mud to burn out their own sky.
He touched the breastplate in his arms, and then touched the half piece of candy wrapper butterfly.
In the morning mist, the cry of crows could be heard in the distance, as if responding to the sound of something about to break through the ground.
And in the broken tower of the ruins of the Divine Court, the extinguished bronze lamp suddenly glowed faintly.
The bloody words in the lamp oil were slowly fading, covered by new words:
"The sword holds fire, and the sky can be broken."