novelDreaming for 400 years
| ← Ch.358 | Ch.360 → |
"Sister, you are here!"
When the sky clears up after snow, an august young general on a rare warhorse of Nihon is shining in the sun. Edo is flooded, and blood is everywhere in the General's Office. However, they have no impact on this teenager. Of course, he is Lin Luodong.
Luodong doesn't forget who he is?
Lin Luoran wants to ask him a lot of questions. She is also worried about Huang Weijian since she doesn't see him.
Lin Luodong holds the reins, "Tokugawa Ieyasu, you have dreamed for four hundred years. Now you still don't want to wake up?! Do you really want these puppets to put on a good show of conquering Edo?"
The flawless sky has cracked and light from the real world is about to pour down at any time.
Fire phoenix destroyed the black statue so this perfect dream now has a crack. That's also the reason why Lin Luodong can subjugate Edo with Toyotomi Hideyori's army—this is something that has never happened in the history of Nihon or in the memory of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
"You guys push me on this. Whoever is standing in my way must die!" Tokugawa Ieyasu's pupils are all black and his anger is burning. The clear sky gradually darkens. A monster with eight heads and eight tails suddenly appears above the General's Office.
Its eyes are red, its back is full of moss and trees, and its chest is bleeding and festering. There is a cloud floating above its head, which is going to rain any time. The sky becomes dark because of its huge body as big as a mountain shutting out the light of the sun, as well as the misty cloud above its head.
"Yamata no Orochi!"
Lin Luoran and many other people here all recognize this monster. It's aggressive Yamata no Orochi in Nihonese mythology which represents the "flooding river". It wags its tails. Then Lin Luoran realizes it has raised up many people with its tails.
Among those hostages, Lin Luoran knows people like Huang Weijian, Cui Hejian, and Sixie in the Mu family. As for those she doesn't know, they must be the Chinese tour group and several international students who have initially disappeared.
This monster probably won't catch missing Nihonese to threaten Lin Luoran—she is not a woman with a strong international aid spirit.
"Orochi, you have tried so hard to lead me here. Do you just want to show me how good Tokugawa Ieyasu is at making dreams?" Lin Luoran's body is very small compared to that of Yamata no Orochi. But her momentum is not less than its.
Quoting from arrogant fire phoenix, she is still a "true god". Orochi is just a semi-finished monster that does everything it can to earn the name of God. Even if she may lose this battle, she will never lose her momentum. First of all, she can't back down before she has the opportunity to survive.
"Little Huaxia cultivator, since you know I led you here, you still chose to be the leader with your personal ability of only Bearing Essence. You people from Huaxia never learn anything." It says one sentence and then moves its head around during the pause. It continually uses different mouths to speak and its sound comes from several directions like thunder. Mr. Lin, Yuan Ye, and Ye Xiaobei are weak in personal ability so they all feel a thrill.
Lin Luodong even falls off the horse. Mr. Lin catches him and lets him stand at his side.
But ordinary people like Lin Qingxue and surviving shogunate samurais in the courtyard feel nothing.
Lin Luoran is not hurt but still mocks it, "You mischievous water monster also wants to deify yourself. Do you really think all Gods in heaven are dead and Tao of nature can do nothing to you?!"
Orochi stretches out his second head and says in a muffled voice, "After four hundred years of hard work, I only have a 50 percent chance. Luckily, you come to me yourself and now I am definitely sure of my success."
A fresh breeze brings Lin Luoran in the air. She strolls on clouds and looks down at Yamata no Orochi from a higher position.
"Four hundred years ago, you persuaded Tokugawa Ieyasu to expand the Hongu Sengen Grand Shrine at the top of Mount Fuji. Taking advantage of it, you turned the derelict Sengen Grand Shrine into your own Taoist field and began to steal the power of faith belonging to the goddess of Mount Fuji, Konohananosakuyahime. You want to deify yourself in this way, am I right?"
The blood on Yamata no Orochi's festering chest is so fetid and it even looks uglier when the monster is twisting its body.
The stinking smell spread with its twisting head.
"That bitch sealed me under Mount Fuji. How can taking her godhead become my fault?"
Lin Luoran laughs softly, "Now I haven't mentioned anything about what's right or wrong. The dream you made has gathered all the dark sides of wishes. If the core of making this dream awakes, what will happen? You can have a guess."
The core of making the dream is definitely Tokugawa Ieyasu who has been turned off his six senses by Orochi!
Bright light gathers at Lin Luoran's fingertips, the vitality of wood, the lightness of water, the heat of fire, the mellowness of earth, and the sharpness of gold.
This is a Wakan bomb without a certain proportion of five elements Wakan. A Reiki bomb of a lower level was once used on Xin Yuanping. The five elements Reiki or Wakan of a higher level are very dangerous when the elements are disproportionate.
Orochi smiles so hard that all its eight heads are shaking and tails are swinging around, making the "hostages" caught by its tails look be in danger.
"Little cultivator, you want to use the mutual repulsion of the five elements to deal with me. Don't you worry about hurting these people?"
The true mingles with the false and the dream mingles with the reality. Orochi is confident that Lin Luoran will not make another move. The power of the explosion of Wakan bead is unpredictable and people on her own side are very likely to be injured.
Lin Luoran shows a somewhat weird smile, as if Orochi has told a funny joke.
She lifts the "Five Elements Wakan bead" with her hand and is ready to throw it out. Orochi has to be vigilant. It is not afraid that Lin Luoran will injure anyone, but is worried that the explosion will awaken Tokugawa Ieyasu whose six senses have been turned off. If so, its hard work for four hundred years will be ruined. Even with Lin Luoran, the existing "true god" as compensation, it still can't make up for the power of faith gathered before!
A God without the power of faith is as weak as the Huaxia female cultivator who can only be under its control.
Lin Luoran's strange smile is even bigger and she suddenly throws the bead—
"How dare you!" Orochi is furious. Its large and fierce-looking mouth wants to bite Lin Luoran while its tails dragging behind tightens all of a sudden. In a blink of an eye, it can crush all hostages trapped by its tails. What's more, its another tail reaches to the Five Elements Wakan bead, trying to stop it from exploding.
At this moment, Lin Luoran and hostages are all in danger. It seems that the Five Elements Wakan bead will not explode as expected under this circumstance. Will Lin Luoran's all efforts fail this way?
All people who can't fight owing to their low personal ability have made their own great efforts.
Lin Qingxue aims at the head that is about to bite Lin Luoran and fires without hesitation.
With the help of Yuan Ye, Mr. Lin jumps up, trying to slash Yamata's tail that is going to crush the "hostages"!
Yuan Ye and Ye Xiaobei attempt to cast the Water Spell together to freeze the water under Orochi and slow it down—
They all have tried their best but they are still too weak.
...
The turning point is the Five Elements Wakan bead. At the moment when everyone is fighting, the bead suddenly changes its direction and turns round.
A golden bird jumps out nearby. It's Goldie which has been hiding for a long time and holding its cards!
Goldie grabs the Wakan bead with its long beak. With its wings flapping, it is like lightning and then reappears dozens of feet away.
"In the northern ocean there is a fish, called the k'un, I do not know how many thousand li in size. This k'un changes into a bird, called the p'eng. Its back is I do not know how many thousand li in breadth. When it is moved, it flies, its wings obscuring the sky like clouds... the water is smitten for a space of three thousand li around, while the bird itself mounts upon a great wind to a height of ninety thousand li."
In the past, k'un and p'eng itself can mount upon a great wind to a height of ninety thousand li.
Goldie is not k'un and p'eng. It is just a young golden hawk. However, it is the king of golden hawks!
Goldie grabs the Wakan bead and disappears out of everyone's sight. It is heading for the snow-capped Mount Fuji.
Orochi is so shocked that it doesn't bite Lin Luoran successfully. What is waiting for its head is the whistling Wakan bullet of Lin Qingxue which will always hit its target.
The bullet blows up in the middle of Yamata's forehead. For its gigantic body, such an attack is very small and insignificant. But for ordinary people Lin Qingxue, this shot can hit right in the middle of its eyes when Orochi is still twisting. She is very proud of herself!
Its head stops for a moment and Lin Luoran is no longer here.
Ye Xiaobei and Yuan Ye also work together like mosquitoes: although they are weak, they can still make Orochi feel uncomfortable.
Orochi really wants to slap these two "little bugs" to death immediately.
The most important blow is Mr. Lin's formidable sword. He slashes at Yamata's tail trapping people.
The blade of the grade three magic weapon has been infused with all Mr. Lin's Reiki. It is invincible now and can cut Yamata's tail. Although the tail is not totally cut off, the spouting blood has stained a large area of water.
Orochi is in great pain and let's go of the "hostages" trapped by its tails.
A gentle breeze rolls in. Lin Luoran uses the spell and puts everyone safely on the ground behind.
Did it succeed? They are all exhausted and don't know where the courage of working together comes from.
Working as a team, they actually free hostages from Orochi. They feel like a dream when they see Orochi twisting because of the pain.
Lin Luoran props up an enhanced Fire-Proof Dome. Huang Weijian and Cui Hejian who have been saved and Mr. Lin and Yuan Ye who have been exhausted have all been covered in it.
Orochi twists its body madly and tall buildings of Edo collapse. Affected by the battle and flood, dead bodies of civilians of all ages and both sexes are lying on the ground everywhere.
Rubble, wooden beams, corpses of humans and animals are everywhere... although Lin Luoran knows it is a dream, she still feels sympathy for it.
The Fire-Proof Dome can't hold on for a long time. Lin Luoran looks in the direction of Mount Fuji:
Goldie, you need to be faster, faster, please...
...
"Do you think if you blow up Mount Fuji, you will open up the exit to the outside world?"
Orochi jabs its tail at the Fire-Proof Dome. Lin Luoran doesn't look very well but she is still confident.
Of course, she does not expect to blow up Mount Fuji and then can just open up the exit to the outside world. Everything here is very real so Mount Fuji must still be an active volcano in this dream. If she blows up Mount Fuji, it will affect this perfect dream and it can never be restored.
She wants to make a bet that Tokugawa Ieyasu's ability of making the dream granted by Orochi is not an endless cycle. Otherwise, Orochi will be the god in this place. Why does it have to take so much extra work?
Because of the law of conservation of energy, the more she destroys the world in this dream, the more energy Orochi will use to repair the world later—if it doesn't have enough energy, this dream cannot continue and the world full of the power of faith with darkness attribute will collapse completely.
Being a nice person may take three years or more. However, it only takes three days to become a bad person.
Governing a country needs several generations of monarchs to work jointly, but an evil little "screw" can easily corrupt a whole dynasty.
Fire phoenix is right. Destruction is always more direct and powerful than creation.
What Lin Luoran has to do now is being a complete disruptor.
"You want to steal my gold stamp and gold ware. You want to deify yourself with your sinful body... Orochi, I will show you that your worst decision is opening your door to me."
The light of the Fire-Proof dome makes Lin Luoran's profile face so bright. It's like to confirm what she said, there is a loud noise from the direction of Mount Fuji.
The explosion sends a huge cloud of ashes so much like the giant mushroom cloud when Amelia dropped bombs on the Nihonese city Guangdao and Changqi that year—can this violent explosion and its radiation destroy this dream-like world as spreading water waves?
Lin Luoran gears up her output of Wakan. She is afraid that her Wakan can't support it so she also uses the Strange Fire in space.
The "memory bead" given by White Fairy only has the knowledge before the Bearing Essence period. Lin Luoran feels very sorry as a Bearing Essence cultivator. She has the personal ability of Bearing Essence but she is like an ignorant child holding a laser gun. It's a pity that she can only use the spell of the Laying Foundation to deal with her enemies.
The explosion of Mount Fuji widens the cracks in the sky.
Now Tokugawa Ieyasu's six senses turned off by Orochi have been activated because the world of this dream is so closely connected to his body.
This Nihonese Sengoku period hero who always looks like a middle-aged man opens his eyes slowly.
What he sees is the flooded Edo with wooden beams floating on the water. His favorite concubine in red is now just a cold body.
More floating corpses are in front of them. They are all people of Edo, the people under Tokugawa Ieyasu's rule.
Half of the sacred majestic mountain is blown up. Mushroom cloud rises into the sky and lava flows spread, which is about to swallow up the beautiful mountains and rivers here.
Everything is gone forever, delicate eaves in memory, white-faced women coming over slowly in wooden clogs, blooming cherry blossoms in the corner, beautiful music, and proud samurais vowing to be loyal to him... This messy world is not the Nihon in his memory at all.
There is a flash of pain in Tokugawa Ieyasu's eyes.
Orochi says with a low voice, "When I get the godhead of this Huaxia female cultivator, I will give you a more authentic Edo era..."
Tokugawa Ieyasu is surrounded by dark air. He looks at Yamata no Orochi and suddenly says, "Enough."
"What did you say?"
Tokugawa Ieyasu closes his eyes in pain."I said enough... I have dreamed for four hundred years and I don't want to do it again."
His Edo era has vanished in the long river of time.
The plants and trees here are shells without souls. This place is not his Edo at all.
In order to steal the power of faith with darkness attribute, he even deceived himself.
He had a concubine he loved very much. She was his soulmate when he was still not famous. He remembers that she died of dystocia so he did not have a second son named "Tokugawa Makita"—he was the man who made this dream, but he even made himself a character in the dream.
There are so many regrets in his life that he wants to go back in time. For example, his concubine died young and his son who didn't even have a name.
There are also countless glories in his life that make him want to stay in memory.
...
"I have dreamed for four hundred years and I don't want to do it again." thought him.
Tokugawa Ieyasu is the core of this world. This perfect Edo era was born because of his nostalgia and obsession. When he doesn't want to dream anymore, the world melts down at a visible speed.
Mount Fuji disappears.
Flood disappears.
All corpses on the ground disappear.
The young woodman in the foothills of Mount Fuji is still trembling because of the coming lava. The next second, lava disappears in front of him and he gradually remembers who he is.
As a student of University of Togyo, how does he become a woodman?
Cui Hejian wakes up holding his hands to his head.
His brain is filled with the memory of a medical officer. Straw cape and clogs he is wearing really makes Cui Hejian dumbfounding.
Huang Juan stretches herself and wakes up gradually.
She has a long strange dream. She dreams that she becomes the mother of Toyotomi Hideyori in the Edo era, the Royal Highness. Please! She hasn't been in a relationship yet... Why does she dream of having a twelve-year-old son?
The heroic middle-aged Tokugawa Ieyasu's body instantly dehydrates. His skin is much more wrinkled than orange peel immediately.
As an ordinary person who has lived for four hundred years, his body can't even stand upright the moment his dream falls apart.
All missing people wake up no matter from Nihon or the State of Huaxia. They stand there in a daze. Fictional characters like the masked old Kabuki woman or rōnins drinking like a fish all disappear with the melting mountains and rivers.
The colorful world is gone as everyone wakes from the dream. Lin Luoran smiles bitterly at the scene in front of her.
They can feel the beating of magma under the soil layer from the pungent sulphur smell and cracked hard soil. Everyone thinks they have been through so much. However, it turns out that they have always stayed under the crater of Mount Fuji and just had a vivid dream!
Besides these people, there are many human skeletons scattering all over this place. Are they the people who lost in the dream in the past four hundred years?
Goldie hovers outside the Fire-Proof Dome and is very disturbed.
Yamata no Orochi is not here. Where is it?
Looking at Tokugawa Ieyasu who is so old and skinny, Lin Luoran suddenly has a terrible feeling.
Everything goes so unexpectedly well. Did Yamata no Orochi just be defeated so easily?
In response to her, there is a crackling sound from the hard soil.
The magma under the soil is roaring and breaking out of the ground. What is coming out together is the writhing body and the giggling laughter of Orochi!
| ← Ch. 358 | Ch. 360 → |