Chapter 875: Kiyohime
Qi Xuansu and Little Yin set off on their return journey from Mount Suzuka. They could clearly feel that the atmosphere throughout Ise Province had changed. It was tense and chaotic, as if facing a great enemy.
The Ise-jingu not only had to guard against Mount Suzuka behind them but also had to resist the Daoist army pressing forward from the front. Relying solely on the Sonno-joi faction within Ise Province was far from enough. They had to request reinforcements. Since the royal family and the Ise-jingu were essentially one entity, the former bore an inescapable responsibility in this matter.
More critically, as the ancestral seat of the Tenmon Sect and the foremost of the Three Grand Shrines, the Ise-jingu hid far too many secrets regarding Fenglin. If it were to fall into Daoist hands, the Sonno-joi faction would have virtually no secrets left. This was something they could never accept.
Thus, even though the Sonno-joi faction knew full well that the Daoists’ intended to besiege one point to draw reinforcements and that Ise Province was now a trap, they still had to grit their teeth and jump right in.
This was an open scheme.
For Qi Xuansu, this was naturally a good thing. After all, the greater the chaos, the less likely anyone would notice him. Even if they did notice him, he would be the least of their worries.
In fact, if Qi Xuansu wanted to make a name for himself, he could easily have used the Three Yin Beings to rampage through Ise Province, throwing the rear of the Ise-jingu into utter turmoil. Yet after much deliberation, he chose to abandon such a course.
First of all, the Three Yin Beings could not be used for free. Each summons was a debt of personal favor that would need to be repaid later. Secondly, if things escalated, it would be difficult for Qi Xuansu to explain himself to the Daoist Order because the Three Yin Beings were ultimately creations, and Qi Xuansu had no authority to deploy them privately. If only a few people knew, he could secretly use them, and the upper echelons of the Quanzhen Sect, led by Sage Donghua, might turn a blind eye. But if the matter grew big, they would be forced to deal with his breach of rules seriously. Another reason was that the Ise-jingu, as the ancestral court of the Tenmon Sect, was no simple target. If he truly provoked them, the Ise-jingu could very well send an Immortal to crush him.
This was the battlefield’s inherent unpredictability.
Many of the usual unwritten rules would be broken. Under normal circumstances, beings of the Immortal level would not act lightly. But in wartime, nothing was certain.
There were only two Jonin across all of Fenglin, representing Iga and Koga Schools respectively. Yet the Koga Jonin joined in the fray and was beheaded by Sage Qingwei. If a Pseudo-Immortal like him could die, would Qi Xuansu be immune to death?
Of the eight Kengo, only two had truly taken a clear stance—Yagyu Sosei, representing Chancellor Toyotomi’s Office, and Katsura Yoshiyuki, representing the Sonno-joi faction. The other six held ambiguous attitudes.