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At the same time, the bonfire on the altar behind the Mount of Olives in the distance shrank visibly, and went out completely after a few seconds. The ceremony was interrupted!
"It's you, who are you?"
The monk turned around and looked at the person who was talking not far away. He immediately became alert because he recognized that it was the girl who attacked him yesterday.
"Who are you? A miko of this era?"
The monk was a little hesitant. He didn't realize how the girl appeared. Although he thought he had extremely powerful magic, he didn't expect to be easily suppressed yesterday. The unparalleled speed and unimaginable strength were so brutal and unreasonable that even he couldn't resist.
It's not that he had never seen a shrine maiden before. In the Heian period when he brought terror and destruction to the world, the pure shrine maidens were also the backbone of eliminating evil spirits, using coins to remove evil spirits and bows and arrows to destroy demons. But no matter what, the shrine maidens at that time were also human beings.
But he couldn't be sure whether the "witch" in front of him was a human.
It was something he had never seen before, and it was beyond his comprehension. It was faster than a cheetah, stronger than a lion or tiger, and hidden in such a small body, it was completely beyond human comprehension.
At this time, there was another woman standing next to the witch. She was about twenty years old and looked quite young. She seemed frail, but having learned from the previous experience, he did not dare to underestimate her.
"You are not an ordinary human, are you?" The monk thought to himself that such power would never appear in humans. "Why do you want to help humans? Don't you have sympathy for other creatures on the earth? Many species have been hunted and eaten by humans, and even become extinct. Are they born to have such a bad fate?"
"Then who are you? You also summoned this Bull Demon Super Beast, right?"
"I am just a nobody, not worth mentioning. It was not me who gave birth to the Bull Demon, but humans. The souls of millions of devoured cows attracted the Bull Demon, and it is seeking revenge on humans. I believe it has the right to do so, so I provided a little insignificant help."
Indeed, he is the culprit.
"This is the Bull Demon's revenge. It has nothing to do with you and me. It is sacred and should not be disturbed. So no matter who you are or where you come from, I advise you--" The monk was interrupted by a fist before he could finish his words.
When? The monk's face changed, but he didn't have time to do anything. Because the girl didn't rush at him faster than a cheetah like she did yesterday - that way he could have been more prepared - but she appeared in front of him suddenly.
A punch with unparalleled power struck the monk, but passed through him unhindered.
Phantom? No, that's not right. The monk stumbled back a few steps. Lingye's punch was not completely ineffective. It did hurt him, but the physical attack seemed to have little effect.
The monk was injured, but not fatally.
The purple-robed monk did not try to fight back, because he knew he could not defeat the other party. God knows how much strength is in her fist, it is no exaggeration to say that it is enough to split mountains and crack rocks. The monk even suspected that even in the era when demons and monsters roamed Kyoto, the divine descent of the strongest heavenly priestess might not be so powerful.
"Did you just teleport?"
Ling did not answer his question. But she confirmed that the other party was indeed not from Yawa. Because the so-called "instant teleportation" just now was a portal to another dimension that Nadeshiko opened for her with the dimensional ring.
How could he be a Yabo person if he didn't even recognize his own signature dimensional gate that was used to release super beasts time and time again?
The roar of the super beast was heard in the distance. The bonfire was extinguished, the ritual of offering sacrifices to the bull spirit was forced to stop, and the bull demon super beast also woke up from a special state. The roar of the bull demon was mixed with the sound of gunfire.
"The battle between Bull Demon and humans will benefit no one. What do you want?" Ling also asked.
The monk did not answer, but just laughed.
"So, all you want is destruction. It doesn't matter to you who wins or loses, does it?"
The monk stopped laughing and finally spoke, "The smell of fear is really nostalgic and addictive. There are still many creatures on this planet that hate humans. Even if the Bull Demon loses, there are still the Pig Demon, the Sheep God, and the creatures that have been oppressed for millions of years. These are all caused by humans themselves, until they have become enemies all over the earth."
He disappeared again after he finished speaking, just like he did last night. He was always extremely wary of Ling.
It was not the teleportation of the Bat people using quantum leap technology, nor was it the dimensional gate of the Yabo people using space technology. It just disappeared so abruptly, as if it had never existed.
But this time, Ling also looked thoughtfully at a cave not far from the back mountain of the shrine. It was a newly appeared crack, deep and deep, not formed naturally, with obvious traces of human construction, but it was too old.
That was a tomb passage. The entire underground Kibitsu was actually a giant cemetery. Some of the tomb passages were recently exposed due to landslides caused by an earthquake.
"Aunt Nadeshiko, wait here for a moment while I go check out the festival. If you run into any danger and that guy shows up again, use the dimensional gate to return to the manor and don't worry about me."
Nadeshiko knew that her identity was not suitable for appearing in public, so she nodded obediently. Besides, apart from the dimensional ring on her hand, she was just an ordinary person who was powerless and could not help at all.
"Be careful, Lingye."
At the festival site several kilometers away, Captain Long ordered the Aira to attack the Ultra Beasts.
"Everyone, please retreat quickly. Our TAC team will have a decisive battle with the Ultra Beasts." Beidou advised the priests and mages who participated in the festival and asked them to leave the scene.
But the priest who was leading the bamboo ceremony refused to cooperate. "Listen to me, sir, the ceremony cannot stop. This is an ancient tradition. If the ceremony stops in the middle of the ceremony, something terrible will happen."
Scary thing? What could be scarier than the attack of a super beast?
Beidou didn't understand, but the priests didn't cooperate with his evacuation. Instead, someone tried to relight the bonfire and continue the ceremony to comfort the cow god.
However, the strange thing is that even if they picked up olive branches containing oil, the bonfire could not be lit. The super beast was getting closer and closer, and it was obvious that the firepower of the TAC team's Ai Luo could not stop it.
Beidou looked down at his right hand, and the Ultra Ring on his middle finger was already flashing. He and Nan Xizi looked at each other.
"Captain, Nan and I are going to support the Gaara and lure the Ultra Beast away?"
Long glanced at Beidou and shook his head, "It's too dangerous."
The super beast was spewing flames, and had already set fire to the olive trees in the olive grove. These oily fruit trees would catch fire as soon as they came into contact with fire, and the fire quickly spread across the hilltop.
"But Captain, there is an olive oil storage tank in front of the super beast. Once the storage tank is destroyed and a large amount of olive oil leaks out, this place will become a sea of fire."
Captain Long knew that Beidou was telling the truth, "Well, you can lure away the super beast, but you must pay attention to safety."
"understand!"
Half a minute later, the sky burst into light and Ultraman Ace appeared in front of the Mount of Olives.
He did not pounce on the super beast immediately, but clasped his hands together towards the hilltop where the fire was spreading, and a large amount of extremely cold inert gas sprayed out from his fingertips, instantly extinguishing the fire.
The appearance of Ace did not frighten the Bull Demon Super Beast, but aroused its ferocity. The two rushed towards each other, and the giant and the Super Beast collided with each other. The impact of hundreds of thousands of tons of force bounced both Ace and the Super Beast away.
The Bull Demon, as the name suggests, is extremely brutal and cruel.
Ace knew that he was no match for this Ultra Beast in terms of pure strength. However, considering that the opponent might be an innocent human, he could not use Metalium Ray and Ultra Guillotine easily.
As he was hesitating, Ace found that the Ultra Beast disappeared in front of him.
No, it didn't disappear, but layers of illusions appeared. Countless bull-demon beasts surrounded him, and he couldn't tell which one was the real one.
But to the TAC team and the onlookers, it looked like Ace had stopped moving for some reason.
"What's wrong? What happened to Ace?" Konno asked.
"It's a curse, the curse of the Bull God." Unexpectedly, the one who answered Konno was the priest.
"The Bull God's Curse?"
"Yes, in the ancient stories, people cursed by the angry bull god will fall into the bull god's hallucinations, and their souls will fall into the hell cursed by the bull god."
"Another superstitious thing." Konno didn't want to believe it, but Ace's condition was indeed very bad. The Ultra Beast was clearly in front of him, but he seemed to be unable to see it, and was attacked again and again without being able to fight back.
Soon, his energy light began to flicker.
"If it's a curse, can it be broken by resurrecting their souls?" A little girl's voice interrupted.
"Perhaps so," the priest replied, only to realize that the person who had just interrupted was a little girl he had never seen before, probably only about eight or nine years old. "Are you a tourist?"
"Reiya!" Konno looked at the person who appeared in surprise, "Why are you here? Didn't Beidou send you to the evacuation site yesterday? Captain, the notice should say that the surrounding residents have completed the evacuation."
"Yeah," Captain Long nodded. If there were still civilians around, it was indeed the fault of the evacuation personnel.
But Ling ignored it. It seemed that it was her job to help the souls of the dead to be reincarnated. She just didn't know if Niu's soul counted.
The girl walked to the altar, glanced at the extinguished bonfire, and surprisingly, she began to sing.
The song is woven into a language that no one can understand, an ancient melody that seems to have come from the long river of history.
Gaia's Lament
Chapter 74: Black Bag Monk
When the girl sang, the whole world seemed to be quiet.
Konno, Captain Long, and more than a dozen priests and wizards at the scene didn't know if it was an illusion, but when the girl began to sing, the roar of the super beasts and the roar of war gradually faded away, and even the howling mountain wind, the singing of birds and the croaking of frogs disappeared.
The nearby mountains and forests and the distant white clouds were all silent, with only the singing sound between heaven and earth.
The lyrics are incomprehensible, but they make people cry, or they can untie the knots in their hearts. It's like suddenly facing the separation of life and death in the muddled world, and the feeling of emptying the soul in that moment.
Mortals are dull, and such perceptions may only make them feel that the dust in their hearts has been gently brushed away at a certain moment, but soon more dust will fall, and they will be thrown into the purgatory of the world again.
But the priests had already knelt down and were praying with all their heart.
Even though they had never heard it before, they immediately understood that it was the song of the witch who purified the world's filth, the witch who served the gods in the legend. She was here, so the gods' eyes were fixed on her. They had never been so close to their beliefs as at this moment.
At one point, they even mistakenly thought that they were also bathed in that gaze.
They are not the shrine maidens of Ise Grand Shrine and Izumo Taisha Shrine, who wear beautiful new shrine maiden costumes, wear gold- and silver-plated crowns, dance with priceless Kagura bells, use gold and silver fans carved by craftsmen, and dance to professionally staged dances on specific festival days every year.
The so-called shrine maidens have long become a commercial image. Their appearances in annual festivals and grand festivals are just simple advertisements for the shrine. In this era when even religious pure lands have become listed companies, where is the mystery of the true pure land? Faith and tradition have already been consumed as commodities.
Apart from a little bit of the fig leaf called "traditional culture" left over, it is no different from variety shows in movies and TV shows.
But the mystery of purifying the world does exist, eliminating jealousy, resentment, and delusion. If all people in the world are sinful, then it will purify all evils and forgive all sins.
The girl's song had nothing to do with the scriptures they usually recited, but in the priest's mind, it became a prayer that they could understand.
[Tsinjin God, Kunitsu God, respectfully inform the eight million gods. The billions of sins in the mortal world are now gone. The clouds on the mountains, the evening mist on the hills. Forgive the sufferings of the world, this is reported——]
The singing was not only heard in front of the altar and in the mountains and forests, but also in the ears of the Bull Demon Super Beast.
It stopped moving.
No one knew what this song meant to Bull Demon Super Beast, the priests didn't know, the TAC team didn't know, and Ace didn't know. But the only thing Ace knew was that the illusion that troubled him disappeared, and Bull Demon Super Beast's meaningless call was no longer the roar of an angry Super Beast, but just like the sound of an old cow that had worked hard in the fields for a lifetime and was already fading, with a low and relieved voice.
Mr. Caibo said that if cattle have a choice, they will be willing to be eaten by humans, just to expand their own population and reproduce to the maximum extent under human protection.
But Ling Ye felt that it was wrong. No creature was born to be eaten by others. This idea was probably the reason why he was called "Shura" by the culinary world. Beef was delicious, and Ling Ye would not stop eating meat, but this was not a reason to take all plundering for granted.
At least one should have a sense of awe and gratitude so as not to become numb when demanding things unscrupulously and not to become arrogant and mistakenly believe that everything in the world belongs to him or her.
This was not Gaia's idea, but Ling's selfish idea. Perhaps to Gaia, everything on Earth was equal, and there was no difference between humans and the races that had stood at the top of the Earth's food chain for hundreds of millions of years and then became extinct. But Ling was also a human, so she would naturally stand on the side of humans.
Perhaps one day, Gaia will leave her out of disappointment. But until that day, she will use the Light of Gaia for the sake of mankind.
The Ultra Beast stopped moving under the singing, and Ace did not attack it again. He just stepped forward and grabbed the nose ring on its right front paw.
The nose ring that was impossible to remove was easily removed. Ace didn't use any force, as if it fell off naturally.
The nose ring gradually shrank in Ace's hand, and finally returned to the size of a human palm. Ace hesitated for a moment, walked around the mountain in a few steps, and walked to the Fukuda Kaijin Shrine several kilometers away, and put the nose ring in his hand back into the altar of the piled-up nose rings. It was no different from the other six million nose rings in the altar, and it was hard to imagine that it was this that created a super beast.
But it is just an ordinary one among millions of bull nose circles, and it is not it that makes humans become super beasts.
At the same time, the super beast that lost its nose ring gradually shrank until it became the same size as a human, and returned to the Takai-kun that Yoshimura saw on the train. He was in tattered clothes, with scars all over his body, and many traces of being blackened by fireworks. But at least he was still alive.
Is that the solution?
Captain Long, Yamanaka, and Konno all felt it was unreal, but Ace had left, and the Ultra Beast had really disappeared. Not defeated by missiles, lasers, or even Ultraman, but defeated by a song?
No, they were defeated by a purification ritual. Subconsciously, Long and Konno in front of the altar clapped their hands together twice and bowed to the altar and the "shrine maiden".