Page 62

Page 62

My mother-in-law's fan fell from her hands.

Yes, she couldn't ask the gods for help. Their gods had been forgotten after the fire two hundred years ago.

The black cloth bag monk smiled sarcastically. A shrine that had forgotten its own god, and even forgot what it was worshipping, was a good farce, enough to make him laugh.

He looked up at the stone statues standing at the back of the yard.

Ultraman, they are indeed a group of aliens that are difficult to deal with, but what good are a few stone statues? Humans regard them as gods of war, but they are not gods after all, they are just aliens with more advanced technology.

The howling wind blew up the fallen leaves, forming a tornado above the shrine.

The water in the pond was lapping against the shore, and the koi fish, who had never experienced raging seas, were dizzy and at a loss.

The demon-subduing pestle shook the ground lightly, and a stronger wind blew up, blowing the leaves on the branches into the sky. One by one, the fire pots went out until the last few pots of sacred fire surrounding the altar.

The shrine that was once brightly lit had dimmed, leaving only the last two pots of sacred fire in front of the altar. Everything was plunged into darkness, and the moon in the sky also hid in the thick clouds that had floated in at some point.

Today, there is no god here, only the devil!

The demon-subduing pestle struck the bottom again, but this time the wind did not blow up the braziers. The two remaining braziers of sacred fire in front of the altar swayed violently in the strong wind, but never went out.

The black cloth bag monk was a little surprised. His eyes swept across the brazier on the altar, then turned back to look at the several stone statues standing tall in the darkness behind him.

"Is it... impossible?"

His eyes finally fixed on a newly cast stone statue, and he could no longer look away.

"God? Impossible, isn't he an alien?"

The giant carved in that stone statue is named Gaia!

Chapter 79: Divine Dance before God

The Ultra Warriors are just aliens, and Black Bag Monk is extremely sure of this.

Ultraman, Seven, Jack, and Ace are all extraterrestrial visitors from the M78 nebula.

But at the very edge of the stone statues, there is a newly carved stone statue. It is an Ultra Warrior who has only recently been active on Earth.

Gaia

She is special.

There was another crisp sound of the Kagura bell.

The black cloth bag monk took two steps back, not because he wanted to, but because of the ringing of the bell. He was frightened by the ringing of the bell.

The unique clear sound of the Kagura bell, which symbolizes a good harvest, wards off disasters and misfortunes.

Granny Miyamizu looked at the girl next to her in surprise, who picked up the Kagura bell that she had just placed on the ground.

"Reiya... didn't you go home? Why are you here? And your clothes..."

Ling, who should have been sent home by the TAC team, stood beside the altar and walked towards the center of the altar step by step. Moreover, she was wearing a miko costume.

"Sister Yotsuba said she would give it to me."

"Is that girl Yotsuba back?"

Ling did not go home, but instead searched for the Black Bag Monk nearby with Beidou and Nan Xizi, but they did not find him.

The demon god seems to be different from the super beast. If it is a super beast, Ace can detect it even if it is hundreds of kilometers away, but for the so-called "black bag monk", even Ace can do nothing.

Without finding the 'Black Bag Monk', Ling also met Siye who was returning home.

The hair tie that Lingya used to tie her hair was the shrine's "birth spirit", and Yotsuba knew her. Upon learning that the little girl came to the shrine to practice as a shrine maiden, Yotsuba was quite interested and took out her best shrine maiden costume and gave it to her.

Six years ago, Yotsuba, who was still an elementary school student at the time, practiced as a shrine maiden for a while with her sister Mitsuha, and even made Kuchikamizak at the festival, so she ordered a shrine maiden costume. But not long after, I remember it was after the comet fell, Mitsuha gave up her identity as a shrine maiden and went to Tokyo. And Yotsuba never practiced as a shrine maiden again.

The shrine maiden's costume, which had only been worn a few times, became a piece of cloth at the bottom of the closet.

At that time, Granny Miyamizu didn't say anything, either to Mitsuha or Yotsuha.

Her granddaughter Mitsuha seemed to have lost something important, and she went to Tokyo in a hurry to look for it. Grandma Miyamizu didn't know what her granddaughter had lost, but she understood it to some extent. Because she was also once like that. When she was young, one day in her life, she suddenly felt that she had lost something.

It seems to be a name——

She didn't find it when she was young, but Mitsuha seemed to have found it.

That's probably the spirit, right? The thread that connects people, and even connects time.

Mitsuha gave up the shrine and her identity as a shrine maiden, and Yotsuha also followed her sister and gave up her practice.

Now, the miko costume that once belonged to Yotsuba is worn by Reiya. It is also the same costume that Yotsuba wore when she was ten years old and in the fourth grade of elementary school, and it fits Reiya perfectly now.

Could this also be a spirit of birth?

Ling also picked up the Kagura bell and followed the example of her mother-in-law, bending her knees and sitting on her knees. She held the bell in her right hand and the ribbon tied to it in her left hand. She lowered her head and sat quietly for a while. The black cloth bag monk just watched without moving, or perhaps he didn't dare to move at all.

Because at the moment the girl raised her head and shook the bell, the whole bell began to shine.

That was not a light visible to the naked eye. To the other people present, the bell did not change. Perhaps only Granny Miyamizu noticed something.

But from the perspective of Black Bag Monk, it was a light brighter than the stars in the sky.

Ling was also dancing, a dance for the shrine maidens. She had already learned it just by watching Granny Miyamizu's movements. In fact, the movements of Kagura dance were not difficult. They were just turning, twisting the arms, and a few simple flexions and extensions. But for some reason, it was pleasing to the eye. Perhaps it was because the little girl dancing had a natural temperament that seemed to melt into the world, and it was even impossible to look away.

The Kagura bell made crisp sounds from time to time.

The wind died down, and even the dark clouds dispersed, and the moonlight once again shone into the courtyard.

The moon seems especially bright today.

Ling also heard the sound again.

Granny Miyamizu just asked her why she was here when she should have left - Ling didn't answer because she heard a voice, the sound of Granny Miyamizu praying.

Granny Miyamizu prayed to the forgotten god, Wamon, and to the eight million gods, the gods of Tianjin, Kunitsu, and all the gods in the sky. But the gods had long since disappeared. They were born because of human faith, and died because of the extinction of faith.

People nowadays no longer believe in God, so there is no God. The only one who heard her voice was Gaia.

The gods will lower their sight because of the prayers of the priestess before the gods, and wherever they see is the kingdom of God.

Miyamizu Toshiki choked on his saliva. His stiff body finally regained control at this moment. The soles of his feet felt numb and uncomfortable when they touched the ground, as if millions of ants were crawling around, but he didn't care about that.

The black cloth bag monk had retreated back to the pond where he had just appeared. It was not that he did not want to escape further, but that he found that he could not escape.

At the moment the girl began to dance, the shrine maiden in front of the god was offering a sacrifice to the god, attracting the god to this place, and this courtyard became the temple of the god. No one could leave the temple of the god under the gaze of the god, not even the devil.

Miyamizu Toshiki endured the numbness and itchiness on his feet and struggled to walk to his mother-in-law's side. The mother-in-law was just a little exhausted, and there was nothing serious.

The moonlight in the sky was too bright, like a white jade plate hanging on a tree branch, several times larger than usual. The moonlight seemed to be drawn to the earth by the girl's Kagura dance, which was a blessing from God.

The gods are really watching here.

Junshu took a breath. This was the second time he had seen a miracle.

Looking back, it was six years ago when I first saw 'God'.

That day, he really thought he saw God.

The sky had never been so bright. It was a comet that came close to the earth once every 1,200 years, with a long, brilliant tail that streaked across the sky. But no one had ever thought that on that day, the comet would fall.

The comet broke apart at perigee, and countless star fragments broke through the sea of ​​clouds. The one in the center lit up the entire sky red. It crashed straight into their town. Under the starry sky that was so beautiful that it almost made the soul sleep, the star rushed straight towards here with energy that humans could never imagine.

That afternoon, his daughter Mitsuha had told him to declare the town residents to evacuate as the mayor. But of course he didn't believe it, it was just the rebellion of a naughty child. The observatory didn't foresee it, the scientists didn't warn, what did she, a little kid, know? Did she really think that she could hear the voice of God after being a shrine maiden for a few days?

God does not exist, he is absolutely sure of that, otherwise why would he lose Erye?

However, Sanye believed it and even conspired with her classmates to blow up the substation with explosives, just to allow the residents to take shelter. This undoubtedly went beyond the boundaries of "mischief", violated the law, and was even a felony. But no one held them accountable afterwards.

Because the comet really fell.

Some people did evacuate, but there were still some people in the town, including Junshu.

At the moment the comet fell, the light streaked across the lake of Itomori Town. It was like the final judgment of fate, and no one could escape it. Then he saw the giant standing under the starry sky, blocking the way of the comet.

Junshu couldn't describe the shock he felt at that moment in words.

The giant opened his arms, and the meteorites bombarded the invisible barrier, breaking into tiny particles like a firework shower. One by one, dozens, hundreds, and without exception, they were completely blocked.

Then there is the center of the meteorite group, the massive half-comet body. In essence, it is a dirty snowball composed of ice, solid ammonia and methane, and dust from various mineral rocks. It carries the kinetic energy of a celestial body given by the gravity of the sun as it orbits the solar system for a long time in astronomical units.

In terms of the energy level it carries, it is incomparable to the nuclear bomb that humans rely on as their ultimate weapon.

Facing the comet, Ultraman crossed his hands, releasing stellar-level ultra-high temperatures from his palms. The Specium rays tore through the night sky, bombarding the comet in an instant that the brain could not distinguish.

There was no trickery, it was a pure collision of energy and energy. Whether it was ice, methane, or rock, they had no time to melt or vaporize under such extreme high temperatures, and were directly ionized. Even the air was instantly heated to an extremely high temperature, forming a hot and dazzling air ball that spread upwards.

Anyone who witnessed this scene would lose the ability to express themselves. But they were lucky because they only lost their words, not their lives. The town was saved from the natural disaster without any casualties.

In the past, he never believed in God. Whether it was the outlook on life he had formed since childhood or the little things he encountered in daily life, they all told him that this was a materialistic world. The sun rises not because of Amaterasu, but because of the rotation of the earth. Thunder and lightning do not come from the god of thunder who steals children's belly buttons, but because of the electric charge of the clouds.

Just because he fell in love with the witch, he was willing to become a priest for her, and recite prayers every day that he didn't believe in a word of.

He loved only Erye from the beginning to the end, for this reason he was willing to marry into her family and put on the robes of a priest with the mentality of an unbeliever who had never believed in anything for more than 20 years. But his faith was betrayed.

The so-called "accepting her own fate", she refused to go to a big city to receive more scientific professional treatment when she was sick. Junshu always believed that Futaba could have survived. It was because of her belief in the inexplicable "God" that did not exist that made her leave herself and her child.

And on the day when the star fell, Junshu saw the real God.

Compared to the Wamon God whose name has been forgotten, the guy who deceived his wife's faith and took her life, the giant standing under the night sky is undoubtedly the real god.

So he carved a statue for the giant to replace the Wamon God in the shrine, and even added a new god to the list of faith of the town's academic management department, which manages all the shrines in the town, as the mayor. So Ultraman was added to the list of gods believed in by the town.

It was originally just an impulsive attempt on his part, but he did not expect the response from the villagers to be unexpectedly good.

Indeed, compared to an illusory existence, Ultraman is a real god of war who can be seen and touched and saves mankind time and time again.

Then today, he saw a miracle again.

Chapter 80: The Guardian Miko

Whether other Ultra Warriors can repay the believers' faith is another matter, but from the perspective of "Black Bag Monk", the giant statue named Gaia is obviously different from the other statues.

He did respond to Granny Gongshui before. So even though he was so close, the black bag monk couldn't take the last few steps.

And now, the black bag monk is trapped by the Kagura dance of another real shrine maiden.

It knew this witch. Just the day before, this witch had snatched its black cloth bag and smashed its pestle with ruthless and unreasonable strength. I really don't know how such strength is hidden in that small body. It's simply a human-shaped Tyrannosaurus!

But even so, the Black Bag Monk was not afraid of her, because she could not be hurt by such brute force. It was a vengeful spirit that had been dead for thousands of years, and since it had already died, it could not die again.

But this time, the witch showed the power that it really feared—she attracted the attention of those above, the power that truly belonged to the gods.

More than a thousand years ago, humans and gods lived together, and the people of this country generally believed that the gods of Takamagahara could still protect this land. That was also the time when the black bag monk lived.

At that time, demons and evil spirits walked the earth, and exorcists and wizards fought against them. The shrine maidens who truly served the gods were able to attract the true gods' attention.