The woman was chopped off from her right armpit to above her left shoulder by Mamiya's Setsuna.
The branded woman flying in the air... no, it should be said that the branded woman's head flying in the air, her eyes wide open, which were rapidly losing their luster, staring at the ceiling above.
The head was separated from the body... With such injuries, the immortal power in her body was powerless to heal...
In the past, Mrs. Lao had heard people say that when a person is about to die, he or she will uncontrollably recall some important memories of his or her previous life.
Now, Mrs. Lao finally knew that this was actually true.
At this moment, two long memories flashed through Mrs. Lao's mind...
The first memory is something that happened not long ago.
After learning that Ogata sent his sword to a swordsmith named Yoji for repair, Yoshihisa sent some people to seize the sword from Yoji in order to leave Ogata without a sword and weaken his fighting power.
No one knew which swords were Ogata's, so in order to save trouble and not miss any, they directly took away all the swords in the Yoni family.
At that time, the "Osaka Spring Campaign and Suppression of Osaka Operation" had not yet officially begun, and a large number of cadres led by Yoshihisa and Lao Furen were hiding in a secret base somewhere on the outskirts of Osaka.
All the swords taken from Yoji were sent to the secret base.
When Jijiu personally examined these "trophies", Mrs. Lao happened to be present.
At a single glance, she picked out a pair of blue and gold katana and wakizashi from the pile of swords.
Blue and gold happen to be Mrs. Lao's favorite colors.
This was the first time she had developed such a strong affection for two knives.
The branded woman said to Ji Jiu in an unquestionable tone: "Give me these two knives!"
Yoshihisa was still unwilling, but he could not stand the nagging of the Lao woman, so he had to reluctantly allow the Lao woman to take the two knives for herself.
Mrs. Lao never named her knives before. But after getting these two knives that she loved very much, she named her knives for the first time ever. She gave the two new knives names that she thought were very suitable: "Yi Zhi Ji" and "Er Zhi Ji" respectively.
After reviewing this memory, Mrs. Lao only felt...extremely regretful.
She didn't even have the chance to use these two swords that she loved so much before she died...
After this memory flashed before Mrs. Lao's eyes, the second memory began to flash through her mind.
If the first memory made Mrs. Luo feel extremely regretful, then the second memory made her regret increase by dozens of times.
The second memory...is the memory of her first meeting with Toyotomi Nobuhide...
…
"As expected, you are the prostitute who is currently wanted for luring a man into bed, killing him when he is not paying attention, and then looting his property. You are much more beautiful than I thought."
"Stop talking nonsense! I'm in your hands now! You can kill me or chop me up, it's all up to you!"
"You are really ruthless. The wanted poster says that you have traveled to four provinces and killed 21 people."
"What? Do you want to lecture me? Do you want to persuade me to turn back and be a good person? What I hate most is people like you who lecture others with a condescending attitude! What do you know?! Do you know what kind of life I led before?! If I could have a happy family and have enough food and drink, why would I kill people and rob people!"
"Calm down, I'm not trying to lecture you. Not only do I not want to lecture you, I want to compliment you."
"……ha?"
"I think your approach of doing whatever it takes to survive is great. The world is cruel, and I really like your willingness to do anything to survive. Hey, what's your name? Do you want to join me and turn this world upside down?"
"Ah? Are you okay? Aren't you here to arrest me just for my head?"
"What do I need your head for? Your bounty is only 10 taels, which is not even enough for a meal. I am not here to arrest you, I am here to test whether you are interesting enough, and now - you have passed the test!"
"...I don't really understand what you are saying anymore."
"It's okay if you don't understand. Oh, by the way, are you hungry? Do you want to go out for dinner together? My name is Nobuhide. What's yours?"
"...A Luo."
"Aluo, what a lovely name. Let's go, Aluo! I just passed by a noodle shop that smelled really good. Let's go eat something together!"
…
Now that the branded woman's head and body were separated, she could no longer speak.
So, she whispered in her heart:
——Lord Toyotomi... I am so sorry... I can no longer be loyal to you...
The last words this crazy woman uttered in her life were a heartfelt apology.
…
…
Mamiya stared at the branded woman's body in front of him, which had fallen to the ground with a large piece of her body missing, and was ready to draw his knife at any time.
Seeing that the broken body had not grown a new head, and that the eyes of the branded woman's head that had fallen to the ground were lifeless, Mamiya breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.
——It seems that…every word the girl said just now is true…
——As long as you attack their heads, the immortal power in their bodies will be powerless...
Mamiya held Vairocana on his waist, ready to help Genichi who was still fighting fiercely with Yoshihisa.
But after turning his gaze to the battlefield between Genichi and Yoshihisa not far away, Mamiya's expression suddenly froze.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Mamiya murmured in a helpless tone:
"You don't need our help at all..."
When Mamiya turned his gaze to Genichi, he happened to see Yoshihisa, who had a big cut on his upper body, with a pale face, retreating rapidly, putting some distance between himself and Genichi.
…
…
Yoshihisa's short spear and Genichi's Yang Shen collided and pushed each other, twisting the atmosphere and making a distorted, extremely uncomfortable sound.
After several unsuccessful stabs, Yoshihisa suddenly thrust his left hand into his arms, pulled out three shurikens, and threw them at Yuan.
The throwing angles of these three shurikens were quite tricky, and they stabbed at Genichi's vital points from different directions.
This is a high level of skill that only Yoshihisa, who has honed the shuriken throwing technique to perfection, can display.
The power, speed, and flying angle of the shuriken were all impeccable - but the opponent Yoshihisa faced was Genichi Kinoshita.
Whether in the martial arts world or in the academic world, in short, no matter which industry or circle, there is one absolutely correct truth - true masters can do things with ease, and those who do very difficult things seem very easy.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Genichi casually changed the direction and angle of the flame in his left hand three times in succession, and deflected away all the three shurikens thrown by Yoshihisa.
Genichi is not only able to make light of heavy tasks when defending, but also when attacking.
He took a step and a half forward.
This distance of one and a half steps is just right, just within the range where the katana Yang Shen can chop Yoshihisa.
Yuan Yi slashed horizontally.
Although it was just an ordinary horizontal slash at first glance, Yoshihisa felt a great threat from it. The sharpness of the knife made Yoshihisa dare not take it lightly.
He retracted the short spear in his hand, blocked Genichi's attack and retreated. But Genichi's attack did not stop, and he immediately delivered a second knife, this time with Wakizashi Enryu, and Yoshihisa blocked Genichi's attack again with an extremely reluctant movement.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding...
The flashes of swords and shadows of guns flashed quickly before the eyes of Genichi and Yoshihisa.
Also flashing before Yoshihisa's eyes were the scenes from 41 years ago that were deeply engraved in his mind...
That was the first and also the last time that Iga Village was so noisy.
The seniors who usually acted so high and mighty were now crying and shouting for their parents.
The brave ones continued to march towards the north of Iga-no-Sato.
The cowards fled in all directions.
In fact, it cannot be said that those who ran away were cowardly.
From another perspective, they are rational and intelligent.
Because all those brave men are dead.
One after another, they rushed towards the swordsman holding two swords, and then died one after another.
Yoshihisa is also one of the brave ones.
He grabbed the pistol he was best at and rushed forward bravely.
The brave charge did not bring results that matched the courage.
Yoshihisa was so cowardly that he couldn't even take the swordsman's attack and was defeated.
Yoshihisa was also very lucky. He survived by chance and has lived to this day.
clang!
Genichi bent his right knee, extended his left foot outward and suddenly lowered his body, swung his flame to deflect the pistol that was slashing towards his head, and then in the next moment, he bent his left knee, pushed the ground with his right foot, stood up straight, and while pushing his body upward, swung his Yang Shen to chop at Yoshihisa's head.
There was a clear clanging sound, and Jijiu narrowly managed to push Yangshen away. Although Yangshen's blade did not hit Jijiu's head, it still cut a deep cut on his left forehead.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Yoshihisa roared, spun the pistol in his hand in an arc, and tried to hit Genichi's head with the butt of the gun, but Genichi dodged it easily.
——Why... I just can’t hit him...!
Jiku let out a confused roar in his mind.
In these 41 years, Ji Jiu has never slacked off for a single day.
He is constantly honing his craft.
The pistol, the shuriken, the footwork... he has honed these skills to perfection.
He now also possesses an extremely strong body. He obtained the power of immortality from Toyotomi Nobuhide. Under the transformation of the power of immortality, he now has a body that is difficult to kill and also has physical fitness far beyond that of ordinary people.
He has both skills and physical fitness .
But why...
Why can’t I even touch a corner of Kinoshita Genichi’s clothes…
Bang!
At this time, Yoshihisa heard the sound of gunfire.
He quickly used the corner of his eye to check the condition of the branded woman - this crazy woman had been shot in the right knee and was kneeling on one knee on the ground.
The young warrior with glasses standing in front of her had sheathed his sword and was ready to perform sword-drawing...
--not good!
Knowing that if the branded woman died now, his current situation would become even worse, Yoshihisa gritted his teeth, tried to get rid of Genichi in front of him, and went to rescue the branded woman.
Getting rid of Genichi——Just saying this out loud gave off a sense of absurdity that "there's no way such a thing could be done"...
Genichi was not stupid, he naturally knew what Yoshihisa was in a hurry to do, so he stopped Yoshihisa tightly.
Woo…
Jijiu heard the air humming.
This was the sound of Genichi raising his Yang Shen high.
Yoshihisa saw a flash of white light above his head, and Genichi swung his raised katana down heavily, as if a sword was slashing down from a cliff. He subconsciously raised his arms, wanting to meet the attack with the spear.
clang!
Yang Shen's blade collided heavily with Jijiu's spear, and Yang Shen was lifted high due to the reaction force.
At this time, Yuan Yi held Yang Shen's right arm, palm and fingers and gently squeezed the handle of the knife. He used special techniques to transform the reaction force into his own strength, and then chopped at Yoshihisa again.
clang!!
The two men's weapons collided again, making a sound far louder than the first strike.
The force transmitted back along the gun barrel caused Yoshihisa's teeth to clench uncontrollably.
At this split second, Jijiu suddenly saw that something strange had happened in the lower right corner of his field of vision.
Yan Rong's blade appeared in front of Jijiu's lower right at some point just now.
When Genichi used the Yang Shen to strike for the second time, he was doing two things at the same time. At the same moment he struck down the Yang Shen, he extended the Flame Rong to the front of Yoshihisa's right abdomen.
At this moment, Yoshihisa's pupils contracted violently, and he pushed off the ground with his feet, trying to jump away from Genichi.
However, the speed of his jump back was one step slower than Yuan Yi's sword speed.
laugh!
The flame in Yuan Yi's left hand slashed upwards with the force of a lower sword.
The sharp blade cut from Yoshihisa's right abdomen all the way to his left shoulder.
Following the reaction force, Yoshihisa quickly stepped back, keeping a distance from Genichi, while holding the pistol horizontally in front of him to guard against Genichi's next pursuit.
Just at this moment, Yoshijiu saw from the corner of his eye the branded woman not far away who had already won the battle with the enemy.
The branded woman, her body already split into two, had fallen to the ground, no longer making a sound.
The bespectacled warrior with incredible skills, the bald old man without hair, and the beautiful woman who was still squatting on the beam, now focused their eyes on him.
—Is this the end...?
Yoshihisa’s expression… was so solemn and gloomy as if his entire face was splashed with ink.
He couldn't even deal with one Yuan Yi, and now that the branded woman was dead, the three men who had just fought with the branded woman now had their hands free.
Four people, including Genichi, beat him up...
Ji Jiu couldn't think of any way to break this deadlock...
——In the end... I still couldn't rebuild Iga Village before I died...
After his hair and beard turned white, Yoshijiu imagined what kind of state of mind he would be in when he was on the verge of death.
At this moment, Yoshihisa was truly on the verge of death.
But he found out that his state of mind was much, much calmer than he had imagined...
Although I felt unwilling, I was not afraid.
Not only did he not feel afraid, he also vaguely felt that deep in his heart, there was something... he didn't know where the source was...
Fortunately.
The huge wound on Yoshihisa's body has now been repaired.
He took a deep breath and positioned the gun in front of him.
"Come on, Genichi Kinoshita."
Mamiya, Fuma and the others have now surrounded them.
Even though Mamiya had just said something like "You don't need our help at all", there was no way he would just stand aside and watch Genichi and Yoshihisa fight one-on-one.
Facing Mamiya and Fuma who were surrounding him, Yoshihisa ignored them and his eyes never left Genichi in front of him from beginning to end.
"To die in your hands... is a worthy death!"
As the roar came down, Jijiu's hind legs dug into the ground hard.
Just as Yoshihisa was about to leap in front of Genichi and launch a self-sacrificing attack on him—
"It's gunpowder!! Everyone, get out of the way!"
boom--!!
Outside the room, there was a deafening explosion.
There was an explosion, and a surging air wave and shock wave rushed into the room through the door.
Squeaky...
Crash...
The beams of the room and the tiles on the walls made cracking and collapsing sounds.
The walls of the room were blown away, and the beams and tiles fell down with a crash.
…
…
Time goes back to just now——
"Damn it... I can't get through..."
A certain Iga male ninja holding a sickle looked anxiously at Makimura, Asai, and Shimada who were guarding outside the room not far away.
In order to prevent outsiders from disturbing Yuanyi and his friends, Makura and his three companions stood guard outside the room and did not let anyone pass.
Except for Shimada's slightly lacking skills, Makimura and Asai are both good with swords, and people with average skills are no match for them.
The three men who supported each other turned any ninja who dared to rush up into a corpse on the ground.
Currently, there are only about a dozen people still alive who have the courage to rush forward and fight against the attacking Yuan Yi and his group.
The rest either died or lost their fighting spirit and fled in all directions.
Although the remaining ten or so people could not see the scene inside the room where Jijiu, Lao Furen and others were, they could roughly guess the current situation in the room from the sounds coming from inside - it must be quite pessimistic.
From that moment on, they no longer heard the crazy roar of the brandishing woman.
The fact that they could no longer hear the brandished woman's voice undoubtedly made the remaining dozen or so ninjas very anxious, making them more eager to break through the obstruction of Makimura and others and enter the room to support Yoshihisa and others.
——Damn it! Fight them!
The male ninja holding the sickle gritted his teeth and prepared to rush forward to launch a desperate attack on Makimura and the others.
"Are you the only ones left?"
Suddenly, a somewhat hoarse voice sounded behind the Kusakama male ninja.
"Lord Kiyosumi?" The kama-sama ninja looked at the owner of the hoarse male voice with surprise - the abbot of the Ryushui Temple who always smelled fragrant: Kiyosumi.
At this time, Qingcheng was still dressed as a monk, but he was holding a wooden barrel with something in it and a burning torch.
"Master Kiyosumi!" the Kusagima male ninja asked, "Why are you here? Get out of here!"
Qing Cheng ignored the words of the sickle man. He looked at the corpses on the ground in front of him and said:
"Ahh... How pitiful! With the little combat power we have left, we won't be able to break through the defenses of those three men."
"And judging from the noises in the room, the woman who branded him is probably not doing well either. Ji Jiu is probably in danger too."
"Haha, it seems that the effort I spent on finding gunpowder just now was not in vain!"
Having said this, Qingcheng turned his gaze to the man with the sickle.
"I can't leave here."
Qingcheng grinned.
"I am also a member of the Toyotomi army. How can I escape from the battlefield? Although I am just a weak monk, there are things I can do."
After saying that, Qingcheng opened the big wooden barrel in his arms.
When the lid of the barrel was opened, a strong smell of gunpowder immediately penetrated into the nostrils of the man with the sickle, causing his pupils to shrink suddenly.
"Everyone get out of here!!"
While yelling, Qingcheng held the gunpowder barrel and torch in his arms, and charged towards Makimura and others who were guarding outside the house with a crazy smile on his face.
Just now, when Qingcheng learned that Longshui Temple was attacked and there were heavy casualties, he knew that these attackers were no ordinary people and that Longshui Temple might fall.
Looking for reinforcements? The nearest reinforcements are the 9th Division, which is more than ten streets away from Longshui Temple. By the time they arrive, it will be too late.
But we still have to ask for help, maybe they can arrive in time.
Therefore, Qingcheng sent out people to ask for help, requesting that the troops capable of returning to the camp should return immediately.
While seeking help from outside, Qingcheng was also actively trying to save himself.
He was just a weak monk, and Qingcheng could only think of one way to effectively attack the enemy.
Qingcheng rushed to the ammunition depot and took a barrel of gunpowder from the ammunition depot.
It would be best if we didn't have to use this gunpowder.
But if it were possible, Kiyosumi... would be willing to die for the Toyotomi army at any time.
And now, when his subordinates were unable to break through Makimura and his men's defenses, Qingcheng felt that it was time for him to show his skills.
Mucun could smell the smell of gunpowder coming from the wooden barrel in Qingcheng's arms from a distance.
His expression suddenly changed, and he quickly pulled Asai and Shimada beside him back, shouting, "It's gunpowder! Everyone, get out of the way!"
The surrounding Iga ninjas also retreated rapidly at the same time.
——Lord Toyotomi...I will now repay your kindness...
Kiyosumi always remembered the kindness that Toyotomi Nobuhide had shown him.
For helping him discover his "real self", for helping him realize that what he really likes is blood and violence...
Qingcheng smiled so hard that his mouth was almost stretched to his ears, and then threw the torch in his hand into the gunpowder barrel in his arms...
boom!!
The air waves and shock waves caused by the explosion shook the surrounding atmosphere.
Qingcheng's body was immediately torn into pieces.
The impact caused by the explosion immediately turned the room where Genichi, Yoshihisa and others were located into a mess.
Genichi and his companions were blown away by the shock wave, and the gray dust obscured the atmosphere...
“Cough cough…cough cough cough!”
Yuan Yi, whose mouth and nose were itching from the dust stirred up by the explosion, was the first to stand up from the ground while coughing violently.
Genichi first quickly checked his body - all parts of his body were intact, and except for the dizziness and bloating in his head, there was nothing unusual about his body.
After confirming his physical condition, Genichi immediately shifted his gaze, following Yoshihisa's figure while looking for Mamiya, Atachi, and the others.
The first person Genichi found was Mamiya.
Mamiya was now covered in dust, but he was not seriously injured. He was picking up his glasses that had fallen to the side and putting them back on his nose.
The next people found after Mamiya were Azhu and the girl who was tied up.
The two of them had been hiding in the corner of the room, so apart from being splashed with a lot of dust, nothing serious happened.
After finding Azhu and the tied-up girl, Fuma's words drew Genichi's attention to them -
"Komachi, have you ever pulled out a radish?"
"Do you want me to pull you out like a carrot?"
Yuan Yi looked in the direction of the voice.
The scene that caught Yuan Yi's eye... made him unsure of how to evaluate it.
Feng Mo was crushed by the collapsed roof beams.
But judging from Fengmo's calm expression, he should not be injured.
The collapsed beams just buried him up to his neck.
In other words, Fengmo now only has a shiny, reflective head exposed... just like a light bulb growing on the ground.
Ating, whose left shoulder was only slightly scratched, knelt beside Fuma's head, looking as if he didn't know what to do.