Chapter 156: The Great Stone of Yomotsu

---

Driving wooden boats, riding shikigami, and some using water-avoiding spells, the group traveled through the sea, leaving behind rolling bubbles like floating clouds.

Itomi Yuki looked at the scene before her and finally understood why the government called the Shinto sect “rats.”

Hiding in the reed marshes, only daring to walk in deserted places, what were they if not rats?
She felt a sincere disgust for the Shinto sect.

Thinking that Itomi Sayaka was willing to associate with these people for her sake, she couldn’t help but look at her sister.

Itomi Sayaka turned back and smiled, saying, “My dear sister, what’s wrong? If you have any troubles, you can ask your sister for life advice.”

“Sister, you should take care of yourself first,” the感動in Itomi Yuki’s heart instantly disappeared.

“Ah, Yuki really likes me the most, so worried about her sister.”

Itomi Yuki sighed, her eyes suddenly hesitating.

“Hmm?” Itomi Sayaka tilted her head in confusion. “Are you really troubled?”

Itomi Yuki averted her gaze and played with the long hair on her chest, “It’s about my friend.”

“That little sister Shima?”

“…Mhm.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Itomi Sayaka asked with a smile.

“Your smile is so disgusting.”

“Are you trying to say—she’s fallen in love with someone, but that person already has someone they like, and you, no, she doesn’t know what to do now?”

“What nonsense are you talking about,” Itomi Yuki frowned—she couldn’t see it with her mask on, but the feeling of frowning, her sister could imagine it without seeing her face.

“Strange,” this time it was Itomi Sayaka’s turn to be confused, her hand on her chin. “It’s actually not.”

At this moment, Itomi Yuki suddenly understood what she was talking about.

She glanced at Minamoto Kiyomoto, who was staring at a glowing jellyfish, took a deep breath, suppressed the urge to drill out of the water-repellent qi shield and rise to the sea surface, and said in as calm a tone as possible:

“My… my friend, she wants to thank her parents who go out to work before dawn, but she doesn’t know how to express it.”

“This,” Itomi Sayaka pondered for two seconds, then looked at Minamoto Kiyomoto. “Turdidae, you, who are still treated as a child at this age, what do you think?”

“Am I being insulted in some way?” Minamoto Kiyomoto asked.

“It’s your illusion (no~),” the two sisters laughed at the same time.

“You two have a really good relationship,” Yagyu Michiko said softly, looking at them with envy.

The Yagyu family was a large family, and she had many sisters, but precisely because it was a large family, there was almost no affection between them.

The two sisters, who were praised by her, the older sister laughed heartily, while the younger sister crossed her arms in dissatisfaction and turned her face away.

“Expressing gratitude… giving a gift is the most common, but a high school student’s gift… preparing a breakfast or dinner?”

Itomi Yuki looked at Minamoto Kiyomoto, who was muttering to himself. He was also crossing his arms and pondering with his head down.

Both of them were crossing their arms, and both were wearing tracksuits… She calmly put down her hands, suddenly feeling that these arms were too superfluous.

Where did she usually put them? Why did she feel uncomfortable no matter where she put them?

Before they could come to a conclusion, the submarine-like team began to surface.

The sky was as blue as a piece of wallpaper. The sea under the autumn sun seemed to be rolling with gold.

In the distance, there was an island. It should be the Yomijima Island that Amatsumara had mentioned.

Itomi Yuki looked at it carefully but didn’t find anything strange. She subconsciously used the “Heavenly Eye Spell.”

A misty divine light shot out from her eyes, like a laser, and also like a searchlight, shining straight on the distant Yomijima Island.

Almost all the Shinto sect followers, whether they were on boats, riding shikigami, or flying on their own, turned their eyes to her.

“What spell is this?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s at least an upper-level spell.”

“Upper-level spell? This profound aura, I bet it’s a max-level spell!”

Itomi Yuki looked at the rolling yellow smoke and the heavy shadows of Yomijima Island. She was inexplicably flustered when her shoulder was suddenly patted.

“What are you doing?” she looked at her sister with dissatisfaction, her heart almost jumping out of her chest.

After finally calming her heartbeat, in the “Heavenly Eye Spell,” the blue divine power on her sister’s body shot up into the sky, burning like a pillar of fire.

The divine power was too strong, and she was too close. Her eyes felt a needle-like pain, and tears flowed out. She quickly retracted the spell.

“What am I doing? See for yourself,” Itomi Sayaka pointed at the surrounding Shinto sect followers.

Itomi Yuki blinked her beautiful eyes a couple of times, endured the discomfort, and looked around. She found that everyone was looking at her, whispering, their eyes burning.

“What’s wrong?” she was full of confusion.

“Yuki,” Hanyu Chika explained in a low voice with a wry smile, “among these people, very few have upper-level spells, let alone a max-level exploration spell.”

“…” Itomi Yuki remembered. The Shinto sect was very poor. No, she should be very rich.

Last time, a juggling-like “Wind Fixing Spell” had surprised Rabbit and the others for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “I forgot that I’ve only learned a little of this spell and can’t hide it.”

At this time, Sanae Sara flew over.

“Little cat, what spell is this?” she looked at Itomi Yuki with curiosity.

Being looked at by her, Itomi Yuki had the feeling that her mask was being seen through. She couldn’t help but move her body and hide behind Minamoto Kiyomoto.

“You have to ask Turdidae,” Itomi Sayaka said with a smile. “This kid has researched a lot of strange spells.”

“Oh?” Sanae Sara turned her gaze to Minamoto Kiyomoto with interest.

“It’s all just playing around,” Minamoto Kiyomoto scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“Spells are very dangerous. Turdidae-kun is still in the stage of accumulating divine power. Don’t mess around on your own,” Sanae Sara said.

“I know, thank you, Auntie Sanae.”

Sanae Sara’s smile remained unchanged, and she continued:

“Messing around on your own is not good for your body, but if Turdidae-kun wants to, you can find me, your auntie. I’ll be with you, and it will be comfortable for the two of us together.”

“Sister Sara,” Itomi Sayaka said helplessly.

Sanae Sara giggled, glanced at Minamoto Kiyomoto’s tracksuit pants with charm, and flew away, licking her lips.

“This old hag is so annoying,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with disgust.

Several women laughed. Even Yagyu Michiko covered her lips with her small hand and laughed softly.

In the time it took to say a few words, the group had already left the deep sea and come to the shallows.

The seawater was as transparent as glass, and the sand at the bottom of the water could be seen clearly.

“Your Excellency, Amatsumara, is there no official garrison here?” Itomi Yuki, who was looking down at the sea, heard the voice of the leader of Group Seven from the air.

Everyone also looked at Amatsumara, worried about this problem.

“There used to be,” Amatsumara’s face had been sullen all along. He suspected that his clansmen were trying to kill him and hadn’t sent the message to Tokyo.

Otherwise, why hadn’t the Divine Medium come yet?

“What do you mean, ‘there used to be’?” the leader of Group Eight, Drunkard, asked.

“You’ll understand when you get there,” Amatsumara replied coldly.

Approaching the coast, strange rocks began to appear.

After millions of years of wind and rain, and the impact of the waves, these rocks were strange and bizarre, making one marvel at the uncanny workmanship of nature.

“Go in from here,” Amatsumara pointed at a narrow cave.

“Aren’t there better places to land around here?” someone asked.

“If you want to enter the Yellow Springs Kingdom, you must pass through here,” Amatsumara didn’t waste any more words and flew in first.

Seeing him go in, the others could only follow.

The cave was narrow, and the seawater was like a river.

Looking from the outside, it was clearly not a big cave, but it twisted and turned, and the exit could not be seen.

Going against the current, after two or three minutes, as far as the eye could see, the “riverbed” was full of small towers made of stacked stones, like tombs.

“Hey, does it feel like someone is watching us?”

“You have that feeling too?”

“What the hell is this place?!”

Itomi Yuki also had a feeling that the tomb-like stone towers seemed to have someone inside watching them.

“Is this the Sanzu River?” Sanae Sara asked.

“That’s right,” Amatsumara nodded.

Itomi Yuki was still waiting for them to continue, but their conversation ended just like that.

“Damn it, what are you bumping me for?”

“Don’t squeeze. The Yellow Springs is ahead. Are you in a hurry to be reincarnated?!”

In the cave, the uneasy clamor of the followers sounded.

The people at the back desperately squeezed forward, trying to get closer to the group leaders.

Itomi Yuki didn’t have such worries.

Group Nine had few people, only five in total, and among the five, there were three Kasen-level.

She and Hanyu Chika were surrounded in the middle, as safe as being in a warm bed on a typhoon day.

But as they continued to go deeper, she couldn’t help but feel scared.

They were in a series of dangerous, gloomy, and maze-like caves, going deeper and deeper. They had been flying for at least half an hour.

Above their heads were strange rocks as sharp as swords, which could fall at any time; they were also like the teeth of some monster, and they were walking towards the monster’s esophagus.

In the crevices of the “riverbed” on the left and right, spider lilies bloomed in twos and threes. Occasionally, there were also abandoned red paper windmills.

In the cave, from time to time, a faint whimper, a crazy roar, a pleasant and hollow singing voice, mixed with a painful cry, would suddenly sound.

Even Itomi Sayaka and the other Kasen looked around with suspicion, let alone the others.

Someone wanted to escape in terror but was sealed by Sanae Sara’s divine power and mercilessly pressed into the water, drowned to suffocation, before being thrown onto a boat.

She didn’t say a single threatening word, but no one dared to escape anymore.

Itomi Yuki looked at the followers who had just been wantonly killing ordinary people. At this time, they were trembling, as pitiful as stray dogs. She felt both contempt and sympathy, and her disgust for the Shinto sect grew even stronger.

“There’s a light ahead!”

“We’re finally at the exit!”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and sped up, flying towards the light.

As if nothing had happened, the scenery in front of them returned to its natural beauty.

Itomi Yuki looked back. The cave from which the people at the back had desperately escaped looked only ten meters deep.

In the cave was a sea as bright as colored glass. There were no stone tower tombs, no windmills, no spider lilies, and no strange sounds could be heard.

She let out a long sigh of relief, and her pounding heart finally calmed down.

“Is this the Great Stone of Yomotsu?” Minamoto Kiyomoto was the first to look at the yellow giant stone on the beach.

This beach was very small, surrounded by steep cliffs. Not a single blade of grass grew on the cliffs. The marks on them were as if they had been cut by a knife, scraped by a sword, or gouged out by human fingernails.

The Great Stone of Yomotsu was in the very center of the beach, pressed against the mountain wall, as if it were blocking a dark tunnel leading to an unknown place.

“That’s right,” Amatsumara nodded.

“To go to the Yellow Springs Kingdom, do we need to move it? What’s the method? It can’t be as simple as moving a stone, right?” Drunkard asked.

“It’s written on it.”

Everyone looked in the direction Amatsumara was pointing. The stone, which had been as smooth as a mirror just now, had a column of characters appearing vertically.

“‘Not knowing light, not knowing what mercy is, that is the place,'” Spider read.

“That place is the Yellow Springs Kingdom,” Amatsumara said. “In ancient times, the human world was not yet separated from the Yellow Springs. In the world, besides practitioners, shikigami, and yokai, there were also all kinds of monsters. After people died, they could still live like normal people.”

Everyone subconsciously quieted down and listened to him continue.

“But the Yellow Springs divine energy is harmful and not beneficial. Living people can’t use it at all. After death, they can be resurrected by the pollution of the Yellow Springs divine energy. They have reason, but they have lost their humanity. Living people have become a dish on the menu of these living dead.”

“Why can that dog thief Minamoto Kiyomoto absorb the Yellow Springs divine energy?”

“Could it be that that beast is not human?”

Itomi Yuki secretly sized up Minamoto Kiyomoto and held back her laughter.

“Of course Lord Tsukushi-no-Kimi is human,” Amatsumara said faintly. “But I don’t know what method he used to absorb the Yellow Springs divine energy.”

“What happened later? How did the Yellow Springs Kingdom separate from the human world?” Spider asked.

“The more people died, the more Yellow Springs divine energy there was. Until the Yellow Springs Demonic Dragon appeared and ravaged Japan. After Izanami killed it, she herself died of serious injuries not long after.”

The Shinto sect had always worshipped the “Yellow Springs Demonic Dragon” and regarded it as a god. Hearing him mention it, they listened even more carefully.

“Izanagi couldn’t bear to part with his wife, so he put her in the Yellow Springs Kingdom. However, the resurrected Izanami had already lost her human feelings and was called the ‘Goddess of the Yellow Springs.’ In addition, her divine power, the harm she brought to the human world, was almost greater than that of the Yellow Springs Demonic Dragon.”

“Izanagi had no choice but to take advantage of his wife’s training in the depths of the Yellow Springs Kingdom, move the Great Stone of Yomotsu, and block the Yellow Springs Kingdom.”

After listening to Amatsumara’s words, everyone returned to that distant and glorious era.

In Itomi Yuki’s mind, a world filled with a dim yellow aura appeared. In a swamp, the pale-faced Izanami was lying in it, training.

Far away from Yomijima Island, the simply dressed Izanagi, holding a giant stone, flew over from a distance, treading on the waves.

According to the records in the “Kojiki,” the two of them might have fought. After Izanagi sealed the Yellow Springs, he was also injured.

“Is the Great Stone of Yomotsu that powerful? Even Izanami couldn’t do anything?” Sanae Sara asked.

“Because passing through the Great Stone of Yomotsu requires special conditions,” Amatsumara said.

“What conditions?” Drunkard quickly asked.

“People from the Yellow Springs Kingdom who want to come to the human world need popularity; and living people from the human world who want to go to the Yellow Springs Kingdom need death qi.”

“Popularity? Death qi?” Everyone looked at him with confusion. They had never heard of it.

Before Amatsumara could speak, a sigh suddenly came from between heaven and earth.

“People are born in the human world and die in the Yellow Springs.”

“Who?!” Everyone was startled. Sanae Sara and the others immediately suspected that there was an ambush by the government.

“Amatsumara!” Drunkard’s divine power raged, his aura pressing. The waves of the sea churned restlessly.

Amatsumara ignored him and looked at the Great Stone of Yomotsu in a daze.

He slowly bent down and bowed, “The descendant of Amatsumara pays his respects to the Mother God!”

“What?!”

“Amatsumara, what are you doing?!”

Everyone was both surprised and terrified. There was only one Mother God in Japan, and that was Izanami.

Izanami was still alive?!
“Amatsumara?” The dignified, majestic, and god-like whisper of a female voice spoke again.

“Reporting to the Mother God, Amatsumara is the grandson of your daughter, Amaterasu.”

“Amaterasu… Amaterasu…” the voice faded, and the other party seemed to have fallen into deep thought.

“Is it really…” Itomi Yuki swallowed. “Izanami?”

Everyone also looked at Amatsumara with disbelief.

“Even Ashiya Doman can be resurrected after a thousand years. The Mother God, who has transformed into the Goddess of the Yellow Springs, is naturally immortal,” Amatsumara, who had been sullen all along, looked at everyone with contempt at this time.

As the descendant of Amaterasu, the Amatsumara clan was the true descendant of the Father God and Mother God.

Although Izanami was not the omnipotent god that ordinary people thought she was, she was also the strongest practitioner of ancient times and naturally ruled Japan.

From the “Ogosho,” the “Lord of Kyoto,” and the “Taiko” at the top, to the Divine Medium, the Ise Miko, and so on in the middle, and down to the nobles such as the Minamoto, Taira, and Amatsumara clans, they were all descendants of Izanami.

After countless years, in the hearts of these people, they still believed from the bottom of their hearts that they were born to be the rulers of Japan.

“Are you fucking kidding us?” Drunkard suddenly roared. “Izanami is alive. Are you trying to trick us into going to the Yellow Springs Kingdom to die?!”

Izanami, the legendary god, the existence who killed the “Yellow Springs Demonic Dragon” with her own strength.

To this day, besides being told “nothing more than this” by Minamoto Kiyomoto not long ago, who dared to be disrespectful to her?

“I’m just telling you the method I know,” Amatsumara said faintly.

Everyone cursed non-stop, their words foul. Itomi Yuki and Yagyu Michiko couldn’t help but frown.

Amatsumara was completely indifferent and continued:
“The Mother God is far in the depths of the Yellow Springs Kingdom. As long as you are fast enough and return immediately, the Great Stone of Yomotsu will naturally block the Mother God for you.”

Sanae Sara and the other group leaders pondered for a moment and exchanged a glance.

“Then how do we get in? How can a living person have death qi?” Spider asked.

Her voice was very light, but it suppressed all the clamor, and the beach became quiet again.

“The Mother God said it just now,” Amatsumara said with his hands behind his back. “A person is born and dies in the Yellow Springs Kingdom. As long as you defeat your dead self, you will naturally have death qi and the power to travel between the human world and the Yellow Springs.”

“Defeat my dead self?” Minamoto Kiyomoto said in surprise.

“Walk to the Great Stone of Yomotsu, and your dead self will appear,” Amatsumara said.

“Does the dead self have consciousness?” Itomi Sayaka asked.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Amatsumara glanced at her. “Life and death are opposite. The living don’t want to go to the Yellow Springs, but the Yellow Springs wants to come to the human world. Your dead self is you without humanity. To them, killing their living self and returning to the human world is the most important thing.”

The beach was quiet for a while.

“This dead self, what’s the deal with it?” someone couldn’t help but ask.

“When you die, that’s your dead self,” Amatsumara replied.

“Then can’t we know our future from the other party?” Itomi Yuki said in surprise.

Everyone looked at her, one because of what she said, two because of the spell she had just used, and three because her voice was pleasant to listen to.

The slender and soft body under the tracksuit.

“Of course you can,” Amatsumara continued amidst the incredulous exclamations of the crowd. “If you can do it.”

“Does anyone want to go up and try?” he looked at the people of the Shinto sect. “It’s been a long, long time since an official practitioner has tried.”

Defeating one’s future self… for a practitioner, if there are no accidents, one’s future self is 100% stronger than one’s current self.

Minamoto Kiyomoto was tempted to try, but he was very confident in himself. Let alone his dead self, even his tomorrow’s self was stronger than his current self.

“Soma, you go,” Sanae Sara said to a man from Group One.

“Yes!” Soma, who was full of muscles, walked towards the Great Stone of Yomotsu.

Everyone stared at him intently. Someone was so nervous they swallowed.

“I forgot to remind you,” Amatsumara suddenly said. “Once the battle begins, the others cannot interfere. Otherwise, the person who interferes will also have to face their dead self.”