Chapter 095: Atsuta Shrine’s Longest Night, Part Two

The transformation of the Heavenly Cloud Sword was undone the moment the rocket salvo left the barrel.

Through these repeated uses, Qiao Qiao had gradually grasped the weapon’s peculiar nature.

It was not true conjuration made flesh. Rather, it depended on the wielder’s own knowledge and understanding of the weapon.

For instance, Qiao Qiao could easily turn the Heavenly Cloud Sword into a sniper-rifle grenade launcher, but he could never make it become a tank.

The more he understood, the more fully the weapon’s power could be brought to bear.

Without that understanding, it was nothing more than an empty show.

Amid the smoke and dust, Qiao Qiao did not remain still.

While transferring Asano Miko’s fallen body beneath the shrine gate, he also kept his eyes on the enemy.

After being struck by twelve rockets, he did not believe any monster could launch an immediate counterattack under that kind of fire.

Still, the revolver in his hand instantly changed into a sniper-rifle grenade launcher.

Whoosh—

Just as he was preparing to finish it off, a blade of brilliance cleaved through everything in the smoke and came straight for him.

Crack—

The massive shrine gate was split clean in two.

The serpent’s body was in tatters, flesh writhing as it rapidly healed itself.

But Qiao Qiao had seen it clearly.

Cracks had already appeared in the Heavenly Cloud Sword in his hand.

“?”

A question mark rose in Qiao Qiao’s mind.

“Boy, were those rockets just now aimed at my true body?”

“If it used a sword to block them, what was I supposed to do?”

Qiao Qiao tried to defend himself.

It really was troublesome.

The Heavenly Cloud Sword’s attacks were weakened twice over: once by the bloodline of the descendants of the Great Serpent, and again by the sword’s own body.

Its full destructive power simply could not be brought out.

He curved two grenades off their line, while shifting position at the same time.

The serpent’s amber vertical pupils swiftly locked onto Qiao Qiao’s figure.

The sword’s edge, like a shadow, pursued him.

“Right rear. Very fast,” the Heavenly Cloud Sword warned.

Clang—

The fishbone-like longsword smashed into the barrel, and the force of the impact drove Qiao Qiao back step after step.

But at that very moment, two grenades landed beside the serpent.

The serpent was about to make the snake heads formed from its left hand perform a suicidal defense, when the grenades exploded first.

And what burst forth was not fire.

It was sound and light.

A flashbang.

The deafening buzz made even Qiao Qiao, standing at a distance, wince with pain in his eardrums. At the center of the blast, the serpent began streaming blood from its ears, mouth, eyes, and nose.

If it had been human, its organs would likely already have suffered internal damage.

But the true value of this attack was that it forced the serpent’s movements to halt for the briefest moment.

Qiao Qiao aimed at the empty ground to the serpent’s right.

A grenade flew out and struck there.

Boom, boom—

Two explosions rang out. One was the armor-piercing round from the grenade; the other was the land mine Qiao Qiao had planted there earlier.

Using the grenade, he forcibly triggered the mine.

The blast also caused the serpent to drift involuntarily leftward. Still reeling from the lingering effects of the flashbang, it could not mount any effective counterattack.

With three grenades in quick succession, Qiao Qiao drove the serpent onto a wide open stretch of ground.

By then, the serpent also sensed that something was wrong.

It tried to flee.

But Qiao Qiao gave it no such chance.

An armor-piercing round struck at the serpent’s feet.

Boom—

A mine had been buried there.

At the same time, there were also plastic flash traps all around it.

In an instant, every explosive device was triggered.

Flames engulfed the serpent.

Qiao Qiao’s logic was simple.

If the Heavenly Cloud Sword’s attacks were limited in so many ways, then he would have to rely on himself.

He had set many traps earlier, but while avoiding attacks, the two sides had already moved far from the trapped area.

Now Qiao Qiao had used his movement and attacks to lure the serpent into the kill zone.

Then he detonated everything.

His handgun transformed once more into an exorcist rocket launcher. He was just about to press the attack when he saw the serpent drop to its knees in utter disgrace.

The Heavenly Cloud Sword in his hand—

Crack—

It gave off a faint sound.

Then it broke.

It shattered.

“???”

In Qiao Qiao’s mind, the voice of the Heavenly Cloud Sword was filled with disbelief.

“My true body... my true body...”

“It’s a thousand-year-old piece of iron, after all. It probably couldn’t withstand that kind of abuse.”

Qiao Qiao comforted it.

“Whose fault is that, exactly!”

“Wasn’t it the serpent’s fault?”

Qiao Qiao glanced at the serpent.

It seemed to still want to struggle.

But the situation no longer allowed it to do so.

The many disturbances Qiao Qiao had caused were not only to attack the serpent; there was a more important reason as well.

Whoosh—

Several chains formed of light rose from the ground and tightly bound the serpent’s body.

From the shrine side, several figures appeared and gradually took control of the serpent.

Indeed, Qiao Qiao had just used the explosions to draw the people remaining at the shrine out here.

However—

“...Qiao-san, did you do all this?”

Masato Tokida stared at the ravaged rear grounds of Atsuta Shrine. The earth was pitted and cratered, the shrine gate had been split in half, and traces of explosions and smoke lay everywhere.

“No, this monster did it.”

“It used the Heavenly Cloud Sword to create all this destruction.”

“And because it overused it, it even broke the Heavenly Cloud Sword.”

Qiao Qiao explained with perfect seriousness.

“?”

In his mind, the Heavenly Cloud Sword let out a sound of protest.

“I never expected it to be this thing in the end...”

Shoji Asano had not gone with the main force to hunt the serpent, but had remained at the shrine. Seeing the serpent, he felt a sudden and complete realization.

If it was a descendant of the Great Serpent, then stealing the spirit of the Heavenly Cloud Sword from Atsuta Shrine without anyone noticing would indeed be possible.

“Hmph. To think there was such a person among the exorcists. I miscalculated.”

The serpent had already been bound by more than a dozen talismans, and the exorcists had also activated Atsuta Shrine’s great barrier. At this point, escape truly was impossible.

Yet the serpent’s expression was remarkably calm, with none of the shame or defeat one might expect.

“Hold on.”

Qiao Qiao felt that something was off.

He had once read a book about warfare.

If one wanted to confuse the enemy, one had to conceal one’s true tactical intent.

On the surface, it might seem as though one were taking this place, while in reality the guns were being turned toward another target.

Offense was sometimes merely a cover for something else.

And when he thought back to today, the serpent’s appearance had been meant to enable the python to infiltrate Atsuta Shrine and take the spirit from the Heavenly Cloud Sword.

But if the serpent had infiltrated the shrine, had it really not anticipated resistance?

If it had encountered other exorcists, or the main force, the resistance would certainly have been fiercer than what Qiao Qiao had offered.

The success rate of such a plan was not high.

The serpent had no real reason to gamble all the groundwork it had spent years preparing on this alone.

Then...

At that moment, Qiao Qiao suddenly remembered the distribution map of the strange incidents that had occurred in Nagoya over the past half month.

Taken individually, those locations seemed random.

But if they were placed on a map, and the obviously nonhuman incidents were removed...

In Qiao Qiao’s mind, a pattern appeared over the map of Nagoya.

He did not know what it was, but it was plainly nothing good.

Whoosh—

At that very moment, a pillar of golden light shot straight up into the sky from the top of Nagoya TV Tower in the center of the city.