Chapter 919 - 35: Killing Stone!
Late at night.
Located in the central part of Honshu Island, Japan, not far from Tokyo in Nasumachi, Tochigi Prefecture.
As the entire shrine settles down, the night is eerily silent, and the star and moonlight quietly falls, shining directly onto the earth from the dark night sky.
Right in the depths of the night, a landmark in the scenic area, fenced off and draped with Shimenawa - straw rope with white zigzag-shaped Imperial Coins hanging from it - a large stone quietly undergoes a very mystical transformation.
By this time, most of the people in the shrine are resting.
Either deep in sleep, or taking a short nap, basically, there’s hardly anyone walking outside.
Moreover, the large stone isn’t particularly eye-catching either; people rarely check on it during the day, and naturally, no one pays attention to the stone’s condition in the dark of night... after all, it’s just a stone, what could possibly happen?
In the shroud of darkness, the night undulates, thick as ink.
And around the large stone, the space seems to dim gradually, the light distorting bit by bit until it turns pitch black, as the bright moonlight falls, it seemingly passes through, yet also seems blocked outside by this tangible dark mist.
The black mist roils continuously—
Appearing darker than dark, deeper than the night.
The mist surges widely, spreading outward wave after wave like a tide, then contracts back rhythmically, such expansion and contraction resemble the breathing of a giant beast, or the rhythmic beating of a heart...
Each pulse faintly shakes the space, simultaneously releasing numerous curses.
This tremor is indescribable, even ordinary people and Spiritual Ability Users cannot perceive it, cannot feel it.
However, if you can see the condition of this stone, and possess a sufficient level of Spiritual Vision, you’ll be alarmed to discover that this stone, which should have been mundane, has imperceptibly undergone an inexplicable transformation. It becomes peculiarly strange, as if transformed from ordinary material to a form embodying some special rules.
Inside, it’s like a gigantic black hole has emerged...
A terrifying pull spreads outward endlessly...
Not acting on the material level, but rather an attraction on the spiritual level. As if encountering a black hole, even light cannot escape, in the unseen world, densely packed evil spirit bodies are swept away like paper scraps in a storm, powerless to resist...
They naturally struggle fiercely, yet are still continuously drawn into that enormous dark vortex.
In mere breaths, the surrounding evil spirits are cleared away, regardless if powerful or weak... Yet the stone at the vortex center doesn’t stop because of this; instead, it intensifies, seemingly due to consuming numerous evil spirits, it gains higher output power.
The vortex range rapidly expands outward...
Toward the horizon, farther and farther...
Imminently transforming into a massive storm.
......
...
The bright moonlight still quietly spills, from a celestial body 380,000 kilometers away from the earth, blooming ethereal radiance in the void. Its light spreads through the void, illuminating the earth, enlightening all beings, naturally observing everything happening on the ground.
From the start, its design direction and positioning was as God’s automatic scribe, aware of everything like Laplace’s demon.
Perhaps it hasn’t reached this level yet, but it truly evolves towards this goal, already capable of observing everything happening on Earth, while also harnessing the power of time to unfold higher dimensions, trace past records, and deduce future branches.
Objectively speaking, it indeed has a nascent form of Mooncell.
As long as its functionality continues to enhance, quantitative change leading to qualitative change is only a matter of time... Gu Mo is not concerned about this, after all, although Mooncell’s functionality is indeed powerful, it wasn’t like this from the beginning; it’s also the result of extensive evolution and expansion over a long time.
That’s a lengthy 4.6 billion years of evolution, certainly not possible to catch up and bridge the gap in a short time.
In fact, considering his current progress speed, it’s truly an efficiency akin to ascension with gigantic strides. The reason he still feels there’s a noticeable disparity is merely because the target to chase is so vast, often astronomically immense.
"Killing Stone..."
Standing upon a rooftop terrace somewhere in the city, facing the night wind, Gu Mo murmurs softly.
His gaze, like the moonlight, illuminates every corner of half the earth, his Perception extending endlessly with his eyesight, covering mountains and seas, reaching no limit, crossing high mountains and seas, passing through the sky and the horizon, effortlessly sensing everything.
Things happening on earth can hardly escape his eyes; it’s just whether he wants to pay extra attention.
Not daring to claim every whisper of the wind and stirred grass can be fully captured, after all, to save computing resources, it’s impossible to recklessly max out all details, to adjust accuracy to constantly observe every microorganism’s movements... But those truly significant and worthy to note, are certainly not missed.
Hence, regarding the events in Nasuno Tochigi Prefecture, Gu Mo is naturally well-informed.
He gently furrows his brows; he mentioned this thing during the day, how come it immediately exhibits corresponding changes by night? But that stone is truly just a toxic volcanic stone, not some Nine-tailed Fox’s soul or Demonic Power Crystal.
This he can completely confirm, since when he noticed irregular rhythms earlier, he already suspected it and specifically inspected it again.
At that time, no problems were detected, and now suddenly strange things are happening?
Gu Mo didn’t feel like he was slapped in the face, nor did he doubt his judgment at the time. After all, he was convinced that the big stone was really just an ordinary object, with no special features, the kind that wouldn’t even trigger the item identification function when you touched it.
So that means it’s likely some kind of mutation...
"Cognitive collapse, huh..."
With a hand on his chin, Gu Mo began to think seriously, quickly considering a possibility. Judging by the current level and power of the technique’s execution, it was indeed on a planetary scale of "record modification," and at the core of this technique is Yatsugaya Miko, the absolute core and strong observer, possessing unimaginable and incredible power.
Simply put, it’s like a version of Haruhi Suzumiya...
The divine power to change the world and make "wishes come true."
Or rather, not so much wishes come true, but more like the realization of cognition, based on the operating logic of ultimate illusion and the power of lies, enough to change the results of the entire planet... As long as she leans towards that belief, subconsciously accepts it, the world will change into the corresponding "form" based on her observations.
Consciousness is reality itself, cognition is the fact.
"Knowing about the Killing Stone, and then vaguely understanding it, subconsciously inclined to think this way, the result is a reality distortion..." Gu Mo raised his eyebrows and looked up into the night sky from within the darkness, the bright city lights illuminating, so polluted that no stars could be seen.
But for him, it was of no consequence—Gu Mo, in such a peculiar perspective, examined this blue planet from the viewpoint of the Moon.
Earth.
"Is it the Correction Power that’s activated? Are you just trying to catch a ride, or are you planning to correct these variables that shouldn’t exist in this world..."
After a moment, as if he had figured something out, he chuckled with interest.
......
...
The next day.
A piece of news caused a minor stir, saying that the famous Killing Stone at the Tochigi Prefecture Shrine cracked mysteriously last night.
This naturally sparked panic; the public was slightly concerned. Of course, there’s no worry about the seal of the Killing Stone breaking and the nine-tailed demon fox escaping—how many people in this day and age truly believe such claims?
They are just purely worried whether this is a sign of disaster, a warning before an earthquake or volcanic eruption... Well, calling it superstitious isn’t quite right, but denying it isn’t entirely accurate either.
Meanwhile, in the mind industry side of things, it was an outright explosion.
They were most concerned about such a situation, fearing the reemergence of that terrifying root of evil spirits, but it had only recently been speculated, a contingency plan made, and before any action could be taken, today that damn Killing Stone... cracked?
They were about to crack themselves!!
Upon preliminary investigation, finding that in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, there appeared a mega spiritual pressure field exceeding the A level, indeed originating from the site of the Killing Stone—
Countless demon exorcists became frantic, running all over, and the national institutions that had established deep cooperation with the mind industry also reacted quickly, mobilizing countless resources, deploying overwhelmingly vast resources to start investing in various plans.
In a sense, the true initiator Yatsugaya Miko was completely oblivious to all this.
When she left the house today, she just felt that the world suddenly seemed much quieter, that the evil spirits she awoke to see everywhere on the streets seemed to have vanished completely today.
Walking all the way to school, she didn’t see a single trace of an evil spirit...
It’s hard to describe that feeling, but overnight, such a significant and sharp contrast made her feel inexplicably as if the whole world was different. As if the human world had been suddenly cleaned, as if a gigantic vacuum cleaner had swept away all the dirty things.
Although she didn’t understand why this was happening, she vaguely realized something might have happened, yet she still felt quite happy with this change.
"Or maybe it’s because my spiritual vision suddenly disappeared..."
Looking at the school gate ahead, the girl with long black hair couldn’t help but think this, and then saw a figure appearing on the road ahead.
Dressed in a luxurious single garment with a blue base, with fluffy tails swaying grandly behind them, exuding a kind of unimaginable divine majesty...
And that sharp gaze, like one seeing a mistress, with an astonishing aura...
"Eh?"
Startled, the girl stopped in her tracks and looked intently.
There was nothing there.
Was I hallucinating...? She rubbed her eyes, murmuring a bit, feeling that the figure indeed seemed somewhat illusory and unreal just now.
......
(PS: Happy National Day, everyone... Though I was isolated for a few days because of the yellow code o(*￣▽￣*)o...But it’s delightful, time to regain some feel—Made in Heaven! I want to speed up! Let’s finish this part as soon as possible and see if I can get back into the groove)