A moment ago, Hua Xiaotian was still puzzling over why Qin Fan had let Takada Naoto go so easily. Now, he understood. It wasn’t that Qin Fan wanted to spare him; it was that he had the entire situation under his control. The instant Takada Naoto fled, figures emerged from the cave. To call it a coincidence would be an understatement—at the very least, Hua Xiaotian didn’t believe it.

"Damn it!"

With his extraordinary senses, Takada Naoto perceived the movement behind him. His face went pale as he cried out in panic. Before he could even get closer to the cave exit, the pursuing figures leaped out and blocked his path.

"Takada Naoto! You fear death and cling to life, you harmed your own brethren and aided a tyrant! You deserve to die!" a grim-faced elder with a youthful face and white hair roared, meeting Takada Naoto’s horrified expression.

"You deserve to die!"

As soon as the elder’s voice fell, an enraged chorus echoed in unison.

"No, no, I was wrong—I was wrong! Spare me, please! I just didn’t want to die! Even if I hadn’t killed them, they would have died anyway! That man from Huaxia wouldn’t have spared them, he wouldn’t!"

Ignoring Takada Naoto’s pitiful screams, the few Divine Level Onmyoji who had surrounded him began to swiftly mutter incantations.

The next moment, before the terror on Takada Naoto’s face could fully spread, a mist suddenly condensed from thin air and enveloped him, rapidly melting into his body.

WHOOSH—!

As the Divine Level Onmyoji paused their murmuring, Takada Naoto seemed to transform into someone else. A ferocious look twisted his features, and his panic-stricken eyes lost their fear, replaced by a blood-red hue. In the next second, he began to flail about wildly like a possessed shaman from Huaxia, gnashing his teeth and clawing at the air. A torrent of guttural Japanese burst incessantly from his mouth. Qin Fan and Hua Xiaotian couldn’t understand what he was shrieking, but they could hear the violent madness within it.

Clearly, the Illusion Realm he had fallen into was far more terrifying than the one Hua Xiaotian had previously experienced.

"Hmph!"

The child-faced elder snorted coldly and turned back toward the entrance of the Orochi Cave, his hands behind his back. Seeing this, the other Divine Level Onmyoji followed suit.

Just as they turned to leave, Takada Naoto could no longer withstand the mental collapse brought on by the Illusion Realm. He shrieked and slammed his head into the stone wall.

BANG—!

BANG! BANG—!

BANG! BANG! BANG—!

Over and over again, Takada Naoto was quickly reduced to a bloody mess, his head riddled with countless wounds. Yet the frequency of his head-bashing didn’t slow in the slightest, as if determined not to stop until he had crushed his own skull.

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

At this moment, Qin Fan smiled, applauding the returning Divine Level Onmyoji.

"Divine Level Onmyoji, are you? Truly extraordinary! With a single move, you can drive a High Level Onmyoji into a mental breakdown, forcing him to kill himself by smashing his head against a wall! What an impressive way to clean house, haha!" Qin Fan laughed, clapping his hands with mocking amusement as he faced the returning Onmyoji.

"Not only can I make that rebellious beast collapse, but the two of you will not be leaving the Orochi Mansion alive today! If it weren’t for you, that traitor never would have turned on his own. Therefore, you are the true culprit!" the child-faced elder said icily, looking down at the smiling Qin Fan.

"Just the few of you? Along with the trash inside and that eight-headed serpent? You think you can keep me from leaving? Haha! It’s good to be confident! But it seems I forgot to tell you something. Not only did I kill these pieces of trash, but I also hammered all the Divine Ninjas outside to death. Oh, right, and the Jingguo Society? I torched it. As a bonus, I made sure several thousand of your Japanese military, police, and civilians served as funeral offerings for the Jingguo Society! Exciting, isn’t it? Doesn’t that just make you furious?"

A deceptively harmless smile spread across his face as Qin Fan spoke, each word landing with calculated weight. His words struck the hearts of the Divine Level Onmyoji like a series of merciless hammer blows.

They didn’t care about the deaths of Matsubara Santai and the others. Even if the Divine Ninjas guarding the perimeter were all wiped out, they weren’t too concerned. As long as Orochi was revived, none of that would matter.

But the Jingguo Society, the sacred ground of their Co-Prosperity Sphere plan... burned to the ground?

This was intolerable!

As Qin Fan finished speaking, an unprecedented fury erupted on the faces of the Onmyoji. Without a word, through a tacit understanding, these Divine Level Onmyoji who had been sent to clean house spread out into a formation. As they gathered their power and murmured their incantations, faint wisps of black energy, nearly invisible to the naked eye, began to seep from their bodies. Silently, in the blink of an eye, the black mist grew incredibly dense, so dense that it completely surrounded Qin Fan and Hua Xiaotian.

"Master Qin!"

With Qin Fan by his side, Hua Xiaotian seemed to have lost all his usual composure. Acting completely unlike his past self, he treated Qin Fan as the pillar of their entire trip to Japan. Sensing the strange power beginning to rise, Hua Xiaotian cried out, his voice trembling.

"Cheap tricks! Hold onto me!" Qin Fan scoffed.

The next moment, hearing Qin Fan’s command, Hua Xiaotian didn’t hesitate and grabbed his clothes. Facing these Divine Level Onmyoji, he had already cast aside all his pride and dignity. He knew that the slightest bit of overconfidence could cost him his life.

WHOOSH—!

The instant Hua Xiaotian grabbed Qin Fan’s clothes, a chilling wind swept past him. He then found himself standing in what seemed to be a mass grave. As far as he could see, there was nothing but disorderly tombs and ghastly green figures flitting between them. At the same time, all sorts of eerie, bizarre sounds began to grate on his ears.

"Master Qin! I feel my consciousness starting to fade!" Hua Xiaotian shouted, shaking his head to stay lucid.

He knew he was in an Illusion Realm, but if he stayed much longer, he wasn’t sure he could hold on. The encounter at the Jingguo Society was enough to put him on high alert, but what good was being alert if he was powerless? This was the very essence of a Divine Level Onmyoji’s Divine Skills. No matter a Martial Artist’s Cultivation, once they fall into an Illusion Realm, they enter a world controlled entirely by Onmyoji.

"Open your mouth!"

As Qin Fan’s command echoed in his mind, Hua Xiaotian reflexively opened his mouth wide, even though he appeared to be completely alone in the mist-shrouded graveyard.

Outside the Illusion Realm, Qin Fan took out an Elixir and pushed it into Hua Xiaotian’s open mouth. "Swallow!"

GULP—! 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Without a second thought, hearing Qin Fan’s familiar voice in his mind, Hua Xiaotian swallowed. As he did, his consciousness, which had felt on the verge of scattering, became incredibly sharp. An unprecedented clarity surged through his mind.

My consciousness is restored, but how am I supposed to escape this Illusion Realm? That’s the problem now.