Sky Lantern!
In the history of Huaxia, this was a form of torture so infamous it could drain the color from a person’s face.
With the fall of the Great Qing and the rise of a new society, the so-called Sky Lantern torture seed to have long vanished into the torrents of history.
However, when Hua Xiaotian’s lighter flew from his hand and landed precisely on the feet of Tanaka Nobuo, who was tied upside down to a wooden post... FWOOSH—! The fla ignited! The Sky Lantern was lit!
The long, oil-soaked silk strips slowly erupted into a scorching blaze!
From top to bottom, the roughly 1.7-ter-tall Tanaka Nobuo began to suffer an earthly tornt worse than death. Amidst the sizzling flas, Tanaka Nobuo let out hysterical, heart-rending screams.
His powerful Divine Ninja Life Force only prolonged the agony, allowing him to feel his feet being completely consud by the encroaching flas!
And this was rely the beginning.
"Old Hua, your expression tells you find this rather cruel?" Qin Fan remarked with a calm and detached air as he watched the spectacle unfold, suddenly turning his head toward Hua Xiaotian.
Facing Qin Fan’s smiling question, Hua Xiaotian first shook his head, then let out a breath. "The thod is indeed cruel, but I’m not about to feel any sympathy!"
"Do you know what his mission in the Jingguo Society was? Guardian of the Spiritual Tablets! Those war fiends are his heroes, his faith! He claims those monsters weren’t wrong. In his view, the reason Huaxia was once plunged into misery and its people left destitute wasn’t the fault of those war fiends! Rather, it was because the people of Huaxia shouldn’t have resisted their Iron Cavalry. They should have obediently submitted and completed the Co-Prosperity Sphere! Haha..." Qin Fan said, shaking his head mockingly as he glanced at the sizzling body of Tanaka Nobuo, which now emitted an acrid, scorching stench. "Now do you still find it cruel?"
"What?!" Hua Xiaotian’s eyes flew wide open, his face flushing red as he roared.
"Now, do you still find it cruel?" Qin Fan repeated.
"That bastard! That damned bastard! Consigning him to the eighteen levels of Hell wouldn’t be enough to quell my rage! Dammit, dammit!" By the end, Hua Xiaotian was clenching his fists tightly, gritting his teeth in fury.
His position as the Director of the Guardian Institute was proof enough of the depth of Old Hua’s fervent patriotism. Faced with such extremist rhetoric, not just the Director of the Guardian Institute, but any ordinary citizen of Huaxia would find it unbearable.
"He has to die. It’s just a matter of how! Lighting a Sky Lantern for him seems too lenient, if you ask !" Qin Fan said with a casual laugh.
Then, his Divine Sense stirred. He lowered his head, a wicked smile spreading across his face.
"Master Qin, is soone approaching?" Hua Xiaotian asked, his brow furrowed. His senses had grown much sharper since he had entered the Gang Realm.
"That’s right! With this old tortoise’s Sky Lantern lit, those ard devils outside can’t sit still any longer. Get ready to slaughter! In this battle, we kill any man we see and slay any god we find! I’ll cut a path with you all the way to Mount Fuji! That is the final battlefield! The Onmyoji and this old bastard we’ve dealt with so far are nothing more than appetizers!" Qin Fan said with a faint smile.
"Yes, Master Qin! Wherever your blade points, Hua Xiaotian pledges to follow and serve!" Hua Xiaotian declared, his gaze firm as he looked at Qin Fan’s profile, illuminated by the firelight.
From that mont on, he no longer feared death, nor did he question the feasibility of the plan.
Qin Fan’s heaven-defying power had shown him a level of madness he’d never dared to imagine before. A Divine Ninja of Japan, a legend in his own right, was being tortured with a Sky Lantern right before his eyes. What in the world could possibly stand in his way?
It had to be said, at that mont, watching that profile illuminated by the firelight, Hua Xiaotian felt a sense of admiration begin to swell within him. Indeed, the man lauded as the premier Grandmaster of the Gang Realm in Huaxia’s Martial Arts World felt a profoundly dissonant sense of admiration for this young man who was more than twenty-four years his junior!
「At the sa ti, outside the Jingguo Society」
The commander in charge of the containnt operation furrowed his brow tightly. The hands holding his binoculars were trembling faintly, almost imperceptibly.
Through the lens, he clearly saw Tanaka Nobuo tied to the wooden post! However, he had no idea that this was the face of the fabled Divine Ninja Guardian of the Worship Room!
"Major Inoshita, what’s wrong?" his adjutant, a man clearly his senior, asked with a confused frown, noticing his commander’s troubled expression.
"Yonezawa, take a look!" Swallowing hard, Major Inoshita passed the binoculars to his adjutant.
"Nani?" Yonezawa took the binoculars, lifting them to his eyes in puzzlent.
"Baka! A Sky Lantern, that’s a Sky Lantern! It’s that cruel Huaxian torture, the Sky Lantern! Major Inoshita, that man isn’t one of the two Butchers! He must be soone from inside the Jingguo Society! Baka, baka! The Onmyoji failed! The Jingguo Society has fallen! To use a torture like this, those two bastards must be from Huaxia! They have to be!" the adjutant roared, his voice a mixture of shock and rage after seeing the image in the binoculars.
At his adjutant’s words, Inoshita shuddered violently. He finally understood the source of his earlier, foreboding feeling.
The victim wasn’t one of the Butchers, and the thod was a cruel torture from Huaxia. Combined with the rciless, demonic slaughter inside the Jingguo Society, where the invaders killed everyone on sight without a shred of humanity... these two bastards were from Huaxia! They had to be!
RUMBLE—!
But before Inoshita could respond, a deafening roar ripped through the air, as if sothing massive had exploded.
The next mont, flas shot toward the sky. Acrid black smoke billowed rapidly from within the Jingguo Society!
"Baka, baka, bakayaro! Major Inoshita, the Jingguo Society is on fire! It’s out of control! Those two Huaxian bastards are trying to burn it down! They must be trying to burn down the Jingguo Society! Bakayaro!" Adjutant Yonezawa scread, his hands trembling as he held the binoculars, his face turning deathly pale.
The fire, which had erupted and spread in the blink of an eye, sent him into a complete panic. If the Jingguo Society was destroyed, what would that an? He dared not imagine the chaos that would engulf all of Japan.
"Baka!"
Inoshita shoved his adjutant aside and frantically snatched the binoculars back. But when he saw the raging inferno through the lens, his body began to tremble uncontrollably.
I’m the commander of this containnt operation, and I’m just going to stand here and watch the Jingguo Society burn to the ground? No! If that happens, the only path left for is to commit seppuku to atone for my failure! But I’d much rather die on the battlefield than do that!
"Major Inoshita! We can’t wait! We can’t wait any longer! The Onmyoji mission has definitely failed! Even if it ans walking into our deaths, we cannot wait a second longer!" the adjutant cried out, seeing the savage, crazed look flash in his commander’s eyes.
He’s right. We can’t wait any longer!
Leaping down from the roof of the armored vehicle, Major Inoshita drew his sword, raised it to the sky, and roared with hysterical fury.
"Protect the Jingguo Society! Attack!"
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