History Has Fallen Ill

Chapter 60: Cataclysmic Lotus Devours Karmic Threads, Corpse of the Celestial Ghost

Time rewound to a few minutes earlier.

Kurokawa Ryuuji, upon seeing the family elder defeated head-on by Jiang Yan, completely panicked and bolted out the door.

After all, he was merely an illegitimate child. Before returning to the Kurokawa Family, he hadn’t even been aware of the extraordinary system.

Even after his return, he had only reached the peak of the Spirit Awakening Stage by relying on family resources, and didn’t even have a single Foundation Establishment Stage retainer.

Let alone a Law Seed elder showcasing their strength for him.

The only high-level extraordinary being he understood was that nominal father.

Just sitting there, he was more imposing than any mountain, more terrifying than any great demon.

A single glance from him was enough to crush an ordinary person!

Such a monster had sown his seed in the body of that low-born hostess, his mother, and birthed him like some biological miracle.

After all,

In Kurokawa Ryuuji’s eyes, those of the Ancient Talisman Stage were no longer the same species as humans!

Thus, Kurokawa Ryuuji believed it was his mother’s blood that had tainted his originally noble lineage, bringing him so much discrimination and humiliation.

When he grew up, he began to vent these emotions onto other women.

Through torturing them—flaying, bloodletting, listening to their wails—he satisfied the emptiness within his heart.

“This is all her fault!”

“Why couldn’t I have been born as the legitimate son of the Kurokawa Family?”

“I cannot die. I must become one of the Ancient Talisman Stage, and make all those who once looked down on me crawl before me. I will stand above all, looking down upon the mortal realm for three hundred years!”

Kurokawa Ryuuji’s expression twisted. Afraid of being caught, he gave up on the elevator and chose to take the stairs instead.

But no matter how fast he ran, faint footsteps echoed behind him—step by step, they closed in, continuously eroding his mental defenses.

Once caught, he would certainly die!

But...

Where could he go?

“If I run into a crowd, the Bureau of Historical Revision won’t act in front of civilians...”

A dark thought surfaced in Kurokawa Ryuuji’s mind, but he quickly realized another problem:

“No, that won’t work. What if he still attacks? He could easily disguise it as an accident. I can’t die—the Kurokawa Family is still waiting for me to inherit...”

“That’s right, I can go into that space. As long as I hide in there, even someone of the Ancient Talisman Stage couldn’t find me. I can wait until it’s all over before coming out. The family elder warned me—as long as I keep the secret, even if I’m caught, nothing will happen...”

Kurokawa Ryuuji hesitated, unaware that black-red airflow had already begun to swirl in his eyes.

Tap! Tap, tap!

The footsteps grew more urgent, drawing nearer.

“Maybe he was lying to me. These people all think I’m a bastard, a disposable pawn. I’m not stupid—hiding inside can still keep the secret.”

He consoled himself, then pulled out a corroded mirror handle covered in verdigris and whispered:

“O corroded spiritual light, thou who once reflected the Amaterasu Soul in the chaotic world of Izumo, crack open now, O mirrored surface of the ulcer of this world...”

The mirror handle in his hand burst with light, tearing open a black-red rift in the wall.

Kurokawa Ryuuji’s expression lit up with joy as he slipped inside and quickly shut the portal.

The footsteps vanished entirely, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

Before him stretched a peculiar space filled with black-red airflow, roughly ten cubic meters in size.

At the center of the space was a massive blood pool, with several upright pillars inscribed with mysterious incantations.

There were ten pillars in total.

Each pillar had a child bound to it—some boys, some girls. Their limbs were pierced by blood-colored nails, maintaining their grotesque posture.

At the very center was a small boy. All of them had fallen into a coma, their faces pale, bodies emaciated like withered skeletons.

The wrists of each child had been slit open, blood beads seeping out, forming threads of blood that continuously nourished a curled-up tiny skeleton.

Above the skeleton floated an ancient-style bronze water mirror.

Kurokawa Ryuuji looked at them with a glint of greed in his eyes, murmuring, “Good thing I have this treasure forged from a shard of the Mirror of True Sutra Waters—one of the Three Sacred Treasures. Even though it’s only an imitation, it can still open up space and block external detection.”

The Mirror of True Sutra Waters—perhaps not many had even heard of it.

But its other name was the Eight Span Mirror, said to be the incarnation of the supreme deity of White Sakura mythology—Amaterasu.

It was obtained by Kurokawa Ryuuji's father, that Ancient Talisman Stage powerhouse, by chance during an instance in a Diseased Domain.

Logically speaking, even if Amaterasu was not an Immortal God and not a Mythical Secret Treasure, it still ranked as a legend-level treasure of Great Divine Ability.

Even a fragment was a top-tier treasure.

The head of the Kurokawa Family was ecstatic at first, but after decades of research, he was greatly disappointed.

This mirror could do nothing other than open up a pocket of space and block detection or calculations from the Ancient Talisman Stage.

Compared to storage tools, its advantage was that it could store living beings.

Its drawback was...

It could only open in fixed locations, and once the Eight Span Mirror was removed, the space would collapse in less than half a day.

This crushed the Kurokawa Family head's plan to secretly transport White Sakura powerhouses for rear-line assaults.

However, he firmly believed that as long as the remaining fragments were gathered, the power of the divine artifact could be restored and carried at all times.

For the sake of this plan, it was temporarily lent to Kurokawa Ryuuji.

“Pity that the Ten Directions Celestial Ghost ritual must be held in Hangzhou, and must use the bloodline of Jiangnan Province residents. Otherwise, in White Sakura, it wouldn't be so troublesome.”

As the intense fear faded, Kurokawa Ryuuji inexplicably felt the urge to speak, muttering to himself:

“A blood pool of a thousand people—over in Bald Eagle, there are dedicated blood bank companies, not hard to obtain.

But it requires ten naturally yin-fated boys and girls as sacrificial offerings, and must be refined simultaneously with two types of yin-oriented dragon veins: the Earth Element Dragon Vein and the Water of Kui Dragon Vein.

Places like that can’t be found in White Sakura. Only the vast Tianxia Alliance has them. But most of them are already claimed. Only Hangzhou in Jiangnan Province meets the conditions, and it doesn’t seal the dragon qi, allowing it to nourish the land and lowborn. Truly foolish.”

He cursed a few times, then began envisioning the future:

“But this benefits us, giving the opportunity for the soul of the Celestial Ghost’s Corpse—capable of deducing the future and invading various Diseased Domains—to be born.

If more fragments of the Eight Span Mirror could be assembled, it might even be possible to locate Diseased Domain coordinates in the Historical Long River, allowing the Celestial Ghost to scout ahead, intercepting the Historical Opportunities of the Tianxia Alliance’s History Walkers.

Or enter them to cause havoc, worsening the Diseased Domain mutations, even triggering or blocking historical tributaries, increasing the burden on the Bureau of Historical Revision, causing massive casualties and dealing a severe blow to the Tianxia Alliance.”

At this thought, Kurokawa Ryuuji laughed wildly, as if to completely release the cowardice and powerlessness born during his recent desperate escape.

Next,

He only needed to remain dormant for a while before beginning the extraction of dragon vein qi to refine the Celestial Ghost.

“With it, the Kurokawa Family... no, I will rise to power!”

Before he finished speaking, a cracking sound was heard.

Kurokawa Ryuuji was struck with intense pain. He looked down to see a black shadowed hook-tail piercing his heart.

Blood flowed down, pouring into the blood pool, causing ripples to bloom like a flower of life, then quickly wither.

He turned his head with difficulty and saw a pitch-black Shadow-Eating Serpent emerging from his shadow, its scarlet eyes staring indifferently at him.

“When did this happen...?”

With a thud, he fell to his knees, feeling his life force draining away. In terror, he tried to cover his wound, only to see his blood turning into rising black mist.

Ssshh!

From his seven orifices, endless streams of black-red airflow surged, wrapping around his entire body like a blooming lotus.

This scene was eerily familiar to Kurokawa Ryuuji.

When he was fleeing, Jiang Yan had indeed noticed—but merely glanced at him.

And within that pupil, a black-red lotus also flickered.

“I’ve been tricked!”

Kurokawa Ryuuji's formerly muddled mind regained clarity before death and suddenly realized...

There had been no need to run at all!

As long as he did not resist, according to the rules of the Bureau of Historical Revision, the other party could not kill him.

Yet from the very beginning, he had been like a puppet on strings, walking a path set by someone else.

“I’m not willing...”

In an instant, his soul, flesh, and spiritual energy were completely devoured by the Cataclysmic Lotus. Not even ashes remained—every trace was wiped clean.

The Cataclysmic Lotus drifted gently and vanished into the void.

The Shadow-Eating Serpent looked around, its twin hook-tails sweeping up the bronze mirror and the withered skeleton, opening the portal and disappearing.

At that moment, the unrestrained spiritual energy and blood qi surged into the sky.

Soon after,

Jiang Yan and the others arrived in the blood pool space and saw the bound children.

At that moment, the crime and its evidence were both present.

Kurokawa Sōsuke was devastated like one who had lost his kin.

Divine Sakura Bio... no, the Kurokawa Family, was finished.