Chapter 164: Chapter 164: Fort Mumei

Chapter 164: Fort Mumei

The small boat sent to pick them up arrived more than forty minutes late. Fortunately, Bai Luo was skilled enough; otherwise, if it had been an ordinary person, they would have been killed by the Kairagi before the Watatsumi Army ship even arrived.

“My apologies to you both. Some issues came up, which delayed me quite a bit,” said the boatman.

He was just an ordinary fisherman. His rough, weathered skin was clearly the result of years spent under the sun and wind at sea. The small boat was filled with fishing gear, suggesting he had been pulled from his usual work at the last minute.

Grabbing the towel around his neck, he wiped the sweat from his face and hurried to clear out some space inside the canopy for the two of them.

“It’s no problem. It must have been hard for you to come out in weather like this,” Bai Luo replied casually.

After all, he was treating this like a vacation and wasn’t in any rush.

The Watatsumi Armies were probably the ones more anxious than he was.

“It’s not really the weather that’s the issue—it’s the Tatarigami,” the fisherman sighed as he pushed the boat away from the shore.

It wasn’t just the Tatarigami; the fisherman knew that because the Watatsumi Armies had hired him to pick these people up, and because Teppei was wearing a Watatsumi Army uniform, there were things he dared not say openly.

The war had been going on for some time now. Due to battles between the shogunate forces and the Watatsumi Armies, the Tatarasuna area had suffered explosions, and miners and residents had fled for their lives.

Yashiori Island had become one of their refuges.

But they didn’t realize that Yashiori Island, due to the destruction of its ward, might actually be in worse shape than Mikage Furnace.

As more and more refugees flooded their village, their food supplies gradually dwindled.

The village chief had even started trying to buy food from pirates.

Unwilling to stoop to dealing with pirates, the fisherman had instead connected with the Watatsumi Armies, occasionally helping them in exchange for enough supplies to survive.

As the boat moved away from Watatsumi Island’s borders, the sea began to grow increasingly rough.

Once they entered the area of thick clouds, everything around them visibly became more oppressive.

Even Teppei, who usually wore a smile, had curled up in a corner of the canopy, clutching his standard-issue katana tightly and watching their surroundings warily.

The fisherman, on the other hand, seemed used to the eerie atmosphere. After pulling on his straw raincoat and bamboo hat, he continued paddling steadily forward.

After a short while, a large ruined structure appeared on the rain-swept sea, its broken walls and crumbling remains still hinting at former grandeur. Time had washed away its glory, leaving behind only wreckage and ancient vines creeping over the stones.

“That place is Fort Mumei. Even my grandfather’s generation didn’t know its full history. It’s said it was destroyed during the war, when the Watatsumi Omikami marched east,” the fisherman explained quietly when he noticed Bai Luo observing the ruins.

After all, he had already been paid, so he figured he might as well be a bit more professional.

He also thought it was a good opportunity to explain why he had been so late.

But before he could even get to that part, Bai Luo asked a question instead.

“Wouldn’t it be quicker to pass through Fort Mumei? Why take such a long detour?”

Bai Luo had been watching the fisherman all along.

While navigating, the fisherman constantly checked the surface of the water and frequently adjusted their course.

This indicated he wasn’t following a familiar route but was instead taking a completely new, unfamiliar one.

That wasn’t a good thing.

Only a well-known route could guarantee safety from undercurrents and hidden reefs.

Taking an untested route was practically asking for trouble.

“You may not know, sir, but Fort Mumei was one of the places where a Tatarigami’s ward was placed. Normally, it was the fastest and safest route. But after the ward was destroyed, that place became utterly uninhabitable. It took me a long time to find this new route, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been so late,” the fisherman explained.

This is also one of the reasons why the Watatsumi Armies sent a fisherman to pick them up.

The new route was still being mapped out, and at the moment, aside from the Fatui ships, only local fishermen familiar with the surrounding seas had the ability to get them off Watatsumi Island.

“I see,” Bai Luo muttered thoughtfully, gazing in that direction.

The fisherman wasn’t lying, Bai Luo could clearly feel the danger emanating from over there.

“Hmm?”

As he observed, he suddenly felt someone — or something — watching him.

No— it didn’t feel like a person.

His hand instinctively rested on the Reverse Blade Sword at his waist, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.

A sword.

Yes, he realized what was watching him wasn’t a person, or even a living being — it was a sword.

Since switching class to Himura Kenshin, Bai Luo had developed an extremely sharp sensitivity toward anything related to swords.

He wouldn’t be mistaken, there was a sword inside those ruins staring straight at him.

“Besides the Tatarigami’s ward, is there anything else in there?”

Bai Luo asked in a low voice, his hand still on his sword hilt, as if afraid to alarm whatever was hidden within the ruins.

“Probably just some monsters,” the fisherman answered without noticing Bai Luo’s tension.

“When the Tatarigami broke loose, some people tried to brave the ruins, but none of them ever came back. Now, besides monsters, no one dares set foot there.”

The fisherman wanted to make it clear that the delay hadn’t been intentional, that there truly were reasons behind it.

“A sword, huh…”

Bai Luo decided that after meeting up with the Watatsumi Armies, he would first test whether the Tatarigami could affect him.

If not, he’d go explore the ruins.

Clang—!

Just then, it felt as if a sharp sword cry echoed across the world.

Within that resonating sword cry, Bai Luo sensed despair, rage, and madness.

For a fleeting moment, he seemed to see a demon, brandishing a blade, roaring furiously at him.

The demon was horrifying, its face twisted grotesquely.

Just looking at it gave a chilling sense of death.

Whoosh—!

Two sword beams, crossing each other like an “X,” slashed through the air and kicked up massive waves, hurtling toward the rickety fishing boat.

The two beams were imbued with elemental energy — the first with wind, the second with ice.

The wind stirred up the sea, while the ice froze the rising waves, and together they formed a strange, frozen path across the surface of the sea.

“The–The god is angry!”

The fisherman, just an ordinary man, had never seen anything like this before.

If not for Teppei’s quick reflexes inside the canopy, the poor fisherman might have fallen into the sea in sheer panic.

“Sōryūsen: Twin Dragon Flash!”

Bai Luo’s speed more than doubled.

Stepping lightly on the edge of the boat, he sprang into the air, his sword in hand slicing through the two nearly simultaneous sword beams.

Boom—!

The explosion of wind and ice elements created a huge frozen platform on the sea.

Bai Luo landed firmly on it, standing steadily as he looked toward the end of the strange “ice road.”

. . . . .

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