Surprise Attack

Under the night sky in the outskirts of Tokyo, a massive surge of spectral green resentful spirits and evil souls erupted from deep within the mountains. Amidst terrifying ghostly wails, they poured out like a tide. The Onmyo Agency had never encountered such a large-scale gathering of malicious spirits since its inception. They almost lost their composure when sensors detected a portion of these spirits lunging directly toward the city. Once they steadied themselves, they immediately mobilized the Rapid Response Team, sending them toward the threat via high-speed shikigami and helicopters. They then notified Inari and began drawing on all of Tokyo's onmyo forces for support. The onmyoji's mission was to buy time at any cost—to stop the legion of spirits from entering the city before Inari intervened!

Stinking and foul, the first wave of the Rapid Response Team reached the outskirts and collided head-on with the spirit vanguard charging through the wilderness. Although they had anticipated a difficult fight, the sheer brutality of the enemy far exceeded their expectations. They discovered that these were not the usual malicious spirits they fought daily; they were an army—a professional military! Among the rolling hills, the onmyoji of the Rapid Response Team clashed with the incoming ghostly ranks and realized these spirits were fundamentally different. They were equipped with spectral versions of modern weaponry, using bolt-action rifles to fire physical bullets condensed from demonic qi. They could attack from hundreds of meters away. The onmyoji, who had just arrived and summoned their shikigami, were met with a preemptive volley before they could even clearly see their foes. Ghostly bullets filled the air, piercing the newly summoned shikigami and wiping out more than half of them instantly. Before formal contact was even made, a significant portion of the onmyoji's combat power was lost.

Fortunately, it seemed divine grace favored them; this round of shooting only destroyed the construct-type shikigami. The onmyoji themselves remained unharmed, surviving the terrifying ordeal by using cover and dodging many stray bullets. Once they regained their senses, they began to form arrays.

The onmyoji of the Rapid Response Team carried spirit tools capable of rapid deployment. Most of the work for the magical arrays inside these tools had been completed beforehand, needing only a final step to activate. The onmyoji activated their tools one after another, releasing the stored magical arrays and infusing them with spiritual power. Soon, a massive translucent barrier flickered into existence, blocking the incoming bullets. "Kotodama: Shield!" The hereditary barrier of the Tsuchimikado Clan rose, and the ghostly bullets of the spirits splashed against it, sending ripples across the surface. Consuming the spiritual power stored in their spirit tools, the onmyoji maintained the barrier and began to strike back in the direction of the gunfire.

However, the effect was minimal.

Paper talismans could not reach past the dense barrage of ghostly bullets. Arrays needed time to be set up, and while charms and spells were somewhat useful now, their range was too short to reach the rifle-wielding spirits.

A talisman thrown with spiritual power had a range of about a hundred meters, which couldn't touch the spirits firing from several hundred meters away. The spirits easily maintained a continuous suppression. "Damn it... we can't do anything! Are we going to be pinned down here?" Inside the barrier, the team leader of the onmyo unit spoke anxiously, equally baffled by the appearance of these spirits.

"Wasn't it said that the Old Imperial Army spirits only appear in Okinawa and the South Sea Islands? Why are there so many on the mainland?! And right in the capital region... damn it, these guys should be under Inari's jurisdiction!" The team leader, dressed in a modified kariginu as light as a suit, continued to vent his frustration. This situation was clearly beyond the Onmyo Agency's normal duties.

According to the Onmyodo Control Treaty signed between the post-war Japanese government and Inari, the official onmyo institution led by the government—the Onmyo Agency—held a status equivalent only to the police. Any form of militarization was strictly forbidden. The series of lethal onmyojutsu developed during the Great War had been abolished, and exorcism methods were strictly regulated to traditional styles. Under such restrictions, the Onmyo Agency naturally struggled to resist products of the war like this spirit legion, which had seen the rampant abuse of onmyojutsu. Among the official onmyo institutions—the Onmyoryo of the Heian period to the Bakumatsu, the Onmyoin of the Meiji Restoration to the end of the Great War, and the post-war Onmyo Agency—the Onmyoin was arguably the strongest and most fanatical, excluding the Heian-era Onmyoryo.

The spirit legion continued to use their weapons for suppressive fire. Seeing that counterattacks were ineffective for the moment, the onmyoji chose to focus entirely on defense, pouring their spiritual power into the barrier through their spirit tools while waiting for reinforcements. Their job was to stall, after all; as long as the spirits didn't enter the city, everything was fine. Their current spiritual power reserves could hold out for about ten minutes.

Just as the onmyoji were thinking this, a thunderous roar echoed from the ghostly green lines. Several points of spectral green light rose from the enemy positions, arcing through the air before slamming into the barrier. The high-concentration ghostly shells inside them exploded, causing the barrier to shudder and develop cracks. The onmyoji inside were startled, staring at their stunned comrades. What? They had artillery too?

Within the spirit positions, rows of eerie green mortars had been set up. After adjusting their angles, the next ghostly shells were already condensing. At that moment, the onmyoji captain shouted, "Focus all spiritual power into the barrier!"

The onmyoji began pouring out their full spiritual power to maintain the barrier against the falling fire. However, a sharp, piercing drone suddenly drifted down from the heavens. The onmyoji looked up to an astonishing sight: in the dark sky, a spectral green, old-fashioned propeller plane was flying at high speed. Wreathed in soul-fire, it circled once before diving straight toward them. Its machine guns began spitting ghostly bullets at the barrier, and the plane's altitude plummeted during the dive with no intention of pulling up. As the aircraft rapidly closed the distance, the onmyoji could even see the terrifying skeleton in the cockpit wearing tattered pilot's gear.

"Watch out!"

With a deafening crash, the spectral plane slammed directly into the barrier. It dissipated into nothingness in a blinding flash of green light, and the barrier instantly collapsed. The powerful shockwave threw the onmyoji back. With the barrier gone, the spirits in the enemy lines immediately ceased fire. A field-officer-level spirit unsheathed his blade, and the ghostly soldiers also fixed bayonets to their rifles. With a blurred howl that sounded like Japanese, the officer led the front-line soldiers in a charge. Being spirits, their lower bodies turned into ethereal shadows as they rushed forward together.

Meanwhile, several more spectral green propeller planes appeared in the distant sky. Accompanied by ghostly flames, they dove toward the ground, their cannons spitting out streaks of fire.

The onmyoji lying on the ground looked in terror at the rapidly approaching, horrifying skeletons.

Whish!

Accompanied by a sharp sound of breaking air, a brilliant red lotus suddenly exploded within the charging green ranks. In the thunderous blast, scorching flames swept outward, devouring the charging spirits and evaporating them amidst shrieking wails. The violent shockwave hit the onmyoji's side, blowing those already on the ground even further away. Fortunately, they managed to avoid the various fragments sent flying by the explosion.

"Cough, cough... This, this is..." The onmyo team leader stood up weakly amidst the coughing and looked toward the sky. He saw four or five black shadows streaking overhead, accompanied by a roaring boom in the air.

"Inari..."

Engines spitting fire, streamlined fuselages cutting through the air, and wings slicing the wind—modern fighter jets carrying air-to-ground missiles circled the sky before spitting long tongues of fire at the remaining spirit positions. Fireballs erupted among the spirits, instantly swallowing hundreds of them.

Clearly, Inari's air strike had arrived first. Facing the bombardment of their ground forces, the flying spectral planes made several eerie turns to face the incoming Inari jets, attempting to lock on and shoot them down.

But because Inari's modern jets were too fast, the spectral pilots couldn't get a lock no matter how hard they tried. They were led in circles through the sky. Within moments, the Inari jets used their overwhelming speed and maneuverability to easily get on their tails. Then, the cannons roared. Spell-infused bullets tore through the spectral fuselages like paper. The falling spirit planes dissipated into nothingness in the sky. These jets happened to be ones Inari had purchased from the United States; decades later, these spectral pilots were once again shot down by aircraft from that same nation. Spectral bodies were no match for spell-enhanced shells, and the mobility of a spirit couldn't compete with a turbofan engine.

As he stared in awe at the completely lopsided, cross-generational dogfight in the sky, the earpiece at the onmyo team leader's ear crackled with static. The urgent voice of the Director of the Onmyo Agency came through.

"Uh... as for casualties... I don't know yet, but there shouldn't be many," the captain replied while looking around. As far as he could see, none of his team members seemed to have particularly serious injuries.

"Withdraw? Not yet, Lord Sato. The number of spirits here is higher than we estimated—at least over a thousand. Inari only has air support on the scene right now. I don't think their planes carry enough ammunition to handle this many spirits! If we withdraw now, what if those guys surge into the city!" the captain replied. It was obvious that even if these few jets from Inari used up all their ammo, they wouldn't be able to completely wipe out such a massive spirit legion. Their main forces were still on the way.

"Don't worry about that. A force has arrived to take over for you."

At that moment, the captain's expression froze. He sensed a surge of demonic energy from the direction of the city—a thick, suffocating wave of power rapidly approaching.

"This... this much demonic energy is..."

"Yes... the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. The spirits of the demon realm have arrived."

While chaos reigned outside Tokyo, inside the Imperial Palace in Chiyoda Ward, a tense atmosphere infected everyone. Due to the earlier demonic energy eruption and the current massive gathering of spirits, the Imperial Palace was on high alert. Onmyoji dedicated to the Imperial family were focused on guarding them, preventing any intrusion from the demon realm during this chaotic time. In this moment of crisis, the Imperial family had not moved to a bunker but remained in the palace. There was one simple reason: since the Meiji era, the Tokyo Imperial Palace had been layered with heavy arrays and seals. For supernatural forces, it was far more defensive than any bunker, especially since the onmyoji of the Onmyoin had further reinforced everything last century.

Inside a grand office within the palace, an elderly man in a suit, with white hair and glasses, sat behind a desk, writing something with a ballpoint pen.

From time to time, the old man looked out the window toward the distance where ghostly qi pierced the sky, sighing as he spoke.

"Sigh... these are truly restless times. I hope this passes quickly."

Just then, the office doors were suddenly burst open. Several figures flew through the doorway and crashed to the floor, unconscious. Upon closer inspection, they were several bodyguards in suits.

"Ah!"

Seeing this, the old man behind the desk stood up, his face full of shock. At that moment, a young man's voice drifted in from outside the door.

"...It's still the same old setup. Haven't you people reinforced the Imperial Palace's arrays in decades? So lax. How is the safety of the Imperial family supposed to be guaranteed?"

Speaking as he moved, a young man in a military officer's uniform stepped slowly out of the shadows behind the door. He looked at the old man and grinned.

"I'm right, aren't I, Prince Reinin? No... I suppose I should call you His Majesty now."

Looking at the young man, the old man's mouth hung open. It took a long time before he could murmur a name.

"Kitano... Saburo."