After giving Genichiro a large batch of magic potions, Xia Yu lent Xiao Qing to him as well. After all, the Great White Serpent was still a deity.
Even if she couldn't use much divine magic, her massive size alone could crush a multitude of enemies. Not everyone was a freak like Wolf.
With the magic potions and Xiao Qing, he couldn't imagine how Ashina could lose, unless the Interior Ministry showed up with bombers.
But this was the end of the Sengoku period; the strongest firearms were only cannons. Even if there were bombers, they would only exist on his side.
After receiving the abundance of magic potions and Xiao Qing, Genichiro was beyond excited. He wanted to rush straight to the battlefield, but suddenly remembered Xia Yu's request to help find immortal severance.
Consequently, Genichiro had to visit his grandfather, Isshin Ashina, first, planning to obtain information about immortal severance before doing anything else.
After Genichiro left, Xia Yu stretched, wanting to take a short nap. But at the thought of his little wife waiting for him, he immediately perked up.
Hehehe, Rice Maiden, my Rice Maiden.
Wait, what was the Rice Maiden's name again?
Xia Yu paused as a question suddenly popped into his head. He had been calling her his wife for so long, but he didn't seem to know her real name.
Well... whatever. He'd know once he saw her. Thinking about this now was a pure waste of time.
According to the game's description, the Rice Maiden was the only successful Child of Corruption, and the Children of Corruption were man-made Divine Heirs.
However, the Children of Corruption were actually different from the Divine Heirs. A Child of Corruption was a cradle for the Dragon Heritage, while a Divine Heir was its host.
When the Dragon Heritage returns to the cradle, the Return of the Dragon can be initiated, sending the Divine Dragon stranded here back to its homeland.
But whether it was a Child of Corruption or a Divine Heir, they both felt lost regarding their power, even feeling disgust and anger toward it.
The Divine Heir loathed the Dragon Heritage and wanted to sever the immortality it brought. The Child of Corruption had it even worse; she was the product of human experimentation, not someone who inherited it out of thin air.
A group of kidnapped children were subjected to various experiments. Those who successfully survived became Children of Corruption, while those who failed naturally died.
The ones conducting the experiments on the Children of Corruption were the monks of Senpou Temple. Human experimentation, and on children at that—no matter what the monks' original intentions were, every one of them deserved to go to hell.
Senpou Temple was built on Mount Kongo, which was located to the north of Ashina Castle, a mountain forest with beautiful scenery.
This kind of picturesque natural scenery should have been beautiful, but for some reason, the forest didn't feel scenic at all. Instead, it exuded an eerie atmosphere everywhere.
This was because there were no sounds of insects or birds in the forest, as if it were a land of the dead.
Leaving Ashina Castle, Xia Yu didn't take the underground passage like Wolf did in the game. He flew directly to Mount Kongo and then stepped onto the mountain path.
Although he wasn't exactly a champion of justice, he didn't mind cleaning up some trash along the way.
After walking along the path for a moment, several poisoned needles suddenly shot toward Xia Yu.
But Xia Yu's figure blurred, vanishing from the spot. The attacker was startled to see him disappear instantly and was about to blow the whistle around his neck when a hand pressed down on his head.
"Senpou Assassins, huh? You're another bunch of bastards who deserve to die."
The pinned assassin felt his heart go cold. He was about to use his small stature to launch a sneak attack when a sudden wave of intense heat descended.
"Aaah!!!"
Amidst screams of agony, flames suddenly erupted from the orifices of the small, bamboo-hat-wearing assassin. He was then reduced to a pile of charred ash by the fire.
Xia Yu looked at the scene coldly after killing a Senpou Assassin. He was using a Pyromancy Flame fused with Chaos, a fire capable of incinerating souls.
The Senpou Assassins weren't just individuals but an organization. They served Senpou Temple, and their purpose was to help the temple kidnap children for the research into the Children of Corruption. They were essentially Senpou Temple's intelligence and kidnapping agency.
For beings even more vile than human traffickers, total annihilation of body and soul was a merciful end. If he controlled the Underworld, he would definitely throw these things into a deep fryer for a thousand lifetimes.
Clang!
Xia Yu casually flicked away a needle blown from a hidden spot. The tip of the needle was a sickly green, clearly poisoned.
"So you've all surrounded me. Good, it saves me the trouble of finding you one by one."
Faint rustling sounds came from the surroundings, but no one answered Xia Yu.
Xia Yu didn't care. With a flick of his right hand, he threw out Xiao Bai, while he himself vanished from the spot.
In just a few seconds, a series of painful wails echoed through the area, followed by piles of black ash left behind.
Xia Yu continued cleaning up the trash as he advanced toward Senpou Temple in the forest. Before long, a dilapidated Buddhist hall appeared before him.
The exterior of the hall was ruinous, as if it had endured decades of wind and rain. Just as Xia Yu stepped into the vicinity of the hall, an ethereal female voice suddenly drifted over.
"Sir... You there, sir..."
Hmm? Rice Maiden?
Xia Yu raised an eyebrow. He had almost forgotten that the Rice Maiden could transmit her voice through portraits of the Buddha. In the game, she had used a portrait to advise Wolf.
He didn't expect to encounter this scene himself, but what was with the'sir'?
"Don't call me sir, call me husband."
"..."
"Sir, this Senpou Temple has long since strayed from the Buddha's teachings. Everyone has abandoned their monk's hearts and become obsessed with the pursuit of immortality. If you are caught, there is no telling what treatment you will suffer. I advise you to turn back for your own good."
Hearing this, Xia Yu nodded inwardly. Despite becoming a Child of Corruption through inhumane experiments, the Rice Maiden was indeed still kind-hearted.
However, this only made the monks of Senpou Temple seem even more deserving of death.
Seeing that Xia Yu neither replied nor showed any sign of turning back, the ethereal female voice continued.
"Even so, if you still have a reason why you must enter Senpou Temple, then I shall not stop you. But please, be extremely careful."
After saying this, the ethereal voice vanished. Xia Yu silently sensed the area and detected a strange power within the portrait.
If he wasn't mistaken, the Rice Maiden was likely using that power to achieve telepathy.
From this perspective, the Child of Corruption was actually more miraculous than a Divine Heir. At the very least, as a Divine Heir, the Divine Child Kuro was unable to use telepathy.
It would be more accurate to say that a Divine Heir could only forge immortal contracts and possessed ageless immortality and invulnerability, and that was it.
Besides being unable to forge immortal contracts, a Child of Corruption could use telepathy and manifest rice filled with life energy... and well, that seemed to be it too.
Tsk, when he thought about it carefully, neither the Divine Heir nor the Child of Corruption seemed to possess any particularly powerful mystical abilities.
That Divine Dragon was really damn stingy. It caused so much trouble, yet the benefits it gave were so meager, not even willing to part with a bit of divine power.