Gu Mo surveyed his surroundings.
He didn't seem to have left this stretch of land; in front of him was still that same village, the abandoned settlement on Suzuka Sando.
Only it hadn't yet decayed as horribly as in later ages, swallowed and buried under trees and climbing vines, sunk into deep greenery until its shattered ruins were almost completely fused with the mountain forest's background color… because the point in time was different now. He was no longer in the time-space of later generations, but had crossed back into the past, into history itself.
Right now a full moon hung high, its pure silver radiance spilling down.
It should have been the hour when night was deepest and all was silent, with ten thousand sounds stilled—yet blazing firelight shone over the surrounding mountains and woods, staining half the sky red.
