The soil, completely broken apart and then re-aggregated, was extremely loose, especially after the recent events.
Being in it was like being in quicksand; one wrong move and you'd sink completely.
Of course, if you could fly, these problems would be non-issues. Unfortunately, in the vast territory of the Tenryou Commission, only Ember could fly.
Naturally, he walked on this loose ground as if on solid earth.
He casually approached a man in a long robe, looking down at him from above.
The man was carefully digging at the mud around him when he suddenly found himself enveloped in a shadow.
Looking up, he saw Ember standing tall.
"S-sir, why are you looking at me? I'm just a small clerk, not even... not even a samurai."
"I ask you..."
"Thief! How dare you damage the Raiden Shogun's Tenshukaku! Do you wish to taste annihilation?!"
Ember was about to ask the man about the Kujou Clan head's whereabouts but was interrupted by an enraged shout from a distance.
"Hmm?"
Ember raised an eyebrow, no longer paying attention to the frightened man, and turned his head towards the source of the voice.
It was a man with graying temples, dressed in a green robe. Although he was scolding Ember, his gaze was not on him.
Following the man's gaze upwards, Ember saw the Tenshukaku high above the Tenryou Commission. The rocky foundation beneath it had developed hideous and terrifying cracks.
And the man's attention was clearly on those deep and frightening cracks. He angrily cursed Ember while bowing his head and muttering in trepidation, creating a rather contradictory impression.
"The head of the Kujou Clan, Kujou Takayuki?" Ember asked, approaching the old man.
"That would be this old man. You, you thief, how dare you..."
"Don't talk about all this nonsense. I was kind enough to wait for you all for a while at first. Why didn't you come out?"
Ember squatted down and pulled out his small notebook from his pocket.
"Look, these are the messed-up things your Shogunate did, enough to make anyone furious just by looking at them. As the saying goes, 'no breaking, no standing.'"
"Today, I've broken the buildings of your Tenryou Commission. You go and arrest the people who committed these offenses, break them, and your Tenryou Commission will be a group of heroes again."
"What do you think, Kujou Clan Head?"
Ember didn't know who exactly was responsible for these messes, so he just went for an indiscriminate attack first.
As for the specific individuals, he felt it was better to let professionals handle it.
Speaking of which, Ember inexplicably missed how quickly things were dealt with on Watatsumi Island.
Mainly, on Watatsumi Island, those who committed offenses were caught in the act and could be dealt with immediately. But the Shogunate was different; Ember had only seen the Shogunate's various messes, but he didn't know who was responsible.
Kujou Takayuki unhappily flipped through the notebook Ember had thrown to him. He initially pretended to flip through a few pages, but then simply closed the book.
"You, you thief, not content with damaging the Raiden Shogun's Tenshukaku, you even want to use these baseless things to tarnish the reputation of my Tenryou Commission! Your crime is punishable by death!"
Kujou Takayuki naturally wouldn't agree to clean up the Tenryou Commission. For no other reason than that many of the orders involved had been issued by him personally.
Clean up the Tenryou Commission? Was he supposed to clean himself out?
"Turning the tables, are we? Let's go! I have both human and material evidence, come with me to confront it!"
Seeing Kujou Takayuki bite back, Ember immediately grabbed his collar, intending to drag him to Yashiori Island.
This old man, if he didn't show him a little color, he really wouldn't know what was what.
"Senior, wait!"
Just as Ember was about to head towards Yashiori Island, he suddenly heard a somewhat familiar voice.
Only on the ground where he stood—Kujou Takayuki was being dragged like a dead dog by Ember—two more standing figures appeared.
Upon closer inspection, it was Kazuha and Kaede, whom he had met in Inazuma before.
Seeing the two of them walking on the soft ground as if on solid earth, with wind beneath their feet, Ember nodded thoughtfully.
This was probably Kazuha's doing.
"What? Are you two here to plead for the Tenryou Commission?" Ember asked, looking at the two panting individuals with a somewhat unfriendly tone.
If that were the case, he would have to drag three people to Yashiori Island.
"No, no, no! Senior misunderstood!"
"We just want Senior to leave this place of trouble quickly!" Kaede and Kazuha shook their heads repeatedly. As they spoke, they pointed to the Tenshukaku above and to the side.
Because Ember's kick earlier was too powerful, the nearby Tenshukaku was also affected quite a bit.
The most obvious was that many of the surrounding walls of the Tenshukaku had collapsed. This directly exposed the interior of the Tenshukaku, which was solemn and mysterious to the people of Inazuma, to the outside.
In just this short while, Ember and the others could see Sergeant moving within the Tenshukaku.
They were all fully armed, moving swiftly and efficiently, and their weapons and equipment were exceptionally refined. Anyone who wasn't blind could see the difference between them and ordinary Shogunate Army.
The Okuzume, the absolute elite directly under the Tenshukaku, were the strongest army in all of Inazuma.
Each soldier among them had the strength to take on ten, and not a few could take on a hundred.
If this force were deployed to the current front lines between the Shogunate Army and the resistance, it could definitely turn the tide.
Not to mention completely crushing the resistance, but at least they could be driven back to Watatsumi Island.
Unfortunately, this force only took orders directly from the Raiden Shogun herself. Not to mention Kujou Takayuki, even Yae Miko had no authority to deploy them.
"Hahaha, you thieves have actually alarmed the Raiden Shogun! Just wait for death! The Okuzume are the most powerful elite in Inazuma, not to mention the Raiden Shogun has already taken notice of this place!"
Kujou Takayuki on the ground naturally also saw the commotion at the Tenshukaku, and he immediately burst into laughter.
Kazuha and Kaede, upon hearing Kujou Takayuki's words, uncharacteristically agreed with him somewhat.
"Exactly, Senior, we should leave this place quickly, it will be troublesome if we get trapped!"
However, Ember didn't pay attention to these words. He just looked down at the incessantly laughing Kujou Takayuki, inexplicably feeling that this person was... somewhat fanatical?
Ember nodded, increasingly convinced that this was the case. Kujou Takayuki seemed to have a mysterious overconfidence in the Raiden Shogun.
This confidence seemed to be inflated to the extreme, which Ember found very confusing. He hadn't even inflated to this extent, so why was Kujou Takayuki so inflated?
Because his candlewick was almost at its end, with only a few years left to live?
Watching the Okuzume being mobilized, Ember showed no panic. He looked towards the Tenshukaku in the distance and laughed:
"I thought this puppet only booted up a few times a year, but it turns out to be quite responsive."
"But to only send these ordinary people, should I say they look down on me? Or is the puppet's brain just not turning?"
The Okuzume within the Tenshukaku were already rushing towards the ruined Tenryou Commission. Many soldiers, perhaps finding the road too slow, directly jumped down from the broken gaps in the surrounding walls.
Naturally, these soldiers became deeply mired in the soft soil, unable to extricate themselves.
"..."
Watching this scene, whether it was Ember and his companions or Kujou Takayuki, all fell into silence.
Just now, Kaede, Kazuha, and Kujou Takayuki had been relentlessly praising the Okuzume, not expecting to be proven wrong so quickly.
"Heh, I shouldn't have any expectations for any department in Inazuma." Ember chuckled a few times. Earlier, hearing them talk about how formidable they were, he actually thought the Okuzume were something special.
Now it seems the Okuzume perfectly fit Inazuma's excellent matching mechanism.
The extremely soft soil seemed to have become an insurmountable chasm, blocking the Okuzume outside the Tenryou Commission.
As if finding this scene too undignified, the space above the Tenshukaku suddenly changed.
Thunderclouds gathered, and the earth grew gloomy.
Dark clouds covered the Sky, and a massive crack tore open in the space above the Tenshukaku.
"Oh, ho, want to spar?"
Ember said in surprise, looking at the crack in the Sky.
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