"Something's wrong? Of course something's wrong! How can normal people not hear a single word? They must all be deaf."
Ember rubbed his palms. He was now ready to send everyone in front of him flying.
"I don't know what you said to both sides, but I'm sure they listened to you."
Kamisato Ayato quickly pulled Ember behind a rock wall and warned him.
"I told them to tone it down and not fight so fiercely. Did they tone it down?" Ember took the opportunity to hide behind the rock wall.
He stopped and listened patiently to the sounds around him.
"Kill! For the great Shogun!"
"Brothers, charge! The great serpent god is watching us!"
"Let me show you the power of Fuyuki Masaya!"
...In just a few breaths, countless shouts of battle reached Ember's ears, infuriating him.
"I can't take it anymore! Anyway, they're going to die sooner or later, so why not let me do it and save the hassle?"
Ember had only listened for a short while before he couldn't stand it anymore. He pulled out his straight sword and was about to charge into the crowd to start a massacre.
However, it was clear that he was once again restrained by Kamisato Ayato.
"It's not too late to act after you've taken a good look at what's different about these people!"
Kamisato Ayato poked his head out, gazed at the distant battlefield, and then said to Ember with great certainty.
"Alright! Since you say so, it's not too late for me to take another look." Seeing Kamisato Ayato's confident demeanor, Ember suppressed his restless heart and, mimicking Kamisato Ayato, poked his head out from behind the rock wall.
And so, on an inconspicuous rock at the edge of Nazuchi Beach, two heads slowly rose.
A blue and a black head seemed to be growing out of the rock wall, staring intently at the noisy battlefield without any sign of retreating.
This was naturally not Ember and Kamisato Ayato being stunned by the cruelty of the battlefield.
On the contrary, what they saw was completely the opposite of "cruelty."
"Kill! Let me show you the might of a Shogunate man!"
In one corner of the battlefield, a Shogunate soldier clad in purple armor and wielding a long spear roared, charging with an unstoppable momentum towards a resistance soldier in red armor.
"Hmph! Our Watatsumi Island men are no worse than your Shogunate!"
The resistance soldier, seeing the Shogunate soldier charge, showed no fear and directly swung his long saber to meet the attack.
To be precise, this scene was already strange enough. Soldiers in a battlefield should be organized into various teams for orderly attacks and retreats.
Situations like a long spear against a short saber usually only appear during pursuit and escape. Not to mention, the soldier with the long saber directly met the one with the long spear head-on.
Unless there was a huge disparity in strength, a long spear against a short saber would be like skewering kebabs, no matter how many came.
Although the scene before them could already be called bizarre for a normal war, something even stranger was yet to come.
The two soldiers ran towards each other, and soon their weapons clashed.
"Clang!"
"Ah!"
"Squawk!"
After the crisp clang of steel, both the Shogunate soldier and the resistance soldier flew backward in an extremely exaggerated manner.
"Pfft—"
But that wasn't all; after the Shogunate soldier collapsed to the ground, a stream of blood mist, several feet long, gushed from his mouth, leaving the resistance soldier opposite him dumbfounded.
"Where did you get so much blood to spray out?" Wiping off the blood splattered on his face, the resistance soldier asked with some surprise.
There's something wrong with this person! A normal person spitting this much blood would have died long ago! How could he still be shaking his head and spraying blood?
"Here's some for you. Dry Dendrobium steeped in water. One catty of Dendrobium can make fifty catties of water, enough for you to spray."
The Shogunate soldier stopped spraying blood, and the "spectacular" blood fountain disappeared from the battlefield.
The resistance soldier took the thrown leather pouch, opened it, and found it filled with crimson "blood."
He sniffed it carefully; there was no smell of blood, but rather a faint herbal fragrance.
"Are you a genius?" The resistance soldier held the fake blood in his hand and, after a long silence, finally managed to utter this sentence.
"That's right. If it weren't for the war, I'd probably be a herbalist by now."
The Shogunate soldier nodded earnestly, then lay flat on the ground again.
"No more talking, I need to continue spraying."
"Pfft—"
As he spoke, the blood fountain reappeared on the battlefield.
"Then should I also follow suit?" The resistance soldier watched the other man shaking his head and spraying blood, and nodded thoughtfully.
Then he took a big gulp of the fake blood from his hand, squeezed his puffed-out cheeks, and a gushing blood mist appeared above his head.
"Pfft—"
Now there were two blood fountains.
These two individuals' unconventional actions not only firmly attracted the attention of Ember and Kamisato Ayato but also naturally drew the notice of others on the battlefield.
"Move aside! Move aside! Someone's injured!"
"So much blood! Did someone take advantage of the chaos to strike a sneak attack?!"
"Sneak attack? Then don't get caught, or Kujou will show him what a real sneak attack is!"
...The noisy crowd parted, and from among a group of armored soldiers, a group of figures in long robes, completely out of place on the battlefield, ran out.
These were the army physicians, who had been waiting on the edge of the battlefield in case of any unforeseen circumstances.
"What's going on? Weren't we just acting? Who started playing for real?!" The masked physician broke through the surging blood mist and came to the two men's side.
As the physician spoke, he continuously pressed on the two men's major arteries, hoping to reduce the bleeding.
"Cough... cough cough! Doctor, stop pressing! I'm fine!"
"Cough cough cough! Me too! It hurts so much to press!"
Strong, powerful fingers pressed firmly against the acupoints of the two blood-spraying individuals, almost choking them to death.
"..."
The physician silently watched the two men on the ground sit up, their mouths stained with crimson blood, looking exactly like vampires who had just drunk human blood.
"You two..."
"It's fake." The Shogunate soldier lifted his armor; his waist was covered with large and small bottles filled with crimson bloodjade branch water.
"He gave it to me." The resistance soldier wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and opened the leather pouch in his hand to show the physician.
"Hiss..." The physician suddenly felt like he was about to spray blood himself. Why had he rushed over so frantically?
Wasn't it because he was afraid of an accident? He never expected to find out that these two young men were just playing around.
"Where did you get this 'blood'?" The physician poured out the bloodjade branch water from the leather pouch, observed it for a while, and then asked the Shogunate soldier.
"Dendrobium, dried, steeped in water," the Shogunate soldier replied.
"Did you come up with this formula yourself?" the physician continued to ask.
"I figured it out myself when I had nothing to do," the Shogunate soldier nodded.
"Are you interested in becoming my apprentice?" The physician felt a fondness for his Talents.
Ordinary people under the pressure of war wouldn't have the inclination to tinker with such things.
However, this young man did, and he even achieved results, which showed his deep interest in the way of herbs.
Although this thing's only use was to scare people, the physician did not look down on this Shogunate soldier because of it.
After all, sometimes "interest" is the best Talent.
"Really?!" The Shogunate soldier was so happy he almost jumped up.
"Congratulations!" The resistance soldier beside him also offered a few words of congratulation.
"Of course." The physician smiled and nodded, then his smile faded, and he continued:
"But that will have to wait until this 'play' is over."
"Alright, I'll continue acting then!"
"Pfft—"
After a brief exchange, a gushing blood mist reappeared in a corner of the battlefield.
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