Izumaru's travel notes

Hearing Shadow's complaint, Chonggong glanced at the xio terminal hanging on his waist, and the caller ID showed...

"Earth?"

Confused, he picked up the call, and as soon as he got through, he heard Daichi apologize, "I'm so sorry, Takamiya-san."

"If you're really embarrassed, don't call." Shadow complained.

"what happened?"

Takamiya ignored Shadow's words and asked directly the reason.

After hearing what Dadi said, Chonggong's brows twisted into a knot. He simply turned on the speakerphone so that Shadow could also listen to the situation.

"A small earthquake occurred near Lake Okutama, and the earthquake caused a landslide nearby. A stone tablet was found among the fallen rocks."

"Stone tablet?"

"Yes. And with the appearance of this stone tablet, some strange phenomena have appeared near Lake Okutama, such as tourists becoming unconscious and suddenly fainting. And according to nearby residents, since the landslide, they can hear strange roars from time to time at night..."

As Daichi told their story, Takamiya and Yingzi’s brows furrowed more and more.

"Okay, I got it. Go there as soon as possible."

After hanging up the call, Chonggong looked at Shadow and asked, "Any ideas?"

"There might be some monster sealed in that mountain, or in that lake. For example, some Sukina ghost."

"But shouldn't that guy be on Mount Sukina? And I think there does seem to be a small hill called Mount Sukina on this Earth."

"Who knows? No one knows what it is unless you go and take a look."

On the second day, Takamiya took a car to the vicinity of Lake Okutama, where a cordon had been set up by Xio, and Shadow, out of curiosity, returned to Takamiya's body.

"Da Di, what's going on?"

Seeing Chonggong rushing over, exhausted, Dadi looked at him a little embarrassedly.

"Enough of the polite words. What's going on?"

"The stone tablet is right in front. Due to its age, the inscriptions on it are blurred. Dr. German is trying to restore it."

Daichi led Chonggong to the tent where the stone tablet was placed. Due to the lesson from Bizomo last time, they chose to store this unknown thing on the spot and assigned people to guard it strictly.

"What we can confirm is that this stone tablet is a product of the Edo period, but the inscription on it needs further analysis because it is too severely weathered."

"Can I see it?"

Soon, Chonggong saw the stone tablet. Just as Dadi said, it was severely weathered. If Dadi hadn't said it was a stone tablet, he would have thought it was a piece of broken stone chiseled from the mountain.

"Why is it broken?"

Chonggong asked as he looked at the cross section of the stone tablet.

"The broken parts are still being found, but..."

Chonggong nodded, understanding what Daichi meant. It was almost impossible to find fragments of the same stone in a pile of rubble.

"Do you smell it? There's a faint smell of resentment."

Shadow spoke.

"Well, I'm afraid this stone tablet suppresses a great demon."

Chonggong reached out and touched it, but nothing happened. There was no magical old man giving him any instructions.

"Are there any legends around here?" Chonggong took his hand away and asked Dadi.

"legend…"

Dadi thought about it for a moment and shook his head, "No."

“Have the residents around here asked?”

"I asked, but no one heard of anything strange."

"No?"

This made Chonggong feel strange. A resentful stone tablet. After the stone tablet appeared, inexplicable roars would be heard at night. But there was no legend about this place at all?

"Have you scanned the mountain and the bottom of the lake?"

"We are scanning, but I don't think there will be any results."

Daichi's words made Chonggong more and more curious. What on earth was this thing?

"Could it be some kind of ghost or god?" Shadow asked. "In order to prevent it from reviving, the sealer banned this guy's name."

"That doesn't mean there's no legend left at all, right?"

"Hmm... let's go up the mountain tonight?"

"Row."

...

At night, Chonggong came silently to the hill where the stone tablet was found. He probed downwards with his consciousness and indeed did not find anything strange.

"That's strange, is it really an accident?"

As Takamiya finished speaking, the shadow separated from his body: "There is also a lake."

"How about this, you stay in the mountains and I'll go to the lake. I'll contact you if there's any situation."

After saying that, the shadow turned into a black light and dived into the sparkling cold lake water.

"Um…"

Seeing that the shadow had already gone into the lake, Chonggong also released his consciousness, covering the entire mountain, exploring it inch by inch.

Soon, he found the broken part of the stone tablet, but there was no words on it. It seemed to be just that long...

"Strange, where are the fish in this lake?"

Looking back at Shadow, as soon as he entered the lake, he felt something was wrong. How come there is not even a single fish in this lake?

"This shouldn't be the case." The shadow who sensed something was wrong informed Chong Gong and asked him to pay attention to the situation outside.

"There are no fish in the lake?"

Upon hearing this, Chonggong dived into the lake.

"What are you doing here?" Shadow looked at him.

"There's nothing outside. I found the other part of the stone tablet. There's nothing written on it."

"Roar…"

A faint roar suddenly came from all around, but it was unclear where the sound came from.

"It looks like the problem is at the bottom of the lake."

The two looked at each other, then grew larger at the bottom of the lake and dived toward the bottom.

As the depth increased, the light became dimmer, and the faint roar became clearer and clearer. Indistinctly, a streak of star-like purple light flickered at the bottom of the lake.

"over there."

"Boom."

The low sound of the landing echoed in the silent lake bottom. Chonggong looked up and saw that it was pitch black above his head.

“This lake is deep enough.”

"It's probably about a few thousand meters. The two of us are in our prime, so we can only dive down to a depth of 700 meters."

After saying that, the two beasts turned their attention to the glittering object at the bottom of the lake.

Shadow walked forward, scratched it gently with his claws, and saw what the glowing object was.

"A statue?"

I was a little surprised to see a stone statue the size of my fingernail floating out from the cracks in the rubble.

Chonggong grabbed a small square stone and took a closer look. It was a stone tablet. As the lake bottom was relatively calm, the stone tablet was well preserved.

After taking a closer look, Chonggong looked at the stone sculpture in Shadow's hand and said, "A forbidden statue?"

"What forbidden statue? Isn't it the King of Hell? But why is this King of Hell wearing armor?"

Shadow looked at the stone sculpture in his hand and suddenly thought of something.

"You don't want to say that this guy is the Yan Mo monster Enmago?"

"Well, it's written very clearly on this stone tablet. In the past, Enmago caused chaos in the area, but was later defeated by a demon slayer, who used a secret method to seal him in the mountains. Because of his heavy resentment, the forests in the mountains withered and no crops were harvested. Later, the demon slayer sealed him in a stone sculpture and sank him to the bottom of the lake. This tablet is specially erected to warn future generations not to break the seal."

"But I still don't understand. This thing has been sealed into the statue. Logically, the seal should be on the statue, so why did it wake up when the stone tablet on it broke?"

"Maybe…"

Chonggong looked at the bottom of the lake, then looked in the direction of the hill, and narrowed his eyes.

“Maybe, we should stop talking about science.”