Thinking of these, Miyamoto Sakura suddenly knelt on the ground.
"Please master, save me, and rid me of the Sakura Divine Pattern!"
Li Chen waved his hand and said, "There is no need to remove it, and it’s unnecessary to do so!"
Miyamoto Sakura’s heart trembled, and she looked up at Li Chen.
Li Chen continued, "Miyamoto Musashi is dead. The thousand-year-old cherry blossom tree on the top of your Holy Mountain, used for hanging offerings, has also been destroyed by me. No one can manipulate the Sakura Festival anymore. Furthermore, you can now fully absorb its power to break through your limits and ascend to the Proving God Realm!"
Hearing Li Chen’s words, a bright light sparked in Miyamoto Sakura’s eyes, a mix of shock and joy. The Proving God Realm was something she had long dreamed of.
"Please teach me, master!"
Li Chen nodded slightly and said, "You are mine now, and of course, I will not stand by and watch you die. But now is not the time. Get up and put on your clothes first!"
Hearing Li Chen’s words, Miyamoto Sakura was overjoyed.
Then, her face blushed as she timidly said, "Master, I am still a maiden!"
Li Chen raised his eyebrows and asked indifferently, "What does it matter to me whether you’re a maiden or not?"
Miyamoto Sakura was utterly puzzled and felt a mix of embarrassment and anger. She had already made herself clear, yet Immortal Master Li was so unromantic.
Having her clothes forcibly removed and now reluctantly putting them back on.
How fickle the human character can be!
After Miyamoto Sakura put her clothes back on, she asked softly again.
"Master, where do we go now?"
However, Li Chen did not answer her question and instead stared blankly, fixated on the entrance of the Underground Palace.
"No good, get out of the way, they are going to blow up the mountain!"
Before his words fell, two supersonic missiles, trailing long white tails, whizzed in and bombed the area.
The deafening explosion roared loudly, and in an instant, the mountains crumbled, and boulders larger than trucks rolled down.
The Underground Palace interior could withstand the bombing of nuclear weapons, but the outer mountain could not withstand even conventional high-explosive bombs, which collapsed in moments, burying the entire exit.
Perhaps sparked by the high-explosive bombs, the Earth Core Magma also began to churn violently, seeming ready to burst forth at any moment.
Seeing this, Li Chen’s heart was filled with dread, and he said gravely, "This is bad, the volcano is going to erupt!"
Miyamoto Sakura’s heart was also filled with horror, but then she seemed to remember something and said, "Master, follow me, I know a secret passage that can get us out of here!"
Just as Li Chen, with Jiao Long, followed Miyamoto Sakura and barely left the area, Mount Fuji, which had been dormant for a full three hundred years, suddenly awoke like a dragon opening its eyes.
The ground suddenly burst open, like a spider web, cracking open one fissure after another.
Magma gushed out and quickly occupied these crevices, resembling countless fire snakes flickering their tongues, extending towards the buried mountain body.
In an instant, these streams of magma converged into a super fire dragon that swept across the entire Underground Palace.
The fire dragon roared towards the heavens, sweeping over the boulders blocking the mountain’s mouth.
The surging magma, enveloped in billowing black smoke, shattered the blocked volcano mouth with an unstoppable force, spewing out majestically.
Deafening explosions, like the charge of thousands of troops, ravaged the surroundings. Rocks glowing red hot were propelled into the air by the lava. When they reached their zenith, they burst like fireworks, leaving countless fiery streaks as they fell to the ground.
Seeing such a terrifying scene, whether it was Miyamoto Chuan, Yoshio Yamamoto, Jin Xing, or the ninjas like Huo Wu who usually lived in seclusion, they were all shocked to the core, faces filled with disbelief.
"The Holy Mountain that has been dormant for three hundred years has erupted?" Miyamoto Chuan trembled uncontrollably, exclaiming in shock.
Japan is a land of many volcanoes and earthquakes. Despite its small area, it has hundreds of volcanoes, which erupt several times a year, so it’s hardly surprising.
But since the year 1707, for a full three hundred years, Mount Fuji had been dormant, with no eruptions at all.
And yet, unexpectedly, it erupted this time!
"It’s bad, the Holy Mountain is erupting, run, run for your lives!"
Soldiers from the 13th Division, seeing the volcanic eruption, panicked and fled for their lives. In the chaos, many were trampled, while others fell to their deaths, resulting in countless casualties.
The erupting magma, like the endless Yellow River, poured down the mountainside into the surrounding area.
Many who ran too slowly, along with buildings, vegetation, and trees, were instantly obliterated. Where it passed, nothing was left behind.
The toxic volcanic ash, forming cloud formations, soared into the sky. Thunder and torrential rains swallowed the volcano in an instant. Various shapes of lightning wrapped around the massive pillar of fire erupting from the volcano’s mouth, forming a towering tornado of flames. The entire scene was horrifying and terrifying, like the end of the world.
The entirety of Tokyo, Hokkaido, Kyushu Island, and even distant Huaxia, all witnessed this abnormal, spectacular, and heart-stopping scene of terror.
As the volcano’s eruption was man-made and not due to tectonic activity, with insufficient magma supply and the torrential rain that day, the eruption subsided gradually after only two or three hours.
Furthermore, to facilitate the encirclement and elimination of Immortal Master Li, the Reorganized 13th Division had, for the pretense of "joint military exercises," forcibly evacuated the ordinary people at the foot of the mountain from their homes.
Therefore, the casualties among the ordinary people were minimal, with only a few dozen "stubborn holdouts" dead.
However, the Reorganized 13th Division suffered heavy losses. They were an A-type Division with a full strength of 22,000 men. Apart from four to five thousand administrative staff, the rest were almost all stationed near this Holy Mountain. And to prevent Li Chen from escaping in the rainy night, most of them were stationed near the Underground Palace.
Caught off guard by the volcanic eruption, many were buried alive by the flowing magma while still asleep, leaving nothing behind, not even bone fragments.
Some tanks, armored vehicles, howitzers, and various types of fighter jets were also engulfed by the flames in an instant, leaving only heaps of steel skeletons.
Subsequent tallies showed that in this volcanic eruption, the Reorganized 13th Division suffered over seventy percent casualties, effectively annihilating the entire force.
The division commander Yoshio Yamamoto, who narrowly escaped with his life, collapsed on the spot and wept uncontrollably. After writing a confession letter, he took out his samurai sword, an emblem of supreme honor, and committed seppuku to apologize in death.
The Iga Palace was directly buried by the lava, and hundreds of its members died in confusion. However, the majority of the Martial Arts Experts managed to escape the dangerous situation in time and were fortunate enough to save their lives.
As of now, the cornerstone of Japan Martial Arts, the Iga Palace, exists in name only!