Bella didn't look for long. Her gaze shifted, and she noticed a tall man standing beside the old man, dressed in ancient warrior attire and wearing a red Hannya mask.
Hmm? The moment her probing gaze fell on him, he seemed to sense it. Through the red Hannya mask, his eyes looked toward the treetops. She immediately held her breath and raised her Mind Shield to maximum.
The tall man's gaze searched the surrounding area twice, especially the treetops, which he examined carefully for nearly ten seconds before turning his head away.
After half a minute, he suddenly turned back and scanned the area again. Only after confirming there were no abnormalities did he finally drop his guard completely.
Who the hell is this guy?! Bella hid for a full five minutes before cautiously peeking out.
The tall man's perception exceeded her imagination. Just one glance from her had alerted him. How could a powerhouse of this caliber be mixed up with Old Man Yashida?
She wasn't unfamiliar with that earlier scan—it was entirely composed of psychic power and could be called a psychic scan. Many psychic and telepathic mutants possessed this ability.
Bella could do it too if she wanted. It just easily startled the prey. Most of the time, she preferred using Eagle Vision.
As the core ability of both the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order, if you got detected after just one glance, you might as well quit being an assassin. This sixth-sense vision was more covert and harder to detect. Thanks to the high concentration of those genes, Bella's hearing and smell had both improved by a level from their original baseline.
She hid in the shadows to observe, wanting to see what these people were doing.
Her gaze mostly stayed on the soldiers and Old Man Yashida, deliberately avoiding the tall Hannya-masked man.
The soldiers' equipment was extremely sophisticated. Their uniforms looked somewhat like Britain's SAS special forces.
Everyone wore gas masks with flash-resistant goggles built into them, along with internal microphones.
They all wore black tactical vests with body armor on top.
Each carried an MP5 submachine gun, with a Browning Hi-Power pistol tucked in their thigh holsters.
Two soldiers were rapidly clearing debris around the well, while more stood on outer perimeter guard duty. Heihachiro Ikuma's former residence was surrounded in three layers like a fortress.
The stone slab sealing the well's mouth was covered in moss, and the gaps around the well were full of withered branches and vines. This was the physical blockade.
The supernatural blockade was much more elaborate—densely packed talismans, sutras several meters long, eerily cut paper figures. Numerous seals layered the well in suppression after suppression.
Heihachiro Ikuma had made extensive preparations while alive. Sadako Yamamura had been buried deep in this area for over forty years.
Now the surface seals showed considerable damage. With the erosion of time and internal destruction, the sealing effects were growing weaker.
Bella perked up her ears and listened carefully.
She heard Old Man Yashida say to the Hannya-masked man: "Master Ogun, is this female ghost really sealed?"
The man wearing the Hannya mask, named Ogun, had a very deep voice. However, if you listened carefully, you'd notice his accent was strange. Beneath the deep timbre, it seemed to suppress multiple voices—male and female, old and young, as if seven or eight people were speaking simultaneously.
He gave a cold laugh. "Your son does have some ability. I don't know where he found such an expert... She's definitely sealed. The suppression effect is excellent. Even if I did it myself, I'd only achieve this level."
As he spoke, he suddenly raised his voice, as if deliberately letting the surrounding soldiers hear: "You found the videotape and wanted to use it to ambush your son. I never expected he'd find a skilled exorcist. Feeling a bit regretful now? If you and your son—"
Old Man Yashida cut him off with a low rebuke: "Enough! Just tell me whether the thing in this well can actually heal my body!"
Ogun resumed his arrogant tone. "Of course it can. Don't question my judgment again. You're paying me, so you need to trust me."
His words were completely impolite, which angered the old man. Spending all that money to hire a master?
"...I hope you're right."
The old man's voice couldn't help but tremble slightly. The negative energy in the vicinity was truly too dense. Sadako's resentment had already been through the roof, and now she'd been sealed by some inexplicable woman, making her resentment even greater. Actually, being sealed wasn't much—she could continue waiting. But at this time, you people were still coming to her well to chatter? Were you here to mock her?
Resentment as tangible as reality kept rising. But with her true form suppressed, Sadako Yamamura's method of using brute force to break out truly had no use.
Ogun drew the katana from his waist and swiftly executed a flourish before plunging the blade into the dirt in front of the well.
With no one controlling it, the katana began swaying left and right in the dirt. Ogun formed hand seals, seemingly conducting some kind of ritual.
Oh? Bella, hiding in the shadows, had been eating popcorn over the Yashida father-son drama. This was truly Japan's number one model family—the epitome of filial piety! Passing that videotape back and forth—who could compete?
But before she could think further, Ogun's actions startled her a bit. This guy was something!
You can tell an expert by a single move.
This Ogun not only had shockingly high psychic power as a psychic mutant but also possessed profound magical attainments.
If she had to compare him to someone she knew, his situation was somewhat like Storm's.
Both possessed innate abilities while also being skilled in magic.
In her youth, Storm was an X-Man, a mutant leader. In her later years, as cellular energy declined and control weakened, she naturally transitioned into an archmage.
The guy before her seemed to follow a similar path.
He was using his psychic power to communicate on a supernatural level, then borrowing supernatural forces to exercise energy control.
Ogun performed a ritual-like ceremony of worship at the well's opening. He wasn't worshiping Sadako, but rather Izanami from Japanese mythology—a Shinto goddess associated with death and Yomi, the land of the dead. All the dead fell under her domain.
Ogun wanted to borrow Izanami's power to directly control and subjugate Sadako.
Old Man Yashida couldn't understand, but Bella, hiding in the shadows, understood perfectly. She was somewhat speechless. She hadn't expected to encounter someone here to steal her "prize." Where were you twenty years ago?
I come and you come too? Showing me no respect!
"You lot, push aside the stone slab," Ogun commanded.
The soldiers under Old Man Yashida's employ looked at each other. After the old man nodded, they all stepped forward. Some used crowbars to pry, while others pushed together toward the other side.
When Heihachiro Ikuma had killed his daughter, the stone slab he'd moved from nearby wasn't actually heavy. A stone that an old man could move—how many pounds could it weigh?
Yet now, five or six robust soldiers using every method could only push the slab open a crack. This stone, estimated at most twenty pounds, now seemed to weigh a ton.