Ichitaro's Odachi drew a straight, perfect vertical line.

However, Qingden had disappeared from where his blade touched.

All Ichitaro struck was air.

At the critical moment when his blade was about to hit his head, Qingteng quickly lowered his body and jumped to the side, ducking into the blind spot of Ichitaro's field of vision and avoiding Ichitaro's fatal blow.

--Oh shit!

Ichitaro stamped his feet on the ground, stopping his forward movement. Then, as if his eyeballs were about to fall out of their sockets, he turned around to look for Aoden's figure that had just slipped into the blind spot of his field of vision.

Just at this time--

Phew!

The flesh and blood burst open... A huge crack suddenly appeared on the left side of Ichitaro's abdomen, and blood spurted out in the blink of an eye.

At this moment, Qingteng...maintained the posture of drawing the sword, standing two steps behind Ichitaro.

"Cough...cough cough...!" Ichitaro, who was vomiting out handfuls of blood uncontrollably, stared at Qingto behind him in shock.

Although it was only for a moment... out of the corner of his eye, Ichitaro saw the flash of lightning as Aouto drew his sword.

Just as Qingto passed by Ichitaro's left body, a silver blade that filled his peripheral vision swept across his waist and directly cut off nearly half of his waist.

This huge tear left only half of the flesh and blood in Ichitaro's waist to connect his upper and lower bodies.

Blood spurted out continuously, and Ichitaro subconsciously raised his hand, trying to block the tear with his palm, but this was of no avail.

After shaking his body for a few times, Ichitaro's body collapsed heavily to the ground, throwing up a thin layer of dust.

Qingteng slowly released his sword stance, let out a long breath, and then while shaking his blood and shaking off the remaining blood on the sword, he turned around and took a look at Ichitaro's body at his feet.

——There is no system sound...Don't you have a special talent like your younger brother...

Aoi Nobumoto also expected that Ichitaro, who was a brother to Kojiro, might also have some special talent. It seemed that his expectations were in vain.

After waiting quietly for a few seconds to confirm that there was indeed no system sound in his mind, Qingdeng put the orange juice back into the scabbard.

——Okay... Let's go find Ms. Kinoshita...

Qingden was going to find Mai Kinoshita, who had just run to chase someone.

But... just as he was thinking secretly in his mind, the sound of dense footsteps suddenly reached Qingdeng's ears.

And these dense footsteps... were coming from the direction that Kinoshita Mai just left...

Qingdeng raised his eyes in confusion and followed the sound.

Immediately afterwards, he saw what the dense footsteps were all about.

At the entrance of Dongjie Street, he saw Kinoshita Mai who had just left to chase someone.

Kinoshita Mai ran quickly towards him, her eyes full of confusion and confusion.

Behind her is a large group of people...

The vast majority of this large group of people were wearing black uniforms and ten hand belts.

The lanterns they were carrying had two large Chinese characters written on them: Fire Thief.

…

…

Turning back time not long ago——

Edo, northern suburbs, somewhere——

"So... someone just secretly opened a small gambling house..." After listening to the report from his subordinates, Nishino raised his hand and rubbed his eyebrows to disperse the tiredness on his brows, "Did you find anything in the gambling house?"

Something weird?"

"No." One of his subordinates, Oka Hiki, stood in front of Nishino and shook his head.

"Nishino-kun."

A man's angry shout sounded from behind Nishino.

The owner of this shout was a strong man in his 30s wearing a black uniform and a black formation.

"The people involved have been tied up here. How is the situation here?"

"We have thoroughly checked the gambling den." Nishino said calmly, "There are no suspicious items."

This strong and muscular man is named Mizushima Rensaburo.

Compared to his real name, his job name may be a little louder - Huo Fu Thief changed to Captain of the Fourth Division!

After the shogunate dispatched the Hofu Thieves Kairai to join forces with the execution office to deal with the anti-barbarian group, in order to further strengthen the defense of Edo, the Hofu Thieves Kai would send two captains and their team members every night to join forces with the execution office.

The officials of the "Three Chapters" were on night shift together, and the two captains and their troops were stationed at the South and North Stations respectively.

Today's Kitabansuo happened to be on duty at Nishino for the night shift.

Tonight, the unit of the Huosuke Thieves Kai who was working the night shift at the Northern Division with Nishino was the Fourth Division commanded by Mizushima.

Just now, when they were all quietly guarding the moonlit night and the starry sky in Beibansuo, a stall owner selling "Nightingale Soba" suddenly came to Beibansuo.

Nightingale Soba - a small street vendor selling buckwheat noodles late at night.

This stall owner suddenly came to the door for no other reason than to report that in the northern suburbs of Edo, he found a group of people mysteriously coming in and out of a certain small house.

At a time when the shogunate is severely cracking down on the "radical anti-barbarian faction" headed by the anti-barbarian group, this kind of suspicious information cannot be ignored...

Holding the alert thought that "maybe thugs from the 'radical anti-barbarian faction' are gathering in groups for a meeting," Nishino led his subordinates, cooperated with Mizushima and his members of the Fourth Division, and rushed to the reporting location.

Each division formed by the Fire Bandits had around 50 people. Mizushima did not take away all of his fourth division, but only half of them - 26 people.

The group of people hurriedly raided the location reported by the stall owner. After a detailed investigation, they discovered that it turned out to be a mistake - this small room was a small gambling house opened privately by a certain guy.

And those mysterious people who come in and out are just a bunch of gamblers.

Although it was an accident, he caught a group of people who were running a casino privately, so the trip was not completely fruitless.

After finishing the remaining work, Nishino and Mizushima planned to collect the team and return to the station.

But, suddenly——

"Huh?" Nishino raised his eyebrows vigorously.

Mizushima next to him also showed a similar expression.

The two...and some of their subordinates raised their heads and looked toward the northeast.

Not far to the northeast of this place is Edo's only residential area.

Just now, they all heard strange noises in this direction...

If you listen carefully, the movement... looks very much like a human scream.

"What's going on?" Mizushima frowned, "This sound... sounds a bit like someone screaming."

"...Let's go." Nishino said in a deep voice, "Let's go take a look."

Nishino's words of "go and have a look" spoke to Mizushima's heart - exactly what he meant.

At the moment when the "radical anti-barbarian faction" is being vigorously cracked down on, now that they have heard strange noises, they cannot ignore it - Nishino and Mizushima left a few people to take charge of escorting all those involved in this small gambling house back to the execution center.

, and then personally led most of the troops and rushed towards the direction from which the strange noise came.

Quickly passing through the street, passing by houses one after another, soon - the Juduo residential area in the northern suburbs appeared in front of Nishino and others.

Entering this "block that everyone ignores" with a strong stench in the air, as soon as they turned a corner, Nishino and the others bumped into a samurai who was running away in a hurry - it was that man

Toragoro, who had just faced off with Mai Kinoshita, now had no fighting spirit and just wanted to escape.

Tooragoro looked at the large number of official officials who suddenly appeared in front of him, and his already ugly expression suddenly changed again.

He quickly stopped and tried to find another direction to escape.

How come there are samurai armed with swords in the Kudo settlement? And they want to run away when they see an official... Mizushima, who felt that Tooragoro was extremely suspicious, waved his hand: "Catch him!"

Several members of the Fourth Squadron ran out of the queue and swarmed forward. In a blink of an eye, they caught Toorago who had collided with them and had no time to turn and escape.

At this time, a series of thin, hurried footsteps suddenly came from the distance - at the end of the street to the west, a petite figure turned around the corner, stood on the street, and then headed towards

Head straight towards Tooragoro's direction.

However, she only took two steps before her whole body froze in place when she saw a large number of official officials led by Nishino and Mizushima.

This petite figure... stood with Nishino and others at the east and west ends of the street respectively. You looked at me, I looked at you, and a wisp of breeze passed by on the street between them.

This weird silence only lasted for less than 2 seconds. One of Nishino's subordinates, Oka Hiki, raised his hand and pointed at the petite figure and shouted, breaking the weird silence:

"It's the Cat Monk! Lord Nishino! It's the Cat Monk!"

This petite black figure is none other than the cat monk...or rather Mai Kinoshita.

"Cat Monk?" Mizushima, who had always only heard of this famous monster thief but never seen him, opened his eyes and his expression changed.

As for Nishino, his current expression also changed suddenly due to shock.

Why is the Cat Monk here? This question looms in the minds of Nishino and others.
To be continued...