“Genji!” “It’s their strongest force, the Ashikaga army!” “The Genji has raided the city!”
The soldiers from the Hojo camp shouted amidst the confusion. Many of them were still fast asleep and couldn’t fight back. Before they were able to get ready, the Genji samurai had already rushed in and claimed their lives.
They could flee from the battle, but there’s no option to surrender. If the Hojo’s army couldn’t run, they’d fight to the last.
Hojo Dijon’s rebellion and patricide had nothing to do with these soldiers, they were actually innocent, but since they were born in a nation of samurai, there were no such things as right or wrong, only victory or defeat.
Shimizu led the army into the city and occupied the gate with ease.
At Lily’s side, they had finally pushed back the soldiers chasing after Shiu.
It was fortunate that Shiu was unharmed.
The fire of war spread throughout the city and battle cries could be heard all over the place. Shimizu took a step forward to look around and said, “Lily, two of my ninjas are dead and one is wounded, can you send Shiu to the main camp to transmit the news?”
Lily pondered for a moment, then she nodded, “Shiu, let’s follow Sister Shimizu’s instruction.”
Being the messenger for the main camp and Shimizu was a lot safer than fighting on the frontline. Though victory was all but guaranteed, it was still extremely dangerous to be on the frontline, take Shimizu’s two female ninjas for example.
“Yes, master,” In the middle of a chaotic battle, even Shiu didn’t dare to be unreasonable. She immediately acknowledged the order.
Shortly after, the Ashikaga army also steadily flowed into the city, they spread the fire all over Odawara and engaged in street fights with the unprepared Hojo soldiers.
Their next target, the Castle Tower.
“Bang!” The entrance of the castle was forced open.
“Hiyaaah!” Inside the castle, the Hojo samurai were waiting in tight formations. All of them were donned in armor and wielded a katana.
A large group of Genji samurai charged in and the melee began.
Lily was also among the group.
This feeling was fundamentally different from going on a solo adventure. Everyone seemed to be unable to think clearly as though they were affected by some kind of peculiar group mentality that urged them to kill.
However, Lily was a lot more clear-headed than the rest. By earning enough merits, one could possibly be granted territory, money, or even a smidgen of magatama fragment!
Lily just had to take care not to run into Hojo Dijon alone, she had to stay here to deprive the lives of as many enemy generals as possible to gain more merits. Obviously, the fact that Lily had taken down the city gate was already considered a great merit.
The first class merit naturally fell on those who managed to retrieve Hojo Dijon’s severed head. The only one who could accomplish this was Shimizu who would come raid the castle along with the second wave.
The Odawara Castle was originally dimly lit with a few candles light, but the fire of war had lit up every place.
Two samurai in black rushed towards Lily, although it was hard to make out their appearance inside this dim room, it should be fine to kill so long as they weren’t friendly targets.
However, Lily still spread out her spirit waves to get a clear picture of the entire room, and even the other room as well as the hallway. The spirit waves could easily pass through the folding screens of the castle, but its effect was obviously weakened when passing through stone walls.
The two noisy samurai who targeted Lily were merely low-tier swordmasters. Lily effortlessly finished them off with a single strike.
After beheading them, Lily left a spirit seal on their corpse to serve as evidence of her kill. Needless to say, someone will clean up the battlefield later and add up the kill count. Lily wouldn’t do something as boorish as hanging the severed enemy heads on her waist, though it was quite a common practice among the male samurai.
Lily rushed into the hallway and killed yet another vassal of Hojo, the poor pikeman was still in his yukata.
“Yaah—!” Then, a door was suddenly kicked open from the other side, out came a short stature samurai from one of the Genji branches carrying a girl with pretty clothes.
Lily asked in astonishment, “What are you doing?”
That rugged samurai who’s no more than 1.6 meters tall responded, “Lady Lily, please don’t interfere. This is the custom of the Eastern Nation’s samurai. During the raid, we can do as we please so long as the battle is still ongoing. We can forcibly take the treasures and women, it doesn’t matter if you are nobility or a soldier, it’s first come first serve! We are not as powerful as Lady Lily, there’s no way we can defeat the enemy generals and earn enough merits to get a share of territory. That’s why I’m kidnapping the beauties of Hojo to enjoy myself! If that’s not the case, no way so many samurai would be willing to take part in the war! Hahahaha!”
While explaining, that samurai even groped the girl’s bottom, causing her to let out a distressed cry.
“You mean that… no matter what it is, it’s finders keepers?” Lily asked again. “That’s right! So this woman belongs to me!” As he declared, the samurai walked off with the weeping girl on his shoulder.
Lily didn’t stop him, since it was a custom, what right did she have to interfere1?
“Finders keepers, huh?” A gloomy light could be seen in Lily’s eyes as she walked past the wooden corridor and made her way up the second floor.
There were already many samurai engaging in combat on the second floor, some of the rooms had also been ransacked. Lily gave up on the second floor and made her way to the third.
The Genji samurai still hadn’t made it to the third floor, but it didn’t offer much of a resistance.
The five samurai here were still in their yukata, it seemed like they didn’t have enough time to change into their armor. Seeing that Lily had rushed up the stairs, they immediately pointed their weapons at her, however, Lily just simply executed a wide horizontal slash!
Along with that, a thin sword wave attack spread out from the point of origin!
“Pffft—!” Pentakill!2
The third floor was also really wide, with many rooms and hallways. Lily randomly cut down one of the doors and saw a half-naked woman inside. The frightened woman looked at Lily with a teary face and blushed, it appeared she had just been ?????.
“Haaaah—!!!” A weird cry suddenly came from the side as a half-dressed samurai tried to launch a sneak attack on Lily.
Lily raised her scabbard to hit the man’s lower half, she didn’t use that much strength but that was enough to cause the men to drop his weapon and roll on the ground.
The woman was quite good-looking, but Lily wasn’t interested in kidnapping women. Since she was just an ordinary woman of the Hojo house, Lily left her alone.
Lily once again broke the door of another empty room. Opening the only box in the room, she found a grade 3 picture scroll within, Lily didn’t take it and left the room instead.
The items here were unattractive to Lily3.
This castle had five levels in total, it was very likely that the good items were all kept on the highest floor!
However, the fifth floor was Hojo’s quarters, Lily didn’t dare to rashly go up. She should at least wait for Shimizu and the rest to come up. Be that as it may, would she still be able to get a share once Shimizu made it here with the main forces? Although it might be their custom, would they still be able to act the same before their general? That would be disrespectful instead! If they didn’t see it, they could at least turn a blind eye to it. No matter what was said, samurai was still a cultured community and cared greatly about their reputations. This was obviously not a matter one could take pride in.
But Lily didn’t care about this kind of false reputation, she would do anything for her senior sister and become stronger whatever it takes.
“Wait!” Lily felt something was odd.
Was Hojo Dijon really on the fifth floor?
Would that lofty and tyrannical samurai really wait on the fifth floor when it already became like this in the lower levels? Would he really be able to stay quietly on the top and wait for the Genji clan to surround him before he retaliates?
It was very likely that Hojo Dijon had already escaped!4
If she was Dijon, she wouldn’t divide her army in such a way that would lead to her eventual defeat, she would definitely take the chance to escape in the chaos of war.
Dijon might have already escaped after receiving reports on Shimizu and the Ashikaga army’s forces at the comfort of his castle.
In other words, there was no powerful opponent left on the fifth floor5!
Big groups of samurai made their way up and continued to the fourth floor after conquering the third. However, they encountered strong resistance at the narrow staircase to the fourth floor, stalling their progress momentarily.
“BOoOoOoM!” A random attack hit the wall of the castle and left a big, red-hot hole there.
Lily jumped out via the hole, by-passed the fourth floor and arrived at the balcony of the fifth floor. Inside the spacious, gloomy hall, a tall and lofty samurai was sitting there.
However, it wasn’t Hojo Dijon. This samurai seemed to be about 1.8 to 1.9 meters tall.
When the samurai noticed Lily, he let out a bizarre howl and his red eyes immediately burned with hatred. Moreover, his ugly face was grayish in color and looked inhuman.
“This is…” Lily vaguely recognized the distinctive features of that face, that was the lieutenant-general of Hojo, Nagasaki Ichiya! However, judging from that look on his face now, he seemed like an undead!
Nagasaki couldn’t recognize Lily anymore, all he knew was to defeat any enemies that dared to come to this floor.
Nagasaki let out an inhuman howl and lifted his tachi to attack Lily. He had also donned a set of ragged armor. From what Lily recalled, she had indeed chopped one of his arms and killed him, but the one standing before her was indeed Nagasaki with both arms attached. It was just that the arms were so thick they couldn’t fit into the armor and were bulging with scary red veins. Perhaps Lily had remembered wrongly, but this Nagasaki couldn’t really be considered alive either.
Nagasaki was a high-tier swordmaster, just a mere roadside pebble in Lily’s eyes now. She engaged with Nagasaki with her sword.
“Bang—!!!”
A powerful force spread throughout the entire castle and knocked Lily back. She stabbed her sword into the pillar to prevent herself from being blown away. It was a close call, just a bit more and she’d fall from the fifth floor!
“What?!” Lily was very surprised, she could still feel the numbness on her palms, “How’s that possible? How did Nagasaki get this strong?! That power was at least at the upper stage mid-tier sword saint! He’s much stronger than me!”
It was impossible for Nagasaki to answer the question as he was now. He only lowered his head and let out miasma gas from his wide-open mouth.
Lily recalled the scene she had seen in Suruga, could it be that Nagasaki had become a demon samurai and gained massive power up?
Who turned him into this?
However, without giving her any time to think, Nagasaki had already initiated his attack. Lily didn’t take his attack head-on this time and instead got around to his side. That caused Nagasaki’s attack to miss and damage the floor. Though Nagasaki’s reaction lacked any liveliness, he was still very fast.
He immediately switched hand position and slashed to the side. That led Lily to jump out of the way in a hurry and rolled away, though a few strains of her hair still got cut.
“Dammit! Who let the dead come back to life and do evil here!” Lily released all her spirit power and a few sakura petals materialized around her.
She left behind an afterimage as she charged into Nagasaki.
Nagasaki raised the sword and swung it down with great force. Lily voluntarily dived into the ground and slid past Nagasaki between his legs while taking that chance to cut his ankle.
No matter how powerful he was, he’s still just a corpse with no human intellect. Lily sneered when she realized that fact.
Lily slid until the other side of the hall and stopped, then she spun around and charged into Nagasaki once more. While kneeling on the ground with one knee, Nagasaki twisted his upper body to slash at Lily, however, she lowered her head to dodge the attack and swung her sword diagonally up to the right.
“Pffft—!” Lily’s sword cut into Nagasaki’s thick devilish arm. And though there was strong feedback, she didn’t manage to cut it off and stopped in the middle.
Lily’s eyes twitched and she immediately concentrated her energy and raised a cry, “Yaaaah—!”
She grasped the sword with both hands and abruptly pulled it upwards!
“Pfft!” Nagasaki’s thick arm was finally cut off with that.
Lily then stepped on Nagasaki’s stomach to pin him on the ground, she looked up at his head and said with squinted eyes, “Rest in peace!”
With a straight down slash, Nagasaki’s head was chopped off.
At this time, however, the headless Nagasaki grabbed onto Lily’s ankle with his remaining arm and threw her to the ground.
“Kyaah!” Lily let out a girlish cry as she fell. Just then, the headless Nagasaki pounced at her. Lily rolled to the side to avoid him and channeled her crimson spirit power into the sword runes.
She got up with one knee touching the ground and suddenly jumped up.
“Pffft!” Lily thrust the cursed blade into Nagasaki’s body, the Blade Maiden Spirit Power on the sword permeated into his undead body and destroyed him from within. Lily had a surplus of spirit power, and the Blade Maiden Spirit Power seemed to be the evil spirit’s Achilles heel. After the miasma in his body was completely cleared out, he finally lost his vitality. Nagasaki’s body dried up, decayed, and finally disintegrated right in front of Lily.
“Huff… huff… huff…” Fragrant sweat rolled down from her chests as she took deep breaths. She was only able to truly extinguish this demon samurai by using her spirit power to destroy the miasma in his body.
Sakura had told her that the Blade Maiden Spirit Power was dual-natured, sacred yet tainted. Perhaps that was why they were very effective against these wicked creatures. Lily gave it a try and it was indeed the case.
A demon samurai could only be killed by those with Blade Maiden or similarly ranked spirit power!
However, just how did Nagasaki turn into a demon samurai, how did he gain so much strength, who attached those arms onto him, those were definitely not human arms… these riddles, for now, would remain a mystery.
But more importantly, the treasure!
She was the only one on the fifth floor at the moment, Hojo must have definitely taken the most valuable treasures with him, but the battle broke out too suddenly, there was no way he could take too much with him. There might still be some treasures remaining.
However, she was disappointed to find that there’s nothing too valuable after rummaging through a few rooms. Apart from some grade 4 swords and spears, as well as some grade 3 painting and teacups, there was nothing else of value. She didn’t care about it anymore and ripped a curtain to pack up some teacups and painting to take with her.
But all of a sudden, she could feel a faint vibration in her bosom.
She calmed her breathing to feel for the vibrating object6. It felt like some item she kept in her bosom was resonating with something, she loosened up her sash to check and it turned out to be the safety charm Yoshitsune had passed to her7.
Lily held the safety charm and walked towards where the resonance was the strongest. It led her to a big room at the end of one corner. After pulling the sliding door open, a thick stench of blood wafted out of the room.
The blood had stained the floor, the wall, and even the ceiling. These bloodstains seemed to contain a strong grudge and even a hint of spirit power. He must have been one powerful expert while still alive.
There was only expert that she could think of, Hmph, it must be Dijon’s father, Hojo Tokitaka.
Lily didn’t have any relation with Tokitaka, so she wouldn’t hesitate at all to take any of his treasures. It was just that, Tokitaka’s treasures should have already been taken by Dijon.
After searching every corner of the room, Lily only found some classified documents and nothing else.
She naturally held no interest in the classified documents of the Hojo clan and just when she was about to leave disappointed, the charm shook strongly again. Lily held out the charm and pointed it to where the vibration was the strongest, and it actually pointed to a wall.
Knocking on the wall lightly, Lily found that the other side was actually an empty space. However, there was no switch to open the door. If it wasn’t because of the charm, she wouldn’t have found this secret room.
Lily had always been an impatient type, so instead, she used her sword to pry open the wall. There was indeed a secret room behind the wall, and the portrait of a woman was hanged in the room. Below the portrait, there was a set of extremely beautiful, yet equally revealing bright red female armor.
“W-whose armor is this? Does it belong to one of the female elders of the Hojo clan?”
Lily could feel a poignant yet powerful aura emitting from the armor. Because of that, she didn’t dare to touch it so carelessly, even if that was Hojo’s belonging, she didn’t dare to take away the armor of such an elder without permission.
She walked closer to take a look at the portrait. The woman in the portrait looked sweet and gentle, one could feel her beauty and grace even though a hand-drawn painting. The tears in her eyes seemed to tell of indescribable grief.
“The Hojo clan actually has such a beautiful and noble woman like her? But how come their descendant doesn’t look anything like her?”
At this time, Lily noticed the words below the painting, “The Portrait of the World’s most beautiful woman, Lady Shizuka.”
“Lazy Shizuka?”
Lily was surprised, no wonder she felt a deep sense of veneration just looking at the portrait, she was so beautiful that it almost fascinated Lily.
Then does that mean this armor also belonged to Lady Shizuka?
Why would the armor of Lady Shizuka be kept in the Hojo clan’s secret room? Wasn’t she the mistress of Yoshitsune?
No matter how she thought of it, Lily couldn’t believe that she willingly gave up on her armor.
Since Yoshitsune had entrusted the charm to Lily, she felt that this matter wasn’t that simple. This armor belonged to the wife of the Genji’s late hero, Lily definitely had to take this with her!
Before that, Lily paid respect to the portrait and the beautiful yet revealing armor, “Lady Shizuka, I have been entrusted this by Lord Yoshitsune, although I have no idea when I will hear from him again, he has indeed entrusted me with his genuine work8. Please allow me to collect your armor and portrait here.”
“For someone as powerful as Lord Yoshitsune to fall in battle and your belongings to fall into the hands of the Hojo, I find it very hard to believe that this is something normal. While I have no idea whether you are still alive or not, since I have received the favor of Lord Yoshitsune, please allow me to borrow your armor for the time being. I will definitely pass the manual and the armor back to you or your descendant if we ever get a chance to meet.”
It would be too conspicuous to take a set of armor with her. Moreover, Lady Shizuka’s armor was not any ordinary armor, it would definitely attract a lot of attention. Since that was the case, she might as well take off her current set of armor and change into Lady Shizuka’s armor. That way, she wouldn’t attract more attention than needed.
Point was, she should act as usual even if someone asked her about the armor!
If she was wearing this armor, they wouldn’t go as far as to ask her to take it off and hand it over, right?
After inspecting the armor, Lily found that she couldn’t wear the loincloth with how Lady Shizuka’s armor was designed.
That was because the armor itself had small plates with metal chains to protect the lower body and the back was preinstalled with a silk cloth…
Wasn’t this more revealing than the current set she’s wearing?!9
However, this armor was too important to leave behind, Lily had a feeling that it possessed a secret she couldn’t even begin to fathom. Thus, she steeled her mind to get into her birthday suit10 and changed into the armor of Lazy Shizuka, the world’s most beautiful woman.
