Out of the 238 monsters subordinated to Lion Mist Demon, 236 died.
The villagers didn’t know what had transpired in this crimson world and didn’t even know that the monsters were all practically dead. Hence, they still kept screaming for help with bloodstained faces, except for a few who realized what had happened.
A duet of hisses approached Lily subsequently, the voices belonging to the two 7th-stage Awakened snake women chiefs, and the 8m tall Lion Mist Demon shrouded in nebulous black mist stood close behind them.
The two lightly wounded, nodachi-wielding snake women charged towards Lily, slithering forward like the wind at an extremely fast speed.
Lily also broke into a short sprint and jumped up when she got closer to the snake women, coming face-to-face with their torsos. The two snake women slashed at Lily in the next moment and Lily also slashed at them parallelly with her Crescent Moon.
Lily’s blade carried a sorrowful intent with it along with some of the etherealness of a celestial maiden.
“Swish! Swish!” Gruesome scars manifested on the snake women’s bodies, blood splashing in all directions over the following exchanges.
Killing two 7th-stage Awakened snake women was an easy feat for the current Lily, so she didn’t even place them in her eyes as she killed them.
The Lion Mist Demon, a pretty powerful late-stage Spirit Jade Great Demon, glared at Lily with its bell-like bronze eyes in the darkness shrouding its body.
“W-Who are you?” The Lion Mist Demon thundered.
“I am the Mirror Girl you’re so hellbent on finding!”
Lily glided to the front of the Lion Mist Demon instantly with swift movements and released a crimson beam of crescent sword light via her odachi.
The Lion Mist Demon opened up its claws, which were nearly as tall as Lily and harder than grade six tamahagane, in response, and clawed at the crimson crescent.
However, the Lion Mist Demon felt a dreadful power the instant its sharp claw came in contact with Lily’s sword beam.
“Swish!” Out of the Lion Mist Demon’s 5 barbed fingers, 4 got sliced off immediately. Lily moved swiftly and arrived at the shocked Lion Mist Demon’s back before it could even react with a howl and turned around to execute a slash with Crescent Moon, cutting through the muscles of its humongous tree-sized calf.
The Lion Mist Demon fell to its knee with a loud boom, the black mist billowing along with its howl as it reached for Lily quickly with its other claw.
The elusive Lily, however, jumped up elegantly and landed on the Lion Mist Demon’s arm with the tip of her foot, and jumped up once again to spin rapidly in midair, a storm of sword beams striking the Lion Mist Demon’s chest and shoulders in turn, causing blood and mist to gush out.
“Arrggghhhh!” The fact that he had suffered so many serious injuries without even being able to counter even a single one filled the Lion Mist Demon with utmost rage, but his frenzied attacks simply failed to reach Lily.
Lily had long landed in front of his other foot by now and slashed upwards, smashing through the Lion Mist Demon’s kneecap and forcing both its knees to the ground. Lily then flipped over and sliced through half of the Lion Mist Demon’s head from the top with her sharp blade.
The Lion Mist Demon clawed at Lily instinctively after sensing death approach him, yet she followed up with a linked slash and sliced his arm into several pieces!
There was simply a whole world of difference between their levels!
If it weren’t for his massive body, the Lion Mist Demon would’ve long perished under Lily’s blade.
Although the Lion Mist Demon’s wounds were still healing, its hands and feet were crippled now. Lily then kicked it to the ground from the front and stomped on its chest.
“Argh…” The Lion Mist Demon only had half of his head left intact now and could only produce a monstrous, lisping voice as new flesh grew out slowly from his head’s wound, “Lady Mirror Girl, please… spare my life…”
“Hmph! These helpless humans pleaded you all the same, but did you forgive them?”
Lily stabbed Crescent Moon into the Lion Mist Demon’s chest and slashed it open, revealing his luminous, black spirit jade outside.
Lily pried the spirit jade out from the Lion Mist Demon’s body with her blade, causing him to give out one last howl before he stopped moving after a few twitches.
Lily then secured the spirit jade inside her mirror and jumped down from the Lion Mist Demon’s body.
The villagers recovered their senses gradually by now and finally realized what had happened after seeing Lily, as well as the scene of carnage just prior, the monsters’ deaths finally settling in.
“Lady Lynne!” “Lady Lynne saved us!”
The villagers kowtowed to her simultaneously.
Lily gave the surroundings a quick glance and determined that there were at least 40-50 casualties among the villagers in this short duration.
Even Lily felt helpless regarding this.
“Why did you try to leave that village?” Lily questioned.
“Sigh!” The village chief walked out with everyone’s support and fell to her knees, losing her voice in remorse.
Yumi and Yoriko also caught up from behind at this moment and Yoriko also fell to her knees helplessly after seeing the corpses of the monsters and the dead villagers.
Yumi saw the corpse of the Lion Mist Demon who she feared a lot nearby and gave Lily a look of incredulity after realizing that he had gotten killed by Lily in the short duration before she had even caught up with her.
“Master!” Yumi kneeled in front of Lily, “Please save Haihime.”
“Haihime?” Lily felt puzzled by this request.
Yoriko and the villagers dealt with the wounded and buried the dead before withdrawing to the village temporarily.
Meanwhile, Lily sat down in the desolate desert along with Yumi and listened to her talk about Haihime.
“I drifted to the inner region of the Endless Demon Mountains after falling into the chasm underneath the waterfall when I was child, and it was Haihime who rescued me. She actually didn’t put me in a difficult spot and even taught me martial arts and ninja arts after healing me…”
“I was perplexed initially after learning that Haihime was serving Amanojaku and tried to escape multiple times, but Lady Haihime actually rescued me once again by killing a monster when it captured me.”
“However, I became even more suspicious about why the pretty, kind and formidable Haihime had become submissive to Amanojaku. I wanted to learn the truth as well as the true colors of this woman, so I began training pretty hard and finally earned the position of a chief among the ninja divisions, which allowed me to get closer to her for the first time ever during a banquet of the demons. Haihime was dressed like a s̲l̲u̲t̲ and acted promiscuously back then as she served Amanojaku and even flattered the other demons after he retired. I couldn’t understand why this woman showed such contradictory sides and just looking at her filled me with disgust back then!”
“I arrived at Haihime’s residence on that night, intending to lash out and break off all relations with her completely before leaving, but I saw her crying through the gap of the door. She was just… crying aggrievedly while hugging the cursed katana that reflected the white tiger’s avatar.”
“I snuck into Haihime’s residence once again and overheard the agreement between Amanojaku and her from outside her room on the next day! I even saw that b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ mock her several times for the fact that she had surrendered to the enemy who killed her own mother!”
“I really couldn’t hold myself back after Amanojaku’s departure and rushed inside to question Lady Haihime. Perhaps it was because she was feeling too downhearted on that day, she told me the truth and narrated the whole sequence of events to me, about how she, Keiko, and her mother, Kimiko, had fled from Kansai and ran ashore on the beach of Echigo Province after their clan’s boats came across a tsunami…”
“I proposed plans to escape together with Haihime several times after learning the truth and even tried to let her escape from Amanojaku’s clutches several times, but my plans were nearly exposed each time and Amanojaku finally found out about my rebellious actions on one occasion after tracing back the clues. It was Haihime who begged him recklessly and requested him to forgive me this one time, but the price for that was him raising a new condition towards her, which was to wear that humiliating item in order to ensure that her first time would belong to him on the day he becomes an adult… it’s all because of me. Haihime wouldn’t have had to wear that humiliating item if it weren’t for the trouble I caused. The pain and shame she felt intensified because of me! Haihime was then forced to drug me under Amanojaku’s suggestion in order to assure him that she can control me well, but the drug she fed me usually didn’t contain any mind control elements except for the duration when Amanojaku returned and some special occasions.”
“However… Haihime never expected that even though she endured the heart-wrenching pain every day and barely withstood the torment, Amanojaku, that b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲, never had any intention of holding his end of the agreement! I knew these monsters would never keep such a promise from the moment I saw Amanojaku for the first time ever, but Haihime, she didn’t heed my words and refused to believe me, leading to things reaching what they’ve today!”
Yumi gave out a long sigh, “Sigh! I wonder why an intelligent and formidable woman like her is so foolish to believe that monster for over a decade!”
Lily sat cross-legged across Yumi and gazed at her for a good while before saying, “No, Yumi. I don’t think that Haihime really believed Amanojaku.”
“Huh? Why did she surrender to that repulsive monster then?!”
“I believe it’s because Haihime couldn’t go against her mother’s dying wish no matter what happens. Thus, even though the chances were slim, the only choice she had was to believe in him as she really didn’t possess any other means back then…” Lily stated softly.
“But Amanojaku really didn’t keep his promise in the end and sent the Lion Mist Demon to slaughter the villagers! Haihime went to question Amanojaku desperately, so I’m really worried that something might’ve happened to her! Haihime’s mother was murdered by Amanojaku cruelly in front of her and her final resolve crumbled apart after learning that he might murder the villagers as well. Once Amanojaku robs her of her virginity after the coming-of-age ceremony tonight, the kind Lady Haihime would’ve endured through the pain for so many years all for nothing, losing all she has without being able to protect anything! She’s so pitiful…”
Yumi sobbed sadly after stating this.
“Yet I can’t do anything at all. Even though I know what’s going to happen, I can’t do anything at all… Amanojaku is too powerful. He has a group of formidable subordinates and even has a treasure given to him by his father which is much scarier than him.”
“Haihime saved my life so many times, yet I can’t do anything for her… Lady Haihime will end up dying if this goes on… sob… sob…”
Lily breathed deeply while gazing at the hazy underground space and caressed Yumi’s head gently after getting up slowly.
She straightened her waist, her breasts heaving up and down as she said, “That won’t happen. I won’t let such a woman die so aggrievedly.”
“Eh?” Yumi lifted her head and saw Lily brandish her nodachi before sheathing it back into its sheath with a clang, her long hair dancing within the windblown dust as she gazed at the top of the underground space in the direction of the tunnel that led to the surface.
She opened the crimson Sakura Parasol with her fair arms and turned around, her pretty and luminescent purple eyes flashing with a tranquil and bewitching glow, “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To find Haihime.”
Lily flung her hair back and sashayed her curvaceous buttocks as she strode into the hazy desert.
“Lady Lily…” Yumi hesitated while looking at Lily’s back.
“Whoosh!”
A pillar of light flashed beside Lily and Kagura, who was dressed in a long-sleeved kimono minidress and white socks, appeared at Lily’s side while hugging her katana, Brocade-Patterned Koi, with both hands and walked alongside Lily.
A storm of snowflakes manifested in the surroundings and a beautiful woman dressed in a white kimono with purple, silk hanging sleeves appeared on Lily’s other side, proceeding in parallel with Lily and Kagura.
The hound lying prone on the dusty rock ahead looked at Lily, Kagura and Yuki-Onna as they passed by with a calm look in its eyes and jumped down the rock to walk alongside them.
This trio of beautiful and unbelievably powerful girls walked side by side into the hazy windblown dust along with a hound and made for the tunnel leading to the outside world!
