The frantic wind whirred and blew the intermingled hair of the two young maidens. From time to time, their skirts wafted about which faintly exposed their luscious white thighs under the cold night.
Suddenly, a sharp pain assaulted Lily’s leg, nearly causing her to yell out a scream.
A tenacious samurai who earlier suffered a fatal stab wound from Lily, crawled back up and managed to slash her slender ankles with his remaining strength.
However, to the surprise of the dying samurai, a flash of spiritual energy absorbed all the damage from his desperate strike, leaving the bare leg unscathed.
Lily only consumed a little spiritual energy to resist the dying samurai’s final strike.
She stabbed down with her Crescent Moon, quickly disposing of the underlying threat.
Though she escaped unharmed, the unexpected attack struck a bit of fear in Lily’s heart. Fortunately, even though she took a bath, she still wore the chest undergarment on her body. Otherwise…the sword might’ve broken her leg.
Her lunar spiritual energy also didn’t have much wound healing properties.
Of course, if she didn’t have any notable defensive capabilities up her sleeve, Lily would’ve been more cautious. Anyhow, she wouldn’t act so carelessly from here on out.
“Kill them!” “Haa—!”
The eyes of the remaining samurai reddened, reflecting the splattering blood from their slain dojo companions. Blinded by rage, they rushed the two women who continuously killed their members while ignoring Lord Tamurakonoe’s order.
Perhaps realizing that their unorganized approach was getting them nowhere, a tacit understanding sparked among the samurai, prompting them to engage from two different directions.
Their swords fell like a torrent of rain, leaving little to no room to dodge. However, Lily’s flexibility overcame the shower of blows while finding gaps to accurately retaliate.
One by one, the samurais’ lives were reaped by the heartless blades of Lily and Shimizu.
Abruptly, Lily felt a swift and extremely strong attack speeding towards her!
She didn’t look back, but instead tilted her body according to her whispering senses. Almost immediately, a silver light swept in front of her chest.
The silver light was fast but softened when it reached a distance, flicking back and forth like a long whip. An unfortunate samurai who was unable to react in time was struck and split into two by the silver thread.
“What?!” Lily’s heart trembled, “Even killing their own…?”
This silver light was the thread that nearly killed Mizue in the jungle!
“You’ve finally shown yourself!” Lily spun around, skidding a crimson crescent light along the direction of the silver line.
“Hahahaha, still so violent.”
This time, Lily managed to get a good look at the master manipulating the silver thread. It turned out to be a little girl dressed in light gray and an orange blossom skirt.
Her figure seemed similar to that of Nanako’s, but the girl’s eyes glinted with a kind of innocent and childish cruelty.
“Wait. This voice…you are…”
“Yes, thank you for the bath towel. But Mirror Girl, you are quite surprising. You obviously wiped every part of your body with the towel but still lent it to others.” Ui’s eyes squinted with a bit of mischievousness.
“Yeah. I really regret it now since you’d have to come out and fight me naked.” Lily sneered without showing any signs of weakness.
Just as Shimizu cut down a large samurai, three spell charms flew over.
Two headed for Lily while the other split towards Shimizu.
“Be careful!” Shimizu yelled out a warning before attempting to dodge the charm.
However:
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The three charms exploded one after another, scorching the surroundings in billowing flames and smoke that burned the deck of the ship.
Shimizu was swept away by the violent wave of air. She dug her sword into the deck which dragged on for a few meters before she barely managed to stop. Many parts of her clothes were torn and burnt by the outburst of flame.
Her spiritual energy was also drained by 20%.
Shimizu ignored her current condition for now. She raised her guard, looking for the tingling sounds in the drifting smoke.
Whoosh~
A jade-colored ball that twirled with silver thread flew out of the smoke and struck towards Shimizu with astonishing speed.
“Not good!” Shimizu wouldn’t be able to dodge in time.
Bang—!
At that moment, a scabbard swung out from the smoke and intercepted the jade ball.
Lily rushed out of the smoke and slid in front of Shimuzu with a blocking posture.
“Sis Lily, are you okay?!”
Shimizu hurried to scan Lily’s body for any wounds. Apart from her damaged clothes which were burnt in a few places, Lily’s skin looked white and flawless, lacking even a single bruise.
“I’m fine. Unless a charm is stuck directly onto my body, the aftermath of the explosion won’t hurt me at all. But you should be careful, Sister Shimizu.”
“Sis Lily, no need to worry about me. The opponent isn’t easy. During the battle, we must go all out and can’t afford to get distracted! I can handle myself.” Shimizu’s eyes shone with an ethereal light as she studied the fading smoke.
“The samurai who can use arcane arts is also strong in melee combat,” Lily said.
“Hmph, got it,” Shimizu replied coldly.
The smoke had barely cleared, yet a few more charms were already flying over.
Lily quickly dashed to one side, then stormed into the drifting smoke. Soon after:
Boom! Boom!
Explosions echoed behind her.
Amidst the billowing back smoke, Lily clearly knew the location of her opponent. A samurai who rushed half-blind through the smoke didn’t manage to spot the approaching Lily was blocking her path. On the other hand, Lily had long detected the man’s presence. With a slight shift of her body, her sword slashed and decapitated the obstacle.
When she emerged on the other side of the smoke, she saw the onmyoji hovering behind the cabin while several samurai stood guard, vigilantly observing the smoke.
The samurai charged towards Lily on sight.
“Get lost!” Lily didn’t hold back this time. Her katana danced, unleashing a crescent blade light across the deck.
This attack, of course, wasn’t the full embodiment of Lily’s strength, only a more serious version of an ordinary slash. However, this move contained strength rivaling an expert at the early Permanence Stage.
How could these few Awakened Stage samurai resist?
“What?!” “Noo!”
The several samurai could barely even react before the blade light buried itself deep into their torsos. One of them managed to lift his sword into a block but it quickly splintered into pieces like paper.
The sharp light instantly lacerated the several samurai at the same time, prompting them to kneel and fall one after another.
Lily didn’t slow her pace, rushing directly for the masked onmyoji. Kiuchidera Tesshin inwardly chanted some incantations, causing ancient words glittering with purple spiritual light to circle around him. Large amounts of spiritual energy also converged around his body.
“Too slow!” Lily jumped up, cutting her Crescent Moon towards Kiuchidera’s heart.
A jade ball suddenly spun over from a distance.
However, Lily didn’t care at all. She focused the entirety of her strength into the slash aiming for his heart. It carried the immense force equalling the mid-Permancence Stage.
Buzz—! The powerful pressure split the surrounding air, causing the wind to howl and scream.
What?!” Kiuchidera was emboldened by the fact that Ui was covering for him by the sidelines. Never did he expect Lily to ignore the jade ball that was strong enough to shatter a castle building and attack him with her full might.
Kiuchidera had no choice but to hastily give up on the spells, prompting them to dissipate in a chaotic manner.
Clang—!
Lily’s Crescent Moon struck against Kiuchidera’s sword with full force, inducing a hurricane-like blast that whipped the surroundings.
At almost the same time, the jade ball sped and hit Lily on the shoulder. A painful expression brushed the contours of her face, but only for a moment. Her body shook once and erupted with an amethyst light of spiritual defense.
Lily’s spiritual defense was originally scarlet but was amplified a hundred times by the Amethyst undergarment, causing it to adopt the color of the sacred technique contained within it.
The color was the same as the celestial maiden’s undergarment itself.
Kiuchidera was thoroughly blasted away by Lily’s heavy strike, flying directly from the ship and falling into the lake. His hovering spell could not be moved and once it forcibly was, the spell would be invalidated.
As Kiuchidera flew upside down, he expected to see Lily being hit and injured by the jade ball. However, Lily was not harmed at all.
Lily’s Amethyst armor was invisible and intangible— a tool comparable to ninth-grade heavy armor1.
Of course, even if it was a real ninth-grade armor, its defensive ability was related to the user itself. Suppose a first stage Awakened wore a ninth-grade armor and was attacked with a sword by a strong Spirit Jade expert. Even if the sword couldn’t break the armor, the aftermath of the violent shock would shatter the internal organs of the first stage Awakened and kill him.
To summarize, Lily utilized the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle which allowed her to wield a sword sixty times her usual power. However, the Tsukuyomi Swordsyle was solely an offensive secret method and wasn’t helpful in aiding her defensive capabilities. Lily’s Blade Maiden attribute also focused on enhancing spirit power, not defense.
Lily had three times the physique of an ordinary samurai, which was measured by raw destructive power, speed, and other offensive abilities. In terms of defense, her physique was only a few percent stronger than an ordinary female warrior of the same stage. Compared to the muscular, thick skin of male samurai who exercised and trained their flesh every day, she was even worse.
In the early stages of Spirt Jade, Lily had power comparable to that of the late stages of Permanence. Naturally, this was only in offense. Her defense was only 30% stronger than that of an ordinary female samurai of the early Spirit Jade stage
Of course, after coming into possession of the defensive Amethyst treasure, Lily’s defensive ability increased by a hundredfold. A rough calculation did not take into account the extremely painful side effects. Its current defensive ability extended to the Spirit Jade stage. However, its defensive prowess did not apply to particularly powerful swords, treasures, and killing techniques. Apart from those special instances, ordinary methods could hardly hurt Lily at all. That is to say, she could defend against all the ordinary weapons below the Spirit Jade stage.
Although Ui was at the peak of Spirit Jade and her kendama could be considered a seventh-grade treasure, it was not a weapon with a particularly strong offensive power. The kendama was a bit weird and was capable of long-distance attacks, but its power was far inferior to Lily’s Crescent Moon.
At that time when Lily blocked the kendama with her sheath, she had already made the judgment that it couldn’t pose a substantial threat to her.
The lake naturally couldn’t hinder Kiuchidera too much so he quickly resurfaced.
What awaited him, however, was a violent blade light that shot from the upper deck.
The unexpected attack caught Kiuchidera by surprise. It was difficult for him to retaliate as it was very inconvenient to cast spells in the water.
Helplessly, he could only plunge into the water in embarrassment and take cover…
The smoke gradually dissipated, revealing the suspended figure of Ui in the air. Although it looked as if she was floating midair, she was actually standing on her silver thread which was strung between the ship’s tall building and the deck.
“Hahaha, Mirror Girl, if you weren’t lucky enough to obtain that treasure, you would’ve been seriously injured by my kendama just now. We would’ve captured and bound you up with rope.” Ui said with a weird smile.
“I’m afraid that anyone who has the strength to seize a powerful treasure is already the best in the world,” Lily replied with a chilly smirk2.
