The one remaining sumo wrestler recognized that Lily was good at close quarters fighting so he channeled his spiritual energy which stirred a gust of wind in the room.
“Ha!” The man lumbered forward and opened his hand like a banana leaf, striking at Lily with his palm.
Lily was annoyed by these people who were using such despicable means to bully her. If she was not strong enough, wouldn’t she be ruined in the hands of these guys?!
She churned her blade maiden spiritual energy and greeted him with a palm of her own.
Boom!!! Assaulted by the crimson spiritual storm, the huge sumo wrestler was bashed and flew out, breaking through the wall on the other side.
“What?!” Kujo and the other officials of the Bureau of Divination were stunned for a while. They didn’t expect that this seemingly small woman who swept the floor hid such great ability.
Although these people were esteemed in power and somewhat capable, they hadn’t participated in real battles for a long time. Just like Kujo, their proficiency in casting spells had gotten rusty.
“Kagami Lily, do you know where this place is? How dare you spill blood here!” Sukeya was tasked with guarding the treasury so he still retained considerable strength and responsiveness.
Seeing Lily’s extraordinary skills, he immediately began preparing a confinement charm.
He threw out the confinement charm which was released much faster than if he were to cast one out of thin air. The charm flew in front of Lily and exploded into purple streams of spiritual energy which quickly surrounded her body. These purple streams of light turned into spiritual chains that bound her tightly, wrapping around her legs, arms, and even chest!
“Hahaha, let’s see if you can still be arrogant after being hit by my confinement spell! Come on, hit me!” While Sukeya shouted, several samurai of the Bureau of Divination retrieved wooden staffs and struck towards Lily.
Since Lily’s movements were restricted by the chains, she concentrated her mind and conjured a flurry of sakura petals that shuttled back and forth around her body. Glowing cracks soon appeared on the chains and Lily stretched her body.
Ping! The spiritual chains were completely shattered!
“What?!” Everyone was shocked.
Lily swung her leg and kicked up a whirlwind of spiritual energy.
Boom! Bang! Bam! Several samurai wielding wooden staffs were struck one after another.
“B̲i̲t̲c̲h̲, you forced me to kill!” Sukeya chanted and pale blue spiritual energy began to gather in his hands as if he was casting some kind of powerful offensive spell.
Lily detected his actions through her keen peripheral vision and denied him the opportunity. She kicked up the wooden staff of a fallen samurai with her foot, grabbed it, and rushed over to Sukeya, catching him by surprise!
“Wait—”
Wham! Lily swung the sturdy staff at Sukeya’s face, denting his jaw and sending him tumbling across the floor.
“How bold! Woman, you dare to beat a court official? Do you want to rebel?!” Ichijo stood up and shouted, but he only had the strength of a junior onmyoji and had long forgotten how to perform arcane arts.
“Someone! Quickly, someone! Take down this rebellious woman for me!” Ichijo bellowed.
The two old men, one fat and one thin, who were Kujo and Fuen respectively, had already panicked and hid behind the pillars.
At this time, more onmyoji rushed in and spread out from the entrance of the room in a fan-shaped formation, preparing to bombard Lily with spells.
However, Lily wouldn’t easily give them such a chance. She stamped her foot on the ground and sent a wave of spiritual energy towards them, causing the floor to crack and burst apart.
Boom! The earth-splitting spiritual energy wave erupted at the feet of the onmyoji and blasted several of them into the air, disrupting their spell casting.
Finally, an onmyoji master managed to cast a spell amidst the chaos, shooting a spiritual energy bullet towards Lily.
Lily opened her hand and a swirl of cherry blossoms danced above her palm, forming a small shield that easily blocked the spiritual energy bullet.
“Sleep!” An onmyoji who came in from the other side chanted a sleeping spell and cast it on Lily.
However, Lily’s body was naturally resistant to these strange spells, and coupled with the celestial maiden undergarment, this resistance was greatly enhanced. Also, Lily was in the Spirit Jade stage while the other party was just a late-stage onmyoji which was equivalent to a fourth or fifth stage Awakened. The chances of his spell putting Lily into slumber was very low.
“Begone!” Lily swung her leg and the resulting wind formed a sharp blade of light that knocked down the onmyoji.
The body of an onmyoji was already weaker than a samurai of the same level. Although Lily didn’t try her best, they wouldn’t be able to recover from her attacks in a short period of time.
“Bold and presumptuous female samurai!” At this moment, an old onmyoji dressed in black with a red collar rushed in, “I am Tsuchiya Tanaka, the master of the Bureau of Divination. Watch me capture you!”
Three fireballs appeared in the hands of the onmyoji master and rotated above his palm. They all had the character ‘flame’ (炎) in the middle.
“Girl, you are too presumptuous. Don’t blame me if you get injured!” The onmyo master pushed his hand forward.
The three fireballs converged into a burning ghost head that flew towards Lily.
Lily rolled and dodged away, only to find that the burning ghost head was still chasing after her while snarling.
Upon seeing this, she changed course and rushed in Ichijo’s direction.
“Hey, what are you doing?! Stop!” Two attendants stepped forward to block Lily’s path, but she lowered her body and slid between them.
By the time Ichijo reacted, Lily was already in front of him.
“You, what do you want to do?!” Ichijo hadn’t fought for a long time and was completely stricken when Lily came close to him.
Lily grabbed the fan from his hand, opened it, and slapped it towards the ghost head.
Boom! A burst of flames flooded the surroundings as the ghost head was blown apart by the strong wind. However, the fan in Lily’s hand also got ignited.
“This, this is the magic fan that the imperial minister rewarded me with!” Ichijo cried.
Lily threw the fan blazing with spiritual flames directly at the onmyo master which hit him to the ground and burned him with the flames he released. He couldn’t help but roll on the ground while howling.
“No, useless things!” Ichijo roared at the defeated warriors, “The court has spent so much to feed you and you can’t even handle a single female samurai! How do you expect to deal with archdemons with such little strength?”
The warriors and guards of the Bureau of Divination who rushed in afterward were even more helpless in front of Lily and were easily taken care of.
After a while, the only people left standing in the room were Ichijo, Kujo, and a few other officials including Fuen.
Lily turned and walked towards Ichijo coldly.
Ichijo Haiji instantly started to panic. He didn’t have a sword or weapon of any kind so he could only point at Lily with shaky hands, “Don’t, don’t come over! What are you doing? Cast a spell to kill this woman!”
However, Sukeya was already knocked down by Lily, and the two old men, Kujo and Fuen, were so nervous that they couldn’t even recite a full incantation. They could only hide behind the pillars and didn’t dare to step forward.
“You two trash!” Ichijo shouted in despair, “You, what do you want to do? I’m a fifth-ranking official of the imperial court! If you dare to be rude to me, you will never walk out of Heian-kyō alive! Do you really think that you can be arrogant in Heian-kyō just with your level of strength? Don’t come over, don’t come over!”
“You call others trash, but what about yourself? All you can do is tremble and beg for mercy in the face of a woman. Then, what are you?” She was certainly not stupid enough to kill an official of the Heian Dynasty’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, this guy tried to oppress her using his official position so she couldn’t just let it go.
Lily walked up to Ichijo who was hurriedly backing away. He looked very pathetic as he screamed, “Don’t come, don’t come! Ah, someone! Quickly, someone!”
“That’s enough! Let Lord Ichijo go.”
The handsome and penetrating voice of a man came behind Lily.
“Who?” Lily turned around, only to see a huge paper fan flying towards her. It was seemingly slow but gave off an uneasy feeling.
This paper fan is going to release some kind of spell!
Lily jumped sideways and flitted past the paper fan.
Boom! The paper fan flew over to Ichijo’s side and exploded into a cloud of smoke from which two thin paper men appeared, slowly floating down.
The sudden smoke startled Ichijo and he couldn’t help coughing after inhaling some of it.
At the doorway stood a man that was obviously taller than other onmyoji. He wore a high hat and a flowing, elegant robe that looked almost transparent, and his handsome face could be said to be picturesque, with clear but mysterious eyes. His long sleeves fluttered in the gentle wind and the hand holding his exquisite paper fan was placed behind his back.
“Eh? This person…” Lily found him familiar.
“So it’s you?” The man was also taken aback, “The beautiful girl who was asking for directions.”
Lily also remembered that he was the handsome man who showed her the way on the road. This man gave her an extraordinary and mysterious feeling.
“I wonder what happened for this girl to make such a fuss in the hall of the Bureau of Divination.” The man fanned himself and spoke unhurriedly.
Before Lily could speak, Kujo shouted from behind the pillar, “Seimei1, you came just in time. Hurry up and take down this female samurai who injured several people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and tried to hurt Lord Ichijo!”
“I only broke a few vases, and it was you who wanted to impose an awful punishment on me. I had no choice but to do it!” Lily said.
“You broke a precious ancient vase that was to be given to the emperor as a birthday gift. Furthermore, you acted arrogant and haughty. Shouldn’t you be punished? Seimei, what are you still standing there for? Do it now!” Kujo scolded.
Seimei looked around, “Girl, you really hurt a lot of people. Even Lord Sukeya was injured by you. It seems that I can’t let you leave here.”
Seimei’s eyes flashed sharply, the fan half-covering his face.
“What if I must leave?” Lily stared at Seimei without showing any signs of weakness.
“Then, even though you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, I will have no choice but to be impolite!” Seimei waved the big fan in his hand.
Boom! The two small paper men who had floated to the ground transformed into grey-horned evil spirits with animal skins cloaking their black smokey figures. The evil spirits appeared behind Lily and swung their huge spiked clubs towards her.
Lily rolled and evaded the spirits’ grasp, but they were extremely fast. The two evil spirits cooperated with each other and chased Lily relentlessly. With figures resembling giant wolves, they bared their fangs and swept sharp blows at her simultaneously.
Lily flipped backward to avoid the two spirits’ attack and delivered a strong kick to one of them, hitting it in the head. Even so, the spirit was very tenacious and only staggered instead of falling to the ground.
As Lily was still tumbling through the air, she saw Seimei dancing his fan. A cyan stream of water flew out of his fan and turned into a four-clawed water dragon that streaked towards her with an open mouth and sharp claws!
“What?!” Although Lily’s vision was upside down in the air, she marveled at the water dragon flying towards her, “This man…he can cast spells without needing any incantations2?”
