Lily sensed an indistinct intent coming from the four-clawed water dragon that gave her a feeling of foreboding. It was likely a water-attributed skill executed at the highest level.
Lily was in a very unfavorable situation. She could have eliminated one of the shikigamis if she used Yasutsuna instead, but she would be exposing that she had an item that the clairvoyance mirror couldn’t detect. If that were to happen, it was very likely that she would be captured by one of Heian-kyo’s true experts even if she managed to escape from the Bureau of Divination.
If they searched her body and found the mirror, it would be very easy to deduce that it had something to do with it.
It was impossible for Lily to trick the others if such a long sword appeared out of thin air. It was still fine if it was a short sword, but there was practically nowhere to hide such a long sword without being discovered.
It was a big loss for a samurai without a weapon to face a truly powerful onmyoji. This man before her was one such notable figure, he was much stronger than those corrupted officials.
Lily originally intended to adjust her position midair to dodge the approaching water dragon by the breadth of a hair, but she suddenly felt that something was off.
The water dragon was formed by water-attributed spirit power and was infused with an unbroken stream of water intent, it was impossible to really cut it with a sword, and if she was to just barely dodge it, it was very likely the water dragon would coil around her to restrain her!
It wouldn’t be an easy task to break free from that.
If the sword was ill-matched against the water dragon, then the only option left was to… use blunt force!
Still upside-down, Lily pirouetted to gather strength in her legs before she do the splits and lash them down like a giant hatchet!
“BAM!!!”
Lily’s heel fiercely slammed on the water dragon’s head. The powerful force of impact directly turned the dragon’s head into a splash. Naturally, without the head, the body also turned back into ordinary water and dispersed.
“Beautiful! What a violent girl!” Seimei’s eyes shone like a child’s.
Lily landed on the ground, but due to the big splash from earlier, her clothes and hair were totally soaked. Her white yukata had now become slightly translucent and gradually revealed her body shapes.
All the men were a bit absent-minded as they gazed at her figure.
“Seimei! I’ll raise your ranks to grandmaster if you capture her!” Ichijo shouted, “I swear I will personally interrogate this woman later and make her regret her wrongdoings in pain and humiliation!”
The two evil spirits took this chance to lunge at Lily. Lily simply ran towards them and slid past the two evil spirits by sticking her body close to the surface. After that, she got up and rushed towards Seimei. It was pointless to duke it out with these evil spirits so she went straight for the summoner!
This was the first time Lily faced a powerful onmyoji so everything she did was a trial and error!
Three willow leaves suddenly appeared in Seimei’s hand. After he blew on them, the willow leaves transformed into sharp blades and flew towards Lily with increasing velocity.
“Hmph!” Lily willed the sakura petals into existence and sent them to intercept the willow leaf blades. Crimson and green spiritual energy exploded upon collision as the leaves and petals disintegrated, they were equally matched.
But now Lily had already closed in on Seimei. Most onmyojis were not proficient in close combat, and their bodies were also much weaker compared to the samurais. This distance was Lily’s territory.
However, Seimei unexpectedly put away his fan and retrieved a katana from thin air to meet Lily head-on. His slash was not at all powerful, but it was very precise and unpredictable.
“What?!” Lily was surprised and rolled sideways to dodge in a panic. Due to the sudden movement, she slipped onto the ground and her slippery butt bumped against the rigid wooden pillar.
Although this Seimei guy was an onmyoji first and foremost, it seemed he was not half bad at using the sword either! Not to mention that the clairvoyance mirror and paper shikigami were also his creations. This Seimei was no ordinary guy in the Bureau of Divination.
Although Lily had spirit defense, her sense of pain was amplified. The pain stemming from her butt caused her no end of humiliation.
“Dammit, how is this weak-looking bookworm so annoying to deal with1!” Lily cursed in her heart.
If she could use Yasutsuna and the other treasures she possessed, Lily naturally had nothing to fear from him, but now she had to fight with Seimei while empty-handed. This was too disadvantageous for her.
The evil spirits smashed their huge spiked clubs at Lily.
Lily jumped out of the way in a hurry.
“Pow!” The big clubs made quick work of the wooden pillar and snapped it in half.
A ferocious glint flashed in Lily’s eyes. She rolled over, hugged the huge pillar, and heaved it to the side.
“BAM!!!” An incomparably heavy hit struck one of the evil spirits directly on the waist.
The impact was more than the evil spirit could bear, it turned back into a paper talisman with a ‘poof!’ and floated down gently.
Lily knew there was no meaning to attack these paper dolls. The only reason they could change into evil spirits and fight was because of Seimei.
As for how it worked, Lily guessed it probably worked with the same concept as her drawing, these paper dolls were merely a medium for the spells.
The other evil spirit swung its spiked club down but didn’t manage to connect the hit. Lily had already jumped up with the broken wooden pillar and smashed the evil spirit’s head with it.
‘Poof!’ Same with its predecessor, the evil spirit turned back into a paper doll.
Without any other weapon, Lily had no choice but to go after Seimei with the big pillar. If she randomly swung the pillar around, she could have easily demolished this building.
As such, Seimei used some sort of strange, unknown arcane artes to float into the sky and retreated out of the hall.
Lily followed after him since she didn’t have the intention to run. Her goal was to meet with Ayaka, not to become a wanted criminal2.
The only thing she could think of now was to prevail over this opponent.
With the wide terrain, Seimei was able to freely flit left and right to dodge Lily’s attack. Lily didn’t manage to connect a single hit. And thus, she tossed the wooden pillar high into the sky and operated her domain to retrieve her shoes. Lily then did a backflip to put on her shoes. Now that she had the grade 9 shoes on, she had one more means of attack and defense.
“Crash!” The pillar fell and made a hole in the roof behind her. It pierced the ground directly before Ichijo, almost causing him to faint from the scare.
“What a violent nature! You’ll lose your womanly charm if you’re that fierce!” Seimei joked.
“I’m sorry, but do you have a habit to assail women with obscenities? Are you so far gone you can’t even cure that habit in the middle of a fight? I’ll be my own judge, I don’t care what you think of me,” Lily refuted. That said, Lily’s clothes were drenched and her breasts were apparent. There were even some crystal clear droplets on her breasts, it was unknown whether those droplets were her sweat or the water dragon’s drizzle, but it was true that she was oozing with womanly charm despite her intention.
“Hahaha, to be talked down by the number one beauty, it seems I have quite a long way to go in my romantic pursuits!” Seimei took out his fan and lightly fanned himself.
“Don’t push some weird title on me without permission, it’s distasteful! However, I’ll admit that you are one of the few experts I respect in the Bureau of Divination. If you are that powerful, why are you working with those rotten old coot to make things difficult for me!” Lily rushed at Seimei mid-sentence.
Seimei tossed the fan at Lily. The fan he threw was sharp like a knife and filled with wind-attributed spirit power!
“This guy! He can use multiple elemental attributes after all!”
This was rarely seen in a samurai, but a simple task for the onmyoji. They could simply use their arcane artes to control various elemental attributes. Lily bent her upper body to the back to evade the fan, then she lifted her slender leg to kick at Seimei.
“Nice leg!” Seimei yelled before he turned around and retreated. After that, he attacked with the katana in his hands.
“Miss, it’s none of my business if you’ve broken the vase that is to be gifted to the emperor, but I can overlook how you’ve hurt Lord Sukeya and the others in the Bureau of Divination. I must catch you and let the high-ranking officials deal with you!”
“Clank!” Lily intercepted Seimei’s sword with her wooden shoes.
It was no easy feat to cut through a grade 9 wooden shoe, what’s more, it was bolstered by Lily’s spirit armor.
Seimei was no match for Lily when it comes to physical strength, so they entered a deadlock. However, a dagger suddenly flew out of Seimei’s opened mouth, causing Lily to twist her body in a hurry to avoid it.
‘Rips!’ The dagger tore the front piece of Lily’s clothes, revealing her pure white skin beneath.
However, at the same time Lily avoided Seimei’s flying dagger, she used Seimei’s katana as a pivot to lift herself off the ground and turned her body midair to send a kick towards his face.
“Pow!” It was a solid kick in the face. This kick caused a fracture in Seimei’s waist and hipbone and smashed him onto the ground at a weird angle. He’d be disabled for good even if he didn’t die from this.
This is payback for tearing my shirt! Lily cursed inwardly.
However, the injured Seimei suddenly disappeared with a poof and left behind only a paper doll.
“My oh my, how ruthless. Miss, you must have gone through quite an ordeal in the East right? But this is the peaceful Heian-kyo, is there a need to be so uncivilized?” Seimei’s real body reappeared somewhere nearby as he fanned himself.
“A body substitute spell?” Although Lily had never encountered these kinds of spells before, she could roughly guess what it was.
Lily covered her chest with one hand and glared daggers at Seimei. Seems like I won’t be able to beat him that easily.
Seimei also looked back at Lily with a bit of admiration, This female samurai is strong, even while empty-handed, she managed to make me expense one-tenth of my spirit power. It’ll be dangerous if she can get a hold of a weapon.
“Stop this nonsense at once!” A rough elderly voice suddenly rang out.
It was a sharp-eyed medium-sized elder with gloom purple hunter clothes and a tall hat. He walked over with both hands crossed behind him.
“A peerless expert!” Although his appearance was not too outstanding, there was no mistaking the aura he was emitting. Lily couldn’t tell how powerful he was, but he was definitely much stronger than her.
Lily felt like the situation was turning against her favor. If this elder also wanted to capture her, it was very likely that she would lose and fall into their hands. In case he was also as despicable as the other officials, then Lily would be hardpressed to resist even if they did those things to her3!
That was unless she retrieved her weapons and other treasures to catch them off guard and took that opportunity to escape. But if she were to do that, it would be very hard for her to establish herself in Heian-kyo anymore.
However, the elder’s expression did not change as he gazed at Lily. It didn’t seem like he had the intention to attack since he was aware that his aura alone had already oppressed Lily.
“Seimei, who is this seasoned young lady here? What is going on here for you two to make such a huge ruckus in the bureau?” The elder asked.
“Teacher,” Even Seimei was respectfully bowing to this elder.
“Lord Kamo Tadayuki!” Ichijo crawled out from the hall awkwardly and shouted, “Q-Quickly catch that despicable woman4!”
Kamo Tadayuki? What kind of person is he? Lily tensed up.
