“Guy? How dare you insult him, you shameless woman! He was my everything! You’ll pay for taking him away from me!” Shenzu blitzed towards Lily while shrouding an aura of frigid azure flames!
The six blades attacked in succession with flames of grudge trailing behind them and they overwhelmed Lily eventually.
The attacks were faster than Lily’s reaction speed, so she found it difficult to respond to them. Although Lily could see through Shenzu’s attacks, her body’s response failed to catch up with the latter’s attack speed. As a result, Shenzu ended up suppressing Lily by making her retreat back repeatedly.
“Where did this Nanashi come from? How come she has such exquisite skills?” Minamoto no Yoshitada furrowed his brows in the viewing platform.
The four spirit arms behind Shenzu didn’t need to have a physical connection between her and them, so they flew away from her occasionally and launched attacks on Lily from different angles!
The strikes from the blades of these spirit arms were much heavier than Shenzu’s strikes and even had a powerful hellish intent!
Lily danced like a faerie as she dodged the attacks with her footwork, but she still failed to evade all the attacks from the spirit arms’ relentless charge!
Clang! Failing to evade in time, Lily barely managed to parry the heavy strikes from two of Shenzu’s spirit arms with her nodachi.
The heavy strikes made Lily kneel and crush the firm wooden floor underneath her knees. The whole arena toppled over to one side and many of the Genji samurai shouldering it also tumbled down.
The wind pressure from Shenzu’s attacks also pushed Lily back towards the arena’s edge.
“Are you planning to concede by exiting the arena? I won’t let you get away so easily! Die!”
The remaining two spirit arms doubled back towards Lily’s rear and struck at it while Shenzu formed a cross with the dual blades in her hands and slashed towards Lily’s abdomen!
Although Lily had a transcendental body and also had the spirit defense from the celestial maiden underwear, it was still difficult for her to endure the simultaneous attacks from four blades!
A poignant intent filled Lily’s in this critical moment.
She blocked the blades of the spirit arms in front of her with Yasutsuna by executing an upper slash, releasing a crescent sword beam in the process to ward off the dual blades.
The crimson sword beam had a trace of gorgeous and bright moonlight within it, and it broke out from inside when her blade clashed with the spirit arm’s blades, pushing the dual blades in the spirit arms’ hold aside. Lily ignored the dual blades attacking her back and spun Yasutsuna to slash up towards Shenzu instead!
A bright crimson crescent moon shot out from Yasutsuna the next moment!
This attack packed 10 times her strength from her attainments in the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle and was one of the lunar force’s mysteries that Lily had grasped until now!
“What?!”
The sword beam1 pushed aside Shenzu’s dual blades and slashed towards her body, forcing her to jump back in haste to evade it.
Splatch! However, the crescent sword beam’s edge still managed to cut into Shenzu’s forehead a little.
As for Shenzu, she got blown away by the incredible impact from the sword beam and crashed on the other side of the arena, restoring its balance once again.
As for the dual blades behind Lily, their attacks just had momentum left to them since Shenzu had lost control of them momentarily. As such, Lily managed to dodge them with ease and the four spirit arms just floated motionlessly in the air.
“I knew it…” Although Shenzu’s spirit arms were powerful, they required her to control them perfectly to suppress Lily as the latter would find weaknesses if given the opportunity to go on the offensive.
“Argggghhhhh!” Shenzu got up and covered her face while screaming as blood flowed down her forehead. Lily had also cut open her veil, so it had fallen onto the floor now.
Uehara no Shenzu’s face had been exposed.
“What?! S-She is…” No matter whether it was the people or the samurai and officials on the viewing platform, there were a few who recognized her.
A samurai lady from the viewing platform voiced out, “I-Isn’t she Lady Shenzu?”
“She’s Shenzu!”
“Nanashi is Uehara no Shenzu!”
Secretary of Justice Kimura, who was seated among the Genji in the central region of the viewing platform, got up, “Lord Yoshitada! This woman is Uehara no Shenzu! A key suspect in Fayumi no Yoruko’s murder case!”
Ayaka hadn’t played out all her cards with regards to Yoruko’s case because of Rokuhara’s involvement and although Lily knew all the details of it, she had just given partial evidence to the Ministry of Justice. Therefore, the current evidence pointed to Shenzu as the culprit right now and didn’t have a single mention of Rokuhara.
“Calm down, Lord Kimura!” Minamoto no Hirohikari interjected suddenly, “We can’t just believe the one-sided statement of the Fujiwara clan with regards to Fayumi no Yoruko’s case. Kagami Lily’s suspicions still haven’t been lifted completely yet! We must take our time in deciding on this!”
Even Minamoto no Yoshitada spoke in agreement, “Even if Shenzu is truly a key suspect, we still can’t interfere with this match, those are the rules. Her suspicion relates just to the case while a duel with real blades is a gamble of life and death for samurai, and the representation of our valiant souls! There’s nothing we can do to prevent a decisive duel between samurai!”
Shenzu chuckled loudly when she saw the spectators cry out in alarm, “Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha! Indeed! I am Uehara no Shenzu! The leader of the Jade Maidens! As for Kagami Lily, she’s nothing more than a blade maiden! Although she’s the Mirror Girl, she infiltrated the Tsunaga Sisters’ to wreck my sisters’ plans of restoring the heavenly order and even attacked me treacherously! She even killed my teacher! Don’t let this hypocritical beauty fool you. This woman is on the Three Archdemons’ side and is always scheming to wreck the plans of restoring the heavenly order!”
“E-Enough of the nonsense! As a matter of fact, not all of the Three Archdemons are evil! It’s not like they aren’t any evil people among humans too!” Lily argued strongly for her convictions.
Her words left the spectators in uproar.
“Well now! Did you hear that?! This woman’s actually defending the Three Archdemons in public! Do you see which side she’s on now?! She’s the loyal blade maiden of the Three Archdemons!”
Both Shenzu and Lily’s arguments left the spectators puzzled. Although not all of them believed Shenzu’s words and doubted their idol, the fact that Lily had defended the Three Archdemons made them hesitate a lot. For a moment, the people were confused about who was in the right and who was evil!
“You’re nothing but a blade maiden who throws the heavenly order into chaos, Kagami Lily, and you are a stain on the Mirror Girls’ legacy. A traitor like you doesn’t deserve to have the Ancient Mirror. I’m going to kill you and shatter both your soul and your corrupted mirror into pieces!” The stamens of the moonflower behind Shenzu hoisted her up to the skies, following which an intermittent golden flame manifested within the phantasmic azure hellflames shrouding her.
“Enough of the venomous slander, Shenzu! You can insult me however you want, but I won’t forgive you if you slander the mirror!” Lily was also infuriated and summoned all her strength.
“Hahaha. You’re really powerful, Kagami Lily. You already had this much strength back then and even though I’m in such a realm now, I never expected you to advance so quickly! However, even then, you only have a dead end left in front of you! Your fate was set the moment you stood across me in this duel!”
A sheet of sweat formed on Lily’s forehead as she remarked internally, “Although Uehara no Shenzu only has peak-stage Permanence level strength right now, she still has that foreign hellish energy inside her, making her much more powerful than we last battled! Her current strength is at least at the middle-stage Throned General level! However…”
Lily chucked faintly, “Do you think you can defeat me with just that?”
Lily turned into a crimson flash as she stepped on a breeze of sakura petals and strode towards Shenzu.
“Die!” Shenzu ordered the four spirit arms to launch blade attacks at Lily.
Lily’s eyes flashed with iciness as she used Tsukuyomi Swordstyle, Lunar Force and Application of Charm simultaneously to unleash a blood-red lunar sword beam from Yasutsuna.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The blades in the spirit arms got blown away and the sword beam continued charging towards Shenzu!
The blood-red crescent moon formed from the fusion of Lunar Force and Application of Charm struck the dual blades in Shenzu’s arms and flooded her body with a terrifying Lunar Force.
Boom! Almost all of Shenzu’s dress shredded into pieces as she crashed down to the floor, leaving a crater behind on it!
At least 50% of the samurai shouldering the arena were forced to their knees from the weight of the strike.
“What?!” Yoshitada, Mori and the other samurai stood up in shock.
“S-She hadn’t used her full strength until now?!”
“Although her power hasn’t increased, the strike just now fused Lunar Force and Charm Intent quite intricately… boosting her strength to the late-stage Throned General level!” Yoshitada was amazed to the point of dying, “This is her true strength, the late-stage Throned General level? It would require even me to spend a lot of strength and methods to defeat her if we were to battle! Why is her progress so quick?”
Lily landed on the floor slowly and walked towards Shenzu who was lying on the floor now.
Shenzu’s body shuddered all over and she had received severe injuries from Lily’s strike. Her strength seemed greatly diminished as she raised her body up feebly.
“That Shenzu is going to lose.”
“To think that Lily’s strength was at the late-stage Throned General level. She deserves to win the tournament.”
The experts handed down their judgements one after the other. However, Ayaka’s eyes filled with worry as Shenzu made her feel uneasy for some reason.
“Surrender, Shenzu. I won’t be killing you. You should speak the truth and repent your crimes for playing a role in Lady Yoruko’s death by accepting the court’s trial,” Lily pressed her blade against Shenzu’s neck after arriving beside her.
“Hahaha… Are you crazy?” However, Shenzu just sneered back at Lily.
“You don’t need to act like this now, do you, Shenzu? This is too unsightly. I’m giving you one final chance to keep your dignity as a woman since we’re both women, so just concede. I don’t want to have the blood of a Jade Maiden on my hands,” Lily said calmly.
“Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! It seems like you really do not understand me, Kagami Lily. I told you that your fate was set the moment you stood across me in this duel! I’ve waited a long time for this chance to come!”
Shenzu’s eyes emitted a dazzling golden glow suddenly.
“Oh no!” Ayaka cried out in alarm.
Boom! A powerful hellish force broke out from Shenzu’s body and the shockwave from its emergence alone sent Lily flying while tearing most of her white priestess dress into pieces.
A two-headed massive phantom manifested under the curtain of night and grabbed Shenzu with its arm, following which it issued a scream that quaked through the entirety of Heian-kyo. A bunch of tentacles appeared from the phantom and stabbed into Shenzu’s back after that, filling her eldritch energy.
“Argggghhhhh!” Shenzu screamed frantically in pain as streams of black lightning surged through her body.
The dark-purple moonflower Permanence Spirit surrounding the Spirit Jade inside Shenzu’s body absorbed the hellish energy from the two-headed phantom and began to transform gradually, turning into a purer and stabler form as it exuded an incredibly powerful aura!
The moonflower transformed into a translucent, blue-violet, floating throne hall that was surrounded by twinkling spirit stars—A Throne Palace!
