At night, in a remote location in the backyard of the Imperial Chancellor’s residence, Fujiwara no Renbo, Fujiwara no Arima and a few others faced each other with ashen faces. They were surrounded by samurai and onmyouji bodyguards holding torches.
In the corner of the backyard, on the grass laid a body, the upper half of burly middle aged samurai, the corpse of Fujiwara no Takesaku.
Takesaku was one of Renbo’s retainers, in truth, Lily’s strike had killed him before his talisman of escape finished activating.
Although a permanence realmed expert had regeneration far beyond a normal person and would not die even if suffering shattered internal organs or was pierced through. But a human’s regeneration was limited, after being cut in half, death was guaranteed.
Every Fujiwara clan member had a solemn expression.
A Fujiwara guard examined the corpse, “He was probably hacked to death the moment the talisman of escape activated. The murderer’s blade skills are extraordinary, to be able to deal such a blow in the short duration of talisman activation. Takesaku is afterall a permanence leveled powerhouse of our Fujiwara clan.”
When they had discovered Takesaku’s corpse, it had been laying there for over an hour. Though the Fujiwara clan had extraordinary healing treasures, they had long missed the time limit.
“What about my uncle, and that person from the Yamato’s Eight Legion?” The fat Imperial Chancellor was constantly wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Arima shook his head, “An expert like Lord Yaiba shouldn’t have encountered any danger1 in a place like the Izumo shrine. Exactly what did Takesaku encounter, and why did he flee in such a panic?”
Another Fujiwara minister reported, “I have dispatched some men to the Izumo shrine teleportation array to investigate, they should return soon.”
The Imperial Chancellor looked at the remaining half of Takesaku in worry and could only feel terror. “We should bury him first, hurry and contact Ibaraki Doji2.”
They returned to the hidden mansion within the backyard. Ibaraki Doji who lived in seclusion in a small secret hut in the backyard heard the news and came.
The entire group sat as one, the firelight illuminating their murky faces. No one spoke a word as they all waited for the news.
The distance of thousands of miles to the Izumo shrine could be bypassed in an instant through the teleportation array. Within an hour, several retainer samurai and onmyouji ran back in a panic.
“M-my lord! It’s not good!”
“What’s the situation!?” Renbo questioned.
“That…” The leading gray clad samurai panted out of breath, “Dead…they’re all dead! Lord Yaiba, Lord Hiroto…all dead! Not one had a complete corpse, they died miserably!”
“What!???” Renbo’s fat body tilted to one side, collapsing while seated.
“Lord Imperial Chancellor!”
“How, how could this happen?” Renbo’s face was ashen gray, “That one of the Yamato’s Eight Legions! And my uncle! He’s a powerful reclusive onmyoji! How could they all be killed at the Izumo shrine!”
“Besides them, even, even…”
“Even what?”
“This…”
Arima roared, “Why are you stuttering about, speak!”
“Even Lord Shigeyuki and…the second young lord…also died!” The samurai knelt and kowtowed in a panic.
“What!???” Renbo’s eyes rolled up and fainted.
“Lord Imperial Chancellor!!!” The group of Fujiwaras all ran up in worry.
……
……
At this time, Lily was meditating under the guard of Yuki-onna. The night had already passed and the skies gradually lit up. This would provide Kiyoko better cover for escape.
Although she had plenty of magatamas, she was heartbroken to discover that it took a full 32 magatamas to replenish her spirit energy. Normally, magatamas were not used for spirit energy replenishment but advancement, this was like no one used precious supplements as regular food.
This time, Lily had been careless, she had not expected a battle to break out in the Izumo shrine.
The anima she had brought were not many, and they were all brought by her from Kanto to Heian-kyo. The grade of these animas were low, they could no longer satisfy her spirit energy replenishment needs.
She had originally thought that if she entered a battle on her way to Izumo Mountain, she could just replenish her anima, but she had never imagined that this situation would occur!
But the situation was critical now, and she dared not take risks. Ignoring the heart-ache, she used the night and magatamas to completely replenish her spirit energy reserves.
However…even though her permanence spirit had been restored to its previous brilliance, it was a white moon!
And not a violet moon.
Her permanence spirit could only regain the brilliance of the ordinary moon through the absorption of spirit energy. As long as she didn’t use her violet lunar energy, she was about back to normal besides her body still being a bit overdrawn, but that could be recovered in a day or two.
But her violet lunar energy had not recovered!
“What’s going on?”
Lily had been pondering over this issue as she replenished her spirit energy.
The violet moon light seemed to originate from the fusion of lunar true intent and seductive intent! She felt that she might have unconsciously merged a substantial amount of charming intent with her lunar true intent during breakthrough.
But that was only possible during special circumstances such as breakthrough. During recovery, her lunar permanence spirit could only restore her lunar true intent through spirit energy replenishment.
After she had finished recovering, she attempted to incorporate her charming intent into the lunar permanence spirit.
Nothing seemed to change, but she persisted. After an hour, the bright white light of her lunar permanence spirit gained a shimmer of violet, but the violet light was extremely weak.
“So it’s like that! My violet lunar intent can only be restored through the merging of seduction intent and lunar true intent…but it’s slow. At this rate it will take at least a month to recover. Unless…there’s a method to keep my seductive intent agitated…but what method would that be3?” Lily could not imagine one.
“I should not delay. Even if I encounter another Yamato’s Eight Legion member, even if I can’t win, I can protect myself!”
She departed towards the outer entrance of Izumo Mountain, concentrating on merging her intents to restore her violet lunar energy.
“Yuki-Onna, thank you.”
“Hmph, don’t be complacent, I’m not your Shikigami, only I’ll lose a lot if you fall. Don’t forget, there’s only half a year left of our one year arrangement.”
“Huh?” Lily’s face went red, in truth she had long forgotten.
But she was a faithful person. When the time came, and the promise had not been fulfilled, then no matter how powerful she had become, she would have to obey her promise.
There was still time, and there were more important issues at the moment.
As Yuki-Onna returned to the mirror space, Lily summoned demon hound and got on, setting a path toward Izumo Mountain. She only had to be vigilant and she could focus on her seductive intent and restore her violet lunar energy.
……
……
In the mansion of the Imperial Chancellor.
Under the care of onmyoji arcane artes and medicine, Fujiwara no Renbo had already woken up. Though he was unharmed, he had suffered a great mental shock.
“Lord Imperial Chancellor, you must take care. You are one of our Fujiwara clan’s pillars.”
“I’m fine…” a servant helped him up, Renbo asked, “Then, was Ayaka’s scroll retrieved?”
Everyone looked at each other, and shook their heads. This was what he had expected.
“Lord Imperial Chancellor, we searched the archives and warehouse. Although the building was damaged to some extent, the other archives were there, only Ayaka’s was missing.” The samurai in gray responded, he looked and acted steady and mature and indeed, his work was very reliable.
“If it’s like that…then it’s very likely, the one who killed Lord Yaiba, Lord Hiroto, and Lord Takesaku was also targeting the scroll and killed them all4.” Arima guessed frowning.
“Yes, according to the shrine personnel, powerful spirit energy exploded around the mountaintop, dying the skies red, causing a heavy earthquake. They dared not get closer.” The gray clad samurai reported.
“Agh!” Arima slammed a hand down on his knee, “How could this happen? We prepared such precautions, we even thought ourselves too cautious when hiring from the Yamato’s Eight Legion. That’s a super expert comparable to left, right imperial guard commanders! This was only going to a shrine operated by our clan and retrieving a file, most of the personnel are our loyal retainers, and even if they weren’t, there were no powerful people there! Who could have stopped us this time?”
“Yes, why would a super expert capable of killing one of the Yamato’s Eight Legions be at the Izumo shrine?” Yoshio also couldn’t believe it.
“Ah!!” Suddenly a Fujiwara minister thought of something.
The group looked at him.
“Tojo, do you have something to say?” Renbo asked.
“Several days ago, I approved of some paperwork for the release of memorial articles, I think it said…it was for the release of clothes and memorial items for the miko administrator sent to the Izumo shrine.
“Miko administrator? Wasn’t the Izumo Shrine recently changing generations? Wasn’t the miko administrator chosen by the Lord Chief Advisor?” Yoshio asked.
Fujiwara no Renbo frowned, “Chief Advisor!? Miko administrator? Are you saying that Ayaka sent out a miko administrator a few days ago? Who was it? Find out right now!”
Very quickly, the retainer sent to the ancestral building to investigate returned.
“Lord, I found out!”
“Who!? Tell me!” The group turned to face the returning black clad retainer.
“It’s, it’s that…Kagami…Kagami Lily!”
“What!!?????” The group was shocked!
Even Ibaraki Doji silently sitting in a corner raised his head underneath his cloak, eyes leaking a strange purple glow.
