Above the dim skies, the white light turned into a silvery moonlight and drew a silver lunar glow around the area. Ripples spread like a wave of cicada wings among the billowing clouds.
The silver white moonlight stopped, it had instantly transversed thousands of meters in an instant, but suddenly stopped, so abruptly, yet lightly.
Under the rumbling clouds, stood a slender figure wearing a white feather robe glowing with a gentle moonlight. This was clearly an apocalyptic battlefield, the skies filled with ashes and smoke, but that heart shattering beautiful maiden standing in the skies was spotless clean.
Her appearance seemed to give this tragic battle-scarred world a beautiful poignant feeling. She was silent and lonely, yet her appearance made people hear the ethereal and high pitched heavenly war song!
Lily’s eyes froze.
Although the skies were covered in black clouds, at this moment, Tsukuyomi was the moon! Even if the clouds chased the moon, it couldn’t stop her radiance from shining on the earth!
Even if several hundred thousand heavenly demons from Yomi occupied the earth, it wasn’t enough to move her pride or aloofness!
At this moment, it was as if the world had stopped, she was the center of the world! She was the supreme god of heaven and earth!
Regardless of pain, Suzuhiko-hime stood up, eyes filled with piousness and nostalgia. She stared at that goddess as if looking at the moon.
“Tsukuyomi…Tsukuyomi…Takamagahara’s prime battle goddess1…she’s arrived!”
The celestial maidens, covered in wounds and bruises, all looked into the skies.
“Tsukuyomi, it’s the great goddess Tsukuyomi! Our prime battle goddess has arrived!!!”
Roar—!!!
Ripples flowed through the black tide covering the earth, that was the attack of countless demon gods of Yomi!
That gigantic one-eyed monster with a pitch black body like a flowing cape let out an ancient roar, and the black aura on its body converged shooting at Tsukuyomi.
That one-eyed monster was a demon god, and it glowed with compact black light before becoming a beam shooting at Tsukuyomi. The beam it had become contained enough force to pierce through the earth! Lily’s soul trembled as she saw that black light, what a terrifying blow. This power was beyond her understanding, but she could guess that this black light was enough to annihilate the entire city of Heian-kyo!
If she was brushed by that black light, she would probably turn to ashes.
But…
The prime battle goddess of Takamagahara didn’t react to the attack, though Lily couldn’t see Tsukuyomi’s expression, she could feel the contempt and arrogance she held toward her opponents.
“What? Such a terrifying black light, and she looks down upon it?” Lily exclaimed.
Suddenly, Tsukuyomi moved!
She blurred and her movements were like a silver thread cutting across the skies before flying towards the black beam. Lily saw a long white sword appear in Tsukuyomi’s hand, it was not a katana type sword of the Heian-dynasty, but an ancient double edged straight longsword!
The longsword pierced through the black beam easily.
Ziiip—! The silver line carved a line through the thousand meter long black beam.
Slash! The sky reaching beam twitched violently as bursts of black liquid spurted out.
In an instant, Tsukuyomi had slashed through the black beam and arrived at the giant one-eyed demon god’s chest. She lifted her other arm, on that slender perfect arm was a silver bracelet and transparent moonlike ribbons on her upper arms fluttered.
Fwish! A tiny white spirit moon appeared in her palm.
And then Tsukuyomi turned into a streak of light flying high into the sky, it was as if she no longer cared about the giant demon god.
The tiny spirit moon slowly entered the chest of the demon god, vanishing.
Boom!!!
The giant demon god exploded!
In an explosion of silver energy, the top half of the demon god vanished without a trace.
From behind Tsukuyomi, a giant crow with a wingspan of a thousand meters screamed and attacked. The scream shook the earth, that terrifying wingspan covered the skies, this crow was even bigger than the one that had attacked Kotona.
The beak that opened was wide enough to swallow several hundred thousand Tsukuyomis.
But Tsukuyomi was unmoving as she stood high in the air, she slowly turned her head as if slowly viewing a courtyard. From a distance, it looked like a small dot of light facing a giant ominous bird, such a huge bird could probably swallow a legendary creature, the dragon in one gulp!
Flash——
A silvery line flashed through the bird, Tsukuyomi had instantly pierced through the body of the giant crow.
Bang—!!! The giant crow exploded, giant chunks of meat fell from the skies, black blood poured the sky in multiple waterfalls.
All that was left of the giant crow was feathers floating in the sky.
“What!?!?!?! This…” Lily stared in shock. If such a ferocious bird appeared in the world right now, it could probably annihilate the entire Heian dynasty, what level of battle was this2!??
Tsukuyomi’s appearance had drawn the attention of all the powerful ancient demon gods and arch-demons on the battleground.
The giant snake maidens lifted their bows and shot meteor-like bolts at Tsukuyomi.
Quickly moving once again, Tsukuyomi turned into a silver line and easily flew past the bolts to the middle of the snake maidens. Two silver threads seemed to appear on Tsukuyomi’s feet, and with a beautiful rhythm, both threads unfolded and instantly split the skies, radiating a bright light, like a giant whip.
Lily managed to notice that the two light whips were coiled around Tsukuyomi’s bare feet.
The light whips slashed towards the snake maidens and easily passed through their bodies.
Pshhtt—Pshh——Pfftt——
The giant snake maiden bodies were slashed in two, and both halfs dropped to the ground spraying blood.
Suddenly, Tsukuyomi flipped her body over and flew down to the earth.
Her body spun, and the two light whips attached to her feet spun like bright blooming fireworks and instantly swept past a large portion of the battlefield.
Wherever the light whips passed, tens of thousands of demons instantly became ashes!
The clouds rumbled loudly in the skies!
The foot that had stomped several celestial maidens to death, came down again. This foot was big enough to dam a river, or crush mountains!
Boom——!!! The giant foot shattered the earth.
Tsukuyomi easily evaded the stomp, instantly flying up rushing into the dark clouds. Lightning and thunder rumbled through the skies as the clouds trembled. Soon the dark clouds were dispersed as a titanic evil ghost fell from the skies.
Boom!!! As the ghost impacted the ground, a new mountain range was created.
Below the mountain range, new cracks appeared and several giant eye monsters crawled out. From high above, Tsukuyomi descended and faced the monsters in the mountain range.
But even if it was all the monsters in the mountain range, so what!? Her one slash destroyed the lands. This battle goddess glowing with faint moonlight lightly slashed out a sword.
Crack—!!!
In the middle of the sky appeared a black crack transversing the skies. Tsukuyomi had not slashed the clouds, but space! With this one slash, several titanic monsters became ashes.
Suddenly, multiple terrifying black beams were fired at Tsukuyomi from behind.
With a weird movement, Tsukuyomi easily evaded them all and chose one black beam, hugged it and jumped, silver ripples underneath her feet.
Boom! Tsukuyomi had lifted a several thousand meters tall monster up into the air and spun. Crack!!! The giant black light broke in two as the monster howled in pain. That monster was then used as a projectile against the other titanic demons and the earth shook upon the impact.
From the clouds, countless black crows surrounded Tsukuyomi and covered her in dark clouds, but she moved unhindered, the silver line representing Tsukuyomi’s movements shuttled through the dark clouds effortlessly, killing any and all crows she met.
Beam after beam of dark light chased her as Tsukuyomi flicked and moved, easily evading between monsters. The longsword in her hand drew multiple black cracks in the sky, each burning in a terrible silver flame.
Monster after monster was vaporized under her sword!
The remaining three monsters tried to use their black beams to corral Tsukuyomi into a blind spot before sending thorns at her.
“Careful!” Lily tried to shout.
And then Tsukuyomi disappeared in thin air.
And reappeared on the head of one of the titanic monsters, the sword in her hand stabbed into its head, injecting ripples into the monster..
Boom! The monster’s body violently erupted like a sea of blood.
Before the other two monsters could react, the silver whips on her feet had wrapped around them.
Pfft—!! A two-headed monster had a head squeezed off, as its mountain head was ripped off, it erupted like a volcano.
There were countless demon gods and arch-demons attacking Tsukuyomi endlessly. However, that silver line easily weaved through all the attacks like a silver needle! Demon after demon fell, ancient monster after ancient monster was slaughtered!
It was as if nothing in this world could stop her!
Tsukuyomi, the prime battle goddess of Takamagahara!
Perhaps Amaterasu was the most powerful existence in this world, but Amaterasu’s powers and abilities were mainly used for maintaining the world, shining and benefiting all creatures!
Tsukuyomi on the other hand was cold, solitary, beautiful, and powerful, not only did she possess incredible battle powers, she was also a genius in combat!
She swung her sword and tore the skies.
When she despises, she destroys the soul.
She lights up the night skies, but destroys darkness!
Tsukuyomi, a sharp blade in the hands of Amaterasu, an ultimate combat power of the gods to maintain the balance of the world and to kill demons!
Ever since Lily had arrived in this Heian world, she had been blessed by the moon, trained in the powers of the moon, learned the swordstyle of Tsukuyomi, and felt the true meaning of the moon. But today would be the first time witnessing a true battle of the goddess Tsukuyomi!
Even in this apocalyptic world, Tsukuyomi was still so free and easy, she was so invincible!
Tsukuyomi, that was a truly invincible existence!
A burning yearning was in her chest…though this was only an ancient memory of her sakura parasol, the heroic appearance of the victorious goddess of war brought an incomparable shock to Lily.
“What heavenly path, what pray to the gods. If fate decreed disaster, then any and all prayers would only be in vain! Any weak hope will only sink oneself and companions even deeper into despair! If one day, I gain power like Tsukuyomi, will I have to worry about sister Rinne not waking up? Do I have to worry about my other sisters entering danger? Do I still need to pray to something ethereal and intangible and suffer disasters in return!?”
Instead of cluelessly looking for a direction and answer, would it not be better to just change the rules3? Even though, for the Lily of now, just climbing up the mountain was an incomparably difficult task!
“But, for sister Rinne, I can do anything!”
At this moment, a deep impression was implanted deep within Lily’s heart.
This Heian world was one where strength determined everything!
“I will wake you sister Rinne, even if it takes me to the day the sun and moon rise together, when heaven and earth coincide, then let me carry your soul and embark on this path of no return! If one day, I can no longer move forward, then I will not live in a self deceiving bliss, I will fall with you into eternal darkness4!”
