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The sword was akin to a shattered mountain and river, the earth portraying the sorrow!
Haihime’s sword was powerful yet utterly inharmonious with her looks, and also carried a strong sorrow and grudge.
“Clang!” The collision of blades gave rise to an ear-splitting metallic cry.
The reverberations of this cry traveled through Lily’s katana and made her experience a stinging pain all over her body.
“What a fearsome cursed katana!”
Since times immemorial, all the blades named after Muramasa in the Heian Empire ended up as fear-invoking cursed katana.
Even if the holder wasn’t a blade maiden, Muramasa itself contained cursed katana energy and grudge! Making a blade maiden who wielded a Muramasa blade a really fearsome opponent!
Lily got blown away and felt a stinging pain in her arm. It seemed that the katana’s grudge was traveling inside Lily’s body via the fluctuations.
“Why does a woman with so much resentment and grudge towards the world exist?!” Even Lily’s soul felt a stinging pain.
It wasn’t just her katana. Haihime’s sword-arts were also formidable and elusive like a phantom’s, yet they also packed such great strength!
Lily even felt that Haihime’s talent in the sword arts was no lesser than hers.
Lily really didn’t want to kill this woman deep down in her heart.
Lily couldn’t understand why such a talented blade maiden had fallen to become a defeated maiden instead of feeling pride for her matchless skills.
“I cannot let Kagura make a move until the last moment,” Lily decided internally.
The remaining Spirit Jade Stage Great Demons had also surrounded her now and each one of them possessed the ability to deal Lily a fatal hit. The suppressive effect of the Broken Mountain of Dreams also made it pretty difficult for Lily to dodge their attacks, and the punch a few moments ago had expended nearly 50% of Lily’s spirit power. Although she had replenished it, it was possible that her spirit power might fail to defend against some attacks.
“Surround this woman so that I can teach her a lesson!” Haihime ordered and brandished her cursed katana, sending out a mournful beam of aquamarine sword light accompanied by a thousand minuscule ripples towards Lily!
As Lily was in midair right now, it was pretty difficult for her to dodge, but she somehow managed to flip her body over and blocked this sword light forcibly.
“Bang!” She experienced a stinging pain all over from this reverberating blow once again and this block expended 90% of her spirit power!
“This woman is really formidable!”
At the peak Spirit Jade Stage, this level of base strength already far exceeded Lily’s, and Haihime also possessed the same twofold spirit power boost as her. The mirror fragment enhanced her blade maiden physique similarly and her domain also suppressed Lily’s domain. All these factors placed her strength on a much higher level than Lily’s!
Lily barely managed to land on her feet and leaped backward on the debris. Although she had enough anima, she needed to spend some time to recover 90% of her spirit power and couldn’t battle in midair rashly because of the suppression of her domain as she had suffered huge blows twice consecutively in midair.
“What’s the matter? Do you only have this much strength? What most talented samurai woman of the East, you’re just a weak little girl, that’s all. Surrender obediently if you don’t want to suffer pain and see how I deal with you, you hard-mouthed b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲!”
“Buzz!” Haihime unleashed a beam of sword light again.
Lily’s spirit power hadn’t recovered fully, so she was forced to roll on the ground to dodge it.
However, a huge, brown-skinned, mountain deity-like giant stepped its foot towards her at this moment.
“Dammit!”
“Bam!” Haihime leaped across and kicked the giant down.
“Didn’t I say that I’ll deal with her?!” Haihime assumed a charming and languid demeanor typically, but she was pretty intense and decisive when engaging in combat.
She charged towards Lily the moment she landed on the ground but Lily somehow managed to execute a swift strike towards her with the spirit power she recovered.
Haihime titled her body aside slightly to dodge it by a hair’s breadth and the blade just brushed past her sash.
“A pretty strike!” Haihime praised, “But it’s still lacking a bit!”
She then counterattacked with a half-spin strike and Lily retreated swiftly in response. However, a huge amount of grudge oozed out from Haihime’s blade and pounced towards Lily after taking the shape of a white tiger’s projection.
Lily was shocked by this development as she didn’t know that grudge could be used to unleash such a transformative attack!
She rolled on the ground to dodge the attack, but the white tiger ripped the hem of her kimono minidress apart and exposed half of her fair buttocks.
Haihime’s gaze landed on Lily’s exposed curves and commented, “Hmph! You might not deserve the reputation of the most talented samurai woman of the East, but you sure do possess a figure befitting the prettiest woman! Come, let this sister have a closer look!”
Haihime brandished her cursed katana and a grudge-manifested white tiger pounced towards Lily again along with a simultaneous attack from Haihime from the flank side!
Lily knew that Haihime was the real threat, so she clashed with her and this allowed the white tiger’s sharp claws to tear through Lily’s clothes, resulting in most of her clothes getting torn even though she used spirit power to defend against its claws.
Her shoulders and most of her breasts were exposed now.
Lily couldn’t fight while hiding her breasts with one hand, so she activated her domain and covered her important location with sakura petals.
Lily was drenched in sweat right now and her breasts heaved up and down intensely as well. Although she had exchanged only a few moves with Haihime, she had expended a lot of spirit power and physical strength, demonstrating the huge gap between her and Haihime’s strength!
She had her hands full with putting up a struggle and remaining undefeated.
Haihime used the same old trick and unleashed a white tiger again while launching an assault personally at the same time.
There was no doubt that Lily would get stripped down to the last article if this continued!
And she couldn’t allow this at any cost!
Lily unleashed her extraordinary talent at this moment when her dignity was on the line, and followed by the manifestation of a light column, the obsession within her cursed katana and her shame caused grudge to emerge from within it.
The projection of a white demon hound appeared from the edge of Lily’s blade and its size was no lesser than the white tiger’s.
“Kagami Lily! I have yet to thank you for allowing me to taste the blood of Hojo, my foe! Allow me to aid you in this battle!”
The white demon hound’s anima had remained within Lily’s katana until now and hadn’t undergone tempering or assimilation. Although this white demon hound possessed the strength of a high-ranked Great Demon, its strength had lowered greatly because of the hopelessly fatal blow that Hojo had delivered it.
However, the demon hound was still a dog raised within Fujiwara no Ayaka’s house! The true strength of its anima was no lesser than the grudge-formed white tiger unleashed by Muramasa.
The two equally-sized, grudge-formed beast projects fought against each other and collapsed almost simultaneously.
The demon hound’s anima hadn’t gone out to fight personally on this occasion. Lily had actually guided the demon hound’s will instead to produce a grudge manifestation via her cursed katana, so the demon hound’s anima hadn’t suffered any real harm.
“What?!” Haihime was also shocked by this, “Did you learn how to produce a grudge manifestation after only seeing it once or twice in this fight?”
“You’re really as unfathomable as Yumi mentioned! If my strength weren’t much higher than yours and you’re allowed to develop fully, it’s hard to say who would come out as the victor!”
Haihime rushed towards Lily directly while shrouded in an abundant amount of spirit power.
Each exchange between them caused Lily’s spirit power to almost bottom out, so she recovered it constantly using anima.
“Clang!” Haihime didn’t augment this attack with any additional force, but Lily felt her limbs weaken suddenly and got blown away in a powerless manner, her katana almost slipping out of her hand in the process.
“What?!” Drenched in sweat, Lily shook like a leaf as she sensed her spirit power’s recovery speed slow down! Although she had enough anima reserves, her recovery speed was becoming slower by the second and was unable to keep up with her consumption rate!
“Humph! This White Tiger Muramasa possesses the ability to curse the opponent’s katana along with the progression of the battle and seals its soul manipulation ability progressively! The more attacks the katana receives from Muramasa, the stronger the curse becomes! Kagami Lily, Muramasa will seal your blade maiden powers in the end!”
“So that was the case…” Lily retreated while fighting back, but she was surrounded by six to seven Spirit Jade Stage Great Demons and had no path left to retreat. This made her realize that she had severely underestimated the Land of Hundred Demons and that this Haihime, the acclaimed Queen of the Land of Hundred Demons, possessed a lot of tricks that she couldn’t even begin to imagine.
This made it clear to her that the truly exceptional Great Demons that occupied Kansai were much more dangerous and that their backgrounds couldn’t be underestimated at any costs.
She possessed all kinds of treasures, luck and talent, but it didn’t mean that the Great Demons that had existed in the Heian Empire for an unknown amount of time, as well as the other true geniuses, didn’t possess these things.
It was impossible to win this battle, but since she was battling an expert, Lily planned to treat it as a lesson and use it to hone her strength. This kind of deadly training produced the fastest results and was an exceptionally rare opportunity.
She couldn’t allow herself to become arrogant just because she had defeated two of the Furinkazan!
The depths of the Heian Empire’s darkness far exceeded her imagination.
Although Lily’s spirit power recovery had slowed down and she had exhausted her physical strength, she still revealed a strange smile.
This astonished Haihime as well, “This woman really isn’t simple. Why is she so calm when it’s certain that she’ll lose?”
Haihime accelerated the pace of her attacks in a fit of fury.
Lily couldn’t clash blades with Muramasa directly as this katana possessed an innate curse ability!
Thus, Lily was forced to dodge its attacks. Although her strength fell short of Haihime’s, her speed wasn’t that slower than Haihime’s, and dodging relied more on footwork than speed.
Lily dodged each attack of Haihime with impeccable footwork, so no matter how fearsome the curse was, it was useless unless it landed a hit!
Lily began to adapt to Haihime’s sword arts gradually and seemed to enter a state of no-self with a cloudy expression.
“What?!” Haihime was shocked by this as her attacks failed to reach Lily no matter what she did, and only managed to find openings after Lily attacked. Lily also didn’t intend to win originally and had almost renounced counter-attacking in favor of dodging.
Her black hair fluttered from side to side and the beams of aquamarine sword light missed Lily each time by the slightest step.
Lily’s evasion skills had unknowingly reached a brand new realm in this battle and surpassed the impeccable stage to reach the ethereal stage!
Haihime became impatient and slashed at her with force, but Lily dodged it with a hairsbreadth and launched a sudden attack by taking advantage of Haihime’s slipup that resulted from her giving up the offense.
This attack contained all her strength, “Sakura-Clad Moon!”
A crimson beam of sword light flashed forward and Haihime felt a shiver run through her when facing it, prompting her to retreat back desperately, resulting in the tail of the sword light brushing past her sash like before.
“Whoosh!” Haihime’s loose-fitting long-sleeved kimono parted from the front and her breasts void of chest undergarment were exposed resultantly, the two cherries on them entering Lily’s view momentarily.
Haihime covered her breasts with her sleeve hurriedly.
But she had no means to cover her lower body. The bottom section of the kimono also parted and revealed the mirror fragment that was actually suspended together with her leather undergarment that consisted of a vertical and horizontal strap running around her crotch.
“Huh?” Lily discovered that this undergarment which covered Haihime’s secret zone seemed to contain some kind of incredible power along with the mirror fragment and it seemed pretty hard to distinguish between them.
It also seemed to resemble something that Lily had once seen in the modern world a lot.
“Why though? Isn’t she Haihime? Why is she carrying such a thing and when did she bring it?”
Haihime became furious after realizing that her secret had been exposed and unleashed a beam of sword light to attack Lily almost frantically. Although Lily managed to dodge the sword light, she was unable to escape from its aftershocks. Lily consumed her spirit power continuously under the suppression of Haihime’s domain originally, and her cursed katana’s recovery ability wasn’t able to keep up with the consumption speed because of the temporary curse it was afflicted with.
“Clang!” Lily’s Crescent Moon got blown away because of the aftershocks of Haihime’s sword light and fell to the side powerlessly. However, Lily just stood where she was proudly with her head raised up and eyes closed, allowing the night winds to brush past against her tattered clothes and pretty hair.
Lily had expended all of her spirit power.
Haihime also revealed a content expression eventually and arrived in front of Lily while covering her body with her kimono with one hand and pressed her cursed katana, White Tiger Muramasa, against Lily’s fair and long neck.
“Tie her up, Itsuras!”