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There were a lot of powerhouses among the nearby samurai and some of the village’s native samurai and fishermen had also come to join in the fun despite lacking the strength to back them.
It was pretty much impossible to hide the information about the Biwa Palace’s opening with so many people present at the shore now.
“There are too many people. It’s quite unbelievable that so many of them have convened in Omi!” Shimizu was the type that liked the calm, so she felt a little uncomfortable, “Lily. What’s our plan if the palace really opens in a bit?”
“It’s best if we remain far from the front. We have no clue about the underwater palace and don’t even know where it is. It’s also possible that there are traps laid out inside it and we might land in danger if moving along with a large group triggers some kind of mechanism. However, it won’t do us good if we fall too behind, so it’s best for us to remain in the center and play it by ear once we enter inside the palace,” Lily suggested.
“I admit it’s safer to stay in the center, but the ones at the front might take away the treasure in that case1,” Shimizu stated worriedly.
“The real hunt might actually begin when the treasure is taken away, Sister Shimizu. It’s not like the treasure belongs to whoever takes it first,” Lily stated icily.
“What? Are you saying we’ll snatch the treasure from others?”
“It depends. If it’s a really incredible item, we have to make a move! All the samurai who are participating in this treasure hunt know this.”
“Lil’ Sis Lily… I never knew you had such a cruel side to you. What have you done to my kind and innocent little sister who’s stacked with motherly love usually?” Shimizu eyed Lily’s stacked pair as she said this.
“I’m not stacked with motherly love!” Lily turned away to hide her bosom, “I take mercy on the innocent usually, but the people who are here to vie for the treasure know that their lives are on the line, so I wouldn’t have even shown up if there was any room for mercy and modesty.”
“It’s exactly as you say!” The blonde dandy came over while pulling the married samurai woman’s hand, but the curly-haired woman’s expression remained the same even though he was holding her forcibly.
The blonde dandy was 180 cm tall, which was quite tall for a man of this time period. He approached Lily, but she stepped back before he could even say a word. However, he seemed quite experienced with women, so he continued talking from where he was, “How about allying with us, pretty ladies? There are two ladies on our side as well, so there’s room for trust between us and you. We can protect the treasure together and split it between us once we reach a safe region2. What do you say?”
“We refuse,” Lily stated coldly.
“Based on how you’re dressed, you’re from some eminent families, yes, ladies? It must be the first time you’re participating in a treasure hunt, am I right? Everyone shows a new side in the face of a treasure, there’s no room for courtesy towards women like in the cities where you reside. However, I, Yajiro, am used to such scenes and can protect the two of you! If you come under me and join my Samurai Women Legion3, you’re bound to stand out and rise above others. You just need to obey my commands and so as I request in exchange for the safety I provide you, and even the treasure will be easy pickings! However, I can handle 4 to 5 women at most because of my limited strength, and look, I already have two with me. You might miss the chance if you don’t hurry,” Yajiro hugged the married samurai woman’s shoulder to flaunt off in front of Lily and even though the woman looked troubled, she felt confused whether to reject such an approach.
Lily didn’t even feel like raging out at scum like him.
As the old adage went, the world revolves whether you want it to or not. Although Lily wished to spend time in peace, trouble always found a way to her. Lily saw that most of the nearby samurai were eyeing her breasts, thighs, front and behind with malicious intentions and even if Yajiro hadn’t come to harass her, someone else was bound to do it, which was the reason she didn’t feel like arguing with him.
However, Shimizu’s eyes turned darker when she saw the dandy bother Lily continuously.
She stood in front of Lily and pulled out the shining blade of her Tranquil Bamboo, which released a powerful black grudge from it.
“What kind of fun do you wish to have with my little sister, handsome boy? How about you have some fun with me instead? It’ll be a pretty novel and stimulating kind of fun and I bet you’ll enjoy it very, very, very much… How about it, handsome boy? Do you want to try it?” An eerie black mist seemed to swirl in Shimizu’s eyes and her voice also turned dainty.
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“Huh?!” The blonde dandy turned pale instantly and shuddered after seeing the icy expression on Shimizu’s face.
“F-Forget it… i-it’s too late anyw…” Yajiro pulled the married samurai woman and turned around to flee without even finishing his words and returned back to the lone kunoichi’s side.
Lily sighed in relief and looked at Shimizu with admiration. Sis is so good at dealing with men. She ‘persuaded’ that dandy with such a dainty voice,
“Scum! I swear you’ll have no manhood left to flaunt if you approach my little sister again,” Shimizu muttered.
“That man had weird hair, didn’t he, Sis? It’s my first time seeing a blonde man,” Lily changed topics wryly to soothe the mood since she felt a chill pass between her legs despite having nothing to worry over.
“It’s said that there are blonde-haired and blue-eyed outlanders from the south in the southwest port of Heian-kyo. Heavens know where they hail from, but they brought outlander items and steel cannons with them,4” Shimizu explained after regaining her normal expression.
“Is he a southern outlander, then?”
“No, it doesn’t seem like he is one. Although I’m not certain about it, he might’ve used some dye to color his hair,” Shimizu stated indifferently.
Lily shook her head when she saw Yajiro try to persuade the kunoichi and wondered whether the female practitioners who adventured outside in the Heian Empire were all fools.
A gale colder than usual passed by at this moment and the greyish clouds in the sky flowed faster suddenly.
The samurai’s garments fluttered across the wind as an ancient and unfathomable power emerged from the lake.
Lily removed the matters about Yajiro, the kunoichi and the married samurai women from her thoughts and looked into the lake while standing above a boulder on the roadside.
The other samurai powerhouses also looked towards the lake successively and saw a huge vortex form in front of the red torii gate built over the lake’s surface.
It was as if a large amount of water was being pulled away to form a funnel-shaped vortex.
This vortex was tens of meters wide.
“The Biwa Palace!” Someone yelled out.
“It really opened!”
“It’s been a thousand years! You only get such a chance once in a millennium! Let’s go!”
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“It’s open! Let’s go!”
The surrounding samurai raised a commotion, and a bunch of samurai took the lead to charge into the water.
The others became afraid of falling behind after seeing this bunch take the lead and rushed into the water one by one while making for the vortex. The samurai at the front had entered the deep waters by now and began to swim forward.
Lily looked all around in the chaotic crowd, but she failed to find Tenba Goro.
“What should we do, Lily? It seems like it has really opened.”
Lily felt an ancient and unfathomable power coming from underwater, so she was also of the opinion that Biwa Palace had really opened.
“We can’t wait for Brother any longer. Let’s go, Sis.”
Lily and Shimizu also ran alongside the group of powerhouses and entered the water. Although their speed declined a bit when they entered it, they weren’t actually moving at their maximum speed. They also weren’t worried that someone would snatch the treasure from the mystical underwater palace so soon as it was no easy feat to achieve that.
The two of them maintained the same speed as the others and also began swimming when the water level reached above their breasts.
Lily gave Shimizu one of the blue orbs, “Hold this inside the mouth when we dive underwater, Sis, it’ll allow us to breathe underwater!”
“Alright!” Shimizu took the blue orb.
A silver light flew across the sky suddenly and Lily was able to gauge that a silver thread had actually coiled around the torii from the nearby ship.
A tall and pretty samurai, a white-turbaned and white-masked gloomy man, and a girl dressed in an informal minidress jumped onto the nearly invisible thread and walked across it quickly to dash ahead of the swimmers at the front.
“How despicable!”
“Those b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲s̲! Don’t let them get ahead!”
A few samurai from the back took out bows and shot arrows at the trio walking across the silver thread.
However, the arrows missed their marks as the trio was too fast.
A group of 7-8 samurai dressed in red-lined white coats waded into the water from the ship at this moment and attacked the samurai who shot arrows at their lord.
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The water at the lakeshore was dyed in puddles of crimson as slaughter began in this contention for the treasure.
The situation had long spiraled out of control, and no one knew how the other would react, so they just focused on moving forward.
There were also some who killed the people they collided into or trampled underneath as they rushed forward.
Lily and Shimizu swam as far as possible to the side of the crowd in order to avoid getting drawn into the chaos as a few samurai had already begun vying against each other in the water.
Sakanoue no Tamurakonoe, Kiuchidera Tesshin and Ui, the three passed a lot ahead of the others by traversing across the silver thread and leaped onto the torii gate. However, a bunch of arrows and throwing knives shot at them the moment they stood side by side on it.
Nevertheless, it was impossible for such items to injure the trio. Although the trio didn’t move, the arrows and throwing weapons failed to hit them and just passed beside them. It was as if they had been influenced by some invisible power.
Ui retracted the kendama’s silver thread and spun around to launch the kendama’s ball out again, following which blood spewed out from the samurai who attacked them.
The dead bodies floating on the bloodied lake were pushed away by the samurai behind them.
Tamurakonoe and his companions leaped up again and jumped tens of meters forward to drop inside the vortex. They spun along with the vortex a few times and disappeared into it, making it impossible for Lily to see what happened to them from her position.
Lily felt a chill from behind at this moment.
A samurai woman who was swimming behind Lily had slashed at Lily’s legs, and since it was hard for her to dodge it in the water, she pushed her katana’s hilt back and blocked it with the hilt.
Shimizu stopped swimming when she saw this and executed two backward strokes to approach the samurai women before killing her with Tranquil Bamboo.
Although Lily and Shimizu weren’t at the front, it was plausible that some people believed the lesser competitors there were, the better it was for them.
The bloodiness, cruelness and brutality of the treasure hunt had far exceeded Shimizu’s imagination despite being someone who had been born in the land of the samurai.
“We need to be a lot more careful, Lil’ Sis Lily. The samurai have fallen into a frenzy of cruelty because of the chaotic slaughter,” Shimizu stated while moving up and down in the water.
Lily nodded and then pulled Shimizu’s hand to swim forward swiftly.
By the time they reached the edge of the vortex, it had actually expanded by a lot and become over 100 meters wide in size. Lily felt reverence fill her being when she saw this massive and deep funnel-like vortex.
However, this reverence lasted for just a few moments as a powerful attraction pulled Lily and Shimizu into the vortex.
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To those at the back, it looked as if the duo had disappeared from the water surface.
Lily and Shimizu were trying hard to prevent the pull of the water from separating their joined hands right now as they revolved deeper and deeper into the vortex. Both of them held the blue orbs inside their mouths before the water swallowed them5 thoroughly.