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CHAPTER 23 – BREAKING OUT OF THE ENCIRCLEMENT
Although the prince’s kindheartedness made Lily feel that there was still some hope for the imperial court in the future, she now worried that his benevolence would turn him into a puppet even if he were to become the next emperor during these chaotic times.
“Pardon, Prince.”
Lily infused the life-recovery magatama with spirit power and turned into a stream which flew towards the prince under her will and assimilated with his body slowly.
The prince’s wound thus recovered fully.
“You can use the remaining half to treat the wounded girls, Ms. Ijuin.” Lily opened her palm, showing the remaining half of the green life-recovery magatama to her.
“Sister Kagami
”
“We’re going to break out of the encirclement before dawn tomorrow. Please prepare for it, Prince.” Lily turned around to leave after saying her piece.
“Sister Kagami, I
” The blushing prince opened his mouth to say something to her, but she had left the room by then.
“Sister Kagami
” Prince Narinaga felt a sense of loss when he looked at Lily’s back and wondered internally, “Why is she so indifferent to me? Did I infuriate her?”




In a deep, dark cave on Mt. Ooe.
The creatures standing on top of the ten demon god statues all oozed terrifying auras.
“Hayabusa died.” Ibaraki Doji’s sharp voice reverberated through the spacious cave.
“Although Hayabusa ranks last among us in terms of strength, his strength isn’t that different from his brother, Aokiba. How could he die so simply? Does the court’s army have an expert within it?” A two-headed devil said.
“I already warned you that we mustn’t underestimate the court! Although Hayabusa died, it looks like he took a lot of generals and soldiers to the grave with him.” Ibaraki continued.
“Who was it?! Tell me. Who killed him?!” The blue haired Aokiba’s avatar appeared on the previously empty hand of a demon god statue. He looked outraged, as Hayabusa was someone who he had grown up with from childhood.
“Who else? It was Kagami Lily.” Ibaraki said.
“What?! It’s that woman again?!” Akahime also looked surprised.
Ibaraki raised his crippled arm and continued, “This woman has ruined our plans several times ever since she had made an appearance. She was also the one who hindered us from getting our hands on Ayaka’s weakness. It’s the same this time as well. The human army would have suffered greater losses and retreated in defeat if it weren’t for her.”
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“No wonder Lord Shuten attaches so much importance to her. I’m afraid she will continue creating trouble for us unless we kill or capture her!” Akahime said.
“I’m going to kill that woman! I swear on it!” Aokiba said in rage1. “Please tell me where she is, Lord Ibaraki! I must kill her at all costs!”
“You and Touko haven’t been able to capture a mere sword miko like Uesugi Rei even though you’ve been pursuing her for so long now and you want to go kill Kagami Lily?” Ibaraki said icily.
“Well
 she’s craftier than we imagined. Please let Touko continue the pursuit. I wish to avenge my brother!”
“Shut up!” Ibaraki said fiercely, “Lord Shuten has ordered us to consolidate our forces and capture Uesugi Rei first since she escaped in our direction!”
“Hah? Consolidate our forces?” Lord of Mt. Hiei asked in doubt, “Is it necessary for us demon enforcers to consolidate our forces just to deal with a mere sword miko? One of us should be enough to deal with her.”
“Although one of us is enough to deal with her, Lord Shuten wants to make sure there are no mistakes this time because she’s crucial to the lord’s plans! We can’t tarry any longer and must capture her at once!” Ibaraki looked at the other demons and said, “Continue pursuing her with Touko, Aokiba. I, Akahime, Lord of Mt. Hiei, Soto-no-Oni, and Pakuzan will act simultaneously to make sure we capture her once and for all this time!”
“What?! You want half of us to act just to catch her?” Soto-no-Oni voiced out in surprise, his two heads shaking at the same time.
“Lord Shuten ordered it. Wise as he is, I’m sure he must’ve had his reasons for giving such an order! Stop quibbling now!”
“What about my brother’s death, then? Are you not going to do anything about Lily even though she has killed one of the demon enforcers?” Aokiba shouted grudgingly.
“Lord Shuten said that catching Uesugi Rei is equivalent to catching Kagami Lily2! We must do our best to fulfill the order so that the lord’s plan succeeds!” Ibaraki said.
“All right!” Even Aokiba did not dare to go against Shuten’s orders.
“Let’s do it, then. I can’t wait to see what Lord Shuten actually has in plan.”
“Rawr!”
The fearsome words and growls of the archdemons echoed across the cave as violent eldritch energies filled it, making it shake without end.




Around three in the morning.
The 300 strong Tsunaga sisters had all assembled in the open field in front of the temple.
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Ijuin walked in front of them and said, “The Heavens are in chaos, my dear sisters, but we Tsunaga sisters have ne—Mmf!”
Lily covered her mouth and hinted her to stop speaking.
The sisters looked at Lily in succession. Although they knew the plan to break out of the encirclement of the monsters, they still felt hesitant about executing it.
Lily waved her hand and summoned Kagura, as well as the demon hound, beside her.
“We’re about two hundred kilometers away from the court’s army, girls. I hope you will follow me to make it out alive from here.” Lily said calmly and flipped over the fence to jump down the cliff.
“T-This woman
” Ijuin clenched her teeth and followed after Lily.
The hesitant Tsunaga sisters followed after the duo when they saw Ijuin jump down the cliff as well.
Although the cliff was pretty steep, the Tsunaga sisters were all in the Awakened or above levels, so climbing down the cliff was not a difficult feat for them.
Lily had already cured the heavily injured Tsunaga sisters by offering them a bunch of life-recovery magatama.
Although life-recovery magatama were rare, Lily still had dozens of them on her. These sword mikos, jade maidens and mirror girls were like her own, so she could not just ignore their injuries.
It was just that even though Prince Narinaga was a 3rd-stage Awakened thanks to the nourishment of the magatama, he had never trained his entire life and lacked the control required to descend the cliff. As such, he actually had to be carried down the cliff on Kasuga’s back.
Lily made the demon hound explore the path ahead of them, as it was useless to have the demon bird scout the unilluminated land while it was still dark.
The group of 300 people moved down the narrow, uneven mountain path, forming a line that was hundreds of meters long. Lily was at the front of this file, so it was difficult for her to keep watch over all of them.
This was the reason she told Kagura to guard the back of the line while she guarded the front to ensure everyone’s safety.
The steep descent was not much trouble for Lily, so she glided down gracefully while making no noise.
A group of blue demons were resting around a fire on the slope ahead of Lily. She could have detoured around them without getting detected if it was just her alone, but it was impossible to do that when she had 300 people in tow.
A blue demon got up and strutted towards Lily under the curtain of night, his eyes flashing red.
It seemed like he had discovered something and stretched his head forward to look around.
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Although blue demons were born with sturdy bodies, they could not use arcane arts like spirit probes and could only rely on their instincts to sense their surroundings. This was the reason they were highly perceptive against the odors of blood and humans.
It looked like this particular blue demon had caught the scent of a woman, which prompted him to climb up the slope.
“Woof!” A white shadow pounced out of the shrubs and bit into the blue demon’s neck, turning him into a corpse.
The other blue demons stood up immediately and made towards the demon hound at once after hearing the noise, but Lily leaped forward and landed in front of them to bar their path.
“It’s a woman!” A blue demon yelled, but Lily had already arrived behind them after turning into a flash of crimson.
Spurt!
Blood sprayed out of the cuts that opened up on the blue demons, and their corpses collapsed to the ground powerlessly.
The clash had alarmed the entire mountain, though.
“Rawr!” The demons and monsters within the woods howled while unleashing their eldritch auras.
“Attack!” Ijuin pulled her blade out of the sheath as she commanded the Tsunaga sisters, making them speed up their descent3.
Lily used a spirit probe to detect the position of the enemies now that she did not need to hide anymore and took out the map to decide which direction to flee in. “Over here!”
Lily rushed towards a certain direction in the woods, and the Tsunaga sisters followed behind her closely.
The monsters conveyed the information about the Tsunaga sisters’ escape to their allies and gathered their forces on this side of the woods.
“Caw!” A strange shout echoed throughout the woods, followed by the appearance of a multi-tailed, two-winged monster which swayed its barbed tails over the path ahead of Lily.
Although this monster had the body of a bird, it actually had a strange, human face with indistinguishable features, and just had two glowing pupils in its pitch-black eye sockets. Its colorful features also looked like whiskers, making it look really bizarre.
Lily had never seen such a monster until now and presumed that it was a local creature of Tanba.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The monster’s tail became longer and faster as they stabbed towards Lily while its other tails attacked the sword mikos behind her.
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Swish!
Lily swung her blade and severed the monster’s barbed tail into two with a white sword beam, the lunar force running through it making it sharper at night.
She then dodged the next tail that headed towards her with swift movements.
There was still another barbed tail heading towards a sword miko, though.
The sword miko tried to block it with her blade, but the barbed tail wound around her waist and hurled her up into the sky.
“Kyah!” The sword miko cried out in fear.
The sounds of ruffling leaves arrived from beside at this moment, and gigantic spiders with glowing runes on their heads emerged from the woods to swarm the Tsunaga sisters.
The sword mikos and jade maidens were experienced in battle, so they fought their best and attacked the spiders heading towards them with their blades and spears.
Lily fired several fireballs from her fingertips4, turning the monster bird in front of her into a flaming bird. However, the fireballs failed to kill it in spite of injuring it heavily, which meant that its tail was still winded around the sword miko’s waist.
Lily willed sakura blades into the world and made them slash the same spot on the monster’s barbed tail, severing it into two. She then jumped several meters high and arrived in front of the monster.
A crimson sword beam flashed forward as Lily finished swinging her blade, and severed the monster’s feathers, flesh and spirit jade, killing it in one move.
As for the sword miko, she got wounded from dropping to the ground.
“Sis!” A mirror girl who wielded a Shinto wooden wand and was dressed in the robes of a priestess ran forward and helped the sword miko stand up before tagging along with her.
References
Robinxen: Is this our next midboss?Robinxen: So this is known?Robinxen: Brute force always work. Stealth is optional.Robinxen: I forget about magical arts in this setting so often.