Book 3: Chapter 105: The Decisive Battle

The temple had collapsed and surrounded both Lily and Amanojaku with raging flames which reflected Lily’s poignant beauty as well as the sheen of her blade.

Meanwhile, Amanojaku carried a ma.s.sive scroll on his back which was unproportionate to his height and even though he didn’t look that resolute, he was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with evilness, appearing much fiendish within the flames. His crimson eyes reflected the burning temple while Lily’s eyes reflected the merciful Buddha’s statue.

Killing Amanojaku was equivalent to granting mercy to the people of the world!

Lily didn’t see Kimiko getting murdered by Amanojaku personally, but she believed that Kimiko’s spirit hadn’t weakened because she had yielded to misfortune back then and was because of the selfless prayer she made for her beloved!

Lily had once seen such an expression in the past.

This was the reason she was unwilling to forgive this evil spirit who trampled on this prayer of true love!

“Whoosh!” Lily moved suddenly and although she wasn’t as fast as Amanojaku, dominant as he was, he didn’t cower at all and also charged towards Lily rapidly.

The scythe in Amanojaku’s hand was shrouded in rising eldritch power as it slashed towards Lily while she dodged the deadly edge of the powerful scythe by a hairsbreadth with elusive movements. She arrived at Amanojaku’s flank side after dodging the attack and executed a swift sword strike while running.

“Spurt!” Leaving behind a bloodied scar on Amanojaku’s left shoulder.

Amanojaku was over a hundred times stronger than an Awakened powerhouse and was nearly twice as strong as Lily! Although he wasn’t tall, he had very tough skin and flesh, but this didn’t mean that Lily’s Crescent Moon that had long reached the grade 7 couldn’t injure him. Although it was almost impossible to kill him with her katana, it was strong enough to injure him.

“How dare you?!” Amanojaku turned around and swung his scythe in rage but Lily jumped up and landed on his scythe’s blade, executing a backslash with her Crescent Moon.

“Spurt!” A bloodied scar opened up between the arch of Amanojaku’s eyebrows.

A rush of eldritch energy surged out from Amanojaku and he raised his scythe suddenly while Lily seized this chance to flip over to his back. Amanojaku spun his scythe and executed a large-scale backlash but Lily didn’t meet it with her katana frontally and turned around instead to strike down at the scythe and borrowed the counterforce to flip over to a safe distance.

Amanojaku lowered his head suddenly and leaped forward with extreme speed to stab his golden horn towards Lily.

It was clearly too late for Lily to respond with her lithe tempo, but she arched her waist back oddly and managed to dodge Amanojaku’s golden horn while swinging her katana up at the same time!

“Clang!” Although the blade failed to break Amanojaku’s golden horn after striking it, it was enough to make him feel dizzy and brought him intense pain as well.

Amanojaku lost balance and rushed into the burning debris because of this.

Meanwhile, Lily danced back and forth to release two crescent moons, one crimson and one white, towards the debris.

“Boom!” The wood chips and rubble flew across the sky as the flames burst into the sky.

However, a rugged flaming demon’s silhouette charged out of the flames and dashed towards Lily.

Amanojaku brandished his scythe like the wind as he spun his body around, bringing about a maelstrom of eldritch energy.

Lily, however, dodged its blade by a hairsbreadth, and followed the direction of its spin to kick at the back of Amanojaku’s head with her wooden sandals crafted from the Azure Dragon Tree, sending him back flying and rolling ten times inside the debris!

“You wretched b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲!!!” Amanojaku retook a battle stance, “Why am I unable to hit you when my power and speed are both higher than yours?!”

This was indeed the truth. Although Amanojaku’s power was higher than Lily’s and his speed was faster than hers, he still needed to execute relatively large movements to overwhelm Lily in terms of strength and needed plenty of distance to accelerate to Lily’s maximum speed. Meanwhile, Lily’s Tsukuyomi dance steps only required her to take pretty minor movements to achieve the best evasion result. Thus, even though Amanojaku was much faster than Lily, he still failed to land a hit on her.

However, Lily was cautious about the ma.s.sive scroll on Amanojaku’s back. It looked a bit heavy, and this made her wonder if he would’ve been able to demonstrate higher speed and mobility if it weren’t for it. Although its impact on the situation was limited, there was a chance that it might possess some threat to her and made her wonder why he was carrying such an item.

Amanojaku was overcome by rage. From times immemorial to the present, it had always been him who had bullied and killed humans and weaklings. Never had he got beaten so helplessly by a woman and this filled him with extreme resentment!

“I’m going to kill you, woman! Stop dodging like a coward and fight me fair and square!” Amanojaku attacked Lily madly with his scythe yet she moved lithely and dodged through them by taking steps around him with ease while counterattacking simultaneously. Amanojaku’s defense wasn’t that strong among the Permanence Stage powerhouses, so a dozen or so linked attacks from Lily had left him bruised with bleeding wounds, his strength waning subsequently.

Lily waited for an opportunity and turned around while holding her katana with both hands.

“Spurt!” And struck at Amanojaku’s nape.

“Argh!” Amanojaku rolled forward while covering his nape and his scythe also slipped from his hand. A terrible gash had opened up on the back of his neck with even the bone visible outside. Lily had almost beheaded him with this strike.

Amanojaku glared at Lily while enduring the sharp pain from his back with bated breaths as he tried to heal. It was his first time ever feeling the threat of death approach him.

He reached out with his hand and the scythe flew back to him, allowing him to catch it.

“I never expected to get forced into a corner like this by a woman on the night of my coming-of-age ceremony over my long course of life! I am Amanojaku! How dare you injure me like this?! How dare you?! Kagami Lily, I will tear your body apart into a thousand pieces in order to alleviate my hatred!”

The wound on Amanojaku’s neck was healing slowly as it wasn’t that easy to heal from the wound inflicted by a cursed katana.

Amanojaku adjusted his breathing and calmed down. The thousands of demons around the temple ruins could only dare to watch this level of battle from the distance and even Yuki-Onna spectated it from a distance to the side as she hated flames.

“Boom!” A rush of eldritch energy gushed out of Amanojaku’s body and the flaming spirit power illuminated the night sky, a several meter tall Golden-Horned Evil Spirit’s vague silhouette forming within the flaming spirit power behind him.

Permanence Spirit’s True Intent Manifestation! Amanojaku had ignited all of his spirit power to execute a finishing move!

No matter what kind of move it was, Lily wasn’t planning to face it frontally and had prepared for the worst, so she just waited solemnly.

“Heavenly Evil Spirit Lord—Descend!”

The golden horn on Amanojaku’s forehead flashed with a golden light and disappeared before appearing as a spike on the evil spirit’s head at the top of the scythe’s shaft. Amanojaku raised the scythe after that and all the flaming spirit power behind him got sucked in by the metallic evil spirit head.

“Die, Mirror Girl!”

Lily knew she had to surmount this move or else all that waited for her was death.

Amanojaku shot towards Lily like a flying arrow and spun the scythe in hand to make it spew golden flames, increasing the range of damage greatly!

Lily’s gaze turned decisive as she faced the mountain-splitting scythe accompanied by the evil spirit’s jagged maw. She resisted the fear of wanting to dodge this attack and calculated the locus of the scythe’s attack accurately and stepped forward to welcome it with a lithe and elusive tempo, dodging the fearsome blade of the scythe’s main body, but she ended up allowing some of the rising flames to hit her body.

“Boom!” The flames burned through half of Lily’s dress instantly and exposed half of her upper body and thighs outside. The powerful attack and the heat reduced gradually under the aid of her domain while expending 50% of her spirit defense, but she also executed a strike towards Amanojaku simultaneously.

“Spurt!” The blade sliced close to the unhealed wound on Amanojaku’s neck once again and left yet another terrible wound on the side of his neck, making blood gush out like a fountain.

The scythe in Amanojaku’s hand fell to the ground once again and the flames also dissipated subsequently. The prior move had exhausted most of Amanojaku’s spirit power, making him stagger back while clutching his neck.

The blood hardly stopped flowing as Lily’s cursed katana wasn’t an ordinary weapon and the grudge prevented monsters from curing their wounds with spirit power.

“Geh! Kegh!” The wound on his neck was so severe that it even affected Amanojaku’s speech and made his voice hoa.r.s.e, “You actually dared to attack the same region twice… geh… kegh… It’s you who forced me, it’s you…”

Amanojaku knew well his neck might really break if he received another strike to it and although Lily had expended a lot of spirit power as well, he wasn’t willing to take any risks again. He was able to feel that Lily’s spirit power was recovering continuously and even though he also had a spirit power recovery treasure, the wounds from the cursed katana were pretty difficult to heal.

Hence, he might really die if he takes another hit.

Although a monster as prideful as Amanojaku was unwilling to admit it, he knew very well in his heart that even though his strength excelled Lily’s, he was going to lose because he failed to see through her elusive footwork.

“You don’t have much time left to live, so why don’t you use that time to repent for your sins from back then?” Lily stated with cold eyes while pointing her blade at Amanojaku.

However, Amanojaku revealed a chilling smile even in this situation where his hands and feet were tied, “Hmph! I get why I’m unable to defeat you now, Kagami Lily. Perhaps you are really a chosen, and are qualified enough to force me, a member of the n.o.ble and formidable Golden-Horned Demon Tribe, into an impa.s.se, and are a talent who only appears once every hundred years. However, it’s a real pity indeed…”

“What’s a real pity? The fact that you are going to die today to repent for your sins?” Lily questioned.

“No, it seems like you’re still mistaken. Perhaps you’re really a heaven-chosen genius, but I’m afraid that your luck isn’t as good as your strength since I’m your opponent. Today is the day when a talented human samurai disappears from the world! Die, Kagami Lily!”

Amanojaku grabbed the ma.s.sive scroll on his back whose eldritch patterns shone under the light of the flames and pulled it open in his hand.

He just pulled a small section of it open, and an immensely brutal and ancient aura surged out from the scroll.

Lily felt a chill pa.s.s through her and shuddered from the depths of her soul.

Although she didn’t know what was inside that scroll, Lily felt an unprecedented threat of death at this moment!

Lily had once faced peerless Great Demons who possessed the means to end her with a single spell and also once faced Lord Kamakura, the apex existence who oversaw the East.

Although they were pretty powerful, Michizane hadn’t discovered her back then, so the possibility of him killing her was quite low while Lord Kamakura wouldn’t harm her since she was an ally. Although these Demon Lords, Great Demons and Lord Kamakura were powerful, Lily’s exceptionally keen intuition didn’t give her the feeling that she was in danger of death!

However, Lily experienced such a feeling in this moment as Amanojaku pulled the scroll open.

“Kagura, attack now!” Lily stated without hesitation.

“Eh? Now?”

“Do it immediately!”

Buzz!

A blood-reeking flux that almost reversed s.p.a.cetime shot outwards from Lily’s body and the skies in a 50 kilometer range were dyed in blood red suddenly.

A red-dressed Kagura manifested in front of Lily while carrying an overwhelming aura of eternity along with her.

The current Kagura’s eyes were dark and expressionless and her dress as hazy as mist. It was almost as if she had returned to the ancient battlefield with Suzuhiko-hime where just a single wave of her sword was enough to sunder the skies and earth apart and a single spell of hers was enough to summon natural disasters.

What Permanence Great Demon! They didn’t even possess the qualifications to act as foot soldiers on the battlefield back then!

Kagura rose high into the air with Brocade-Patterned Koi in her hand, accompanied by a sky-rendering sword light as she flew straight towards Amanojaku.

All things in the world seemed to slow down in this instant with only Kagura possessing the ability to move normally, and a ma.s.sive, nebulous, pink goldfish could be seen frolicking in the blood red night sky behind her.

Although the world had slowed down, only a split second had actually transpired!

Amanojaku didn’t even have enough time to pull the scroll open and couldn’t even see what was transpiring in front of him. All he felt was the sky turning red intuitively.

Yet Kagura’s blade had long reached him.

“Bzzt!”

The blade stabbed into Amanojaku’s heart with utmost accuracy and a one-foot wide hole appeared at the center of his torso which allowed others to see the scenery behind him through it.

The spirit jade protected by the Permanence Spirit in Amanojaku’s spiritual ocean as well as his tough torse which was unharmable by common blades got annihilated by the power of Kagura’s sword energy as if it had vaporized.

Amanojaku died without even realizing how exactly it had even happened.

The ma.s.sive, ancient scroll fell to the ground and the neat corpse of Amanojaku which didn’t even have blood flowing out from the huge hole in him fell to the ground straightly as well.

Kagura jumped up high into the sky and looked at the surroundings of the temple, feeling a little sad and reluctant to part with her current grandeur.

“There’s still some time left,” she muttered.

She cast the spell for Sanctuary silently and the ma.s.sive goldfish with a three-p.r.o.nged tail swam across the skies while spewing out a few red bubbles before vanishing into the night sky while flapping its tail.

The ma.s.sive bubbles shattered subsequently and transformed into a rain of blood.

All eldritch creatures inside and outside the temple that didn’t belong to her master, Lily’s side, vaporized under this rain of blood, leaving behind animas floating everywhere.

“It’s almost time,” Kagura muttered and closed her eyes, allowing her powerless body to fall from a high alt.i.tude.

Although Lily failed to see Kagura’s move just now, she was able to sense everything as her master, so she stepped forward quickly to catch the falling Kagura.

Kagura had just overexerted her strength and fainted temporarily, so Lily used the Art of No-Thought to teleport her inside the mirror to rest. She then looked at the ancient and unfathomable scroll beside Amanojaku’s corpse and stored it within the mirror as well while also taking Amanojaku’s scythe which had his golden horn at its metallic head in pa.s.sing.

Haihime walked over to this side while holding the Sakura Parasol after sensing the strange phenomenon in the surroundings.

She saw Amanojaku lying motionless on the ground with an incredibly smooth and circular hole left behind in his chest. He couldn’t have been any deader.

Haihime felt relief pa.s.s through her and kneeled down with tears gushing out of her eyes.