Book 3: Chapter 54: One vs. Three

Honda stabbed his pike towards Lily while Takeda stood on her flank. Tokugawa had also taken a battle-ready stance, so she was bound to get attacked on the flank as long as she attempted to evade Honda’s attack.

Faced with the golden-glowing pike, Lily didn’t choose to evade sideways and arched her body backwards instead to resist the tip of the pike with the blade of her Crescent Moon from below. She then pushed the blade sideways and borrowed its momentum to deflect the attack towards Tokugawa’s direction. Tokugawa was shocked by the turn of events and even though managed to adjust his stance and avoid stabbing him in the end, it did end up leaving him in an embarra.s.sing position.

Lily flipped back to evade Takeda’s katana and landed on the tip of the pike before striding across its arm towards Honda in three steps and giving a hard kick to his face, which made him stumble backwards.

As Lily stood on top of Honda’s pike, he was unable to counter her attacks.

“Huh?” Lily sensed that the aura of Great Bodhisattva Hachiman’s dharmic image floating behind Honda weakened a little at this moment and presumed it was because Great Bodhisattva Hachiman was the guardian deity of the Minamoto clan. As Honda’s current actions went against the chivalric code of samurai, his blessing had fallen by a little consequently.

A Buddhist Attendant was the mightiest when facing evil creatures like Great Demons, but they weakened when partic.i.p.ating in unfair battles. This aspect of theirs was unlike blade maidens who followed their heart’s desires and obsessions, doing as they please, but their weakness was that they were lone existences that rarely received blessings from external powers.

If Lily really were an inexcusable demoness, it would’ve been impossible for her to defeat Honda in this battle, but the Tokugawa was the real crook this time as the objective of this battle was to kill her and steal the treasure. Thus, Honda didn’t have the full support of Buddha’s unseen blessing in this battle!

A Buddhist Attendant had to act in accordance with the dharma after obtaining the blessing of Buddha or else they wouldn’t get the favor of Great Bodhisattva Hachiman!

Even so, Honda was still on par with the powerhouses of the Furinkazan, so proved a difficult opponent because of his innate combat talent.

Tokugawa’s flames were useless inside Lily’s realm, so he set the corpses of the hundreds of samurai and soldiers lying on the ground on fire and burnt the corpses of even his own subordinates into ashes and dispersed their souls across the snow-covered mound to sp.a.w.n a flaming sea momentarily!

“My lord! Why did you do that?” Honda grieved while watching the burning corpses of his deceased brothers.

“Our opponent is a blade maiden! Although we possess robust spirit power, we possess a limited amount of it, while she, on the other hand, will have an endless supply of spirit power unless we disperse the souls of the corpses! We must leave her no room to escape!” Tokugawa stated ferociously.

Tokugawa didn’t know that Lily had long vowed to never devour human souls.

Although Honda felt aggrieved, he couldn’t find any fault in his lord’s actions, but it was still too cruel a thing to do for him!

He raised his pike up to throw Lily off from it and she spun in mid-air deftly with the intention of landing on the ground, but Tokugawa summoned a sea of flames underneath Lily’s feet.

Lily manipulated her domain and created a domical s.p.a.ce void of flames underneath her feet with a wave of her katana, but Takeda and Tokugawa charged at her from her sides instantly.

It was hard for Lily to evade as she was stuck in an unfavorable position, so she blocked Tokugawa’s demon-headed cudgel with her odachi straightforwardly.

“Wham!” Lily’s hair and clothes fluttered against the resultant wind as Tokugawa’s heavy strike sent her backsliding across the snow-covered earth into the flames burning with the intense grudges of the corpses. The blizzard of sakura dispersed a section of the flaming attack, but they weren’t able to extinguish the source and ended up fanning the flames instead.

Takeda, on the other hand, ignored the flames and stepped inside them to strike at the back of Lily’s waist, thanks to his strong physique!

Although it looked like Lily possessed strength equal to the Furinkazan, she, in fact, possessed quite a weak defense, and getting struck by even a single strike of her opponents could lead to her death.

Evil energy!

Takeda’s strike didn’t just contain the might of a mountain, it also contained intense evil energy in it!

Takeda absolutely didn’t possess this in the past!

Lily had a feeling that the reason why Takeda had partic.i.p.ated in Tokugawa’s shameless plans—something that didn’t match his usual behavior—was because his will may have been afflicted with confusion after getting bewitched by the path of evil.

Lily stepped on the snow-covered earth firmly when she felt the gust of cold wind hit her back and performed a backflip to flip over the blade of the incoming katana and struck at an opening in Takeda’s armor after landing on the ground.

However, Takeda had already predicted Lily’s actions and though he didn’t manage to block it, he was able to shift his body slightly and avoid getting struck at the gap in his armor.

“Clang!” As a result, Lily’s katana ended up striking Takeda’s armor and produced metallic sparks.

Meanwhile, Takeda used this opportunity to slam his shoulder against Lily.

Lily’s delicate body was sent flying from the tackle and tumbled across the ground.

“Master!” Shiu, and even Yukiko, called out to Lily in desperation. Lily was able to contend in battle with three enemies on the level of Furinkazan all alone, so, in Yukiko’s mind, Lily long deserved to become her master.

However, this battle wasn’t one they could intervene in.

Honda perhaps still had some conscience left in him, but Tokugawa and Takeda didn’t give Lily a chance to recover at all. A wall of flames and maws formed by stalagmites attacked the fallen Lily in the next moment.

Although Lily possessed an abundant amount of spirit power, her body still felt fatigued and she also expended her stamina quite quickly. She rolled on the ground to evade the attacks, but Honda had also steeled his heart to eliminate Lily for his lord and smashed his pike down towards her.

“Bam!”

The shaft of the pike smashed right into Lily’s waist while she was rolling and caused the snow to float up from the ground.

This smash was by no means a light attack!

“Argh!” Lily screamed while spewing blood from her mouth and almost lost her mobility because of the momentary numbness from her waist.

Tokugawa rejoiced when he saw this scene, “Hahahaha! You’re done, Kagami Lily!”

He rushed towards Lily aggressively and showed no hesitation in smashing his ma.s.sive cudgel towards Lily’s head. With Honda’s pike still pressing down on her waist at the moment, Lily had no means to block his attack.

“Bam!” A blue shadow flashed by and kicked at Tokugawa’s head at this instant.

Although Yumi lacked strength, her sudden kick still caused Tokugawa to stumble and messed up his rhythm.

“How dare you!” Tokugawa shouted in anger and struck Yumi with his cudgel.

“Clang!” Followed by an earth-shaking metallic tremor, Yumi’s katana got shattered into pieces by Tokugawa’s strike and she was sent crashing through the dilapidated roof of the temple and tumbled down to the floor after that.

“Lil’ Sis!” Yukiko never expected Yumi would act in such a perilous situation where even she didn’t dare to act.

As Tokugawa had struck her quite heavily, Yumi spewed a mouthful of blood and lost consciousness directly.

“How dare you meddle in my affairs?! Since you’re so eager to die, let me end you first!” Tokugawa turned around and raised his cudgel up before charging towards her with the intention of giving her a fatal blow.

“Lil’ Sis!” Yukiko tried to stop Tokugawa, but she couldn’t catch up to him.

“Whoosh!” The shadow of a blade flitted by swiftly.

“Argh!” Tokugawa felt one of his feet slip and fell into the snow after losing his balance.

A sharp and exquisite tachi of unknown origins had pierced into the back of his ankle at this moment.

Although Tokugawa had a tough defense and had tight-fitting armor protecting his body, he still needed to move, so his heels didn’t have the protection of armor.

Lily got up from the snow with her head faced down, her expression hidden behind her pretty hair with one of her hands in the post-throwing gesture while the other still held Crescent Moon in it.

The blade she had thrown just now was Kagura’s katana.

Kagura couldn’t use this katana without a real body, so Lily withdrew it from the mirror in desperation and threw it at Tokugawa accurately.

“How dare you hurt my sister, Tokugawa Shigemori?!”

“Boom!”

Lily broke out in fury and the entire snow-covered plain was almost dyed in the crimson hue of her spirit power as she charged towards Tokugawa while ignoring Takeda and Honda.

Tokugawa pulled that tachi out hurriedly, but he was still unable to stand up as the muscles of his foot were wounded heavily and required time to heal. Thus, he turned over and raised his cudgel to block Lily’s attacks.

As for Lily, she unfolded a mad flurry of attacks while maintaining a cold gaze.

A few of the sword beams got blocked by the cudgel, but the remaining ones struck Tokugawa’s armor. Lily even ignored the increasing number of nicks that appeared on Crescent Moon and it almost seemed like she had become crazy after witnessing Tokugawa beat Yumi half-dead with his cudgel.

The surroundings were dyed red in Lily’s crimson fury and the blizzard of sakura in the domain turned increasingly harsher, so much that even the late-stage sword saints lost their footing inside the gale.

Even Tokugawa was unable to defend against the frantic strikes that landed on his armor and his armor had sunk and cracked in several locations because of the attacks while blood seeped out from the minute cracks of his armor.

Tokugawa’s eyes turned bloodshot and he became unable to see through Lily’s attacks, so he could only put up a desperate struggle, “C-Come help me quickly!”

Tokugawa really felt that his life was in danger this time and although he possessed a strong defense, he couldn’t just keep receiving Lily’s frantic attacks while lying on the ground like this.

The loyalty in Honda’s heart rekindled after seeing his lord in danger and he steeled his heart once again. The dharmic image of Great Bodhisattva Hachiman also became clearer and it glowed with a resplendent radiance.

“Stay your hand, Lynne! I won’t let you injure my lord again!” Honda was shrouded entirely in golden light as he rushed towards Lily and Takeda also attacked Lily with his Ko-Bizen Sanetoshi.

Lily got up with a roll while picking Kagura’s tachi from the ground in pa.s.sing and stepped on Tokugawa’s face suddenly before swinging Crescent Moon to the side.

“Clang!”

Crescent Moon and Kagura’s tachi—Brocade-Patterned Koi—blocked Honda’s pike and Takeda’s tachi respectively!

The impacting forces from both sides counterbalanced each other, so Lily was able to endure the attacks without moving even a single step. Blood seeped from the corners of her lips again, but she didn’t mind it at all.

Lily was ready to bet her life on the line if a sister of hers were in imminent peril!

“What?!” The spectators of the battle, Amari, Sakakibara, Sakai and the other generals were all left stupefied.

Lily had blocked Honda and Takeda’s attacks with a katana in each arm while stepping on Tokugawa Shigemori. This was an unprecedented feat in the East in this generation.

After all, she had stopped three Furinkazan-leveled experts all alone!

Amari quivered in excitement. He had already made up his mind to compose the legendary event in front of his eyes into a literary work and disseminate it to all of East. Such a grand, righteous and obstinate battle that disregarded life and death was bound to become the goal all samurai of the East strived towards regardless of the final victor!

Honda and Takeda were also shocked as they believed Lily had hit her limit already, but she had risked her life regardless of the danger and showcased deeper depths of her potential in order to protect her sisters!

It was impossible to defeat such an opponent unless you faced them with your life on the line!

Honda and Takeda had already realized this.

The two of them feinted an attack and forced Lily to retreat further backwards from Tokugawa, and they also retreated a hundred steps after withdrawing their weapons and gazed at Lily with respect.

Tokugawa also got up frantically and retreated to the side, but the crazy attacks from Lily had left him in a truly miserable condition. His face was covered entirely in blood and his eyes flashed with a steady yet brutal and beast-like killing intent.

Lily also panted heavily at the moment as she had exerted too much of her strength momentarily, but now that her anger had settled a bit, she lost strength in her thighs and fell to her knees instantly. However, she still remained tenacious and kneeled down on just one knee with the support of Crescent Moon with sweat dripping down her disheveled, cascaded hair constantly as she took deep breaths.

Honda, Takeda and Tokugawa aroused all the spirit power left inside them, and encircled Lily with dharmic, mountain and flame powers triaxially, the resultant aftershocks booming through the entire valley.

The three of them and even Lily knew that all of them were approaching their limits soon, so it would be pretty hard to decide the outcome in a normal manner. Thus, they needed to place their lives on the line in the next attack as it would determine who the victor was!