Translation: DarkHeartedAlchemist
Editor: Weasalopes

I logged in around 5:30 AM.

When I got of the tent I could see the Meikira statue coupled with the sounds of the people clapping their hands together in prayer.

Good morning.

Immediately I summoned Bunraku and proceeded with breakfast preparation while I searched through the external links.

The keyword I am searching for is Labyrinth.

It picked my interest, so I want to learn more about it.

Twelve Heavenly Generals, huh?

Man this game sure likes to borrow heavily from Buddhist terminology and throw it into the already chaotic mix and I don"t know whether on not I should be happy or concerned about it.

But if that is the case, then there should be other Buddhist beings beside Meikira, right?

Or at least I would like it to be so.

It would be pretty swell if the players could fight against the other Heavenly Kings beside Bishamon-ten.

Once the breakfast was done, it was time to organize myself.

How should I proceed through the day today?

I think I will leave Bunraku as she is.

Obsidian also might be a good choice for the early enemy detection.

What about the front guard?

Goki and Creep should do the job nicely.

And Ninetails will go to the rear guard.

Now that that"s done…

I can challenge Meikira at any time.

For now my priority should be searching.

I check my spells to be sure that I have everything ready and then I take a look at my magnetic compa.s.s.

Which way shall I proceed?

The branching road to the north?

Or perhaps the one that leads to the south?

Well, all in all, whichever I will end up choosing it should be okay.

With that said, might as well go north.

I wonder what"s going to wait for me there.

As I was making my way forward, no monsters came out to attack me, which was admittedly somewhat creepy.

I have arrived at a hall with a statue in the middle.

If I come too close to it its going to trigger an event, so for now I"m looking at it from a distance.

It is somewhat similar to the statue of Nioh, but the armor it"s wearing is very different.

Also, it has a sword in its right hand.

I strengthen myself and my monsters with spells.

My weapon of choice are my trusted dual wielded Tonfas.

Oh, that"s right.

I also need to set 【Dismantle】on.

Okay, now that everything"s ready, let"s do this.

《Heavenly Punishment to those who break the seal！》

《For your transgression, may you find mercy in death！》

《You who dared to break the ancient seal！》

《Show me your power！》

Yeah yeah, I heard those lines already, so I don"t even bother to listen until the end, taking my combat stance as the enemy begins to move.

When the statue came to life, a magic circle appeared on the ground next to it.

All right let"s see what kind of support are we dealing with now.

Mekira Lv2

Heavenly General  Target Subjugation Active

Battle Position: Ground  Lava Attribute

h.e.l.lhound Lv6

Monster  Target Subjugation Active

Battle Position: Ground  Fire Attribute  Dark Attribute

Good thing I"ve done my research beforehand.

The enemy"s name was written with the characters for [Basara], but the name itself is read as Mekira.

According to my information, it should be roughly the same as Nioh in terms of power.

And by the way, Meikira from yesterday had its name written with the characters for [Mekira], without any different readings.

Kinda like [Chimera] only backwards.

And as for the h.e.l.lhound, it"s just a big black flaming dog.

All right guys, you go take care of the h.e.l.lhound while I"ll have my time with Mekira over here.

As I come closer to it, it follows me with its eyes.

Its gaze is filled with so much killing intent that it looks like it might start spewing fire from them at any minute.

It swung the sword in its hand around, clearly showing off, but admittedly looking kinda cool.

If that"s how you want to play then fine, I"ll play along.

I equip the Tokko and apply Water Magic to it, making its blade shine with a bluish-white hue. I also swung it around me as it made sounds similar to those of lightsabers from that one popular movie series. How about that, huh?

Pretty swell, if I do say so myself.

All right, that"s enough playing the better weapon contest.

Now we are both fighting with swords, but a drastically different ones. His was bigger and broader and it probably packed one h.e.l.l of a punch, but that means I should have the speed advantage.

It won"t be easy, but I think I"ll be able to manage.

We exchange a few attacks.

Not only is this guy powerful, but he"s also quite agile.

His defense has very few gaps that I can safely exploit.

Even when I try to get tricky myself, my own attacks seem to be missing him by a hair"s length.

If this is how good he is, then I shudder to think how tough he"s going to get when he"ll start using his Lava Attribute.

Let"s test him out a little more.

Worst case scenario, I"ll just have to defeat him with simple, brute force.

Wes lashed at each other a few times more, and it soon became apparent that simple swordsmanship will bring me nowhere.

Looks like I"ll have to resort to molesting my enemy"s weak points as usual.

I made a backstep and used that short moment to equip my left hand with a Tonfa while my right hand continued to grip Tokko"s hilt tightly.

I jumped towards Mekira and pinned his elbow to the ground where I swiftly switched to an elbow joint lock, but I wasn"t able to break it.

So next, I grabbed his arm and threw it over my shoulder.

It was a modified version of the basic throw, the one that aims to inflict the most damage possible to the opponent"s back as it hits the ground.

I certainly could have done that better, but I have achieved what I wanted to do.

Judging by the sound, his elbow should be broken, and he also let go of the sword he was holding.

Not letting such a chance go to waste, I jumped on this other hand and  locked it in a Cross Arm Breaker, only to be thrown off of him and send into the air.

How do I describe this?

Well, the sensation that my body was flowing was truly amazing, as painful as the actual landing was.

Even with one of its elbows broken, he still had so much strength left in him.

Great.

This enemy is truly great!

Finally I can have a good battle where I have to constantly think outside the box instead of running on autopilot as I tend to be doing with weaker opponents.

Usually when I throw them, they tend to not go back on their feet, but he managed to exceed my expectations by keeping his ability to fight.

I tried to throw him again, but unfortunately it looks like the same trick won"t work on him twice.

He grabbed his sword with his other hand and repelled me, but since he has only one working arm to work with I managed to disarm him with my Tonfa and pin his other arm behind his back before I attempted another throw.

This time I was able to execute it properly, beautifully even.

That was clean as heck!

A perfect overhead throw which slammed him into the ground again.

With him being incapacitated like that, I squeezed my legs around his neck, not letting go until it was all over.

Man I"m glad I chose that fighting method over using magic. The satisfaction from beating him this way is that much greater.

What about the h.e.l.lhound?

Currently Creep is wrapping himself around his neck.

The black dog has many arrows sticking out of his back.

He tries to shake Creep off himself by rolling on the ground but it does little to help him in his current predicament, because every time creep is being damaged, Ninetails is using his healing skills to patch him up back to full health.

In the next moment he was a.s.saulted by a barrage of axe swings from Goki and a series of painful-looking tackles from Obsidian.

Faced with such overwhelming violence, the h.e.l.lhound quickly fell to the ground, utterly defeated.

Also, I don"t know if I should say it, but I feel kinda sorry for him.

That pity, however, soon disappeared when I realized that neither h.e.l.lhound nor Mekira left any items after the fight was over.

At this point I don"t know if it"s actually worth anything to keep getting angry or whether I should just accept it as my fate and move on.

《You who have dared to break the seal!》

《We congratulate you on your victory!》

《Overcome more adversities!》

《Go and prove your power further!》

That was another piece of information I managed to dig up.

This time I listened to the event message carefully to confirm if I was right.

Yup, that"s exactly it.

So far everything"s checks out so there"s no problem.

In the hall I was currently at there was a side path.

It probably leads to another hall with the next statue encounter.

It would be nice if I could challenge whatever is waiting for me there while my buffing spells are still active.

With that in mind… gotta go fast!