Demon Sword Maiden

Volume 12 - Yomi-no-kuni: Chapter 228 - Slaying Supreme Gods

Lily’s strike had been precise and merciless. Infused with the Silver Lunar Force, the blade did not kill Lord Umashi in a single blow, but the unleashed silver energy surged violently through his spiritual sea. The boundless divine power within was steadily erased. Though some of the silver force was consumed in the process, the loss was minimal compared to the devastation it wrought.

“Ahhh!!!” Despite being decapitated, Umashi’s severed head still maintained a connection with his soul. His floating head glared with all four eyes, filled with agony and disbelief.

“Brother Wakarai, help me…”

Lily’s sword strike had destroyed nearly forty percent of Umashi’s divine power and even injured his Divine Spirit Crystal. Although Umashi immediately activated several of his most precious treasures in an attempt to heal, the Silver Lunar Force continued eroding his power. While he struggled to recover, his remaining energy dwindled. What was left, barely over twenty percent, continued to slip away.

With his divine power nearly exhausted and his spirit core wounded, Umashi’s strength plummeted to less than a tenth of its former level. He no longer had the ability to fight Lily. Regret consumed him. If he had known the consequences, he would never have attacked her for the sake of treasure. But it was too late now. All he could do was cry out for Wakarai.

Wakarai, meanwhile, had been struck by the golden rings. His once-handsome face was swollen and bruised on one side. Fortunately, the rings contained no lunar force, and he was using divine energy to heal. But his rage twisted his expression further, making him look even more grotesque.

“Stop, Kagami Lily! You cannot kill him!” Wakarai shouted.

Another of Umashi’s close allies, Masen Sonshu, opened his grotesque mouth full of pustules and glared at Lily with six eerie green eyes. “Kagami Lily, stop this now! If you do, we can still talk. At worst, we’ll capture you and make you a slave. You’ll still live in comfort, once we’re done playing with you, of course. But if you dare kill Lord Umashi, then when we finally capture you, we’ll subject you to every cruel, terrifying punishment in all of Yomi! You’ll live every day in despair…”

Lily raised her sword and, without hesitation, brought it down again. The blade sliced through Umashi’s ruined body.

Though his divinity remained intact, his spiritual sea had collapsed, and his Divine Spirit Crystal was shattered. Life fled from his form. Blood sprayed forth as his divine power disintegrated. Umashi’s body crumbled into ash and scattered into the darkness.

Lord Umashi was dead. This was the first Supreme God Lily had personally slain in the truest sense.

“Damn her…”

“Kagami Lily… you vile woman…”

Though many Supreme Gods had surrounded Lily, they could only watch as one of their own was slain. Even the high-ranking gods of Yomi were momentarily cowed by the display.

Suddenly, a strange and sinister wind rose… it was Kunhiza, one of the top three Abyssal gods. Lily’s public execution of a Supreme God had triggered an unspoken taboo among the gathered divine beings. Abandoning his pursuit of Ayaka, Kunhiza moved personally to strike Lily down.

Lily wasted no time. She swiftly gathered up Umashi’s Divine Spirit Crystal, his divinity, and his scattered treasures before leaping skyward. Kunhiza was known for his cunning and deceptive methods. Lily dared not underestimate him.

“You go too far, Mirror Girl Lily!” a thunderous voice roared, shaking the entire battlefield as Kuroyodai’s colossal hand descended from above. A massive palm print, spanning ten thousand meters, surged downward with the fury of the heavens, crashing toward Lily.

“Not good!”

Several Supreme Gods who had been preparing to attack Lily were forced to retreat to avoid getting caught in the devastating strike. But as they withdrew, they blocked every possible escape route around her.

“Lynne!” Queen Kaguya cried out, filled with panic.

“Don’t come!” Lily shouted back. With no path to evade, she recalled Oborozuki Muramasa and gripped the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi in both hands. The sheer pressure of the descending palm distorted the very air, threatening to crush the space itself. Terrifying as it was, Lily believed she could meet it head-on with the power of the divine sword.

“Lily!”

In a flash of dark energy, Shimizu appeared in front of her. But this time, she wasn’t beneath the palm, she was above Lily, placing herself between her sister and the oncoming strike.

“Sister Shimizu? That’s too dangerous!”

“Hmph. Dangerous? To me, it looks delicious.”

Like a shadowed flower petal soaring into a storm, Shimizu rose to meet the colossal palm. Then, the ancient jade at her chest began to glow, releasing an eerie pull. From within the palm’s immense form, black mist began to pour out, drawn toward the jade at an alarming speed.

“What!?” Even the ancient Kuroyodai was shaken.

Before their eyes, the terrifying strike, the colossal palm meant to obliterate, rapidly thinned. Its immense dark energy drained away into the tiny piece of jade. In moments, the entire hand faded into nothingness.

The strike landed squarely on Shimizu, but by then, it had been reduced to nothing more than a gust of forceful wind, sending her long hair fluttering.

“What… what just happened?!”

Not even the Imperial Princess, who once ruled over the Boundless Abyss, possessed such a bizarre power. How could this imposter?

“What did she do?!” Even Kunhiza was left dumbfounded.

“To absorb dark energy? True, there were some rare artifacts in Takamagahara with that ability, but to swallow half the sky’s darkness in an instant…what kind of method is this?” Wakarai stood frozen, seemingly recalling something. His eyes widened suddenly, though one was already swollen and misshapen. “Could it be… No, it’s impossible…”

Though he couldn’t believe it, Wakarai had an inkling of what the artifact might be.

Still, he said nothing. If Lily wielded the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, he had no hope of seizing it himself. But if the artifact Shimizu carried truly was that one, and he alone knew of it, he might be able to catch her off guard and take it.

Besides, his hunch was only a suspicion. He couldn’t be sure.

Though the energy from the palm strike had been absorbed, the colossal hand still came crashing down. The sheer force alone remained terrifying.

Lily unleashed a full-powered strike.

Shimizu didn’t even glance upward, treating the attack as if it didn’t exist. A massive arc of silver moonlight soared over her head. Their coordination had long since reached perfection; Shimizu’s surrounding dark energy even concealed the motion of Lily’s attack.

The blade beam, over ten thousand meters long, cleaved into the gigantic palm.

Kuroyodai recoiled, drawing his hand back. A gash several dozen meters deep was carved into his palm. But for a hand a thousand meters thick, it was only a surface wound.

The power of the Kusanagi’s long-range energy slash was formidable, but it was still energy, not the blade itself. Against normal Supreme Gods, this would have severed limbs. Against Kuroyodai, it barely scratched the surface. His body was simply too massive.

Even so, the sting from the Silver Lunar Force enraged him. From his massive eyes, beams of divine light shot straight at Lily and Shimizu.

These were not beams of darkness, so both women quickly dodged to either side.

Unwilling to give up, Kuroyodai opened his enormous maw and unleashed wave after wave of dark pulses. The surrounding Supreme Gods all scattered to evade. Wherever the pulses passed, any demon below the Throne or Big Dipper stage who failed to escape was instantly reduced to ash.

“Foolish.” Shimizu stood at the epicenter of the onslaught. The colossal waves, each tens of thousands of meters in diameter, began to twist and spiral toward her chest, absorbed by the ancient jade embedded there.

“Kuroyodai!” Kunhiza shouted. “That false Princess may have some means of absorbing dark energy! Don’t strike her from a distance with it!”

“What?!” Kuroyodai’s voice trembled in disbelief. “There’s truly such a method in this world?”

Though Shimizu had absorbed a massive amount of dark power, there was no time to refine it. Instead, she channeled all of it into Murasame-Anko and drew her blade.

A single arc of pitch-black energy tore through the sky and slammed into Kuroyodai’s mountainous chest, sending him staggering backward. Though the wound wasn’t severe, the fact that his own dark power had been used against him enraged Kuroyodai to no end.

“If I can’t reach you, I’ll crush Herikaku City!” Kuroyodai, unable to catch Lily and Shimizu due to his size and weakened state, turned his wrath elsewhere. He slammed his palm toward the city.

If the city’s defenses were still intact, it could have withstood the blow. But now, the city was just a sturdy stronghold with its protective formations shattered. Even if the outer structure held, how many Celestial Maidens inside could survive such a blow?

Nanako was still inside… and she was only at the Throne Stage!

As the massive palm descended on Herikaku City, Lily knew she could not sit idly by.

“Stop!” she cried, unleashing her speed and flying toward the massive arm. But Kunhiza sent out countless shadowy serpents to ensnare her and block her path.

Shimizu struck at Kunhiza with a sudden blow, forcing him to redirect his attention and defend himself.

Lily arrived in front of the enormous arm but didn’t know how to stop it. She lunged forward and slashed at one of Kuroyodai’s fingers.

Despite his size, each inch of Kuroyodai’s skin was as durable as any other Supreme God’s. The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi sliced into his finger, leaving deep gashes. But even this could only create wounds several dozen meters long on a finger hundreds of meters thick, it wasn’t enough to sever it.

Realizing she had no other choice, Lily pushed herself to the limit, unleashing dozens of slashes in rapid succession. Each cut layered upon the last, forming a compound attack.

With a sharp crack, one of Kuroyodai’s fingers was finally severed!

Though a severed finger was only a minor injury, the pain was excruciating. Kuroyodai howled and pulled back his hand, abandoning the strike on Herikaku City.

“Kagami Lily!” he roared, forming a fist and hurling it toward her.

The punch carried astonishing force, but Lily managed to evade it. She turned into a blur, flashing to the side with incredible speed.

But at that very moment, a towering figure stepped into her path. He stood over three meters tall, his massive frame built like forged steel. Before she could react, his fist shot forward, the blow ripping through the air like shards of divine iron and slamming into Lily with tremendous force.

The strike hurled her directly into the path of Kuroyodai’s colossal fist.

“What?!” Lily gasped in shock.