Demon Sword Maiden

Volume 12 - Yomi-no-kuni: Chapter 235 - Bound by Life and Death (Part 2)

“Shut up!” Fushirai pointed at Ayaka and roared, “You wretched w̲h̲o̲r̲e̲! Soon enough, you’ll be nothing more than our slave! Stop trying to buy time with your worthless talk! In Yomi, power has always ruled! A woman like you, no matter how stubborn, can only end up kneeling beneath us, the true male sovereigns of this realm!”

“That’s right! Well said!” Wakarai shouted, his face twisted with scorn. “I’ll give you women some credit, you’ve come pretty far. But in the end, you’re still just women! A man who dies in battle is a hero. A woman who loses? She becomes a pitiful, broken thing, an object for our pleasure! Know your place, your worth! Hahahahaha!”

His words ignited a chorus of deranged pride from the male demons.

“In Yomi, it is the males who rule,” Kunpikasha coiled his vast, towering serpent body through the air, forked tongue flicking as his vicious, beady eyes glared mockingly at them.

“Women are mere objects for us overlords to enjoy. Do you think you, as mere property, have the right to resist? Even if you’ve won before, lose today, and no amount of past glory will wash away your disgrace! Submit now, and perhaps we’ll go easy on you. Why suffer? Wouldn’t you rather join us… in ecstasy?” Kunhiza’s serpentine hair writhed wildly as he exhaled clouds of vile, toxic miasma, speaking with smug delight.

“Exactly! Female adepts dreaming of rising through Yomi?” Kuroyoku scoffed. “In the end, all of you become playthings for stronger men, each one lower than the last. I’ve ruled the Abyss for eons. What kind of w̲h̲o̲r̲e̲ haven’t I seen? Women are always weak, cowardly, vile creatures. And you, Kagami Lily, keep acting tough. Once you’re beaten, I’ll enjoy watching you crawl to me, begging like the dog you are!” Kuroyoku, confident of victory with so many powerful treasures at their disposal, enough to crush these women to death even by sheer force alone, grew even more arrogant. His insults became brazen and unrestrained, dripping with contempt.

“Hahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Well said!”

“Brother Kuroyoku speaks the truth!”

The host of demon gods erupted in cruel laughter and cheers, eyes gleaming with depravity as they ridiculed Lily and her sisters, their gaze dripping with obscene malice.

“B̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲s̲…” Lily and her sisters stood back to back, none of them flinching. Each felt the warmth of her comrades beside her; their softness, their strength.

“Hahahahaha!” From afar, the chained Kuroyodai roared with laughter, struggling against the scarlet chains that bound him. “Well spoken! Listen closely, you lowly women, Yomi has always belonged to us, the male gods!”

His coarse, booming voice echoed through the chasms of the Abyss.

“Who said that Yomi’s rulers must be men?” A voice rang out; feminine, seductive, yet carrying an unquestionable authority. It pierced through time and space like a divine blade.

“Eh?”

“What!?”

The host of demons, having just unleashed their most formidable treasures, poised to begin their final assault, froze at the sound.

At the summit of the abyssal realm, where only murk and chaos had loomed moments ago, a crimson radiance suddenly began to glow. Swirling black clouds churned, infused with streaks of deep red, forming vast spirals in the heavens.

At the heart of that spiral, a void slowly opened.

Time itself seemed to stagger. Though the event unfolded with deliberate slowness, it was as if a blink passed and the world changed. The demon horde collectively forgot to breathe, as if caught in a waking dream. All eyes were drawn upward.

Even Lily and her sisters could not resist the force tugging at their gaze. Heads lifted, eyes wide, they stared.

From the depths of the blood-colored void, a woman in red descended. She was tall, her flowing sleeves vast and regal. Her long crimson dress billowed like a phoenix’s wings, and her streaming black hair wove itself into the dark sky. Her arrival stilled the heavens.

With her arrival, the divine presence of all other Supreme Gods faded completely. Only her power remained, a quiet and overwhelming force.

In that instant, she seemed to become the center of time, the source of all space and spirit.

Her figure was no larger than that of an ordinary woman, simply more graceful, more composed. Yet to the demon gods tens of thousands of meters away, she might as well have been a universe unto herself. Before her, even the mightiest abyssal overlords felt like infants. The millions of demon spawn below? Nothing more than ants.

The woman’s face was pale and coldly beautiful. At a glance, she even resembled Lily somewhat, though hers was a more mature, composed elegance.

The moment she appeared, it was as if all fluctuations in the world around her had vanished. The laws of nature and spirit seemed to yield before her, stepping aside as though giving way to her alone.

Lily looked up at the woman descending from the sky, her eyes flickering with astonishment and a deep reverence that welled from within her.

“Ma… Madam?” Rakshasa-Onna and Asura-Onna stared at the red-dressed figure, eyes filled with awe, and spoke with trembling voices.

At that moment, the gentle light emanating from the woman had not yet reached Lily’s side fully. Yet the faces of the surrounding demon gods had already grown darker than the abyss itself.

“Madam!?” Wakarai furrowed his brows tightly, unease stirring in his heart. “This… How can this be? Why has she come?”

“Is that really… the ruler of Yomi? That Madam?” Though most of the demon gods, even those of the Supreme God realm, had never seen her with their own eyes, those like Kunhiza, Kuroyodai, and Kuroyoku instantly realized how unusual she was. What stood out most was that none of them could sense even a trace of her power level. She appeared to be no more than an extraordinarily beautiful and elegant woman.

And yet, with her appearance, the very foundations of heaven and earth had receded. The surrounding spirit power and divine force had simply ceased to exist. How could such a woman possibly be ordinary?

The demon horde was stunned into stillness, uncertain what to do next.

The woman in red floated in midair between the girls and the demon gods, her long hair and robes fluttering in the dark.

“All this fighting and bloodshed, tearing apart half of Yom…how long are you planning to keep this going?” Her cold beauty was matched only by the chill in her tone, which held a faint hint of displeasure. That subtle discontent seemed to make the dark abyss itself grow even heavier, more oppressive.

No one dared to respond right away. For a moment, the entire sky fell into a heavy silence.

“Godmother.” Lily stepped forward and spoke. “My sisters and I, along with Asura-Onna and Rakshasa-Onna, were attacked without cause by the demon gods of Yomi and the Abyss. I never wanted this battle. They swore not to rest until I was captured, humiliated, and enslaved. I had no choice but to fight back.”

“Godmother!?” Kunhiza broke out in a cold sweat. He had long known that Lily held the title of a princess of Yomi, but had always considered it a distant, irrelevant rumor. Now, seeing Madam descend, her presence alone dissolving all divine power, and hearing Lily call her Godmother, his nerves were on edge.

“Oh?” Madam raised a brow, a flicker of anger passing through her eyes as she rebuked Lily. “My daughter, you’ve always acted too impulsively. Look at who stands against you…Wakarai, one of the refined and noble Eight Thunder Gods. You, a mere maiden of the Celestial Stage, if you hadn’t provoked him, do you really think he would have bullied you?”

“Wha—?” Lily, panting and covered in sweat, her torn robes exposing much of her chest and thighs, suddenly found herself at a loss for words in the face of this reversal.

But the Madam’s words struck the demon horde like a thunderclap.

“C… Celestial Stage!?” Wakarai’s elegant expression twisted in shock.

“What?” Kuroyoku, Kunhiza, Kuralan-Chiyu, and the others were completely dumbfounded. After all the effort they had put into the battle, after unleashing their most powerful treasures and secret arts, it turned out their enemy was just a Celestial Stage woman?

Even Kuroyodai’s massive frame trembled. His enormous, fanged jaw dropped in disbelief, nearly breaking free of the blood-red chains that bound him.

“Celestial Stage!?” The spectators in the distance were no less stunned.

“One woman, suppressing three Thunder Gods alone. Facing a dozen of the most powerful Supreme Gods from both Yomi and the Abyss, and not only surviving but killing two of them? Injuring many more? And she’s… just Celestial Stage?”

“How is that even possible??”

Had anyone else said this, none of the demon gods would have believed it. But it was Madam who had spoken. If it were a lie, why would she say it at all? And if it were true… then it was utterly inconceivable.

A dozen ancient demon gods had ganged up on a single woman. That was already humiliating. But if that woman was only at the Celestial Stage? These so-called mighty lords had lost all face.

The ancient demon gods, proud and arrogant, now looked more miserable than if their divinities had been shattered. Each of them wished they could burrow into the deepest, darkest pit of the abyss and disappear.

Wakarai was drenched in sweat, his pride in tatters. Though Madam seemed to scold Lily, it was clearly a subtle jab at him and the other Thunder Gods.

The Eight Thunder Gods, proud enough to claim they feared not even the Great Imperial God, had failed to defeat one Celestial Stage woman, even with three of their number combined.

And now Wakarai recalled the wager he made with Lily back when she had first arrived in Yomi… even jumping into the Sanzu River could not wash the shame from his name.

“It’s over. Damn it all! I, Wakarai, am now the laughingstock of Yomi.”

Just then, Rakshasa-Onna and Asura-Onna floated forward and knelt before Madam. Asura-Onna spoke first, “Madam, everything Lily said is the truth.”

“Indeed, Madam. We came on your behalf to attend the wedding ceremony, but these beasts not only ignored your name, they also attacked us, and the people we brought with us. They even threatened to—”

“To what?” Madam’s voice dropped, cold and sharp. The temperature of the abyss plummeted. Weaker demons began to freeze over, their hair and skin touched by frost.

Wakarai and Kunhiza turned pale, their expressions darkening.

“Madam, this matter—” Wakarai stepped forward, ready to defend himself.

But Rakshasa-Onna cut him off. “They said they would take me and my sister as slaves!”

“Oh?” Madam let out a soft, chilling laugh.

Wakarai’s face twisted in fury. He stepped forward, pointing at the women and shouting, “That’s not how it happened! Madam, didn’t you yourself promise that Lily was to be wed to me? And now she’s sent off to the Boundless Imperial Princess of the Abyss instead? I came only to settle this matter, and was met with rudeness and hostility from the Imperial Princess, from Asura-Onna and Rakshasa-Onna, and from all these so-called guests! Look! My brother Fushirai had both his legs cut off by Kagami Lily! My brother Kurorai nearly died!”

“Do the Eight Thunder Gods mean nothing in Madam’s eyes now?”