Demon Sword Maiden

Volume 12 - Yomi-no-kuni: Chapter 233 - Blood Rain, Silver Moon

Kuroyodai towered sky-high, his massive legs vanishing into the shadowy depths below.

Due to his unmatched strength and body, even Lily with the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi couldn’t do anything to him. Yet at this moment, several blood-red chains of unknown origin had bound him in place. Even with his overwhelming might, he couldn’t break free. All he could do was watch helplessly as the other demon gods swarmed Lily in brutal combat.

None of the demon gods had expected that Lily not only possessed the fearsome Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, but her physical strength was also formidable. She was proving difficult to bring down. Their original plan had been to wear Lily down with sheer numbers. But when the bloated demon god failed to catch Ayaka after a long chase, he gave up and turned back, only for Ayaka to begin her celestial dance, restoring Lily’s strength and divine power.

Now, forced to face a reinvigorated Lily, the bloated demon god suffered a grievous abdominal wound in return.

“Take her down! Don’t let her recover more energy!” roared Kunhiza. “Send someone fast!”

“I’ll go!” Kunpikasha stepped forward. With twin blades and remarkable speed, he darted toward Ayaka.

But Ayaka had already fled early on, anticipating pursuit. Unlike the bloated demon god, Kunpikasha was too fast. Even with a head start, Ayaka was bound to be caught sooner or later.

“Sister Shimizu, go help Sister Ayaka!”

“Understood!” Shimizu immediately slashed open a circular void and stepped through, emerging tens of thousands of meters away, right in front of Ayaka. Ayaka was crucial to the team, especially to Shimizu herself, since her celestial dance had kept them all going through this prolonged battle. With Ayaka’s support, she could protect Lily without pause. And should Lily face danger, Shimizu could always return instantly.

Ayaka understood at once and resumed her graceful dance, sending waves of silvery rain to revitalize Shimizu’s body and spirit.

With her strength renewed, Shimizu unleashed a blade of Dark Lunar force, sending Kunpikasha reeling backward. She immediately followed up, pressing the attack. Kunpikasha, among the weakest of the Abyssal Demon Gods, was no match for Shimizu when she was back at full power.

Meanwhile, on Lily’s side, Kunhiza’s serpentine hair stretched thousands of meters long, chasing and snapping at her.

“Let that fake Imperial Princess clash with Kunpikasha. Even if he’s outmatched, she won’t be able to kill him anytime soon!”

Kunhiza decided to enter the fray himself. Though ranked third among the Abyssal forces, unlike the purely melee-focused Kuroyoku, Kunhiza was a versatile fighter, equally dangerous from a distance, with countless sinister techniques at his disposal. He posed an even greater threat to Lily.

Lily tried to slice through the flailing serpents, but they moved too fast, whipping through the air unpredictably. She had no choice but to keep dodging.

The snakes sealed off nearly every path of escape in the air, and the other demon gods rushed in to surround her.

Lily strained to dodge the serpents while fending off the relentless demon gods. It was taking its toll. Suddenly, from among the writhing mass of serpents, a huge black snake lunged out!

It was Kyupigaki!

With no room to evade, Lily leapt up, lifting her sword. She had no choice but to meet those fangs head-on with Kusanagi. But just then, the serpent hair scattered, and Kyupigaki’s tail, thick as a mountain ridge, smashed into Lily’s side.

“Ah!” Lily let out a pained cry as she was sent flying. She didn’t get far before the serpents coiled tightly around her legs.

“Hahaha! Got her!” the demon gods shouted as they closed in.

But though pain wracked her body, Lily’s eyes burned with defiance. She suddenly slashed across her own thigh with her blade.

Two serpents were severed on the spot.

“What!? She let herself get caught, just to cut off my snake-hair!?” Kunhiza screamed in agony. Every strand of that serpentine hair was tied to his core essence.

Thinking Lily was finished, the bloated demon god, eager for revenge, charged in. He reached her first, bringing his heavy palm down toward her head.

Lily swung both arms and unleashed a crescent slash of Silver Lunar force, severing his massive hand at the wrist. Then she spun around and, in one clean arc, sliced through his upper torso!

Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, glowing with star-splitting force, struck the bloated demon god’s divinity. The blow nearly ended him. He plummeted, barely clinging to life due to his thick, resilient flesh. But he was too wounded to continue fighting.

He was out of the battle!

Still, among the demon gods, his strength ranked near the bottom. His defeat didn’t ease Lily’s predicament.

“You, use weapons to pin down that divine sword! Let me handle the main assault!” roared Kuroyoku.

Though the demon gods possessed terrifying power, none of them had ever faced an opponent like Kagami Lily. At first, they charged her en masse, uncoordinated and chaotic, interfering with one another in their haste. But now, they began to adapt, discovering the key to defeating her: restrain her sword. Without it, what threat could she possibly pose?

Wakarai, Kurorai, and Kuralan-Chiyu attacked in unison. Thunder-laced spear, obsidian hammer, and eight demonic weapons struck from all sides. Lily dodged two, then used the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi to block the remaining blades. But under the combined pressure of the eight divine weapons, she was briefly pinned. In that instant, Wakarai’s thunder spear thrust forward—not toward Lily, but toward her sword—joining the others in locking it in place.

“Not good!” Lily gritted her teeth as her blade was caught fast, frozen under the sheer magnitude of divine power.

With a thunderous boom, Kuroyoku drove a brutal punch into Lily’s abdomen. Her world spun; up became down, light became shadow. The impact was monstrous. Lily nearly blacked out. Her vision blurred, consciousness wavered, and her divine power dispersed uncontrollably.

“We got her!” Kurorai seized the opportunity. With one massive hand, he clutched Lily’s neck; the other pressed down on her shoulder.

Kuroyoku, seeing Lily reeling, gathered divine might throughout his body once more. “This next strike, if it doesn’t kill you, it will break your will to fight!”

“Not good!” In a flash of shimmering space, Shimizu teleported to Lily’s side and swung toward Kuroyoku. But Kunhiza’s serpent-hair had anticipated this; they lashed out, striking her midair and hurling her away.

“Ha! You think we’d fall for the same trick again?” Kunhiza cackled as Shimizu was sent crashing back, reeling from the strike. He didn’t pursue. Instead, the demon gods regrouped around Lily. “Kagami Lily! This is your end!”

“Now behold my ultimate strike!” Kuroyoku’s fist churned with darkness, pulling shadows from every direction into a spiraling vortex. “Heaven-Rending Blow!”

This punch could hollow out the sky itself. Worse still, it wasn’t aimed at her chest, it was lower, aimed directly at the Spirit Palace, the vital region at a female adept’s core.

A sickening, muffled crack echoed out.

Lily’s delicate frame arched backward under the crushing blow. Her hair flew like silk in a storm. And yet…

“AAAHHH—!!!” The scream of agony came not from Lily, but from Kuroyoku himself.

His fist had turned into a mangled mess of shattered bone and torn flesh. The dark power pouring from his hand dispersed into steam, dissipating like smoke.

“What… what is that thing?! AAHH—!!”

Peeking out from Lily’s torn waist-wrap was the corner of an ancient bronze mirror. It bore no light, no visible power, yet it was harder than any armor Kuroyoku had ever encountered.

At that moment, Lily’s eyes snapped open.

With one hand, she drew the Oborozuki Muramasa and slashed at Wakarai’s arm, freeing herself. In a fluid motion, she wrenched Kusanagi free, leapt upward. Yet rather than fleeing, she launched herself at Kuroyoku, who was still howling in pain and confusion, and brought the sacred blade crashing down upon him in a flurry of ruthless slashes.

Though Kuroyoku was a supreme close-combatant, he barely managed to retreat by instinct. Even so, the blade carved deep into his face, slicing across the bridge of his nose. The searing Silver Lunar Force scorched his flesh like molten fire, wracking his face with unbearable pain.

Kuroyoku howled as he staggered back in retreat, rolling across the battlefield.

That single slash stunned even Kunhiza. After taking two devastating hits and still not fully recovering, Lily’s immediate and decisive counterattack shocked him to the core.

“She… she looks so delicate, yet in such a brutal and desperate moment, she doesn’t resemble a woman at all! It’s as if she isn’t even thinking, her body moves purely by instinct, as though it was born for battle, for slaughter!” Kunhiza, for the first time in ages, was truly shaken.

At that moment, Lily flicked her long hair aside. A flash of icy light glinted in her eyes.

“Ah!” Kunhiza instinctively recoiled in fear, even though Lily hadn’t even moved.

He had been intimidated not by her power, but by the near-madness of her combat instincts. “I, Kunhiza, an eternal being who’s witnessed the most savage wars, frightened by this woman’s obsession?”

It wasn’t his mind that trembled, it was the core of his soul.

Meanwhile, Kurorai, still confused about what had just happened, had originally grabbed Lily from behind. The shockwave of Kuroyoku’s punch had forced him back several steps, but now he charged again, raising his twin hammers to strike.

From the front, Kuralan-Chiyu and Wakarai lunged at Lily once more, their weapons aiming to pin her down.

But Lily suddenly flipped through the air, using nothing but instinct to step and rebound off the flat sides of their weapons, never looking at them directly, her every move as fluid as a wind-dancer in battle.

As she tumbled, her Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi swept backward in a silver arc.

In the darkness, it shone like a silver crescent moon. That glowing arc deflected Kurorai’s twin hammers and struck him full-force in the chest. It was like a blade cutting through waves as a spray of blood burst skyward.

“AAAAH!” Kurorai’s massive frame nearly split open. The slash was too deep. His sternum was shattered, and the glimmer of his Divinity flickered, partially exposed.

“Brother Kurorai!” Wakarai cried out in alarm.

If not for the Eight Thunder Gods sharing a united divinity, whose defensive power exceeded that of ordinary Supreme Gods, Kurorai would’ve died on the spot.

“A demon! A she-demon!” Kurorai spat blood as he screamed, not with dignity, but with a high-pitched, trembling wail. Ignoring his grievous wounds, he turned and fled at full speed into the dark, not even glancing back.

“That woman… she’s not someone we can afford to cross…”

Kurorai, the third-ranked elder of the Eight Thunder Gods, let out a shrill, undignified cry under Lily’s blade. Abandoning his fellow Thunder Gods without a glance back, he fled in panic, his massive figure soon swallowed by the endless dark.

Kuroyoku’s hand had been destroyed. Kunhiza had been cowed by a mere glance. Kurorai had nearly been slain and fled in disgrace.

In that moment, the demon gods surrounding Lily fell into stunned silence. One by one, they began to retreat.

Lily’s long hair fell in disarray as she stood with her head bowed. Her Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi shimmered with a cold, piercing light, unsullied by blood, yet sharper than ever.

The crescent arc of silver moonlight from her blade lingered for a breath… before vanishing into the black.