Demon Sword Maiden

Volume 13 - Takamagahara: Chapter 46 - The Return of Uesugi

Rei looked at the world before her, and it almost felt different from before. Yet her heart had never changed.

Back when she had fallen behind in strength, she never succumbed to despair or weakness. She still stood before Lily with the dignity expected of an elder sister. Even knowing she was no match, she still stepped resolutely into Yomi.

When faced with Shuten Doji, she had not yielded an inch even in defeat, remaining as bold and carefree as ever.

Now she had successfully used her newly ascended Celestial Stage body to endure and subdue Bishamonten’s divine power, fully earning the recognition of the divinity she inherited.

Uesugi Rei had been born a conqueror. If the world ever claimed that her temperament was unfitting for a woman, then such words were merely the ignorance of mortal conventions.

As for beauty and figure, how many across the Three Realms could claim to be more youthful, more womanly than she?

Ask the world, do they know that high above the heavens stood the Celestial Maidens, and within the Three Realms there existed the divine weapons of the gods? And Rei had successfully inherited the divinity, becoming the new Bishamonten, the new leader of the Celestial Battle Maidens.

“Lily…” Rei had never been good at orienting herself, and this flaw had not visibly improved. But she and Lily were bound by the Silver Lunar Force. No matter how far apart they were, she could feel Lily’s direction.

“In that direction…?” Rei looked toward the rugged distant sky and shot upward as a streak of blue light that pierced through the clouds.

The thundercloud gorge, dangerous enough to injure an ordinary Supreme God, was punched through with a massive hole.

The flying clouds beneath the Yuten soldiers trembled violently as a mesmerizing mist of icy blue spread outward.

A tall silver-haired maiden descended among the dark mass of Yuten soldiers, landing on one knee.

“What!?”

“Who goes there!?”

Both the Yuten soldiers and the many captive Celestial Maidens were shocked. Even Ame-no-Tajikarao raised his head, his thick brows furrowing.

Long before she saw clearly, Lily had already sensed a familiar yet foreign power. It felt foreign because it was overwhelmingly strong. It felt familiar because it resembled how Rei had felt upon their very first meeting.

Bishamonten also lifted her head. She ignored the humiliation of being trampled under Ame-no-Tajikarao’s foot and instead revealed a smile filled with pride and relief.

As the blue mist thinned, Rei stood upon the sea of clouds with her blue-and-white wings unfurled, ribbons fluttering, silver hair drifting, her hands gripping a frost-chilled longsword.

She saw Lily. She saw her mother pinned under Ame-no-Tajikarao’s brute strength. Rei narrowed her eyes, turned, and without uttering a word, walked toward them.

“Where did this Celestial Maiden rebel come from! All Celestial Maidens have already been captured, yet you dare come alone to die!? Seize her!” a Yuten general roared.

Several burly Yuten soldiers charged forward together. Rei did not even spare them a glance. She continued walking straight toward Lily and Bishamonten.

A powerful shockwave burst from around her, blasting the soldiers away.

“Hmm!?” Hirotake was startled. His strength far exceeded that of common troops, yet even he could not gauge Rei’s strength. To act so brazenly before so many Yuten soldiers and ignore them entirely was something he absolutely could not tolerate.

Hirotake erupted with a surge of divine power. He leaped high, bringing down his giant sword with a force like a collapsing mountain.

Rei gave him only the barest glance from the corner of her eye. Then she moved. Her figure flickered faster than lightning, impossible to track.

When the soldiers finally saw clearly, Rei’s long, slender leg swept out in a devastating kick infused with the icy divinity of a winter goddess. The blow was as fierce as a mountain-cleaving axe, sending Hirotake, a peak Celestial expert, flying like a meteor. He crashed into a nearby Hizan, shattering more than half the floating mountain.

This Hizan was no earthly mountain and was unimaginably hard. The power of that kick was beyond belief. With just that single strike, Hirotake suffered more divine power loss than from all previous combat. The impact was so great that his eyes rolled back and he fainted before falling through the clouds.

“What!??”

The Yuten soldiers were horrified.

“Save Sir Hirotake!” Several Yuten soldiers dove down after him.

Hirotake was one of the fierce generals of the Yuten Army, famed for his overwhelming brute strength. Yet this tall Celestial Maiden had kicked him away without even drawing her blade. Worse, she had nearly crippled him with a single blow.

What kind of strength was this? What kind of arrogance?

“Sister Uesugi!?” Lily’s eyes brightened with joy, her cheeks unknowingly flushing. She was well-versed in power, and that single kick from Rei was likely stronger than Lily at her full strength.

The divine power flowing from Rei’s body had already reached a level comparable to elite Supreme Gods.

“How did Sister Uesugi suddenly become this strong? Is she… actually stronger than me?” For some reason, Lily felt shy.

Bishamonten secretly transmitted her voice to Lily, explaining the matter of the divinity inheritance.

‘What? No wonder she has such ferocious and domineering aura. Could she really have become the new Bishamonten?’ Lily felt both thrilled and excited.

By now, even the Yuten soldiers were stunned. They were brave, but not fools. After seeing her kick General Hirotake half to death, none dared rush her recklessly.

“Loose! Throw the spears!” a Yuten general ordered.

The soldiers raised their reinforced composite bows and long, heavy spears. In an instant, hundreds upon hundreds of arrows and spears rained toward Rei.

“Hmph.” Rei’s silhouette flickered. She did not even bother engaging the crude volley. In the next heartbeat, she vaulted into the sky and appeared directly before Ame-no-Tajikarao. Arrows and spears tore through the air behind her and crashed harmlessly into the clouds where she had stood.

“Release them.” Rei spoke with a cold, indifferent clarity. After saying so, she leapt into the air and reversed her grip on the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi behind her back.

A cold gleam rang through the air as Kusanagi slashed down toward Ame-no-Tajikarao.

Ame-no-Tajikarao widened his eyes, unleashing a torrent of masculine divine power. Instead of catching the blade with hands strong enough to rival the artifacts of the Amatsukami, he summoned into his grasp a broken stone pillar several meters long and a meter thick. He lifted the pillar and blocked the strike.

The clash caused heaven and earth to tremble. Clouds churned in waves. And hundreds of Yuten soldiers were shaken off their feet.

Even the Kusanagi only sank a few inches into the pillar and could not cut through it. This worn, fractured stone pillar was Ame-no-Tajikarao’s true weapon.

Among the entire Takamagahara, very few even knew of its origin. Rumor said it was a fragment from the central pillar of an ancient divine temple that had existed long before the birth of the gods themselves, a temple that no longer existed.

“So that’s how it is… hahahahaha!” Ame-no-Tajikarao laughed boldly. With a surge of power in his corded arms, he swung the stone pillar and knocked Rei back. She was sent flying hundreds of meters before dispersing the force and steadying herself in midair.

“Girl, give me your name. The last woman who forced me, Ame-no-Tajikarao, to draw my life-bound weapon was none other than the woman beneath my feet, the one and only Bishamonten beneath the Great Imperial God.” His voice boomed with pride.

Rei’s gaze hardened. Her mother was pinned beneath someone’s foot. Her anger grew colder than frost.

A beautiful yet chilling aura spread outward.

The moisture in the clouds beneath the Yuten soldiers froze solid. The nearby Hizans turned to ice, their trees and rocks sprouting long icicles.

“Ame-no-Tajikarao, unless your body is as sturdy as the pillar in your hands, release my mother at once.”

“So you truly are Bishamonten’s daughter,” Ame-no-Tajikarao said. “You look exactly like her in her youth, hahahahaha! It seems Bishamonten passed her divinity to you, as well as the Kusanagi, one of the Three Great Imperial Artifacts of Amaterasu-Ōmikami’s lineage. And you have not failed her expectations. So young, and yet your presence and spirit already earn my respect. Remarkable!”

“If you want to chat, release them first.”

“That I cannot do.” Ame-no-Tajikarao’s expression darkened. “Although Kagami Lily is… a fine woman, and Bishamonten is an old comrade of mine, the truth remains that you are rebels. You have betrayed Amaterasu-Ōmikami. You have betrayed Takamagahara. I have military orders. We stand on opposite sides and cannot coexist.”

“In that case, there’s nothing left to say.” Rei raised the Kusanagi high. She glanced at the divine blade in her hand. “A Great Imperial Artifact, hm? Sounds impressive. No wonder this sword is sharper than anything I have ever imagined.”

The Kusanagi gleamed with a chilling brilliance that made every living being tremble.

Rei vanished into a blur, and in the next instant she appeared before Ame-no-Tajikarao, swinging the sword with her full strength.

Ame-no-Tajikarao swung his massive stone pillar to block.

However, Rei knew that some things in this world could not be cut in one stroke, not even by the Kusanagi. She angled her wrist, shifting the blade so that instead of clashing with the pillar head-on, it slipped beneath it and swept toward Ame-no-Tajikarao’s broad waist.

Ame-no-Tajikarao suddenly leapt backward. Despite his enormous size, his reaction and speed were horrifyingly fast.

In an instant he had retreated a great distance, narrowly avoiding the blade. His heavy feet landed on the frosted cloud surface, cracking the icy layer beneath him.

A long cut marked his thick waist, and divine blood trickled out. Though he had dodged the edge itself, he had still been struck by the sword aura.

“Excellent technique! You are no simple girl, hahahahahaha!” Ame-no-Tajikarao laughed heartily, utterly unfazed. His skin was rougher and tougher than stone; even wounded, he treated it as nothing more than an amusing scratch.

Rei ignored him and landed beside Lily. “Turn around.”

“Yes.” Lily knelt upon the frozen clouds, turning away and bowing her back obediently.

Rei swung the Kusanagi, precisely severing the chains and ropes binding Lily. She crouched and gently lifted Lily’s slender ankle. With a soft tap of the blade, the shackle snapped cleanly without leaving so much as a mark on Lily’s delicate skin.

“Sister!” Freed at last, Lily rolled up from the ground, Oborozuki Muramasa materializing in her hand.

Rei then freed her mother as well.

“Baby girl…” As Bishamonten looked at her daughter’s heroic figure, how could her heart not swell with pride?