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“Nanako…” Lily blitzed across the siege of monsters and demons swiftly while dodging Dijon’s attacks. From the corner of her eyes, she discovered that Nanako and the pony-tailed senior were still hidden behind the huge rock under the cover of the parasol. It seemed that only Hojo Dijon and Yuki Mayumi could sense them, but Dijon was focused on killing Lily and didn’t care about ordinary women like them. On the other hand, Yuki Mayumi was busy dealing with Shimizu. Fortunately, the red Hannya masked demon ninjas weren’t humans, or else just a single one of them could have taken Nanako and the pony-tailed girl’s lives with ease.

However, Lily discovered that Shimizu’s situation was much more critical than hers. Although Dijon was a lot stronger than her, she was able to outflank him most of the time and avoid a frontal confrontation with him, and he too was unable to capture her. As for the demons and monsters that had surrounded Lily, they hadn’t brought that much of a huge threat to Lily yet and instead became the source of her spirit power’s replenishment. Lily believed that a chance to break through from this ordeal would arrive if things continued like this, as, although Dijon was pretty strong, he possessed a limited amount of spirit power.

On the other side, Shimizu was in a truly dire state. She only had a little amount of spirit power left and she had to face Yuki Mayumi, who was much stronger than Dijon, and also deal with a large number of demons and monsters besieging her.

As for Yuki Mayumi, she wasn’t in a rush to kill Shimizu and only attacked whenever Shimizu escaped to a location that was advantageous to her to force her back into the encirclement. The entire scene looked like a beast playing with its prey before killing.

Shimizu was drenched in sweat right now and her strength had also dropped by a huge margin. She couldn’t even find a chance to catch her breath as Yuki Mayumi would seize the opportunity to attack her whenever she tried to do that.

Shimizu had an inherently weak body and right now, she felt as if her lungs were burning. She almost couldn’t feel the sword within her hand and was continuing the battle by relying solely on her willpower.

Shimizu had already predicted the arrival of the snake woman in front her, who then proceeded to swing the sharp sickle she wielded towards her. However, as Shimizu had expended too much of her strength and spirit power, she wasn’t able to muster enough strength to dodge it and could only block the attack by drawing her blade halfway out.

“Clang—!” An attack from a mere inferior high-ranked monster had pushed Shimizu back continuously and this made her gaze turn cold. She leaned forward towards the snake woman and drew out her sword fully, sending a blue beam of sword light slashing at the snake woman’s tough skin.

The snake woman, subsequently, welcomed death.

Shimizu then landed on the ground and rolled forward without even pausing to think for a moment. As expected, those Hannya masked ninjas didn’t plan to give her time to rest and attacked with their shuriken and arrows.

“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!” The projectiles stabbed into the ground behind her.

Shimizu got up while kneeling on one knee with much difficulty and was just about to raise her head when she saw purple in front of her. Yuki Mayumi had arrived before her before she even realized it.

“Bam!” Yuki Mayumi shifted her weight to her slender and well-developed thighs and sent Shimizu flying with a hard kick.

On the other side, a blue demon swung down its huge axe to chop at Shimizu who was flying towards it.

Shimizu was close to fainting, but she was able to sense the danger subconsciously and drew out her sword a bit. The moment she neared that huge axe, she borrowed the momentum of the flight to deliver a powerful strike with an icy look in her eyes.

“Die!”

The long sleeves of Shimizu’s black kimono fluttered in the air as her body spun around like a black phantom butterfly, sending out multiple beams of sword light from her blade.

“Spurt—Spurt—Spurt!” The monsters that had tried to ambush her by surrounding her were all cut into pieces.

Shimizu felt as if her lungs were about to burn and though she managed to land on the ground somehow, it took her a lot of effort to kneel up from the ground.

“I can’t lose. I can’t die in such a place. I’m a chosen. There’s no way I will lose to the Hundred Demons! Oh, mirror! Do you see how much danger the woman you’ve entrusted with the fate of the mirror girl is in? Give me power at once! Just like that snowy night, boost my strength once again so I can exterminate these monsters who are trying to taunt and humiliate me!”

However, unlike that snowy night, the mirror inside Shimizu’s kimono sash showed no response.

“Clap! Clap! Clap!” Yuki Mayumi clapped in applause.

“You did well, Minamoto no Shimizu. Everyone says you don’t deserve your reputation and are bad at real combat, but you’ve shown your full potential at this critical juncture. The swordplay you’ve showcased has left me utterly awed. I’m beginning to understand why Lady Haihime holds you in such high regard now.”

Yuki Mayumi’s well-endowed hips swayed left and right as she sashayed towards Shimizu, “Minamoto no Shimizu, I’m giving you a chance again. You ought to know by now that it’s impossible for you and Kagami Lily to leave this place alive. It’s only a matter of time before you end up captured or dead, so why not surrender? As long as you hand over the mirror and pledge your loyalty to the Hundred Demons and Lady Haihime, I’ll let you live.”

Yuki Mayumi didn’t draw out her sword and instead looked down on the kneeling Shimizu who was gasping for breaths with a gentle gaze before reaching out towards her.

However, Shimizu kept looking down and didn’t reply, her hair covering her face.

“Humph! To be honest, I really don’t see the need to capture a woman like you, but Lady Haihime seems to have some hopes for you. How about it? If you surrender now, not only can you preserve your life, you can even obtain land and power that far outclasses what you possessed in the Land of East. Minamoto no Shimizu, rather than dying a vain death, why not make a pragmatic choice and pledge allegiance to the Land of Hundred Demons?”

“Clank—!” An argent blue sword light streaked in front of Shimizu, so Yuki Mayumi leaped back immediately. Her finger, however, had a bleeding cut on it now.

Yuki Mayumi placed her finger into her mouth and licked it seductively before giving a somewhat irate yet mocking smile, “It’s quite a pity, Minamoto no Shimizu. You’ve made the wrong choice. The subsequent persuasion definitely won’t be that gentle now.”

Her eyes lit up in icy flames suddenly as she charged towards Shimizu, transforming into a blue phantom. By the time Shimizu stood up to respond, Yuki Mayumi had vanished from her view and appeared behind her instantaneously.

“What?!”

“Bam—!” Yuki Mayumi gave a solid punch to Shimizu’s shoulder through her bracer and sent her crashing across the ground powerlessly.

She then jumped forward and kneed Shimizu’s waist from above with a wham.

“ARGHH!” Shimizu screamed helplessly.

Yuki Mayumi then grabbed Shimizu’s hair and threw her towards a thick and ancient tree that snapped into two when she crashed against it, resulting in wooden splinters flying around aimlessly.

Shimizu, however, ricocheted back and rolled across the ground a few times.

“Sister Shimizu!” Lily slew the demon soldier before her when she saw Shimizu suffer from Yuki Mayumi’s endless attacks at a distance and rushed over there.

“Kagami Lily, do you even have the leeway to think about others?” Hojo Dijon slashed at Lily with all his strength from beside and forced her to change directions to dodge it.

As a result, she had fallen into the encirclement of the towering demons once again while Shimizu’s helpless figure that was on the receiving end of the purple-robed demon kunoichi’s relentless attacks without the slightest resistance came into her view through the giant legs of the demons intermittently.

“Sister Shimizu!” Lily felt very worried, but the sea of demon soldiers and monsters took her further and further away from where her Sister Shimizu was located…¹

1. A footnote to say that I forgot to write footnotes for this chapter