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“Lily, are you ok? Why can’t I see you? Your voice…it’s blurry?” Ayaka’s fuzzy voice was full of warmth and concern.

They had only parted a few days ago, but hearing her voice made her feel like they had been separated for a long long time. A desire to meet Ayaka again rose up in her heart, even if it was to suffer that humiliating punishment again…

“Lady Ayaka, I…” Lily suppressed her desire to chatter with big sister Ayaka, she knew her current circumstances. “Long story short, I’m currently in a dangerous place, Lady Ayaka, you must be careful. Someone is plotting against you.”

“What? What did…Lily what did you say, I can’t hear…”
“Someone is plotting against you! Sister…Ayaka!”
“Eh? Who? Why do you know?”

Lily lifted Ayaka’s scroll in her hand, “It’s that Imperial Chancellor’s household, he’s colluding with Shuten Doji to plot against you. Lady Ayaka, you must be careful of him…”

“Lily, who did you say was plotting against me? What did you just say…Lily? Who…plotting…¹”

“It’s the Imperial Chancellor’s household! And Shuten Doji! They’ve colluded to plot against you!”

“Lily?…I can’t hear… what are you saying? Li…²”

Suddenly the voice transmission bead cut off, and no matter how Lily injected spirit energy, it didn’t respond.

It was as if the unknown obstructing force had intensified.

At least it seemed that Lady Ayaka had understood that someone was plotting against her. With Ayaka’s ability and resourcefulness, she should be able to guess who it was. Lily’s warning was definitely useful!

She put away the transmission orb, while she was warning Ayaka, the killing intent surrounding the area seemed to be increasing in intensity, and the fog around her was thickening. Now, she could only see a few meters away and after sending out a spirit probe, Lily discovered that she could only sense around the same distance as her sight.

“What? What is this fog?”

Activating her domain, she discovered that everything within a thousand meters of her was fog and that she could detect nothing.

“It can even block a domain?”

Would she only be able to detect things within ten meters of herself? How would she tell the direction? How would she get to Izumo’s main peak?

The only thing she could detect was killing intent, but that killing intent was too widespread. Lily was unable to detect the origin.

Suddenly, from a location five meters away, a powerful killing intent struck at her.

Turning immediately, she saw a tattered and unkempt samurai charge out of the fog and slash out at Lily with an old tachi that radiated a dangerous aura.

Despite being surprised, Lily reacted swiftly, her long beautiful legs tapped the ground as she flashed to the side evading the blow.

Boom——! That old tachi was covered in a rust colored ancient aura, as it hit the ground it slashed out a blade scar tens of meters long.

“So powerful!” Lily couldn’t help but be started, the limit placed on her detection was troubling. She could feel that her attacker was also at the permanence level, but the ancient ferocious energy he was emitting was much stronger than a peak stage permanence, but weaker than the weakest early stage throne expert.

Accurately identifying an escape path, she dodged back and returned a slash.

Bzzt! A beautiful crimson arc flashed at her opponent.

But for some reason, the opposing samurai didn’t block or dodge, he dashed straight at Lily and the crimson arc, blade poised in a stab.

“Suicidal!?” Lily yelped.

Lily’s blade light slashed into his shoulder, reaching the position of his heart, but the shabby samurai ignored all damage and stabbed at a fatal point on Lily’s waist.

Lily quickly and forcibly turned her body to the side in a dodge. Such control over the body was rare among humans, it had nothing to do with training or strength, and everything to do with instinct.

Lily barely evaded the stab, the blade slid through her sash and rubbed against the spirit armor covering her abdomen leaving behind a red mark.

Though she had successfully defended, the sharp pain left cold sweat running down her face.

“Careless! This wretched man doesn’t want to live!?”

An image of that ancient samurai Akimoto Hara flashed through her mind. Didn’t he also use this sacrificial battle method? If one wasn’t aware and used common sense to judge, then it was very possible for both sides to suffer greatly.

Lily had only been able to dodge by virtue of processing rare reaction instincts.

Though with her defense power, even if she had been unable to evade that stab, she wouldn’t have died, but it was very possible she would have taken an injury.

Half of the warrior’s body had been slashed apart, his flesh and blood continued to spill and he was in a tragic state, yet he staggered forward and swung a third time at Lily.

“Hmph!” Lily’s eyes flashed, her opponent’s strength had been greatly reduced, she jumped up and landed on her enemy’s blade and a crimson blade light arced and cut off her opponent’s head!

Finally taking a look at the dead warrior. Those weathered clothes, just how old were they? That face was middle aged with extremely dark skin. The body was thin, but extremely strong.

Though this samurai looked different, his aura and temperament were very similar to Akimoto Hara.

“Is he also an ancient samurai?”

Thinking back to Akimoto’s last request, it seemed like ancient samurai still existed in this age.

All of a sudden, another samurai charged out of the fog. He was tall and held a pair of blades in his hand, one short one long. He was dressed in gray clothes, also weathered.

“Another ancient samurai?” If this double bladed samurai also fought with the ancient samurai method, then the danger would be great.

Shing! Drawing Crescent Moon with her other hand, Lily dual wielded both blades and clashed with the incoming samurai.

Clang! Lily’s two blades slammed into her opponents two blades. No matter how the samurai fought, under the suppression of absolute power, there was nothing he could do. The samurai was only a bit stronger than the peak of permanence and Lily’s strike was very heavy.

Lily’s blow sent her opponent flying and smashing through ancient trees. Seeing him about to fly into the fog, Lily dashed forward, and chased. She crossed her blades together and slashed out, sending a white and red crimson lunar blade light at the flying samurai.

Pshh!! The flying samurai was chopped into pieces without being able to react.

“Why do these suicidal ancient samurai want to kill me? Even if they’re suicidal, do they attack whenever they meet another?” Lily couldn’t understand, but she didn’t have the time to think. From different sides, two ancient samurai ran out of the fog, one of them was stronger than the previous two, he had at least half the power of an early stage throned general.

Lily could only kill, she was surrounded by fog and couldn’t recklessly run!

To fight these ancient samurai, one must consider their sacrificial tactics.

Lily activated her domain, though she could no longer sense far away, her domain was still effective within a short distance. Her sakura blizzard condensed several sakura blades slaughtering the two ancient samurai.

Psh! Psh! Psh! Psh! Psh!

Her attacks covered the ancient samurai in wounds, the weaker one was fatally wounded but continued to stagger towards Lily.

With her domain suppressing their speed, Lily stepped forward to first deal with the stronger opponent.

Her form flickered as she precisely avoided her opponents tattered tachi and delivered her Crescent Moon into his throat.

That ancient samurai’s throat spluted blood, but still turned without hesitation and slashed at Lily with his twin blades.

Clang! Blocking with Yasutsuna, Lily raised Crescent Moon and slashed down deep into the samurai’s chest, piercing through his spirit jade.

As the other fatally injured samurai staggered towards her back, Lily tore her blade out in a reverse stab and slashed down with Yasutsuna in her other hand.

Clang——Pshh!

A collision of spirit energy sent rocks flying all over.

While Yasutsuna accurately blocked her opponent’s weapon, Crescent moon accurately stabbed deep into her opponent’s chest and through his spirit jade.

Lily let out a deep breath.

But suddenly the ancient warrior’s blade moved, though powerlessly, it still unexpectedly moved.

Lily’s long skirt was torn through.

“Ah——” Lily let out a cry and instinctively rolled to the side.

Her thigh hurt, on that white leg was a red mark as if she had been whipped.

Angry and annoyed, Lily got back on her feet and watched that ancient samurai stagger towards her.

“Kill……Kill……”

“Who are you people, why are you attacking me?”

“Kill!” That ancient samurai seemed to only be able to say that one word. He raised his tachi and slashed towards Lily. Though he was slow, that supposedly dead warrior looked horrifying.

Lily pushed her domain and sent multiple sakura blades slashing at the ancient samurai!

“Huu…” Lily gently touched the wound on her leg, her chest heaved from the fright…” What a miraculous tribe, even after his spirit jade was destroyed, the body still made a final strike with all his remaining spirit energy…” Lily was shocked that such a thing could happen.

During the fights, she had lost all direction. Even the path originally beneath her feet had disappeared.

“This is bad, I could originally walk on the path even in this fog, but the path is gone now…where should I go?” Lily was completely lost.

Walk a hundred meters and then come back? She hadn’t moved too far, but what if the direction she walked in was parallel to the road?

Or look for a spot where the killing intent was weak?

But she could feel killing intent from all directions, it seemed to be floating about with the mist, she could not use that as a direction guide.

Lily could only choose a direction based on feeling and instinct.

As she walked, she discovered she seemed to have walked into the fog filled ruins of an ancient city. The walls of this place were all ruined, rubble and shattered wood laid all over, weathered and rotted over. She couldn’t tell how many years ago this place had been destroyed…

1. Robinxen: Of course it’d cut out there.
2. Robinxen: Crackle static fuzz.