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“Lily!”

Overwhelmed with concern, Ayaka threw caution to the wind. Ignoring her pain and injuries, she wielded her naginata with fierce determination, storming through the skies towards Shuten.

Suddenly, an eldritch arte struck her from behind with a resounding “Boom!” sending her crashing out of the skies.

“Die! Die! Die!” The relentless chant of Hagewashi echoed as he pummeled Ayaka with a barrage of rapid-fire eldritch artes.

Trapped and without an escape, Ayaka’s eyes hardened. Despite the continuous explosions of the eldritch artes around her, a silvery naginata soared out of the smoke and fire.

“What!?” Startled, Hagewashi barely dodged in time, but the naginata left a scar across his face.

“You wretched woman!” Hagewashi roared, his weapon brimming with potent energy.

As the smoke cleared, a heavily injured Ayaka was revealed. Deprived of her weapon and barely able to stand, she looked a picture of defiance against the impending doom.

“Looks like you’re the one in danger here,” mocked Hagewashi, the energy within his weapon continuing to accumulate.

Then, with a fierce battle cry, a radiant silver warrior goddess wielding the Naginata Fubuki slashed down on Hagewashi’s back.

“What? Ah…” He could only stare in disbelief at the two Ayakas, one in front and the other behind him.

“You…” His words trailed off as he fell, motionless, to the ground.

Before flinging her naginata, Ayaka had hidden her guardian spirit within it.

“Lily!” Holding the Celestial Spirit Blade, Ayaka turned to aid Lily, but her legs gave out, forcing her to her knees.

With a clang, the Celestial Spirit Blade fell to the ground. She tried to rise, but her legs wouldn’t obey her.

Ayaka had reached her limits, her old wounds still fresh, and the new ones pushing her to the brink.

“No! Why now!?”

She considered using the herbs and treasures from Tamamo’s treasury, but her injuries were too severe for any immediate recovery.

Exhausted, Ayaka remained on the ground, her guardian spirit dissipating, the naginata lying idly by her side.

At that moment, golden chains yanked Lily out of the earth, four female specters each holding onto one of her limbs, suspending her midair.

Having nearly passed out from the shockwave, Lily dangled in the air, her head drooping and her hair disheveled, but her grip on Yasutsuna remained firm.

“Ahahahahaha! Ahhahahaha!” Shuten Doji, the monstrous devil, cackled into the dark skies. “I am the divine child of Mount Ibuki! Kagami Lily, you insignificant human woman, you dare challenge me? The more you struggle, the more inconsequential you become. In the face of absolute power, your talent, your dignity, your obsession, all are worthless!”

Wielding his machete, he infused it with powerful eldritch energy and resentment, “Die, you insignificant woman!”

“Lily!”
“Sister Lily!”
“Miss Lily!”

The sisters cried out in unison, disregarding the formidable Shuten Doji. Under the leadership of Shimizu, Rei, and Kagura, those who were still able rushed towards Shuten, intent on delaying the inevitable.

Annoyed by their intrusion, Shuten turned his demonic gaze towards them, his eyes shining eerily in the dark.

“Get lost!” With a casual swipe of his black claws, he unleashed five terrifying wind claws.

The women couldn’t react quickly enough, but before the claws could reach them, Kagura’s Sakura Parasol emerged, expanding to shield them.

Despite their defense, the ensuing shockwave sent the women flying, many landing unconscious. Even the wounded Rei and Shimizu were immobilized momentarily.

“Hm?” Shuten cast a suspicious glance at the parasol.

“Shuten Doji… your opponent… is me,” a frail voice barely managed to whisper.

“Eh?” Shuten pivoted, a smirk on his face. “Kagami Lily, you still have the strength to control that treasure in this condition? Attack her!”

At his command, the four female specters lashed out with the golden chains, raining down a storm of strikes on Lily’s defenseless body.

“Lily!”
“Lily!”

Tamamo, Shimizu, and Rei yearned to sacrifice themselves to save Lily, but their bodies failed them, leaving them sprawled helplessly on the ground.

“If only I could revert to my original form, I’d take Shuten down with me! Why can’t I transform!?” Tamamo’s frustration seethed, her millennium-long life had never seen her this powerless.

Shuten casually lifted a hand, halting the flurry of blows. Despite her tattered clothing and disheveled state, Lily held onto the grace and beauty of a celestial maiden. Even in this battered condition, her gaze remained unyielding, fearlessly fixed on Shuten Doji.

“Time to meet your end, Kagami Lily. I’ll bid you farewell with my strongest strike,” Shuten boasted, his machete lifted high, its accumulating power making the ground shudder.

“No…stop…stop…Lily…” Ayaka clutched the Celestial Spirit Blade, staggering step by step towards Shuten. “I won’t let you… harm Lily, Shuten Doji!”

But her efforts were futile. She couldn’t save Lily, nor could she distract Shuten.

“Lily… why… why is this happening… is everything truly ending here?”

Shuten’s blade, radiating power condensed to its limits, was poised to strike. A blow of this magnitude could gravely injure even a sextuple-soul big dipper expert. The weapon, though chipped, cast a terrifying shadow over Lily’s slender form, ready to slash down at any moment.

Clang!

A feeble sound caught their attention. A short blade, the kind typically used by women for self-defense, ricocheted off Shuten’s heel, inflicting no harm.

“What?” Surprised by this feeble resistance, Shuten scanned the area. “Who would dare challenge me now?”

“Stop… Shuten Doji! I beg you… stop… sobs…” Ikeda Rin, her body trembling within the crimson wind, pleaded.

“You?” Shuten glared at Rin with a scowl.

“Shuten Doji, you’ve ruined countless lives, isn’t it… enough? Could you… spare Miss Kagami? I beg you, release her. Please spare this kind and beautiful soul¹… for your sake… I beg you, stand down!” Ikeda Rin’s face was wet with tears. Even as she faced the formidable demon, she exuded a fearless beauty. Her acceptance of her fate was clear.

“Lord Shuten! I implore you, stand down…”

Impatiently, Shuten swept his claw dismissively, as if swatting away an insect.

A gust of black wind lunged at Rin.

Splash!

The deadly wind pierced Rin’s frail body. Blood sprayed from her wounds as she crumpled to the ground, lifeless².

“Miss Ikeda…” Lily clenched her teeth, immobilized and helpless, unable to save anyone.

“Trash of a woman, garbage! If you hadn’t thrown yourself at me, I’d have forgotten about you. To think that among the countless women I’ve toyed with, you were one of them. You should be grateful you survived this long, and quietly await your death!” Shuten sneered at Rin’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood, then refocused on Lily, “That pathetic trash just wasted my time.”

Before Shuten Doji’s might, what significance did Ikeda Rin hold? To him, she was nothing but an insignificant insect to be crushed underfoot.

“Ehehehe, Kagami Lily, it seems our time to part has come. My blade is eager!” Shuten’s grin revealed his terrifyingly sharp teeth.

Crack! A small rock impacted his thick, grotesque forehead.

“Hm?”

Crack! Crack!

More tiny stones fractured upon his head.

“Who dares?” he growled.

Though these stones posed no threat, they were certainly a nuisance. Shuten scanned the area for the culprit.

Above Mount Ibuki, a swarm of pitiful, disheveled female vengeful spirits floated, plucking stones from the mountain to fling at Shuten Doji. Two, then three, and then more and more spirits emerged, channeling their residual strength to defy Shuten.

The stones they launched were originally spectral, but the vengeful spirits’ profound resentment gave them substance. The minuscule resentment emanating from Ikeda Rin’s demise had joined an age-old ocean of female resentment. Though Rin’s contribution was but a droplet, it triggered a wave that swelled into a turbulent sea sweeping across the entirety of Mount Ibuki!

“What!?” Shuten reeled. His advancement was rooted in consuming women’s bodies, siphoning their souls, their pain, and their resentment. The tortured souls of countless women were his power source³!

Now, Mount Ibuki trembled as the very foundation of his power was shaken!

“This, this…” Shuten’s eyes bulged with disbelief.

Vengeful spirits spanned the mountain and the plains, each hurling stones and branches at Shuten. Their suppressed resentment, trapped for far too long, now exploded into freedom.

From Rin’s lifeless body, a small red ghost floated upwards. The tiny apparition seized the moment of Shuten’s distraction and navigated toward Lily’s cursed blade.

“Miss Lily… please, help me, help us…”

A soft, plaintive female voice resonated within the depths of Lily’s soul. Throughout her journey as a blade maiden, Lily had maintained a fundamental boundary: she never absorbed innocent souls.

But now, the circumstances were different. This was Ikeda Rin, victim to Shuten, voluntarily gravitating towards Yasutsuna, desiring to become a catalyst for change and to alter the fate of the kind girl who had saved her.

Rin was frail, her anima and spirit energy limited, but the years of torment and degradation under Shuten’s claws had forged her hatred into a resentment that surpassed even arch-demons. A cursed blade could convert such potent resentment into real power!

Rumble~~!

Mount Ibuki quivered. The countless vengeful spirits spanning the mountain transformed into radiant spirits, resembling a multitude of red stars erupting from the tremulous, fractured mountain peaks.

In the depths of the night, these spirits performed a mesmerizing dance. The living stared in awe at the spectacle unfolding above them. These were the countless aggrieved female souls, yet their display was hauntingly beautiful and poignant.

“What is happening? Return, all of you, return or suffer eternal torment!” Shuten bellowed in rage.

However, the moment these vengeful spirits transitioned into free-flying spirits, they renounced their chances of reincarnation. They would rather vanish into oblivion than endure Shuten’s torment, their energy harnessed to inflict suffering on more innocent women. This was their final bloom, and they were resolute in their defiance.

The airborne red spirits had a singular goal, a single destination – the trembling blade held by Lily, her cursed blade, Yasutsuna!

This very blade of Lily’s was forged from Michizane’s iron seal, which was crafted by Michizane’s dear friend, Ikeda Nakano. Ikeda Rin’s soul entering the blade formed by her father’s seal incited an extraordinary resonance⁴.

This powerful vibration echoed throughout the mountain, shaking the very souls of the distressed women on Mount Ibuki.

“Screech! Screech! Screeeech!”

The radiant souls, one by one, morphed into beams of light, all converging towards Yasutsuna, causing the blade to emit a mesmerizing glow. Hundreds of thousands of women, whose lives were tragically taken, collected the remnants of their existence, their final acts of defiance, and imbued them into Lily’s cursed blade.

“Hmmmnnnn—!!!”

Yasutsuna erupted with a sky-filling crimson flame. Lily might only have the power of a quadruple-soul big dipper, far inferior to Shuten who had kindled his stellar souls, but at this moment, her cursed blade was charged with the boundless grief and resentment of hundreds of thousands of aggrieved women.

This intense hatred and resentment was more than enough to turn the tide!

Lily’s eyes flashed with resolve as she swiftly rotated her wrist, Yasutsuna slicing through the golden chains as if they were mere paper.

“What!?” The sheer cutting power astounded Shuten.

Lily faced Shuten head-on, her eyes alight with determination, her hair flying wildly in the uproar of resentment.

“Shuten Doji!!!” Lily’s hand, clutching Yasutsuna, tightened into a white-knuckled grip. The blade trembled, engulfed in sky-scalding flames.

“Ka…Kagami Lily!!!” Shuten Doji’s five stellar souls all ignited, summoning countless machetes etched with the imprints of resentful spirits, amassing a power potent enough to shatter the earth.

Boom!

Lily lunged, her feet treading upon lycoris radiata as she transformed into a red streak aimed at Shuten. Concurrently, Shuten strode towards Lily, his colossal machete held high, each step reverberating through the heavens.

The obsidian demon phantom and the crimson streak moved towards each other—

Shuten conjured countless confinement eldritch snakes, each far more potent than the previous. Amidst this barrage, evasion was unthinkable for Lily. Despite this, Lily opted to strike fearlessly, forsaking all defense!

“Do you think the same trick will work on me twice? Die!”

Shuten had masterfully positioned his blade; the power he had amassed was overwhelming. It seemed impossible for Lily to deflect Shuten’s machete with her blade edge. However, Lily had no intention of doing so. She channeled all her strength, the resentment and hatred of hundreds of thousands of women, into a single, devastating strike. This was an attack that sacrificed everything else!

Just as the two blows were about to connect, the distorted soul imprints on Shuten’s machete emitted an unexpected force, altering the trajectory of Shuten’s own powerful slash.

At that extreme velocity, even a minor shift in force was enough to sway the path of Shuten’s machete, barely missing Lily’s slender form. Meanwhile, Lily’s Yasutsuna plunged deep into Shuten’s massive body.

Pffftt—!!!

Yasutsuna, ablaze with endless crimson resentment, cleaved the massive dark demon in two! The chilling edge of the blade pierced accurately through Shuten’s anima⁵!

1. Liedral: Kindest and most beautiful? I beg to differ… A soul full of uncertainty, indecisiveness, and merciless towards enemies. What kindest…what beautiful…
2. Silva: Michizane is gonna be furious, I can see it now, Michizane vs Shuten Doji
3. Robinxen: Imagine using people who hate you as a fuel source, I’m sure nothing could go wrong.
4. Robinxen: Credit to the author for setting these things up way in advance.
5. Silva: Who wanna bet with me that Shuten is actually not dead yet?