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“Awooooo—!” With that drawn-out howl, the bloody mist rose and formed a pink haze around the Demon Hound.

Never ever underestimate the last desperate attack of a cornered beast.

Its eyes became bloodshot, it was unknown whether that was due to internal bleeding or its extreme hatred. Originally, its speed was progressively getting slower, but now it suddenly became faster! With a swing of its huge tail, the few Sword Masters that tried to sneak up from behind got knocked away. Some directly knocked against the boulder and some fell into the hundred feet tall river valley.

Then with a slap of its bloody claw, Munesaki was brought to his knee and knocked back for several feet!

“Pfff—!” Munesaki spat out a mouthful of blood.

Dijon felt the pressure and didn’t dare to get careless. Though he might be a three-meter tall giant, the situation could still be instantly reversed if he received several of the Demon Hound’s attacks.

He outflanked the Demon Hound and not at all willing to face the rampaging hound head-on. He clearly understood the situation, so long as he could wait till the Demon Hound exhaust itself, then he would be able to easily deal the last blow!

But the demon’s rampage was far crazier than Dijon had expected. The nearby samurai got pulled into it and was unfairly killed. Even he himself was forced to block a few hits. Just that was enough to make blood seep out from the corner of his mouth.

Dijon was a hot-tempered person, he became angry and engaged with the Demon Hound. After Munesaki adjusted his breath, he once again jumped into the fray. The battle between the three caused the earth to shake and blood splashing everywhere! It was only a matter of time for the Demon Hound to run out of power, but it lasted much longer than the two of them could’ve ever imagined!

A High Ranked monster’s last stand and pride were so dazzling to Lily, who watched from the distance. A true expert was so gallant even when they’re about to fall!

Just at this time, Sakata and Matsuhei brought along a few samurai with them as they passed through the waterfall and climbed up the steep cliff concealed behind the water-screen. After searching for a while, they shouted loudly, “Lord Dijon! We’ve found the treasure!”¹

Dijon took advantage of the slight break to turn his head to take a look. He happened to see the group of samurai carefully moving the metal box down the damp cliff and cautiously crossed the suspension bridge that’s rammed by the waterfall.
Then he shouted at them, “Quickly bring the treasure over here! Be extremely careful—!”²

Before he finished his sentence, the Demon Hound suddenly dashed over there upon noticing its treasure was about to be taken away.

Dijon immediately intercepted the Demon Hound with a heavy swing of his sword and clashed with its steel-like fangs!

Those samurai were frightened by the Demon Hound’s sudden move.

“Hurry up! Munesaki and I will stop this guy!” Dijon chided.

Sakata and Matsuhei walked in the forefront to clear the way as the group carried the box past the swaying suspension bridge and finally arrived on the flat land.

Guarding the side wing was Lily and Matsuda’s group, which were only a few dozen meters away from the treasure hunting group. Right now, Lily was looking for the best opportunity to escape.

“Hm?” She was unintentionally attracted to the box they were carrying. She didn’t know what was being kept in the box, but some kind of unusual fluctuations had drawn her attention.

At this time, the Demon Hound let out yet another drawn-out howl. All the Specter Wolves began to ignore the other samurai and concentrated their attacks on the treasure hunting group.

“We should go and help!” Nagahide led Lily and his men to stop those wolves.

The samurai that tried to protect the box and the wolves that were trying to prevent the humans from stealing their treasure immediately found themselves in a chaotic melee.

The two that were carrying the box stood there stunned, wondering where they should go or if they should put down the box and fight.

Without anyone noticing, two wolves abruptly climbed up from the river valley and jumped at those two samurai.

“Crash—!” They bumped into the box and caused it to crash onto the ground. The box was flipped over with its lid smashed open. A brick-like object fell out of the box, but it was actually a lot heavier than mere brick.

“Bang—!” One-third of its surface sunk into the ground.

Lily looked at toward the object, it was shaped like a brick but the edge was smooth and round. It appeared to be silver black yet it gave off an azure luster, so much so that the black surface even seemed faintly translucent. It looked extremely solid yet as smooth as jade.

That’s tamahagane! Lily could feel her heart thumping like crazy.

Lily recognized it immediately, she had once seen tamahagane being processed into cutting tools at Ehiro’s workshop. It looked exactly like this, but this block emitted an entirely different aura, one that caused people’s heart to pound. As a Blade Maiden, she was naturally sensitive to the hardness³ of the raw material, like how she was attracted to this block of tamahagane for instance. Although she wasn’t able to judge the grade of this tamahagane, it was surely an extremely rare one seeing as how the Demon Hound was treating it as a treasure.

In but a moment, a few samurai had forced the two wolves to fall back. Sakata, Matsuhei, and a few others turned around in a panic to pick up the tamahagane.

All of a sudden, Lily was struck by a sense of anxiety as though something very precious of hers was about to be taken away by others.

“Mine!”⁴

Originally, Lily was still fending off the Specter Wolves with the Matsuda group, but all of a sudden, she lowered her center of gravity and released all of her crimson Blade Maiden Spirit Power. With a stamp of her long snow-white leg, her speed abruptly accelerated and broke away from the group in a flash.

Her long hair fluttered as she dashed forward with her whole body covered in a red gale, leaving beautiful afterimages trailing behind her. She turned her wrist with the Seiwa Tamashi and held it in a reverse grip.

“Scram!!!”

Lily drew a crimson arc with her sword and hit the calf of the samurai with the blunt side of Seiwa Tamashi!

“Bang—!!!” Although the backside of the sword may be blunt, the force was still nothing to scoff at. The powerful Blade Maiden Spirit Power possessed at least a thousand kan of Penetration Force. The few unsuspecting samurai had their legs swiped off the ground.

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Lily paused her steps to slide forward and grabbed the approximately fifty kilograms of tamahagane. She quickly stuffed it in between her breasts⁵ and dashed toward the suspension bridge without looking back!

1. Robinxen: Are you ruddy idiots?! What good is telling someone fighting for their life this?! Other than alerting the enemy?!
2. Robinxen: The frell are these imbeciles thinking?!
3. Robinxen: Hehehe. Hardness.
4. Silva: Wao Lily… you’re not going to keep up your act anymore huh…
5. Robinxen: Does she have a pocket dimension in there or something?!