Volume 8 - Higanbana: Chapter 27 – Yomi’s Depths
“Damn… I can’t move my body…”
The impact from the crash had rendered Lily senseless, and she had almost fainted.
No matter how powerful someone was, they were bound to lose consciousness and end up with a numbed body from trying to bear a force beyond their threshold, just as Ayaka had lost consciousness from a blow. That said, Ayaka only ended up in such a situation because Daitengu had ambushed her from behind. There was no guarantee that Daitengu could overpower her in a frontal confrontation.
The demon hounds of Yomi approached the female samurai who was a stranger to them with caution and did not try to kill her yet, but it was just a matter of time before they did so.
Lily gradually regained control over her spirit power and used it to boost her senses, speeding up her recovery at the same time.
Although she still could not move from the numbness she felt from the crash, she used her strong spirit power to hasten her recovery by channeling her spirit power through her body. However, it was no easy task for her to recover from the damage of the fall despite possessing a powerful physique.
“I can move my hand!”
Lily raised one of her hands.
Her reaction ended up provoking the Throned Monarch demon hounds, though, and made them bark at her, their voice containing a soul damaging effect. These demon hounds of Yomi actually possessed the ability to attack the soul, and if their opponent was an ordinary Throned Saint, they were bound to receive some sort of influence from it, their strength decreasing as a result of it. However, these soul attacks were practically ineffective against Lily.
A demon hound glared at Lily’s exposed skin with its two pairs of eyes, issuing a gloomy glow from them as it exerted power into its hind legs and rushed towards her, leaving behind a black afterimage.
Lily pulled out Yasutsuna with her left hand and turned it over, bringing its blade in front of her.
Clang!
A clanging noise echoed across the surroundings, followed by a gust of wind. Lily had stopped the demon hound’s teeth from reaching her using her blade.
“How powerful!”
Although the demon hound was just at the peak of the Throned Monarch stage, it had lived most of its life under the intense gravitational force present in these depths and was much more powerful than a peak-stage Throned Monarch of the mortal world.
Lily had barely managed to defend against its attack with one hand and could not hold on for long.
Swoosh! The demon hound pressed its sharp claws against Lily’s shoulder. Its claws were so sharp that they would have ripped apart her shoulder into pieces if not for the spirit armor protecting her body.
“Ouch…” The augmented pain Lily felt from the spirit armor’s resistance made her expression morph in pain and break out in a cold sweat. However, the pain also helped her recover her body’s senses faster.
“I can move my legs!”
Lily raised her slender, firm thighs, and kicked the demon hound away with all her strength, rolling aside as she stood up straight.
Lily’s breastplate was full of cracks, and the left section of her chest armor had fallen off, revealing her snowy bosom, giving a faint view of her flushed skin from the gaps in the damaged armor.
The demon hounds in front of her had never seen a woman, though, and held little interest in their opponent’s gender, only caring about devouring their opponent and turning them into their stepping stone for becoming stronger.
A strong wind approached Lily from behind before she could stabilize her footing. A demon hound had pounced at her with incredible speed, but Lily dodged aside with the intention of avoiding the attack. However, she still had not regained her body’s control fully and the hound’s sharp claw still ended up striking her down to the ground forcefully as a result. Lily rolled across the ground the moment she fell down and evaded the hound’s bite, swinging her blade upwards against the location where she had sensed the opponent while rolling aside.
Splurt!
Lily’s blade opened a deep cut on the demon hound’s abdomen, causing its guts to flow out along with blood.
The other demon hounds immediately pounced at the injured hound and began devouring its flesh as well as organs, taking one bite after the other.
Lily could not help but shiver when she witnessed this scene. “To think they don’t hesitate to cannibalize their own, how cruel.”
A few demon hounds rushed towards Lily, but she simply ignored them.
Now that she had recovered fully, Lily made a quick escape. She did not intend to let the demon hounds surround her when she was not clear about the situation here, let alone engage in a fight to the death with them.
However, even though the demon hounds were weaker than Lily, their gigantic bodies and powerful legs were extremely suitable for running across these rocky, magmatic depths, and some of them were even faster than her.
Whoosh!
A demon hound in the Throned Saint stage caught up to Lily and pounced at her from behind in order to take her down, but Lily stomped on the ground and changed directions forcefully, avoiding the hound and unleashing a roundhouse strike with her blade at the same time.
Clang!
Her crimson blade headed towards the five-meter long demon hound’s head.
The demon hound’s head was flat and had three pairs of eyes which resembled human eyes, all of which glowed with a golden light and were bloodshot as they glared at her with their dark, eerie pupils.
Lily experienced an instinctive fear from the demon hound’s gaze, which made her blade waver a little, but she narrowed her eyes immediately and continued with the attack forcefully.
The attack sliced through the demon hound’s head right underneath its eyes and until its nose, leaving behind a dreadful wound on its face which exposed its skull outside.
The demon hounds of Yomi had lived a life of slaughter all their lives, though, and knew no pain, so the demon hound still continued approaching Lily expressionlessly despite the severe wound it had suffered.
Lily also felt startled by this and turned her hand over to slash at the hound again, releasing a purple sword beam from it.
Bam!
The sword beam severed the demon hound’s head completely.
Lily’s strength when using the purple moon’s power reached the level of an Ultimate Throned Saint, making her much more powerful than an ordinary Throned Saint.
Although she could have killed the demon hound in a few moves without using the purple moon’s power, the cruelty and grimness of Yomi’s monsters had scared the daylights out of Lily.
“What a waste of strength…”
Even though the impact from the fall had affected Lily and she had suffered an attack from these demon hounds, her mind was clear as ever.
She had fallen into the depths of Yomi, and based on what she had seen previously, this place was quite vast and was home to countless terrifying demons who had degraded into becoming killing machines and only knew how to devour their opponents. Besides, she was certain that these depths were also home to ancient demon gods who were much more powerful than her.
She was in quite the danger and could not even imagine how many demons she would have to fight before she could escape from this place.
“Fortunately, I can recover my spirit power by killing demons and continue fighting endlessly as long as it doesn’t burden my body too much. However, the purple moon’s power is the ace up my sleeve and is scarce in quantity. I must save as much of it as possible and only use it to preserve my life in critical moments.”
Although Lily had severed the demon hound’s head, it seemed to possess an innate demon god physique, though, so it attempted to regenerate its head from where she had severed its head. That said, the process was bound to expend a massive amount of time and spirit power.
Lily sprinted towards the hound and stabbed its heart, shattering its spirit jade immediately in the next moment.
The throne palace as well as the permanence spirit in the demon hound’s spiritual sea got destroyed by a massive invading blade the moment its spirit jade shattered, and the Throned Saint demon hound perished at once.
Lily snatched its anima without the slightest hesitation as she would never miss out on obtaining a Throned Saint’s anima.
The small expanse of water in Lily’s spiritual sea shimmered with a misty spiritual light once she refined the anima, turning extremely pure.
1References
Robinxen: Cloudflare screwed over the connection with the site by making me to a captcha and lost the original post data in the process, so no comments this chapter because I don’t want to try and retype the ones I made.