Demon Sword Maiden

The Endless Demon Mountains finally welcomed true winter as well.

Although it was unknown whether the cause was Yuki-Onna’s arrival, the lush mountains were shrouded in snow at the moment.

Lily’s dress was torn and half her torso, including her spotless shoulders and bountiful chest, was exposed to the cold right now. However, perhaps it was because she possessed quite a healthy body, she actually felt pretty comfortable even under this kind of chilly wind.

She knelt down in the temple ruins that had almost burned out as snow began to collect on the massive Thousand-Armed Buddha’s statue.

Lily then folded her arms and bowed to the Bodhisattva.

For some reason, Lily actually felt as if the Bodhisattva’s statue was smiling at her.

The statue just wore a faint smile and didn’t give Lily any instructions, yet Lily understood its intent in the depths of her heart.

After getting up, Lily looked at the ashen landscape in her surroundings.

A good number of the monsters inside the temple as well as the dungeon had come running out with a totter and although a few hadn’t witnessed it, all of them had sensed the shocking battle that had taken place just prior.

And Amanojaku’s corpse rested on the ground to their shock.

The surviving minor demons had no intention of avenging Amanojaku as he and his chiefs possessed a pretty cruel nature and treated their subordinates’ lives like disposable goods. Thus, most of them were actually forced to obey them because they feared Amanojaku’s strength.

Now that Amanojaku was dead, the monsters in the surroundings bowed to the temple ruins, but they weren’t bowing to Lily and were actually bowing to Haihime as they had chosen to serve her. However, a few of them seized this chance to leave the temple and escape into the mountains.

Lily exhaled a white cloud of air in the chilly wind and turned around to look at Haihime.

Haihime was still kneeling on the ground with her charming waist straightened up as she returned Lily’s gaze. However, she kept kneeling composedly in the snow without getting up and showed a beautiful, relieved smile to Lily.

Lily nodded while gazing at her and Haihime nodded back at Lily while wearing a silent smile.

The snow kept pouring down from the skies even as dense clouds chased the moon.

In the mountain behind the temple, Yumi exited the tunnel along with the surviving clansmen of the Mirror Girl clan.

Lily and the others had long eliminated the monsters guarding the tunnel, so they were able to leave it quite safely.

A white hound awaited them at the tunnel’s exit.

Yumi knew it was actually Lily’s demon hound.

“Master is waiting for you. Go into the temple along with the clansmen, it’s safe now,” The demon hound had also witnessed the battle with its conceptual grudge body and was delighted to take Lily as its master now. Although it didn’t possess a physical body and had limited strength because of its conceptual grudge body, which prevented its soul from going too far from the cursed katana, at the same time, it suffered no harm no matter how many times the conceptual body dissipated as long as its soul was unharmed.

“Go into the temple? W-What about Amanojaku and his subordinates?” Yumi asked worriedly while standing in front of the utterly exhausted and traumatized clansmen.

“Master has gotten rid of them all.”

“Eh? Master Lily did that?” Yumi’s legs turned weak, and she almost fell to her knees, finding it hard to believe that Lily had really created a miracle and wiped out Amanojaku.

After all, he was a Permanence Stage powerhouse!

The demon hound then led Yumi and the clansmen to the back of the temple by climbing up the stone steps, and as expected, they weren’t subjected to the attacks of monsters along the way.

The mild-eyed and ragged Haihime stood in front of the back gate under the snow and her eyes flashed with glee when she saw her clansmen again, but her mind was filled with a lot of worries and she didn’t know how to face them at this moment. After all, it was possible that the misunderstanding between her and the clansmen still existed.

The village chief left the crowd and kneeled to Haihime who was above the stone steps.

The other villagers were stunned by this and tried to help her up, but the village chief pushed them away and kowtowed to Haihime on the stone steps.

“Keiko, I and all the clansmen, owe you our lives.”

The villagers had also heard Yumi narrate about how Haihime had protected them all these years despite the humiliation and hatred and that they would’ve died a long time ago if it weren’t for her.

However, they were still skeptical of this and some of them couldn’t accept this change that easily.

A few villagers kneeled behind the village chief, and more of them joined the ranks gradually, until almost all of them were kneeling in front of Haihime.

They believed it was the truth since even the village chief had accepted it.

They couldn’t even imagine the amount of pain that Haihime had withstood all these years in order to protect their lives.

“Lady Keiko!” “Miss Keiko, we’ve let you down!” “We shouldn’t have misunderstood you.” “We’re ashamed to face you and Lady Kimiko…”

This mood propagated gradually, and all the villagers began to completely accept this as the truth.

This was, in fact, the truth, and they also wished to believe it from the depths of their hearts.

Yoriko hesitated for a good while, still lost in the recollection of her little brother’s tragic death.

Yumi whispered into her ear at this moment, “If your family died in front of you, could you have done what Lady Haihime did to protect the clansmen?”

At this moment, Yoriko finally understood how much pain Haihime had withstood. Moreover, Haihime had also shouldered this blame for over a decade now.

She had to welcome the foe who killed her mother with a smile all this time to protect the people who misunderstood her and cursed at her.

Yoriko broke into tears and fell to her knees in front of Haihime, too.

Yumi climbed the stone steps and stood in front of Haihime.

“Lady Haihime…”

Yumi had a lot of things to say, but she didn’t know where to begin. The two women simply hugged each other and broke down into tears while kneeling on the ground.

At the same time, Lily was seated in a seiza underneath the Thousand-Armed Buddha’s statue with a tranquil expression while holding the Sakura Parasol up amidst the snowstorm.

Yuki-Onna, on the other hand, obviously didn’t mind the snowstorm and frolicked in the air above the ruins gleefully.

“Master,” Kagura had woken up by now, “Those Great Demon Chiefs were pretty poor, but Amanojaku had a lot of good items on him. He had a bunch of magatama, and his scythe is a fairly valuable grade 7 item. Also, the horn on the scythe is actually a pretty decent item. The most valuable and toughest item of the Golden-Horned Tribe is actually the horn on their heads since it’s the source of their power and their pride. As Amanojaku was a Permanence Stage powerhouse, his horn also contains the Permanence Spirit, and even though I’m not that well-learned about rare materials this golden horn should be a rare grade 9 material!”

“What?! Grade 9?!” Lily felt jubilant.

“However… Master. Even if you add all these items together with the Blood Spirit Jade that you’ve expended already, they still don’t amount up to the value of the remaining item!”

“Are you referring to that ancient scroll, Kagura?” Lily’s consciousness entered the mirror space.

“Tsk-Tsk! And there goes your consciousness. You actually want this noble snow maiden to hold up a parasol for you?” Yuki-Onna complained as she caught the Sakura Parasol that had almost fallen to the ground in the snowstorm.

However, Lily didn’t hear her as her soul’s projection had come to the mirror space.

The weapons and items she had obtained from Amanojaku and the other Great Demons were piled up at the center of the octagonal stone room.

Kagura and Lily arrived in front of the massive, 5-foot-long scroll that had dark gold esoteric lines on it and emanated an ancient aura.

“Master. I’ve appraised it pretty closely and have a clear understanding of this treasure since I heard about this item back when I was still adventuring with my former master, Suzuhiko-hime. This massive scroll is most likely the legendary ‘Record of One Hundred Demons,” Kagura’s eyes flashed with a reminiscent light.

“Record of One Hundred Demons?”

“Indeed. It was a pretty rare item even in the era when me and my former master traveled the world and can be considered a treasure.”

Kagura picked the scroll up and unfolded it after arriving at a spacious region.

The scroll rolled across the floor until it struck the wall, but only a small section of it had unfolded.

Lily noticed that a vivid and lifelike, yet remarkably sinister monster was actually painted at the beginning of the scroll. This monster actually consisted of a massive, flaming wheel that had a pretty grim featured head donned with an Eboshi cap at its center. In addition to the flames, the wheel’s circumference was also razor-sharp.

After the wheel monster was the painting of a flamboyant, fuming, exceptionally cruel, fox-striped monster cat, and this monster cat had four swinging tails on its back.

The scroll only had these two monsters painted on it at the beginning while the rest was utterly blank.

The white section above the two monsters had the words ‘Record of One Hundred Demons’ written in strokes that emanated an ancient and transcendent aura.

Lily sensed that even though the calligrapher who wrote these words might have not been a peerless powerhouse, their calligraphic intent had actually reached the Celestial level.

If Goddess Amaterasu was the true god of this world, then the calligrapher of these words was the calligraphy and painting world’s god.

Kagura continued, “According to hearsay, this ‘Record of One Hundred Demons’ holds incredible magic. The owner can draw the monsters they’ve seen in their life onto the blank space of the scroll according to their will with one hundred monster drawings as the limit. However, it’s said that the owner needs to get the monster’s permission as well as spend a certain amount of time to draw the painting in. When night befalls, the owner can summon the soul incarnations of these monsters by using the needed amount of magatama as the catalyst and make them fight for the owner.”

“It seems like Amanojaku really had a significant background, or else he wouldn’t have had such an item that was considered a treasure even back in the ancient times. You were right in letting me make a move, Master. Although there are only two monsters recorded in the scroll, the wheel monster painted at the beginning is a monster known as the Soultaker, and it’s probably a Great Demon at the middle-stage Permanence level. Although its main body is probably a little stronger than Amanojaku, the drawing in this ‘Record of One Hundred Demons’ is just a painted incarnation in the end. Even if it were summoned by using magatama as catalysts, it would’ve been much weaker than its main body. Moreover, its strength would’ve been influenced by the enlightenment stage of Amanojaku’s eldritch powers as well and would’ve reached the summit of the Spirit Jade Stage at best, which is worse than his own strength.”

Kagura’s words left Lily a bit disappointed, but she hadn’t finished speaking yet.

“The one after it has a deep history though! It’s said that a monster cat is a pretty powerful and savage monster, and the one drawn in the scroll is a Four-Tailed Monster Cat. If it were the main body, just a Two-Tailed Monster Cat is able to fight the current you equally, Master, while a Four-Tailed Monster Cat is said to be a Great Demon at the early Throne Stage. Even if it’s just a painted incarnation, if four magatama were used as the catalyst, its strength can easily reach the late Permanence Stage and even come close to the Permanence Stage’s summit. If Amanojaku had succeeded in summoning this monster cat, you would’ve been killed by it for sure, Master!”

Lily’s chest heaved up and down deeply as a shiver passed through her. If it weren’t for her decisiveness, she would’ve been in real danger this time.

“Will I be able to use this ‘Record of One Hundred Demons’ in the future?”

“Of course. Amanojaku is dead, so this item has become ownerless now. As long as you supply it with spirit power, you’ll be able to become the owner of this ancient scroll, Master. You’ll obviously need some practice to master the way to use the scroll, but once you’re proficient in it, you’ll just need the required amount of magatama to summon the painted incarnations of the monsters drawn in the scroll and make them fight for you! The stronger the monster, the higher magatama you’ll need to summon its incarnation. Soultaker, for example, only needs one magatama, but four magatamas are required to summon the Four-Tailed Monster Cat, and that too for a limited amount of time. However, the summons won’t get dispelled as long as you have enough magatama and it’s also possible to summon them repeatedly. At your enlightenment stage, the summoned Four-Tailed Monster Cat would roughly have a decent middle Permanence Stage strength.”