Book 13: Chapter 48: Savage Fury and Icy Stillness
The golden hamr of A-no-Tajikarao flew toward them. Rei tried to shove Lily backward, yet Lily instead took the initiative to wrap her arms around Rei’s waist.
“Sister…”
Lily pressed her body tightly against Rei, stepping one leg forward so that her lower abdon also pressed against the firr side of Rei’s hip. The two had long been perfectly attuned through pair training, and as the Silver Lunar Force flowed between them, it intertwined and resonated in shared insight.
Stimulated by Lily’s latest understanding of lunar power, Rei’s Silver Lunar Force surged even stronger than before.
She advanced head-on and brought her blade down in a single strike.
The arc of Silver Lunar blade light split A-no-Tajikarao’s dark-gold hamr cleanly in two.
“What?!” A-no-Tajikarao was shocked. ‘Damn it, is there truly no weapon besides my great pillar that could withstand her Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi?’
The Kusanagi was indeed sharp, but the weapons of the gods were by no ans weak. With Lily’s strength in the past, even wielding the Kusanagi would not have been enough to cut through an ordinary divine artifact like mud. Yet now, Rei’s strength had surpassed Lily’s, and when paired with the sharpest and most potent Silver Lunar Force, even common divine artifacts could be severed with ease.
“Lily, find a way to help those Celestial Maidens,” Rei said.
“Yes!” Lily could not rush directly toward the cages, but she expanded her domain instead. Sakura petals and snow filled the sky, transforming into blades that assaulted the Yuten Army, throwing them into chaos. The blades then precisely severed the chains and ropes binding the Celestial Maidens, one after another.
At the sa ti, a gale of snow swept across the ice layer not far away. Yuki-Onna, who had been secretly following the Celestial Maidens all along, finally made her move. When the Celestial Maiden rebels had attacked earlier, she had sensed no opportunity and refrained from acting, planning to follow the escort and wait for a better mont. But now, she chose to help the Celestial Maidens escape first, so the Yuten Army could not take them hostage to threaten Lily and Rei.
Furaku also regained her montum. Although the chains binding her were far stronger, she still managed to break free with her own efforts, combined with Lily’s domain and the assistance of the other Celestial Maidens.
“Furaku! I do not understand what you truly intend, but if you sincerely help us, I can return the treasure to you!” Lily shouted.
“Lady Lily… even if… even if you do not return the treasure, I… I can still listen to you…” Furaku began to employ her charm techniques to disrupt the Yuten Army. Outside the cages, the battle situation shifted. With Yuki-Onna, Furaku, and Lily’s domain world supporting them, the Celestial Maiden forces gained the advantage. The Yuten Army was driven back step by step, retreating to the edge of the icy platform.
Although A-no-Tajikarao was formidable, his domain was far inferior to Lily’s, and confined within the cage, he could not influence the battle outside.
“In that case, I can only defeat you as quickly as possible!”
A-no-Tajikarao hoisted his great pillar and smashed it toward Rei.
**Bang!**
A burst of dazzling sparks erupted as the Kusanagi collided with the great pillar, and Rei was sent flying.
“Sister!” Lily’s strength had dropped to less than thirty percent, yet a sudden inspiration struck her. Reacting swiftly, she extended a ribbon from behind Rei. The ribbon wrapped directly around the cage without triggering the electric current. Lily infused the ribbons with Hazy Lunar Force, rendering them misty and crystalline, breathtakingly beautiful.
Rei crashed into the buffer ford by the ribbons and barely ca to a stop several ters from the cage wall before rebounding back.
“There is such a thod?” Even A-no-Tajikarao was greatly surprised.
Lily discovered that when Hazy Lunar Force was applied to binding and restraining secret arts, it greatly enhanced their toughness and entangling power.
At present, Lily’s mastery of Hazy Lunar Force was neither strong nor refined, yet with greater proficiency or further advancent of Hazy Lunar Force, the power of such binding techniques would increase dramatically.
“Preposterous!” A-no-Tajikarao roared in fury as he charged toward Lily. “Kagami Lily, though I may have feelings for you, the Heavenly Path stands above all and the laws are absolute. I can no longer spare you!”
Even at full strength, Lily would not have been a match for A-no-Tajikarao. In her current state, she was even less capable of facing him head-on.
Lily retreated gracefully while casting out ribbon after ribbon. These ribbons were infused with Hazy Lunar Force and shimred with a hazy glow. Though they did not appear fast, their trajectories were drifting and elusive, difficult to grasp.
The brutish god paid them no mind and charged straight at Lily.
The ribbons wrapped around A-no-Tajikarao’s thick waist and limbs. In terms of raw power, they could not contend with him, yet they overca strength with softness, binding him bit by bit and greatly hindering his movents.
“Damn it! How irritating!”
So of the ribbons wound themselves around the cage, others coiled around A-no-Tajikarao himself. When he tried to break free with force, the ribbons proved extrely elastic, stretching and retracting. They did not fully resist his strength, yet they made every movent unbearably uncomfortable.
Although the ribbons carried Lily’s faint feminine fragrance, A-no-Tajikarao had no leisure to appreciate it.
**Boom!**
He erupted with golden, masculine divine power. Though the Hazy Lunar Force surpassed his divine power in rank, his sheer output was overwhelming, forcibly neutralizing and dispersing it.
The ribbons were then easily torn to shreds by the unleashed divine power.
The ribbons had been ford from condensed divine energy, and once shredded, they naturally dissipated.
**Clang!**
A streak of silver light flashed from behind as Rei’s Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi slashed toward him.
A-no-Tajikarao raised his great pillar and swung it back in response. Suddenly, his arm was disturbed by a force that was neither weak nor strong. It was Lily’s Hazy Lunar Force again.
This ti, Lily directly infused Hazy Lunar Force into her forr technique, Thousand Sakura Binding. Strands of silver ribbons, beautiful to behold yet incomparably resilient, wrapped tightly around A-no-Tajikarao.
“This is bad!” The power of A-no-Tajikarao’s strike was greatly diminished. Though he still managed to lift the pillar under the bindings, he could only block, no longer able to counterattack with full force.
The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi cut several inches into the massive pillar.
A-no-Tajikarao braced the pillar against Rei’s blade and lashed out with a kick. That kick carried a massive golden footprint, its might scarcely inferior to his enormous palm strikes.
Rei flipped backward, and in mid-motion her long, slender legs lashed out in a counter-kick. Blue divine power cleaved the golden footprint apart like a giant axe.
The remaining force struck A-no-Tajikarao, forcing even him to stagger back several steps through the air.
In terms of leg strength, Rei was never much weaker than A-no-Tajikarao. With his power reduced by the bindings and her perfectly tid counterattack, this exchange ended with no disadvantage on her side.
“A-no-Tajikarao! Must we continue this fight?” Lily stood in midair, her long hair flowing. “Fighting on like this is nothing but aningless exhaustion and slaughter. I respect you, and I have never truly done anything that violates the Heavenly Law. Why not end this here?”
Rei stood to one side, her presence at this mont far more imposing than Lily’s.
With the two of them working together, A-no-Tajikarao, though powerful, found it difficult to fully exert his strength. The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi alone was enough to make him wary.
“End it?” A-no-Tajikarao replied coldly. “I personally escorted these prisoners. If I still let them escape, would I not beco a laughingstock before all under heaven?”
His gaze suddenly went vacant. His burly body trembled as the masculine divine power around him grew denser and more expansive, shaking heaven and earth.
This bearded brute seed to recall mories from an unimaginably distant past.
When A-no-Tajikarao was young, dark-skinned, ugly, slow-witted, and clumsy, he had often been bullied and mocked by the other heavenly children around him.
“A laughingstock…”
“Who dares laugh at !”
“Who dares laugh at in front of won!”
A-no-Tajikarao’s skin gradually turned red as waves of heat poured from his body. The surrounding temperature rose sharply. His eyes bulged wide, blazing with dazzling golden light as his aura surged explosively.
“I’ll kill you all!”
A-no-Tajikarao’s expression lost all trace of honesty, becoming incomparably savage. He opened his mouth wide, flared his nostrils, and charged straight toward Lily.
The black blur moved far too fast.
Lily was startled and imdiately unleashed Thousand Sakura Binding once more. Yet the berserk brute shattered technique with brute force. Even Thousand Sakura Binding enhanced with Hazy Lunar Force could not restrain him and was scattered with ease. He swung the great pillar and smashed it toward Lily.
In her current state, Lily had no way to withstand such an attack.
Rei instantly flashed in front of Lily, raising the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi to block head-on. An incomparably violent strike sent Rei flying, smashing heavily into the cage wall. Electric currents surged wildly, wracking her with agony. Lily’s ribbons did not even have ti to rescue her.
“Baby Girl!” Bishamonten shouted from below. “Be careful! He’s gone berserk!”
The rampaging A-no-Tajikarao was like a maddened bull. He lowered his head, spotted Bishamonten, and, disregarding all sense of honor, charged toward her, even though she currently had little combat power.
“Oh no!” Lily cried out in alarm. If Bishamonten were struck head-on by that great pillar, how could she possibly endure it?
**Boom!**
A colossal ancient divine phantom burst out of the cage, towering thousands of ters high, visible even from hundreds of kiloters away.
Rei burned her divine power, her obsession erupting as she positioned herself in front of her mother. With the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, she forcibly endured the blow. She did not retreat or divert the force, because there was nowhere to retreat. Behind her stood her mother. This single strike consud an enormous amount of her divine power.
Yet A-no-Tajikarao pressed on with terrifying montum, roaring in a frenzy. Even as Rei recklessly burned her power, it was clear she could no longer hold back this frenzied heroic god.
At that mont, however, a sharp, calculating light glead in Lily’s eyes. “What I was waiting for… was this very mont!”
With a flick of her hand, a five-tiered miniature tower suddenly appeared beside Bishamonten. The small tower continued to expand, transforming into a genuine ancient tower several ters tall, emanating an obscure, restrained, yet unfathomable aura.
“Lady Bishamonten, hurry and hide inside the tower!” Lily shouted as she flew toward it.
“Eh? How do I do that?”
‘Place your hand on the tower. I’ll pull you inside myself. Do not resist!’ Lily transmitted urgently.
Bishamonten imdiately did as instructed and vanished in an instant.
“What!?” The berserk A-no-Tajikarao noticed at once.
“Sister Uesugi, you get in quickly too!” Lily said, then without the slightest hesitation, she herself slipped into the tower.
Rei was already on the verge of collapse. Her long arms and slender legs trembled uncontrollably as she barely adjusted her posture. At that mont, she suddenly released her resistance, allowing A-no-Tajikarao’s force to shove her backward. She used the montum to retreat violently, twisted her body midair, and leapt sideways toward the tower. Her hand touched the tower just as her massive montum was about to crash into it, and she instantly turned into a dim flash of light and disappeared.
By now, A-no-Tajikarao’s eyes were bloodshot with rage, completely devoid of calm judgnt. Seeing the three beauties he was about to seize vanish around the tower, he charged forward recklessly. Relying on brute force alone, he tried to lift the tower outright. Veins bulged violently across his forehead, and even the frozen cloud layers beneath his feet shattered, yet the tower stood suspended in midair, utterly unmoving.
Inside the tower, Rei fell inward, crashing into Lily and Bishamonten and pressing the three of them hard against the tower walls.
The interior space was extrely narrow. Originally ant only for Lily to hide from external danger, it was now forcibly packed with three people, making it stifling and unbearably cramped.
But it was safe.
‘Hmph. This is exactly the mont I was waiting for. If A-no-Tajikarao had still been clear-headed, then even if I used this tower, he could have surrounded it with an army and gone to request reinforcents from Takamagahara. Even if they might not be able to deal with the tower, we would still be trapped inside. But now that he’s gone berserk, he won’t think that far. Next, he’ll probably exhaust himself in a mad frenzy, pouring divine power into attacking this tower. Just how strong the defense of the treasure my godmother gave is… now I finally get to see,’ Lily thought to herself.
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