He suddenly pulled out a whip and raised it high above his head.
“What are you staring at? Trying to slack off? Get moving and work like your lives depend on it! Move!” The little demon shrieked and leapt forward, lashing the miners with his long whip.
The miners could only let out anguished cries, clutching their heads as they endured the blows, forcing their bodies—already on the verge of collapse—to keep working.
A few who were frail and elderly fainted on the spot.
Though he was rely a hunched little demon, he had crawled up from the ravines of Yomi and possessed the strength of the Throned Sovereign. Sakiko was also at the Throne Stage, but only at the rank of Throned General.
“If you beat them all to death, who will mine for you?” Sakiko shouted.
The little demon froze for a mont, then turned toward her, baring his fangs. “What you say… makes sense! Then I’ll beat you instead! You only need to supervise and keep the accounts anyway, right? It doesn’t matter if I injure you a little, does it?”
The demon sprang into the air with surprising speed and landed before Sakiko. His thin leg lashed out, and with a heavy “thud!” his thick, sturdy foot struck her squarely, knocking her to the ground.
Then he swung his whip and began rcilessly lashing her.
Her clothes were torn apart, red welts blooming across her body. She clenched her teeth in pain and endured it all without uttering a single scream.
“I’ll whip you to death! Still dare to slack in supervision? B̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! B̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! You human won are all trash!” The demon lashed her wildly. The humiliation and tornt that Sakiko and Kotoka suffered that day were not daily occurrences, but they were common enough to be called routine.
They had been forbidden from sexually defiling the two won, and so they vented their frustration even more viciously, seizing every excuse to curse and beat them.
Outside the main valley of Cherry Blossom Valley. Where the demon army’s camp and the human laborers’ village intermingled, a black spatial gate suddenly appeared.
“What’s that?” Several demon guards stared in confusion at the black void, five or six ters wide and more than ten ters tall. Within it, stars seed to shimr, and arcane currents flowed in secret patterns.
One after another, won dressed in exquisite garnts and possessing breathtaking beauty stepped out from the gate that had appeared from nothing.
“Humans? Won?” The demon guards were dumbfounded and rubbed their eyes. Had they been fantasizing about beautiful won for so long that they were seeing things? How could such tall, slender figures with beauty beyond reason simply walk out of thin air?
Lily, clad in a red short skirt with Oborozuki Muramasa hanging at her waist, stepped onto the soil of Cherry Blossom Valley. Beside her stood Rei in blue-and-white feathered robes, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi slung across her back. Shimizu wore black robes adorned with golden butterflies, a straight-bladed sword in a bamboo scabbard at her waist—Murasa-Anko.
“They’re… really won? Who exactly are they?” The monsters could not process what they were seeing. Even the distant villagers peeked from beside their dilapidated huts, staring this way.
From within the black spatial gate, Kaguya-hi erged, her arm linked with Chiya’s, holding the Golden Jade Branch as she stepped out from the star-flowing fissure of the Spirit Realm.
“The mortal realm… How many years has it been since I last set foot upon this land?” Kaguya recalled fragnts of her reincarnation within the bamboo grove and could not help but sigh. Though much of her mory was lost, that portion remained intact.
Behind her, Bishamonten appeared in Celestial Maiden’s Divine Raint, ribbons fluttering, her figure firm and athletic. Barefoot, her feet hovered about an inch above the ground as she drifted forward.
“This should be Shinano, should it not? Not far from Echigo Province, where I once hid in the mortal world and gave birth to little Rei. The scent of the air and soil… how nostalgic.”
Fujiwara no Ayaka, Nanako, Yuki-Onna, Kagura, and Suzuhiko-hi followed behind, stepping out in succession.
This dazzling, multicolored assembly of goddesses—each one capable of laying waste to the entire continent—now stood there.
Yet in their eyes was only curiosity about the mortal world, even a hint of yearning. Humans might be weak and short-lived, but their seven emotions and six desires, their joys and sorrows, fascinated these lofty deities.
By then, the surrounding monsters had gathered. They did not pounce as they normally would at the sight of won, for these won were simply too beautiful, and their sudden appearance left their minds unable to react.
So were towering and muscular with ferocious-looking tusks. So were hunched and scrawny yet bloodthirsty. Others were grotesque and strangely ford. All stared with lecherous yet bewildered eyes at these won they could not comprehend.
The goddesses seed not to notice the monsters at all. To them, demons, humans, houses, mountains, and rivers were rely part of the scenery.
Strength? What difference was there between a demon, a human, or a grain of sand by the roadside?
“Lily, is this the Cherry Blossom Valley you spoke of? Miss Shimizu, are you certain we did not take a wrong turn? It does not look quite as you described.” Kaguya asked, puzzled.
“Hehehe, how could I possibly be mistaken?”
Lily surveyed her surroundings, already understanding. When her divine power had previously blanketed this land, she had sensed the truth. “We are not mistaken. It’s just that… it hasn’t been cleaned in a long ti. So extra trash has piled up.”
A cold gleam flashed in Lily’s eyes as she spoke.
“Hey, Boss, why are there so many beautiful won? They’re… they’re really sothing! I’ve never seen girls this pretty before, and so many of them! What’s going on?” One ogre muttered to the ogre leader beside him.
The ogre chief was equally baffled. “How the hell should I know? Since they’ve delivered themselves to our door, why overthink it? Let’s go ask.”
“B-Boss… don’t you feel a bit tight in the chest?”
“Yeah… I can’t seem to catch my breath. Feels like the Heavenly Path is pressing down on us.”
“ too. Why has the air suddenly beco so heavy?”
Lily and the others were simply too powerful. Even without releasing their divine power, they carried a natural oppression. The demons were far too weak to recognize its source; to them, it felt as though the entire sky were bearing down upon them.
“Hey! I’m talking to you—the pretty one in red! Are you human or so kind of demoness? Where did you co from?” No matter how dull they were, the monsters knew these won who had stepped out of nowhere were no ordinary mortals, and so they approached to question them.
Lily seed not to hear. Her divine power had already spread across the entire Kanto region.
“Sister Ayaka, go check on Sakiko. Sister Uesugi, Sister Shimizu, I’ll leave this place to you. Nanako, let’s move ahead.” With that, Lily took Nanako’s hand and vanished in an instant.
“Huh?” The monsters stared at one another, glancing left and right.
“Where did they go? How did they disappear?”
“Were they illusions all along?”
“That can’t be right. They had shadows!”
A short, chubby monster foolishly reached out a finger, attempting to poke Rei’s thigh. Nothing seed to happen. The short, chubby monster felt that he had not actually touched the warm skin of Rei’s thigh. “What’s going on? I can’t feel anything… Is it really just an illusion?”
He reached out with both hands again to grope her thigh, yet still felt nothing at all.
“Hey, look at this! These pretty chicks are all just phantoms. What a letdown. Still, not bad to look at, hehehe…” The demon chuckled foolishly at his companions. Yet, for so reason, the other demons were staring at him in shock.
“What’s wrong? Why are you all looking at like that?”
“Eighth Brother… y-you… your hands…”
“My hands? What about my hands? Why are you staring at them? They’re just rough and dirty. Look at the won instead! Look at those thighs—so smooth and beautiful!”
“N-no, Eighth Brother… your hands… they’re gone…”
“Huh?”
Only then did the Eighth Brother seem to sense that sothing was amiss. He raised his arms and saw nothing but two cleanly severed stumps at his wrists. Not a single drop of blood flowed.
“Ah? Ah… Aaaah! M-my hands! Where did my hands go!?” His terrified howl echoed throughout the valley.
anwhile, at the mining site, the hunched little demon was still whipping Sakiko, seemingly unsatisfied. “You b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! Watch straddle your waist and whip you!” With that, he leapt toward Sakiko, who lay on the ground, barely propping herself up.
**Bang!**
The demon’s vision went white. He slamd headfirst into what seed like a painted floral screen, crashing into it so hard that stars spun before his eyes. He rebounded and fell back onto the ground in a daze.
“What the hell was that?”
The screen rotated and dissolved. Ayaka stood there beneath a branch of cherry blossoms, dressed in shrine maiden attire, tall and exquisitely beautiful, wearing an official cap and holding a paper fan.
Sakiko suddenly felt a soothing warmth flow from behind her, and all the wounds on her body healed instantly. She turned around. At the sight of Ayaka, even the mature Sakiko—hair disheveled, clothes torn—could not hide the emotion in her eyes.
“Lady Ayaka? Y-you… how could you be here? Could it be…”
The little demon, having taken a hard fall, was furious. He shook his whip and marched over. He stood less than a ter tall, and Ayaka towered over him.
“Damn, you’re tall! But no matter how tall you are, you’re still just a useless b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲, right? Putting on airs with that fancy getup? Who the hell are you?”
Ayaka paid him no attention. She stepped forward and helped Sakiko to her feet. “Madam Sakiko, are you alright? Why has this place beco like this?”
“Lady Ayaka… now that you’re here, it will be fine. It’s a long story…”
“It’s alright. Tell slowly.”
Ayaka spoke gently. Yet as the two won quietly exchanged words and concern, the demon behind Ayaka continued hopping and shouting.
“Answer , you tall b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! Wearing a man’s hat—who do you think you are? I’m talking to you, s̲l̲u̲t̲! Say sothing! You dare ignore ? Want a taste of the whip? Damn it, if you don’t speak, I’ll whip you! Fine! Since you want it so badly, I was just thinking of breaking in a new toy—”
Ayaka lightly flicked her long sleeve and paper fan. The demon burst into a spray of flesh and bone fragnts, scattering into the air behind her.
“How annoying.” Ayaka finally responded with a single line, though the demon was no longer capable of hearing it. Her strike had appeared graceful and effortless, but the disparity in power was absolute. Not only had the demon’s body been obliterated, even his soul had been reduced to ash, never to be reborn.
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