Demon Sword Maiden

“Ashikaga Kiyoshi! Do you even realize what you’re doing? Who exactly has been using you? You’re nothing more than a puppet dancing on someone else’s strings!” Lily’s fury was directed not only at Kiyoshi himself, but also at the endless darkness manipulating him from behind. “Who is it? Who is it?!”

“Lily! Every action I have taken has come from what? Can’t you see it yet? No one is using me. This is my own true will!” Kiyoshi’s sword erupted with the phantom image of an enormous black dragon bearing eight heads as it lunged toward Lily.

Each dragon possessed power surpassing that of an ordinary Supreme God. Merely the movement of their massive bodies as they swept across the battlefield caused countless gods and demons to collapse. Even Big Dipper experts were unable to withstand the overwhelming pressure and fainted on the spot. Among the warriors of Takamagahara and Yomi, the weaker ones struggled just to resist the aftershock of that crushing aura.

With herself as the center, Lily spun gracefully through the air. A circular blade arc expanded outward like a silver moon, dispelling every trace of darkness. Even the eight-headed dragon phantoms were cut apart in an instant.

As the shattered dragon phantoms disintegrated, they transformed into an ocean of darkness. Endless black flames scattered in every direction. Whatever those flames touched would inevitably burn to ashes, and they would never extinguish until they had consumed the victim’s very soul.

Numerous gods and demons struck by even the tiniest spark found themselves engulfed in the flames. Even those at the Empyrean Realm were unable to extinguish them, suffering unimaginable agony. Only by severing the burning limb immediately could they survive.

One particularly valiant warrior, whose entire body had been engulfed, actually decapitated himself with a single slash, transferred his Spirit Sea into his head, and escaped with nothing but his severed head.

The black flames also caught Lily’s clothing.

“Hmph!” A faint, moonlike radiance emerged across Lily’s flawless skin, resembling the glow of Oborozuki.

The Lunar Force could overcome all techniques. The black flames burned all things. The two forces canceled each other out. The flames could only burn away Lily’s clothing, exposing more and more of her beautiful body, yet they could not harm her skin in the slightest, so long as she still possessed Lunar Force.

And throughout the entire battle, Lily had never consumed her divine power. Her Lunar Force remained abundantly full.

“Miss Kagami!” Seeing that Lily’s clothing had nearly been burned away, leaving only a few strips of fabric covering her most intimate areas, Kiyoshi could not help but shout, “Even after being reduced to such a shameful state, you still refuse to surrender? As a woman, if your body is exposed for everyone to see, how is that any different from defeat?”

“What a joke! Do you really think burning away my clothes will force me to surrender? How laughable!”

“Silence! I don’t want anyone else to see your body!”

At that point, only a few scraps of clothing remained on Lily’s body, though they still covered her most private areas.

“You have no right! My body belongs to me alone!”

With a mere thought, a hazy veil of cherry blossoms enveloped Lily’s body. The tattered remnants of her clothing dissolved away as the power of her Sakura Domain merged with Lunar Force, weaving itself into a brand-new crimson short skirt with flowing sleeves. Even her undergarments were formed entirely from the Sakura Domain.

To prevent those perverts from fighting over the scraps of her clothing, Lily willed the torn fragments to be incinerated by divine power.

Yet just then, the Sakura Parasol drifted beneath her, and her sling-style panties happened to fall into Nanako’s hands.

“Don’t worry, Sister!” Nanako called.

Seeing that, Lily decided not to burn them after all.

The garments created by combining the Sakura Domain with Lunar Force possessed extremely high defensive capabilities. However, maintaining them over an extended period gradually consumed divine power. The amount was small, but much like constantly performing a slow, repetitive task, it steadily exhausted one’s mind. Thus, outside of extraordinary battles such as this, Lily rarely used them. Ordinary clothes were far more comfortable.