Book 3: Chapter 89: Live On

Kimiko, who was in the middle of smoking inside the largest house within the village, stopped suddenly and a chilling shudder that hadn’t appeared in a long time flashed through her eyes.

She had sensed a powerful eldritch aura that wasn’t common even back in Kansai!

There were at least powerful onmyōji like Ayaka and Seimei who could fend off the monsters back in Kansai, but this wildland of Kanto only had her and the innocent clansmen that had accompanied her to this place!

Kimiko grabbed her tachi suddenly and stated in an unprecedently solemn voice, “Keiko, listen to what I’m saying now.”

“What is it, Mom?” Keiko was a pretty perceptive woman as well, so she had a bad feeling internally when she saw Kimiko’s abnormal expression. She had never felt like this ever since they had escaped from Kansai to Kanto.

“Keiko! Take all the clansmen as well as the legacy books and scrolls of our Mirror Girl clan and hide within the cave in the back mountain immediately. Don’t come out at any cost unless I contact you!” Kimiko stated grimly.

“Huh? Why are saying something like this so suddenly, Mom?”

“Keiko. I felt a…”

Kimiko didn’t explain any further after seeing Keiko’s expression change.

Keiko shuddered with a gloomy face, “An eldritch aura… Mom, I… felt a pretty powerful and sinister aura nearby the village…”

“They are at the entrance of the village. Keiko, act immediately and evacuate the clansmen as far as possible silently and tell your Aunt Yumiko to rally all the samurai women and the mirror maidens at the entrance of the village in order to stop those things from advancing further along with me,” Kimiko stated.

“Let me also stop those monsters along with you, Mom!”

“Keiko! Protect the clansmen well! This is our mission! Go now!” Kimiko sent down an extremely tough order.

“Understood… Mom!”

Keiko rushed out the back door and looked for the old grandma that supervised the items of the clan as well as the legacy books and scrolls first.

As for Kimiko, she took a deep breath and held her katana, Muramasa firmly as she walked out from the front.

“Oh no!” Kimiko felt a strong killing intent, so she sped her pace and arrived at the entrance of the village within just a few breaths of time.

The foul scent of blood reeked in the air.

Setsuna fell onto his butt underneath a huge tree and had almost lost his voice, his jaws trembling as he witnessed the scene before him with eyes wide open.

Souichirou’s bloodstained head with lifeless eyes seemed as if they were staring at the rushing Kimiko, but his body was lying on the ground a few meters away while his blood-dripping head rested inside the claws of a huge, sinister demon.

All the apprentice hunters except Setsuna were lying in pools of blood.

As for the 5m tall, single-horned cyan demon that held Souichirou’s head, it stared at the rushing Kimiko with its two pairs of eyes.

There were at least over a hundred different kinds of demons standing nearby the village’s entrance and there were still a lot more of them hiding inside the woods.

A short-heighted bratty monster who carried a huge scroll on his back stood at the forefront of these monsters.

“Oh? It seems like a formidable woman has arrived,” Amanojaku stated somewhat mockingly.

Kimiko’s gaze seemed to freeze when she saw this scene.

Souichirou had protected her like an elder brother ever since the moment she had become the chief of the clan back in Kansai in spite of the fact that her strength surpassed his greatly later on. The young hunters too, Kimiko had seen them journey along with her staunchly to build their home anew and hunt together….

“Why… Why did you kill them?! We fled all the way to this wildland in Kanto from Nara, so why do you insist on decimating us?!” Kimiko held the handle of her katana firmly as cyan spirit power shrouded her.

“Oh? No wonder there’s such a formidable samurai woman like you out in this wildland. It seems like your clan shoulders a tragic history, but I’m afraid that you are mistaken. I am Amanojaku and this is my group of monsters. I simply have no idea where you all hail from.”

“Yes. We were just passing by coincidentally and saw a village, so we decided to pillage it and eat some humans in passing and grab a few women, that’s all,” stated the 5m tall single-horned, lizard-faced demon.

“You were just passing by coincidentally… and decided to slaughter innocent humans like this after finding them? …Just what in the world are you saying?!?!?!”

A burst of spirit power exploded out from Kimiko’s body as she turned into a beam of light and charged towards the single-horned demon.

“Hehe. You little girl…” The single-horned demon holding Souichirou’s head clawed towards Kimiko casually.

“Watch out, Single-Horned Demon!” Amanojaku warned him.

“Huh?”

“Spurt!” Kimiko’s katana shone with a poignant eldritch glow and sliced off the single-horned demon’s tree-sized thick arm.

“A cursed katana! This woman is a blade maiden!” Amanojaku stated astonishedly.

“Argh! It hurts a lot!” A jet of black blood spurted out from the single-horned demon’s bisected wrist, “What kind of katana is this? I’m unable to regenerate my wound!”

The Muramasa blade within Kimiko’s hands exuded a sharp, eldritch luster and she jumped up suddenly while seething in anger and chopped towards the head of the single-horned demon.

The single-horned demon thrashed its tail instantly since the speed of its tail was astoundingly faster than its body!

“Bam!!!”

Keiko defended against the blow hastily with her katana, but she was blown away by the intense power behind the thrash.

Kimiko flipped over in the sky and landed on the roof of a house and charged at the single-horned demon once again with killing intent regardless of the fact that her jump had destroyed the roof. Kimiko was really furious at this moment and was brimming with intense killing intent as she clashed with the other side.

The sudden counterattack shocked the single-horned demon as well, so it threw Souichirou’s head away and blocked the attack with one hand while somehow retreating back simultaneously.

However, it was already too late! Kimiko adjusted her posture slightly and stabbed towards the single-horned demon’s heart directly after bypassing his claw.

“Clank!”

An extremely powerful and well-built hand pinched the blade of Kimiko’s katana at this moment.

And it disabled Kimiko from moving her katana even a single inch with just two fingers.

Amanojaku and Kimiko got locked in a deadlock in midair.

“What?!” Kimiko was shocked.

Amanojaku held Kimiko’s cursed katana with his thick fingers and released a murky aura as well.

“What a blade maiden you are!”

Amanojaku kicked out suddenly and even though he was short-heighted, the soles of his feet packed an exceptionally powerful strength and weight!

“Bam!” Kimiko was sent flying by the kick and crashed above a house inside the village, smashing through it! Meanwhile, Amanojaku retrieved her katana.

Kimiko felt numb all over when the dust settled down. This kick of Amanojaku’s had broken several ribs of hers, but she still tried to stand up and resist tenaciously, “You monsters… scram from here!”

Amanojaku leaped up suddenly to flip towards Kimiko and stomped down hard on her arm with his foot.

“Argggghhhhh!!!” Kimiko issued a miserable scream and blood seeped out from her long-sleeves as her beautiful arm bent in an unnatural direction.

“You chopped the single-horned demon’s wrist with this arm, right? It doesn’t seem that powerful. It seems like your cursed katana is what makes you so fierce, huh?”

Amanojaku grabbed the heavy scroll from his back and stomped it towards Kimiko’s foot underneath him.

“Boom!”

Kimiko’s foot snapped into two halves along with yet another scream of hers.

“Mom!” At a distance, Keiko, who was about to evacuate the villagers out of the village, tried to rush towards her mother recklessly after hearing her scream.

“Stop!” The samurai woman, Yumiko, pulled Keiko back, “Didn’t Lady Kimiko order you to evacuate the villagers? Leave the task of aiding Lady Kimiko to us!”

“Let me go!” Keiko flailed her long-sleeves to struggle free from the arms of Yumiko and the other samurai woman and dashed back inside the village.

Yumiko and the rest were thus forced to catch up with her along with the samurai woman and the mirror maidens while leaving behind a few people to guard the clansmen as they evacuate the village.

“Mom!” Keiko saw Kimiko lying on the ground with a broken arm and foot after dashing to the village entrance.

Kimiko could only move one hand and foot now, so she unsheathed the dagger on her waist and managed to prop her body up somehow. The monster’s kick had torn one side of her dress and exposed her fair shoulder which was now blood-scarred mostly and had a ferocious white tiger tattooed on it.

“Mom!!”

“Don’t come over! Didn’t I tell you to leave?! I-I can handle these monsters alone!” Kimiko obviously found it hard to maintain her footing and resisted the pains brought by the broken bones to prop her body up with her deformed foot.

Amanojaku’s eyes shone when he saw the slender, elegant, busty and peerlessly beautiful Keiko at this moment.

“Lord Amanojaku! I discovered a lot of villagers escaping to the back mountain!” A little demon surveyed the area from the roof of a house.

“My lord, it’s been a long time since I had human meat.”

“I’m also famished!”

“I want a few female slaves.”

The huge demons behind Amanojaku stated one after the other.

Kimiko sent a beam of sword light flying towards the little demon with the dagger and killed it before raising her slender arm to confront these huge monsters with a seemingly powerless dagger while her bent arm remained unmoving at one side, “Don’t even think of… going past here!”

Amanojaku looked at the shuddering Kimiko and smirked, “Let’s go, Hundred Demons! Let’s have a look at those villagers.”

The group of monsters advanced towards Kimiko aggressively along the road.

“Stop! Didn’t I just tell you to stop?!”

Kimiko dragged her broken foot and slashed towards the oncoming lion mist demon!

However, without her cursed katana and a wounded body, the lion mist demon’s sharps claw blocked Kimiko’s dagger with ease, and it clawed at Kimiko’s back with its other claw.

Three trails of blood flowed down Kimiko’s shoulder and she fell to the ground.

“Mom!” Keiko ignored her mother’s warning and charged towards the lion mist demon, jumping up suddenly and unsheathing her katana in the process.

“Clang!” The lion mist demon’s eyes flashed with a bronze shade and it seemed to grin and sneer at Keiko as it clawed towards her casually.

Keiko’s katana shattered and she was sent flying backwards by the aftershock, crashing into a wall and sliding down to the ground. She held the handle of her half-shattered katana with her shuddering arm and found herself unable to stand up momentarily, looking at the seven to eight meter tall and cruel Great Demon, “What… What monster is this? It’s too strong. Mom was actually fighting a monster like this?”

“Mom…” Keiko looked at Kimiko who was now lying on the ground and saw Amanojaku step on her body from behind her with his foot as he raised Kimiko’s Muramasa up high with a vicious look on his face.

Keiko screamed her throat out, “No! No! Don’t do it! Nooooooo!!!”

“Spurt!”

Amanojaku stabbed Muramasa into Kimiko’s body… and Keiko’s eyes turned lifeless.

Kimiko lifted her head to look at the nearby Keiko at this moment and revealed a motherly expression instead of a samurai woman’s or a mirror girl descendant’s after seeing her daughter who had grown up into an adult.

Kimiko’s expression twitched just a bit as the sharp edge of the blade stabbed into her soft body and revealed a gentle expression on her ever-rebellious and stalwart face towards the end.

At this moment, this final moment, Kimiko smiled.

She parted her pale yet pretty lips slightly and yelled in an indecipherable, gentle voice.

“Live on, Keiko.”1

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