Volume 5, Chapter 110 - Throned General
Translator: Yuki
Lily was still far from reaching the throne realm. Once one reached the throne realm, it wasn’t too far from ascension. Resources such as magatamas lost their worth at that stage nor were they hard to accumulate.
The path from throne realm early-stage to late-stage was much shorter in comparison to the long journey to reach the throne realm, but the majority of throne realms stayed at this stage.
Once you reached the late-stage throne realm, you were called a Throned Sovereign, because at that point, your power would rival an entire country! A powerful non late-stage throne realm, would be termed Throned General.
Lily estimated that if she used all her strength and abilities, she would barely match against a newly promoted throne realm adept. By those standards, Shenzu could be counted to have just entered the ranks of Throned Generals. With this sort of strength, was it possible to kill Yoruko who was a Throned Sovereign?
Could it be that Shenzu was still hiding her strength? But why would she hide that even now? This uncertainty and doubt made Lily feel even more uneasy.
“A mere spirit jade, with enough power to challenge me! Kagami Lily, you really are unique! I really can’t let you go, with some more time, you may really come after me for revenge! Only, now…”
Shenzu put away her cold sneer, her eyes turning serious. She no longer treated Lily as prey, but a serious opponent.
“Abyssal Six Prisons·Silent Flame”
Shenzu’s two blades twirled around, creating streams of phantom like blue flames; it was like two ribbons rotating in the air.
A strong netherworld-like aura was generated and pressed down on Lily. Lily had never been to Yomi, but that darkness, gloom and depression made her feel like she was at the entrance of the underworld.
Without extraordinary willpower, a regular spirit jade adept would lose all battle spirit and collapse just from confronting this aura.
This abyssal was an intent Shenzu practiced from yomi. When taking action, Shenzu would not easily reveal this intent, for it was not a great path of ascension, but a path to yomi.
Who would follow a heavenly mandated jade maiden who practiced yomi’s martial arts? Therefore, unless forced to, Shenzu would not use this intent.
Silent flame was a type of low temperature devil flame with terrifying power. The abyssal true intent had properties allowing it to be combined with different attributes to form different types of practice, but they were all evil and wicked paths.
“Kagami Lily, it’s time to go to yomi.” Shenzu dashed at Lily, her speed fast and slow, making her figure elusive and ethereal. Her figure drew an erratic and illusive blue arc. Arriving in front of Lily, her swords danced and slashed out a swirl of silent blade flames!
Even though Shenzu’s methods were strange, Lily didn’t fluster, she surrounded Yasutsuna with moonlight and slashed down on the silent flames.
Her Yasutsuna’s blade wind tore through the silent flames and clashed with Shenzu’s double blades. The split phantom silent flames flew past Lily and burned two dark deep ditches behind her.
Silent flames could burn anything in the world. Even if the object was inflammable, the silent flames would still ignite it and slowly scorch it. The temperature wasn’t high, only 100-200 degrees, but it was an extremely painful torture.
Lily’s katana and Shenzu’s swords clashed together cratering the ground beneath Lily’s feet.
Lily felt as if a ghost mountain had smashed into her, a strong impact passing through her body. Lily had blocked Shenzu’s slash but blood trickled from the corner of her lips.
Though Shenzu was using the abyssal true intent, her pure slashing power wasn’t much greater than Lily’s, however as a throne realm, her basic physical parameters were much higher than Lily’s. The impact and recoil that had slightly injured Lily did nothing to Shenzu, and that was only because Lily had the Celestial Maiden Garment and her hundred fold spirit armor. Even though the destructive power was equal, a female spirit jade physique was incapable of enduring such powerful impacts.
A few wisps of silent flame landed on Lily’s delicate form, but the layer of misty moonlight covering her canceled it out.
Even if an ordinary spirit jade adept had an intent capable of countering the silent flames, their spirit power would be unable to keep up with the consumption, however Lily was someone who had consumed several hundred magatamas for a breakthrough to late-stage spirit jade, her reserve of spirit power was no less than an early-stage throne powerhouse.
“As expected of a woman with inferior power!” Shenzu’s eyes flashed with slyness, relying on the recoil, she flipped back into the air and came down with a double slash at Lily.
Lily flipped her sword and also used the recoil to set her katana before turning her wrists and slashing upward, colliding with Shenzu’s swords again.
Clang! Sliding backward, Lily bled off the force. She dared not clash against Shenzu head on, her physique’s defense and sturdiness was far inferior to a throne realm powerhouse.
Shenzu’s eyes gloated in discovery “Ha, so it was like that! Your attacks are extremely powerful, capable of competing with me, but your body is still only at the spirit jade level!”
With a stomp, Shenzu flew at Lily, her swords whirled in a simultaneous up and down slash.
Not daring to directly block, Lily could only rely on her intuition to anticipate and dodge Shenzu’s lightning fast attack, but Shenzu’s swordsmanship flowed like water, when she landed she directly flowed into an upwards chop.
Lily was unable to dodge, she could only counter with her katana. But Shenzu was too fast, Lily was unable to gather enough force and was knocked to the side by Shenzu’s chop as her other sword slashed at Lily’s torso.
Lily’s katana looked out of control, but she controlled it well and relied on the excess force to draw a large arc. Lily slashed down at Shenzu’s hand while simultaneously sliding back in retreat, taking full advantage of her longer blade length, attacking Shenzu out of range.
Since Shenzu was much faster, Lily could only adapt and predict!
“What!?”
Seeing the blade coming down, Shenzu could only hastily retract her attack, missing the opportunity.
“This, this woman…she’s not as fast as I. Though she can react, she can’t completely evade. She retaliates by predicting my sword path and making the correct response! This woman…”
‘Genius!’ Though Shenzu’s heart was full of resentment and hatred, she could only admit, she was relying on her strength to suppress Lily, her swordsmanship was also more advanced, but when it came to battle talent, instincts and adaptability, she was far inferior to Kagami Lily. Every cell in this woman’s body seemed to be geared toward combat!
“This woman must be killed! The threat must be strangled in the cradle! No wonder she was able to kill Sakanoue no Tamurakonoe, if she was of equal strength, I don’t think anyone would be able to defeat her!”
“Kagami Lily, you’re clearly a weakling! Your discipline is so inferior, but why do you have such talent at combat? I must personally kill you!”
Shenzu landed on one foot, twisted her body and sent her other leg crashing towards Lily.
But this time, Lily controlled her instinctive reaction and responded in a different way. She didn’t dodge, though it was too late to swing, she leaned forward and brought her katana hilt up with a jab. The hilt dug straight into Shenzu’s leg, knocking her off balance.
Lily continued her forward motion, inserting her katana into the ground using it as a support, swinging her body in the air, and stomped heavily on Shenzu’s chest, sending her flying away.
This stomp impacted firmly on Shenzu’s chest, giving her a sensation of suppression.
“B̲i̲t̲c̲h̲!” Shenzu, as a throne realm, had actually been kicked flying by a spirit jade? Not only was she feeling suppressed, but also dispirited.
She flipped in the air, in between them, their domains continued to clash and counteract each other, leaving the area in between a domainless territory where neither of their domains could affect.
Shenzu wanted to use her residual jade to affect Lily’s mind, but was wary of Lily reflecting her attack.
“Who is this woman? Why are her treasures so high quality?” Shenzu was frustrated, the katana in Lily’s hand was a supreme ninth grade weapon, it was one full grade higher than her own weapons.
“When I kill you, your treasures will become mine! If that ancient mirror becomes mine, hmph! Who can resist me?”
“Silent Flame·Flying Ghost Sulfur!”
Shenzu’s immense Throne realm power gathered and she displayed a killing art. She stabbed out in midair, and a flame pillar composed of silent flames led by phantom ghost horse head rushed out towards Lily. Lily flashed sideways in a dodge, but the ghost head pillar circled around and attacked again while Shenzu stabbed out a few more times sending more pillars of silent flame at her.
Lily quickly dashed left and right through the multitude of flame pillars.
In between the pillars of flame, Lily slashed out, cutting the pillars of flame into multiple segments, but those segments all morphed into a multitude of ghost horse headed silent flames and flew towards her.
“What!?”
The other uncut pillars of flame all dispersed on their own, forming multitudes of ghost horse headed flames, surrounding Lily and attacking. No matter how agile Lily was, she didn’t have the space to dodge them all.
“Not good!” With nowhere to dodge and in the center of all these flames, she chose a direction and attempted to break through!
Just as she was about to touch the flames, a red umbrella snapped open in her hand. The swirling of the Sakura Parason extinguished all the silent flames around her as she rushed through the encirclement.
Countless silent flame clusters collided together, exploding in a conflagration behind her, the shockwave sent her flying.
“Ah——” The shockwave of the explosion was intense, Lily was sent flying and rolling on the ground, her clothes torn from the impact.
Without allowing Lily to recover, Shenzu landed a kick on her waist, sending her flying up into the air. With a leap, she jumped high above Lily and slashed down with her two swords.
“Let’s see how you dodge this in the air!”