Demon Sword Maiden

“Mom… goodbye.”

“Finally, we can return to the human world.”

The grand hall trembled violently. Lily and her sisters stood within the vast hall, gazing out at a hazy expanse of golden radiance. Beyond that golden veil, the distant mountain ranges of Yomi could faintly be seen.

“Farewell, Yomi.”

The colossal Herikaku City scraped against the searing air, roaring thunderously as it began to rise.

The widest fissure ever seen on Mount Toshu was only a few hundred meters across. When the massive city slammed into the mountain, it encountered overwhelming resistance.

What hindered it was not merely the physical mass of the mountain itself, but the ancient laws formed when the Three Realms first came into being.

These laws, born from the very source of the Three Realms, suppressed everything that dared to violate their order.

Izanami felt the strain keenly. Sweat continuously seeped from her mature, radiant skin as her body trembled faintly. The grand formation relentlessly devoured her Great Imperial God power, converting it into energy to drive Herikaku City upward.

In this contest between Izanami and the laws of the Three Realms, Lily and the others could contribute nothing at all.

Izanami once more released a vast surge of divine power, pushing upward with all her might.

Rumble—!

Mount Toshu fractured as countless peaks shattered and collapsed. A massive boulder plummeted toward Izanami, only to vaporize instantly when it came within a few dozen meters of her.

What she was confronting was the power of the Three Realms themselves. Mere mountains and rocks were, to her, no different from nothing at all.

Izanami’s entire body was soaked with sweat. The once alluring contours of her face grew increasingly pale, even her lips gradually losing their color.

Though she was a Great Imperial God and the Madam of Yomi, the realm of Yomi had not been created by Izanami herself. It was forged in the distant past by the Five Great Creator Gods. Yet long ago, those five had already transformed into the Three Realms themselves, becoming the totality of their laws.

And now, Izanami was directly opposing the laws born from those Creator Gods.

The more powerful the being, the harder it was to travel from Yomi to the human world. Only an extremely small number of locations allowed passage without suppression. Legends spoke of certain perilous regions at the edges of Yomi, but even a Supreme God entering such places would face near-certain death.

The only path capable of allowing the stable passage of large numbers of powerful beings was the Celestial Demon Path, the ancient battlefield route between Takamagahara and Yomi.

Yet that path had been sealed by Tsukuyomi no Mikoto’s final sword strike.

In the present era, even an adept of the Celestial Stage found it exceedingly difficult to ascend to the human world, let alone a being at the level of a Supreme God.

And yet, Izanami was attempting to send tens of thousands of living beings, multiple Supreme Gods, and a vast number of Celestial Stage existences within Herikaku City to the human world in a single attempt.

The suppressive force she faced was beyond imagination.

But a Great Imperial God possessed the power to defy the heavens themselves.

Even so, the pressure exerted by the laws of the Three Realms far exceeded even Izanami’s expectations.

“Go!”

Izanami continued releasing divine power without restraint. Even for a Great Imperial God, such power was not infinite. Yet at this moment, she could rely only on her profound foundation to gamble everything against the suppression of the Three Realms.

Herikaku City shattered through Mount Toshu, smashing apart the stone vault of Yomi’s sky. Driven by golden force, it surged ever upward.

The higher it rose, the greater the divine power required. Yet to give up now would mean total failure, and the sisters within Herikaku City would be placed in grave danger.

“If that were to happen, then my title as Yomi’s Madam would be nothing but a joke.”

Izanami gasped for breath, her garments clinging to her soaked body. Even her divine power was on the verge of exhaustion. Yet her accumulated foundation was strong enough to contend directly with the power of the Three Realms.

She endured on, even as her divine power neared depletion, resisting through unfathomable secret arts and sheer will…

1

Boom!

Herikaku City finally burst through the firmament of Yomi, charging into a dark crimson, oppressive world. This place was Yomi Hirazaka.

Carried by its remaining momentum, Herikaku City rose a little further before slowly coming to a halt. Here, the pressure between realms no longer existed. Relying solely on its own power, the city hovered above the land of Yomi Hirazaka. Still, compared to Yomi, this place felt far more confined to the massive city.

“It worked!” Lily remembered this place. In the distance, she could see a canyon from which the roars of countless Throne Stage demons echoed. She herself had once trained to the brink of death in a similar valley.

Having reached this point, returning to the human world with their current strength would be effortless.

“We finally made it back!” Lily and her sisters were filled with emotion.

Earlier, while breaking through the resistance of the Three Realms, beings at their level could already sense the terrifying clash between Izanami’s power and the laws of the Three Realms. None of them had dared to utter a word.

Now, at last, the shackles of the Three Realms had been broken. The human world was only a single step away.

“Mom… you’re truly incredible…” A look of reverence rose on Lily’s face, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.

On the vast, desolate land of Yomi.

“Hah…” Izanami finally dropped to her knees. Her pale hands braced against the hard stone ground as her long hair fell loose. The residual waves of divine power around her had yet to dissipate. Countless rocks of varying sizes floated in the air, slowly revolving. Across heaven and earth, ancient spatial disturbances lingered, gradually fading as everything slowly returned to normal.

“Lily… I truly never expected that satisfying you would take such tremendous effort. You almost drained your mother dry, hehe. When you return someday, you must properly compensate me, serve me well, you hear? Hehehe… hehehehehe…”

Izanami’s face was deathly pale. Her body trembled as she mocked herself with a bitter laugh.

A Great Imperial God, the supreme existence of Yomi, yet at this moment she was so exhausted that even standing upright had become difficult.

“Hahahahahaha!” A burst of irreverent male deity laughter echoed among the shattered mountain rocks around them.

2

A bolt of lightning descended, taking the shape of a humanoid figure.

“Madam, what has you in such high spirits? Might you allow me to share in the joy as well?”

Wakarai’s white hair streamed freely as he stood tall and imposing atop a towering stone pillar, his figure vigorous, handsome, and upright.

“Wakarai?” Izanami lifted her head, her long hair disheveled, her expression icy. Even her lips had lost all color.

The words Wakarai had just used, and the tone in which he spoke, were deeply disrespectful, instantly putting her on guard.

That said, though Izanami’s divine power was nearly depleted, her body utterly drained and weakened, a mere Wakarai was still not someone she took seriously.

“Why are you here? Don’t tell me you came to see Lily off, but were too embarrassed to show yourself?” Izanami asked between labored breaths, a trace of mockery in her voice.

“Hahahaha! Madam, do you still remember the promise you made to me? Three years from then, you were to give Lily’s hand to me. That day is fast approaching, yet you secretly sent Lily back to the human world. What is the meaning of this? My brothers and I wish to have this matter explained clearly.” Lightning raged around Wakarai’s body, his fury radiating outward.

“That’s right, explain it clearly!”

“Explain it clearly!”

Eight-colored lightning descended from the surrounding sky, striking the crumbling stone mountains and rocky pillars. At the same time, seven more figures appeared, some ferocious, some powerfully built, others ghostly and sinister.

“The Eight Thunder Gods?” Alarm flared in the Madam’s eyes as she stared ahead, her pale face growing even more tense.

Footnotes:

Syl: Y’know… I can’t help but harbor a bad feeling. This exertion will definitely put a strain on Izanami, what if… the demon gods decided to take their chance to interrupt or take her down during her momentary weakness? This could be their one and only chance to defeat Izanami, if there ever is one.

Syl: Ah… of course…