Demon Sword Maiden

CHAPTER 36 – LILY’S CONFUSION

Seven days… Unknowingly, seven days had passed since Lily practiced this celestial power conversion secret method.

“What is this?”

The more she practiced, the more Lily felt that this secret method had nothing to do with celestial power. As long as she stopped, she would feel unbearably dizzy, depressed, and anxious. But when she continued to practice, she would feel comfortable and calm all over her body.

Lily’s inner reasoning told her that, whether this was a celestial power secret method or not, it definitely wasn’t a conventional secret method! Her rationality reminded her time and time again to cease any further practice and leave this place as soon as possible.

However, she couldn’t do it… She couldn’t seem to stop.

“Hu—” Lily entered the mirror with her spirit body in order to escape this torture. Her boyish body was flushed with shame and redness as she exhaled a breath of hot air…

Yuki-Onna came over worriedly upon seeing Lily.

“What happened? Little master of the mirror space, why is your breathing so disordered like Lily outside?”

Yuki-Onna didn’t know that Lily’s soul was that of a boy, otherwise she would have had to kill herself.

“I’m fine…” Because of this secret, it was difficult for Lily to ask Yuki-Onna for help. Even if she asked for help, she was far from being a match for the several immortals in this shrine, right?

Yuki-Onna watched as the strange Lily stumbled into senior Rinne’s room.

“Senior Rinne…” Lily could barely stand, so she knelt beside the bed and held Rinne’s hand.

Lily seemed to rekindle her endless courage by seeing her lonely, poignant, and helpless appearance.

“What wrongs did senior Rinne commit??! Why does the world torture her so much?”

“I want to be strong! I can’t lose myself here!”

“If I’m not strong; if this mirror space is discovered, then…it would be absolutely unacceptable!”

Lily’s eyes suddenly snapped open.

“This secret method is not suitable for me to practice… I want to leave here!”

Lily staggered out of the cave room, but after just a few minutes of not practicing, she felt like the world was spinning and she couldn’t even gather her spiritual energy. In the dark cave, Lily couldn’t see the way forward at all!

She held on to the cave wall and fumbled her way forward, depending on her sense of touch.

Unknowingly, Lily came to the entrance of a dark cave that she had never seen before.

“Ah…” A low and desperate male voice came from inside.

Lily wanted to take a peek inside the cave’s entrance, but she didn’t want to lose strength and fall in. She raised her head in confusion and saw a tall samurai with an extremely emaciated body, who was locked up in iron chains here.

The samurai seemed to have been chained up here for many years as his muscles had atrophied and his haggard face was covered with a black cloth.

“You…who are you? Why are you imprisoned here?” Lily asked weakly, her hair scattered.

The samurai heard the girl’s voice and said, “You…must be an outsider too, right?”

“Yes, you are…?”

“Don’t practice… Remember, don’t practice the techniques here…” The samurai said in a low voice, trembling voice.

“Eh? Why?”

“This happened to me because I refused to continue practicing halfway through. That…but you are a girl; your willpower is definitely not as good as mine. Pull back my clothes and take a look at my chest.”

Lily was a little conflicted, but she still gently pulled back the samurai’s clothes. She couldn’t help but gasp upon seeing the shocking wounds on his bony chest.

“Why are they doing this to you?”

“No, it’s not them, it’s me. In order to stop myself from practicing that technique, I cut myself with sharp rocks. I don’t even feel sharp knives anymore. I have to use sharp rocks to…force myself to resist the temptation of that technique.”

“Why resist? Isn’t that the secret method of the immortals?”

“Girl…although I am blindfolded, I can feel that your situation is also not good, right? You have already started to practice that technique, and you are already addicted to it. If you don’t practice, you will feel uncomfortable all over. A weak woman like you must not be able to stand it. How can a woman’s willpower be compared to mine…? I don’t mean to belittle you, girl. You must be extremely talented, otherwise that old man wouldn’t have chosen a woman to practice this technique.” The samurai said hoarsely.

“What exactly is this technique? Why are you chained up here?”

“I’m chained here because I’m afraid I’ll hurt myself. I’ve been holding on for more than ten years, but I think I’m about to die… Even so, I won’t let that hateful old man succeed1!” The samurai trembled and got excited.

“Mr. Samurai, what exactly is this secret method?”

“That…that’s…ah, cough…” The samurai’s words got stuck in his throat by an invisible force. His expression looked painful and he couldn’t speak.

“Kagami Lily.” The tall and majestic old man with torch-like eyes, Tsubiro, stood at the entrance of the cave.

A chill ran through Lily’s body.

“Master…”

“Lily, this is not a place you should come to. Why don’t you hurry on and go practice?”

For some reason, hearing Tsubiro’s order, the heat in Lily’s body surged up, as if controlling her body and preventing her from disobeying the old man’s order.

If the old man had a lewd obsession over her body, Lily might have struggled desperately with the help of her body’s instinctive resistance, but he had no such desires.

It seemed to sound like it was for her own good.

Lily stood up. Although she was reluctant, she couldn’t disobey the old man’s order.

“Master, who is this person and why…”

“That’s just a bandit who tried to attack the shrine. Lily, go and practice.”

The samurai tried to desperately say something, but he couldn’t.

“Yes…” The old man’s order put Lily in a trance and made it difficult for her to resist. She suddenly had a feeling that if she forced herself to resist, she might end up in a more miserable situation than this samurai.

Right now, her body was out of control and it was even difficult to circulate her spiritual energy. She was no match for Tsubiro at all.

Lily eventually nodded her head, half-forced and half-willingly, with a docile expression on her face. She walked past the majestic old man, Tsubiro, and headed back.

“Someone, send your Senior Sister Lily back to her cave room.”

Two youths, a man and a woman in ancient training uniforms, came over and escorted Lily, who gently pushed the man’s hand away. The male disciple was very accommodating to Lily’s wishes and only led the way, bringing her back to her own cave room.

Lily sat on the stone bed and took out the scroll.

However, when she opened the scroll, she had a feeling in her heart that if she continued to practice, there would be no coming back!

“Senior Rinne… Why did I, Lily, go through all those hardships to come to Izumo Mountain? I mustn’t lose myself here! No matter what kind of celestial art it is, it must not be at the cost of senior Rinne’s safety! But…what should I do? How do I resist the temptation to practice? Could it be like what that samurai said, that a woman’s willpower can’t resist? Power… I need power— a power that can help me…”

Moonlight?

Lily remembered the holy and poignant moonlight.

She wanted to go out and see the moon.

However, before she could get far from the cave room with the help of the wall, two female disciples came up.

“Senior Sister, the master instructed you to please finish your training before going out2.” A female disciple said.

“Shut up! Go away!” Lily pushed aside the female disciple.

But the two female disciples grabbed her by the wrist and subdued her, forcing her to turn around.

“Senior Sister! We can’t disobey the master’s order. You can’t do whatever you want and disobey the master’s order just because your qualification test score was high! Please go back with us obediently!”

What?

Unexpectedly, Lily couldn’t even break free from two ordinary female disciples?

“It hurts…” Lily’s arm felt painful after being twisted behind her back. She couldn’t control her power and her mind was in confusion.

“Go in and practice hard, Senior Sister!” The two women pushed Lily into the cave. She wanted to summon Yuki-Onna and the demon hound, but found that she couldn’t even do that!

She couldn’t even use the Art of No Thought to send voice transmissions anymore.

But there was a growing desire in her heart to continue practicing that secret technique!

Lily collapsed onto the stone bed, her hair scattered.

“Power… I need power…”

She knew that the moonlight could baptize her body and give her power, but she couldn’t get out of the cave. Besides lunar force, what else could provide her with power?

Charm intent?

But how could she harness the power of charm when she was alone and looked like this? At this time, Lily’s eyes became misty, but her mind was steadfast.

“Although I don’t know what the master’s purpose is, I absolutely cannot practice any further! I can’t put my senior Rinne’s soul in danger! Absolutely not! For this reason, I will do anything!”

The corner of Lily’s mouth curved into a charming smile. Wasn’t the source of seductive power…girls? If one wanted to obtain seductive power by themself, how difficult could it be?

Lily stared at her long and slender fingers with a reluctant look as she imagined doing something she had never done before.

…

With the movements of her hand, waves of seductive power poured into her lower abdomen and spiritual palace3. She didn’t expect that the first time she did this, the seductive power she received would be like a tidal wave, extremely powerful!

Lily gradually regained her strength.

At this time, the strong and turbulent seductive power was absorbed by the lunar permanence spirit in the spiritual palace at an incredible speed, restoring its purple radiance.

Soon after…

Surprisingly, under the infusion of the raging seductive power, her purple moon recovered.

Purple moon immovable spirit!

Lily felt that she could use the purple lunar force, so she circulated it, causing a purple glow to bloom like the morning light after a long night, holy and ethereal, infiltrating every corner of her body. Lily’s beautiful body was also radiating a faint ethereal light, and her eyes involuntarily turned into a ghostly purple color similar to jade.

The glow of the purple moon was more refreshing, more beautiful, and more powerful than the heat that controlled Lily before, and that heat was dispersed from her body!

Compared to the kind of feeling she had when circulating the purple lunar force, practicing the secret method of the scroll seemed to be dull and boring.

Lily’s face was flushed red and she was panting heavily. She leaned back on the stone bed, her jade white body covered in glistening sweat.

Although somewhat powerless, she overcame the control of that power4.