Demon Sword Maiden

CHAPTER 52 – ATTACK ON KAMEYAMA CASTLE

Kameyama Castle— vast and dilapidated.

It stood at the foot of a towering mountain peak, the same mountain where the celestial battle maiden mine was located. The mountain was tough beyond imagination.

The imperial court’s tens of thousands of troops finally arrived in front of Kameyama Castle.

Looking at Kameyama Castle from the slope, there were hardly any lights to be seen, matching the eerie silence of the dark night.

The torches carried by the army surrounded the dark castle.

Ashikaga Makoto looked at Kameyama Castle a few miles away.

A ninja came to report, “Chief commander, our ninja group has verified that there are only a few thousand defenders in Kameyama Castle. It seems to be a group of vagrants led by monk soldiers. In addition, there are vengeful spirits and demons in the city.”

Next to Ashikaga Makoto, Minamoto no Yoshitada, dressed in red and black heavy armor, said, “As expected, it seems that Kameyama Castle is not heavily-defended. With only a few vagrants protecting it, it shouldn’t be difficult to take.”

Lily, who was standing at the side, asked, “Have you explored the mine on the mountainside?”

The ninja replied, “The ninja who scouted it came back to report that the mine seems to have been abandoned without any guards. Although they didn’t thoroughly investigate the mine, there seems to be no traces of demons inside.”

“Oh?” Lily thought, “Perhaps it’s true that they took the only ore and mining tools left in the mine, and since the Shuten Clan is unable to mine the ore vein, they simply gave up.”

Makoto said, “Time is running out. Attack Kameyama Castle immediately!”

“Understood!” The commanders accepted the order.

…

At this time, inside the castle tower of Kameyama Castle, there were lakes of wine and forests of meat1— a filthy scene.

A group of evil monks from Honganji Temple as well as some demons and vagrants were drinking and having fun, accompanied by many crying women who were forced to serve them.

The Lord of Honganji Temple seemed to have mostly recovered from his injuries. His shirtless chest was wrapped in bandages, and he drank unrestrainedly in the dim light with a delicate woman in his arms.

Lord Honganji spent a lot of time and money to break the seal on the mine, but in the end, the only result was many monks dying at Lily’s hands. It was uncertain if there was really nothing in the mine or if Lily snatched everything first. Since Shuten did not get anything, there was naturally nothing to share.

When he was depressed, Ibaraki gave him Kameyama Castle and transferred a few thousand vagrants to help him defend it.

Although Kameyama Castle was dilapidated and abandoned for a long time, it was, after all, once the main castle of Tanba Province, so Lord Honganji was naturally happy to get it.

Unbeknownst to him, the reason why Shuten Doji gave away Kameyama Castle so generously was because the imperial army would be coming soon2.

“Come, come! Drink! Damn, I’ve been suffering for half a year! Just for that damn seal! Today, I’ll be the Lord of Tanba Castle! Everyone, just drink as much as you want!”

“After you, Master!”

“Everyone, let’s all get drunk today! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahahahaha!”

In the dim lights, the evil monks, the vagrant leaders, and the demons were drinking merrily.

Suddenly—

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

One after another, arrows were shot into the castle tower, causing chaos.

“What’s happening??!” Lord Honganji was alarmed.

“Master! No, it’s not good! The, the imperial army has entered the castle!” An injured monk soldier stumbled in and said.

“What?!” Lord Honganji grew sober, as if waking up from a dream3.

With its unguarded gate, how could the crumbling and dilapidated Kameyama City defend against the imperial army?

Joining the main force of the army was also the naval forces led by Taira no Iemori. They had arrived at the Tanba River near Kameyama Castle ten days ago, but never saw the imperial army coming, so they didn’t dare to advance rashly. They cautiously camped on the banks of the river dozens of miles away, and only after making contact with the main army did they join up and lead the advance.

“Kill!”

The castle gate was smashed apart by Minamoto no Hiromasa with a heavy slash, making way for the army carrying torches to rush inside and start killing.

Lily also rushed in with the army. Inside Kameyama Castle, there were collapsed and broken buildings everywhere. The might of the imperial army scared off most of the vagrants they encountered.

But there were also a small number of sinister vagrants and demons who hid in the corners and launched sneak attacks.

This inflicted some damage to the imperial army.

However, on the frontal battlefield, the slower vagrants and scattered demons who faced the elite Genji and Taira army were quickly slaughtered.

Almost unhindered, they advanced towards the castle tower.

Bzzt—!!! A fireball flew out from the castle tower and hit the many soldiers rushing forward, burning them into ashes.

“It’s a dharma master! There are dharma masters guarding the castle tower!”

The samurai went into formation to fend off the attacks from the dharma masters while the archers and onmyojis on the imperial court’s side counterattacked.

After suppressing the dharma masters in the castle tower, Minamoto no Hiromasa led a team of elite samurai inside to kill them.

Lily, on the other hand, directly leaped to the second floor of the castle tower.

Boom! Lily cut through the wooden fence of the castle tower with a single slash and broke through the wall.

More than a dozen dharma masters were chanting incantations at the window, preparing to bombard the court soldiers below.

Lily stretched out her hand and instantly unleashed her arcane arts spells.

Her spells flew over quickly and several dharma masters were easily killed.

Soon, the battle on the lower floor was over and Hiromasa brought a pair of samurai above the Spirit Jade stage to fight those remaining on the second floor.

“Kagami Lily!”

Lily was now wearing the armor that Shiina Airi gave her, which only covered a small portion of her lower body. After all, she felt that she was too conspicuous in red. Of course, she wrapped a black silk cloth around her waist.

“Let’s kill those on the third floor together.” Lily said.

She and Hiromasa rushed up the stairs leading to the third floor. There were monk soldiers guarding the stairs, but they were no match for Lily and Hiromasa, getting easily dealt with.

They soon killed their way up to the third floor.

When they arrived, they saw Lord Honganji along with several monks, vagrant leaders, and demons looking at them in panic.

In the corner, there were also several unclothed women crying.

“You, you didn’t die? You were the one who stole the treasure from the mine!” Lord Honganji thought that Lily wouldn’t survive Ibaraki Doji’s pursuit.

“What treasure?” Hiromasa was taken aback.

Lily smiled coldly, “Speaking of which, I would like to thank you for spending so much effort to open up the seal for me.”

“You really took the treasure! Bitch! I’ll kill you!” Lord Honganji began to cast spells while the surrounding monks, demons, and vagrants rushed towards Lily and Hiromasa.

However, Lily was a lot quicker and released a number of spells in succession. Although those spells couldn’t seriously injure Lord Honganji, they interrupted his spellcasting. Cursing spitefully, he turned around and fled under the cover of the others.

“I’ll leave the others to you!”

Lily turned into an afterimage and flashed past the monk soldiers and vagrants, directly chasing after Lord Honganji.

Lord Honganji jumped out of the castle tower and climbed onto the roof, trying to escape up the mountain in a hurry.

Lily was behind him, on the other end of the castle tower’s roof. She raised Yasutsuna high and slashed out a sword beam with a ‘swish’.

Pfft! Under the dark curtain of night, blood splattered from Lord Honganji’s back, causing him to let out a coarse howl and roll down the roof of the castle tower, dead.

Killing a powerful dharma master at the Throned General stage was effortless for Lily.

She walked to the other side of the roof and looked down. She wanted to collect Lord Honganji’s treasure, but found that Minamoto Jujiro Takamune was standing beside his corpse and collected the treasure before her, even fabricating a sword wound on him.

“I killed a…powerhouse that surpassed the Permanence Stage!” Takamune shouted.

“Well done! Young Lord!”

“He, he is the enemy commander!” A samurai on the third floor of the castle tower shouted.

“I have taken down the enemy commander! I have taken down the enemy commander!” Takamune shouted loudly4.

The soldiers cheered around him.

Takamune looked up at Lily with a proud and wicked smile.

Lily, who was on the roof of the castle tower, just looked at him silently, too lazy to say anything, and left.

The treasure of a general-stage dharma master wasn’t that precious and she couldn’t be bothered to fight for it.

She already got a huge benefit from Kameyama Castle when she obtained the small piece of crystal ore that the celestial battle maiden left behind. Even Shuten wanted to get it at any cost.

She only participated in attacking the castle to help Lady Ashikaga and really didn’t care about the military exploits and spoils.

The value of the whole Kameyama Castle was probably not as good as the small piece of crystal ore that she got.

The entire battle lasted most of the night. Although it couldn’t be said that they faced no decent resistance, these resistances were really futile in front of the elites of the court.

This battle resulted in the deaths of thousands of vagrants and monk soldiers, hundreds of demons and vengeful spirits, as well as nearly a thousand captives.

From this ratio, it could be seen that this place was not of much military importance to Shuten. It was just an abandoned place where the vagrants cooped up.

The next day was an extended night.

After some sporadic street battles, the imperial army completely occupied the castle and began to clean up the battlefield.

Ashikaga Makoto and the commanders finally settled in the castle tower.

In any case, the capture of the main castle of Tanba Province could be regarded as a major victory for the imperial court in a symbolic sense!

However, on the mountainside more than a dozen miles from Kameyama Castle, Ibaraki Doji stood on a slope with a small devilish smile on his face, looking at the war-worn Kameyama Castle from afar.

“The shouts of killing are gradually subsiding. The imperial army should have already occupied Kameyama Castle.” Ibaraki said.

“Lord Ibaraki.” A tall, dark-blue evil spirit arrived behind Ibaraki. It was none other than Kamaki, “Since we have no intention of defending Kameyama Castle at all, why did we still let the Lord of Honganji Temple and those thousands of vagrants guard there and wait for their death?”

“Hmph, if we really didn’t defend at all, wouldn’t that make Ashikaga Makoto suspicious5?”

“Oh…that’s why.”

“Tonight, wait for the good show…hehehehe.”

…

The chief commander and other senior commanders resided in the third floor of the castle tower, but because of Lily’s great merits of discovering Kameyama Castle, Ashikaga Makoto let her stay on the third floor and occupy a room. No one expressed any objections. Although the credit for killing the chief commander of Kameyama Castle was given to Takamune, the commanders were quite dubious and thought that he killed Lord Honganji when he was seriously wounded, but Lily didn’t say anything.

Lily came to the third floor hall of the castle tower and saw Ashikaga Makoto standing at the window, looking at the dark mountains outside.

She went beside her and said, “Mother Makoto, do you feel that we won this battle too easily6?”

References

TLN: Chinese idiom meaning indulgence in luxury and debauchery. Robinxen: This poor guy. Robinxen: Wait he knew nothing at all? Robinxen: Celebrate yay! Robinxen: I wonder if it would work in reverse, like that empty fortress tactic. Robinxen: Stop showing common sense.