It required one to raise their head to look at the summit of Mt. Fuji. Lily had almost left the rock formation and was on the verge of reaching the foot of Mt. Fuji right now.
This spot was hot and dry even though it was the early winter season right now and Lily had sweated out buckets because of the terrestrial heat from the large amount of lava present underground.
“Mt. Fuji deserves its name as a demon mountain. Its surroundings are this hot, so the flames at its center must have a much higher temperature,” Lily exclaimed.
It wasn’t feasible for the average samurai to store the exceptionally hot flames from Mt. Fuji’s volcanic crater as they would burn all matter into ashes.
However, Kagura told Lily that it was possible to preserve these flames for a long time by transferring a smidgen of flames into the mirror and lighting the stone lamp inside with them.
The fact that such a thing was possible proved how magical this mirror was.
Besides the extreme heat, Lily didn’t face any other issues. Her journey lasted about ten or so days and she experienced dozens of small and huge battles in this interval, killing hundreds of monsters and gaining a large number of animas in the process. The one complete magatama that she obtained, however, had long been assimilated by her.
As for the animas, she stored some of them as reserves and offered the remaining to Kagura and Yuki-Onna for the sake of advancement.
Shikigami required a large number of animas to advance and the amount she provided could only improve Yuki-Onna’s strength slightly, but it provided a higher boost to Kagura’s strength as Nanako’s body was still in the sword master stage.
Lily sighed in relief after seeing that she was almost about to reach Mt. Fuji.
She arrived at a naturally-formed circular rock formation present at the end of the rock formation which was relatively spacious at the center. It consisted mostly of rocks and had old, towering rock pillars that were covered in moss and some vegetation.
The foot of Mt. Fuji lied ahead of this circular rock formation.
“Finally… Have I reached it safely?” A bead of sweat slid down her neck into her deep cleavage as her bountiful breasts heaved up and down deeply, “All went well thanks to Yumi’s map…”
An exceptionally powerful energy fluctuation arrived from the front at this moment.
“What?!” Lily sensed a danger signal from the depths of her soul at this moment and brought her hand closer to her katana’s handle slowly and checked her surroundings vigilantly while scouting via a spirit probe.
“I scouted with small-scale spirit probes all this time, so why didn’t I sense anything?”
Only after employing a large-scale spirit probe did Lily discover that this rock formation was quite special and seemed to conceal a formation powered by eldritch energy within it. She hadn’t discovered anything until now, but one powerful aura after the other seemed to emerge from within the rock formation intermittently.
“There’s so many of them?” Lily couldn’t believe it, “But Yumi’s map doesn’t say this is a danger zone! Why have so many powerful auras appeared so abruptly?! Also, it feels like they were hiding in the rock formation all along and are gathering around me after showing up one after the other now.”
The weakest aura among them was a 5th-Stage Awakened while there were six to seven auras at the level of the Spirit Jade Stage.
One of them was the exceptionally powerful aura that appeared at the very beginning, but Lily was unable to gauge the opponent’s strength as it exceeded her perceptive ability and realized that the other party was much stronger than her.
Could it be someone at the late Spirit Jade Stage? No, it feels much stronger, possibly the peak Spirit Jade Stage.
Lily felt an unprecedented sense of crisis, as if she had suddenly fallen into the lair of the Hundred Demons in the Endless Demon Mountains.
Lily took the Sakura Parasol out and opened it momentarily.
Lily sighed in relief as she managed to open the parasol before the demons discovered her.
At the same time, however, a series of runes lit up on the ground and converged towards Lily. Lily attempted to dodge them, but the runes didn’t approach her and instead formed a huge circle spanning a range of ten meters and illuminated Lily’s body with intense blue light.
A series of tall, monstrous and hideous figures with fear-invoking eyes emerged from the rock formation just like a night parade, but instead of a coincidental encounter, they had surrounded Lily this time.
All the monsters had discovered the parasol-holding girl because of the blue light.
“What?! The Sakura Parasol’s true nature was revealed because of some trap?” Lily felt shocked.
The possessor of the most powerful aura showed themselves on the rock pillar ahead at this moment.
It was a woman with long, aquamarine hair who was donned in a white long-sleeved kimono with high side-splits and a blue sash. Her long hair consisted of messy bangs and cascaded down like clouds swimming in the skies and possessed mature and exceptional looks, emanating a certain type of contradictory aura. She obviously wore pretty classy and elegant garments, yet she showcased a wide cleavage and also bared most of her thighs. A few strands of her hair were also stuck to her face and neck, and her irregular breaths seemed to suggest that she had just got done with the deed a few moments ago.
This woman, who was taller than Lily, looked down on her and said, “So, you’re Mirror Girl Lily? We finally met.”
“Who are you?” Lily had a feeling that she had walked into a trap set by demons and that this trap had been laid out by the exceptionally powerful and unfathomable woman in front of her.
“Kagami Lily oh Kagami Lily. You must’ve heard of me, so why not have a guess at my identity? Although you have huge breasts, you aren’t a fool, right?”
Lily automatically filtered out the playfulness from this woman’s words as it wasn’t that strange for this licentious woman to utter such graceless words. Lily had also guessed out the woman’s identity the moment she saw her.
“Your fame has long reached my ears, Haihime, but this fame doesn’t seem to be that good,” Lily knew a battle was inevitable, so she didn’t hold her tongue back.
“Hmph! Are all the samurai women of the East so hard-mouthed now? See how I make you submit in a bit, you little b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲,” Haihime grinned coldly.
“Hmph! Don’t you feel embarrassed to call others with lowly titles as a woman who serves and panders a monster? I won’t mind spilling blood today if you want to fight! Enough talk now. I just don’t get one thing. How did you learn that I will pass through here?”
“Hahaha. You still don’t get it? How naïve and cute you really are, Lily. You know, although you seem perfect in all aspects, you have a critical weakness.”
“You’re too softhearted towards women!”
Haihime waved her hand and a kunoichi donned a blue sleeveless top and miniskirt walked out from behind the pillar. Her thighs were as plump and healthy as ever, but she seemed to have a blank expression in her eyes right now, as if they were a pair of empty crystals.
“F-Forgive me, Lady Lily… I can’t go against Haihime’s orders,” Yumi stated with a flushed expression and slackened gazed, her mind seemingly under control.
This time, Haihime had really made her consume a huge amount of mind-fuddling medicinal liquid.