Demon Sword Maiden

Book 7: Chapter 42: Scouting during the Extended Night

“That hateful woman!” Kamaki stomped and smashed the trees around him, but the fact that he couldn’t catch up with Lily was unchangeable.

Far away, Lily also stopped running, she panted exhausted, “This…is really thrilling.”

If she had been a few seconds slower, Kamaki could have stopped her from killing Kotoban.

At this moment, Lily dared not summon another bird mount, it would be too easy to spot her in the air. Also, the mount she could summon would be at most early-stage permanence and the flying speed would be much slower than her running, the evasion would also be slower. No matter how good her control was of the bird, it would be too easy for arch-demons to shoot down.

Her bird summon was originally of the permanence realm, after incarnating it into her Record of One Hundred Demons, the resulting incarnation was only at the spirit jade realm. But the beauty of the Record of One Hundred Demons is that Lily’s base realm would also enhance the incarnations of the treasure.

She looked over her new trophies, the most important was Kotoban’s anima, a late-staged throned sovereign anima. There was also the leather bag she had grabbed, this was in fact a storage artifact.

Looking inside, there were several hundred magatamas, twenty something life-recovery magatamas, all sorts of rare materials Lily had never seen, medicinal materials, some low quality weapons and ten something poisoned javelins.

These javelins were sharp and powerful, they were one of Kotoban’s killer moves.

Lily had also looted Kotoban’s spirit artifact, that green demon head treasure. This was just a normal low grade spirit artifact, a little less valuable than equal ranked weapons or armors, but if the treasure had a special effect, then it would be difficult to conclude.

Such as domain treasures, her bracelet, unmelted snow was several times the value of this green demon head.

The poisonous hook weapon was a ninth grade weapon, and she had only one of the pair, relatively speaking, it wasn’t worth much.

Kotoban was good at using poison and relatively weak in melee combat, otherwise it would be tough for Lily to overwhelm a late-stage throned sovereign so quickly. If she encountered a late-stage throned sovereign particularly skilled at melee, then even after she exhausted her purple lunar force, the fight might not be over.

Lily continued forward, keeping track of her path while searching for a safe spot to rest. Reaching a safe spot, Lily proceeded to absorb the late-stage throned sovereign anima. As a mid-stage permanence realm, the effect of absorbing a late-stage throned sovereign anima was particularly obvious. She could feel her strength grow, after all these days of fighting and the absorption of all these anima, she wasn’t far from becoming a late-stage permanence expert.

After absorbing the anima, Lily got up and continued forward. She still didn’t dare summon a flying mount, it was too easy to be discovered. If she went by sky, an arch-demon stronger than her might not discover her aura, but that wasn’t enough. With a wingspan of ten meters, the naked eye could easily spot her, and it wasn’t possible to hide the spiritual fluctuations.

In this Tanba, the number of arch-demons under Shuten Doji’s control was too great. If she traveled in the sky, she would be an obvious target.

To avoid discovery, Lily adopted another method. She had her summon scout several miles away from her while she traveled on the ground. Though this was slower and less efficient than riding the summon, it was much safer.

However, it didn’t take long for the sky to darken.

After the sky turned dark, there was no meaning to have her summon scout, nothing was visible.

Now that it was dark, Lily could only walk forward, the forests and mountains were ever changing, and though it was difficult to remember the direction, she continued to draw on the paper in her mirror space, making a travel route map, otherwise she might really become lost.

She walked throughout the night and only encountered small weak demons and when it was the morning of the second day, the day turned out to be an extended night.

Lily was worried, the imperial army had already been trapped for so long, she really didn’t know how long they could last. She really couldn’t delay, but walking alone in this dark forest, the chance of finding the road to Kameyama castle was slim.

Suddenly, Lily remembered the six small raccoons she had drawn. Pulling out the Record of One Hundred Demons, she summoned the six raccoons. Even though they were capable of an ancient formation, due to their relative weakness, this summon only consumed one magatama. These little raccoons all looked cute and mischievous, but they were only incarnations controlled by Lily.

Lily had the small raccoons separate and run as far as possible in different directions. Soon the raccoons were 20 miles away from each other yet still connected by the ancient formation. If they were further than twenty miles, the formation would be weaker and connection might be lost at any time.

Lily had the six little raccoons explore the areas around them, even if they were discovered by demons, little raccoons wouldn’t arouse any suspicion, and as long as she kept within a certain distance of the raccoons, she would perceive all the raccoons saw.

This way, she had an exploration range of 120 miles, moreover the ancient formation of the raccoons had a unique characteristic, it wasn’t affected at all by the terrain. Even if there was a mountain between the raccoons, they would still be connected, perhaps this was because the formation itself was earth attributed.

The most important thing was that wherever the formation passed through, Lily could detect that area. The detection might not be as good as seeing through the raccoon’s eyes, but as long as the formation swept through something strong or with a peculiar aura, Lily would immediately discover it.

120 miles was much larger than Lily’s domain or spirit probe, and she didn’t need to be worried about being detected. If a raccoon incarnation was discovered by an expert, all Lily had to do was cut that incarnation from the formation and the expert would have nothing to trace.

She had to say, Mita was really a living miracle. To be able to teach these raccoons such a mysterious formation method.

Lily hadn’t summoned Mita’s incarnation yet, so she didn’t know what unique skills it had.

Lily kept the formation active as she traveled the forests and mountains for several days. She hadn’t discovered the Kameyama castle, but she had discovered rare medicinal materials and ores, rare monsters, and several permanence realm arch-demons.

The medicinal materials and ores she collected.

As for the permanence realmed arch-demons, Lily wandered around and hunted them down. Lily had a feeling that though she had activated this formation to search for Kameyama, the actual usage was for sweeping the forest.

Nothing of value could escape her grasp.

In this period, Lily had collected three stalks of ninth grade medicinal herbs, and even a rare low-grade spirit flower. Lily had naturally collected the flower herself, this flower was crystalline clear and had a strange fragrance, what it could be used for, Lily had no idea. Either way, collect it and then decide.

There was also a ninth grade tamahagane rough ore that for some reason had fallen into a ravine.

High grade tamahagane was usually hidden deep within the ore veins, and this wasn’t smelted steel ore, but a rough ore. Why it had landed in the ravine, Lily had no idea, either way…collect it.

“That’s not right…” Lily suddenly realized, “I can’t waste time collecting here, I haven’t found Kameyama castle and the imperial army is running out of supplies…”

Lily started ignoring materials that weren’t particularly valuable. Anything below grade nine she ignored. She wasn’t particularly skilled at identifying herbs, but with her sensitivity, it was easy to distinguish between grades of herbs.

Lily continued to travel and still had no hints after half a night.

“Hm?”

One of her raccoons hid behind a tree and spotted a gathering of demons in the forest.

It was not uncommon for demons to travel in these parts, Lily usually avoided the clumps of demons and hunted down the lone arch-demons. It wasn’t that she was incapable of exterminating them, but she didn’t want to risk attracting Shuten Doji’s attention.

If Shuten had a hint of her location, then it would really be too dangerous.

It was just that this group of demons was very unusual.

The leader of this group was a gold horned blue demon at the mid-stage permanence realm, it was very like the Amanojaku member she had defeated atop Mount Fuji, but the problem wasn’t that.

This group of demons was escorting a group of bound women. Their hands were all tied together and linked to a rope, most of these women were young and beautiful, their clothes all ripped and their faces pale and gloomy.

These women were most likely the demon’s female slaves. Shuten Doji was a well known pervert, the number of young maidens he had captured was uncountable.

But the problem here was that among the escorts there were several monks, two dharma masters and three bald headed big eared warrior monks.

Why were monks and demons escorting these women as a team? Where were these female slaves being sent?

Since these women were so beautiful, and this was Shuten Doji’s territory. Most likely, they were being sent to Mount Ooe.

“Have I accidently discovered the location of Mount Ooe?”

This was no joke, if she had wandered near Mount Ooe, then she was in great danger. If she wandered too close and was discovered by Shuten Doji, the consequences were unimaginable.

However, it was impossible for Lily to give up on this opportunity. She had her raccoon stealthily follow and used the ancient formation to ensure that she was a dozen miles away at minimum.

The raccoons under her control followed the group. When they walked, the raccoons walked, when they rested, the raccoons hid. They turned and detoured over and over to the point that Lily, who was following, wanted to faint.

Finally, after four days, an ancient broken down castle appeared in front of this group.

“Kameyama Castle!??” Lily yelped.