Tomoe Gozen
Xia Yu looked at the desolate earth before her and curled her lip.
Ereshkigal was simply too easily embarrassed. After being teased for just a few lines, she could not wait to send her right up to the surface.
In fact, generally speaking, people who barged into the Underworld did not possess such good fortune to be sent back completely whole and unscathed. But who could help it when the stats of the Herrscher of Flamescion were strong enough? Even if the Mistress of the Underworld saw her, she had no choice but to bite her lip and cut her losses.
If it really came down to a fight, Xia Yu did not fear Ereshkigal at all.
Forget Ereshkigal; with the strength of the Herrscher of Flamescion, letting her go fight Tiamat would not be much of a problem either.
Tiamat's absolute greatest trump card was called Anti-Genesis.
She was one of the creation deities in Mesopotamian mythology.
At the very beginning of the world's birth, the Earth was a vast expanse of chaos. There was no heaven and no earth, and only two primordial deities existed in the world: that was Tiamat, the salt sea, and Apsu, the sweet sea.
After that, her son Lahmu and her daughter Lahamu were born, and all the gods thereafter were the descendants of these two deities.
However, the gods fought in close combat all day long and quarreled endlessly, so Apsu wished to kill them to quell the war. The war of the gods began.
They formed an army, attempting to kill Apsu, and even began to rebel against Tiamat, who was their mother. Tiamat felt infinitely sorrowful and fell into madness, giving birth to the Eleven Demonic Beasts and having them form an army to face off against the gods.
Ultimately, Apsu and Tiamat were killed by Ea and his son Marduk, respectively. Tiamat's colossal corpse was then taken by Marduk to create heaven and earth, as well as the stars, thunder, and rain between them.
To express their gratitude to Marduk, the gods built Babylon City and temples for him. In return to the gods, Marduk created humans, the servants of the gods, to work in place of the deities.
Therefore, in Mesopotamian mythology, Tiamat occupies the position of the Mother of All Life, which brings with it her most powerful Authority, Anti-Genesis.
That is a Conceptual Bounded Field capable of overturning the existing theory of evolution, the Earth's creation prophecies, and so forth.
Beast II, who bears this, possesses an extremely strong resistance against the Noble Phantasms of Servants born from the correct Human History. Specifically speaking, it generates a barrier against the Noble Phantasms of Servants categorized under 'Human' and 'Star'.
It would be exceedingly difficult for a Servant born from a normal Earth to want to oppose her when she possesses Anti-Genesis.
But Xia Yu was not a Servant!
The Herrscher of Flamescion belonged to an entirely different system altogether; to the Type-Moon universe, that was a noble alien lord.
Fighting Tiamat, every single blade strike would deal true damage!
As everyone knows, true damage is the most authentic damage in this world. Although Tiamat is powerful, a Herrscher is no pushover either. A Herrscher possessing continent-sinking level strength wanting to clear the Absolute Demonic Front should normally face no issues at all.
Thus, Xia Yu was currently very leisurely.
However, right now Tiamat was still sleeping. From the very beginning, she had been sealed in a dream by Merlin, unable to wake up. For this reason, Kingu designed a strategy to let Gorgon synchronize with Tiamat's consciousness and Power.
When the goddess Gorgon is killed, Tiamat, whose consciousness is synchronized, will startle awake from her dream and pinch to death the Incubus who has been pulling petty tricks all along.
Once Tiamat awakens, Lahmu will be mass-produced in large quantities, surging out of the Persian Gulf to land in Mesopotamia.
That would be the time of the true grand war.
"What place is this..." She raised her head and looked left and right, her surroundings completely desolate. "Tsk, forget it, I'll just walk around randomly."
"Huh? Is that the wall of Uruk? It really is quite high. I suppose only the Age of Gods could rely on backward productivity to forcibly pile up such a wonder using supernatural abilities."
"Alright then, I'll walk toward that side. I just don't know if Ritsuka has entered yet."
Absolute Demonic Front, the Northern Wall.
Tomoe Gozen was sent flying violently by a sweep of a Demonic Beast's tail.
That Demonic Beast, covered in gold-and-black patterned fur, let out a loud roar toward her, and then the entire beast leaped high, pouncing fiercely toward her.
Seeing this, Tomoe Gozen grit her teeth and stood up, the two Oni Horns on her forehead emitting an ominous red light.
"Ah... Ah!"
She cried out loudly, the long blade in her hand aiming at the pouncing malicious beast. With a lightning-fast strike, the Demonic Beast was split in two in midair, and bright red blood cascaded from the sky, dyeing Tomoe Gozen completely red.
The half-human, half-oni military commander supported herself with her long blade to stand, shaking her head slightly to fling away the blood on her face as she looked around.
Demonic Beasts like the one just now surrounded her by the hundreds and thousands.
The sounds of engagement from afar still rumbled continuously.
She remembered that right next to her was Lord Leonidas's defense sector; with this King of Sparta around, it probably wouldn't be breached.
Yet here at her position, no reinforcements had arrived even now, which meant that the high wall defensive line was currently being besieged from all sides... Everyone was pinned down, completely unable to spare a hand to provide aid.
Tomoe Gozen took a deep breath, assumed a stance, and gripped the blade with both hands.
These endless Demonic Beasts before her... plus their strength which was visibly greater than in the past, it seemed she had been chosen as the breakthrough point...
"A daughter of a samurai house... cannot just fall like this..." she shouted loudly; "Come on, you beasts!"
"As long as I am still standing, don't you ever think of crossing this wall!"
Responding to her was a tide of beasts surging like floodwaters.
"Ah!!!" She let out a loud war cry, the long blade in her hand crashing down like a sudden clap of thunder.
One... two... three...
Demonic Beasts continuously died beneath the crimson long blade in her hand.
But more Demonic Beasts surged up at every single moment.
Rip!
She was struck for the first time.
The fabric on her shoulder was instantly torn apart, and the sharp claws of a Demonic Beast left three deep claw marks on her shoulder.
But it also paid the price with its life.
Yet there was still an endless stream of Demonic Beasts rushing forward, completely unafraid of death.
Under normal circumstances, Demonic Beasts of this level could not possibly cause fatal damage to a Heroic Spirit of her rank, but the problem lay in their sheer numbers... a multitude of ants can bite an elephant to death.
Tomoe Gozen felt that she was currently that elephant being bitten to death.
Very quickly, dozens more Demonic Beasts died beneath her blade, the price being three more wounds appearing on her body.
It was foreseeable that if this continued, she would absolutely be worn down alive.
There was no helping it; as a Heroic Spirit, she did not possess any large-scale AOE Noble Phantasm. Tomoe Gozen, originally named Nakahara Tomoe, was a female warrior who appeared in military chronicles such as The Tale of the Heike, The Record of the Genpei Struggle, and The Rise and Fall of the Genpei.
The daughter of Nakahara Kanetō, she was the younger sister of Higuchi Kanemitsu and Imai Kanehira—who were known as the Four Heavenly Kings of Kiso. She was raised by the same wet nurse as Yoshinaka, making them like brother and sister.
She possessed arm strength to the extent of twisting off a human head with her bare hands. The anecdote of her twisting off the head of Onda Hachirō Moroshige, an enemy military commander renowned for his boundless strength, actually existed. After escaping the Battle of Awazu, she fled to a distant place. After giving birth to Kiso Yoshihide, she became a nun in her later years, and it is said she lived to the age of 91.
In Chapter Nine of the Kakubon edition of The Tale of the Heike, "The Death of Kiso," she is described as
possessing white skin and long hair, with outstanding beauty. Furthermore, she was highly skilled with a powerful bow; whether on horseback or on foot, she never missed a shot, causing even gods and demons to despair, qualifying as a Hero—one matching a thousand.
In other words, Tomoe Gozen was a person matching a thousand, possessing fair skin, long hair, beautiful features, and a mastery of the powerful bow.
Her experience during her lifetime was mostly composed of techniques for dealing with large-scale battles where ally and enemy were chaotically entangled, rather than the ability to command legions. It was a combat technique for fighting with the strength of a single rider within an army.
This resulted in her Noble Phantasm, Mantra: Aryavalokitesvara, being merely an Anti-Personnel Noble Phantasm.
This was an existence sublimated into a Noble Phantasm, combining her lamentation and sorrow over failing to meet death together with Yoshinaka, alongside her innate flame abilities and the monstrous strength of an oni.
The main deity of Gishō-ji Temple, which holds memorial services for her beloved Kiso Yoshinaka, is Aryavalokitesvara. By chanting his mantra and confirming the love for Yoshinaka within her heart, she seizes the enemy, hurls them away, and fires an incandescent arrow, using a sun-like Magical Energy that symbolizes her feelings for Yoshinaka to inflict a blow upon the enemy.
It was fine for one-on-one combat, but facing this boundless, tide-like mass of enemies, this Noble Phantasm was simply of no use whatsoever.
Tomoe Gozen's long blade swung, killing dozens of Demonic Beasts once more, managing with great difficulty to win a brief moment of respite. But right at that moment, a gray shadow thrust forward from her right rear with lightning speed.
"What..." Tomoe Gozen instantly felt her back go numb. That was a skill sublimated from the experience left behind by her chaotic battles amidst thousands of troops during her lifetime, warning her.
Tomoe Gozen wanted to turn sideways to dodge without the slightest hesitation, but it was still too late.
That gray shadow directly pierced her right arm, leaving a horrifying bloody hole, and then retracted with a snap, causing the crimson long blade swung by her left hand to strike empty air.
"This is..." Tomoe Gozen could not help but clutch her pierced arm, staring fixedly in the direction the gray shadow had come from.
If she had not mislooked, that was a scorpion tail.
Sure enough, amidst the pack of Demonic Beasts, a gray figure stepped forward.
"Scorpion Demon..." Tomoe Gozen grit her teeth and called out his identity.
One of Tiamat's Eleven Demonic Beasts, whose proper name was Girtablili or Girtablulu.
After losing the war against Tiamat, he was subdued by Marduk and used to hold back demons and plagues.
His appearance was depicted as male, usually wearing a horned cap, sometimes with wings, and feet resembling a bird of prey. The earliest depiction of Girtablili can be traced back to the 12th century BC, on a boundary stone from the period of Nebuchadnezzar I, where the figure of a scorpion-man drawing a bow and setting an arrow is carved.
In the epic Gilgamesh, a male and a female scorpion-man guard the gates of the sun god Shamash at the terrifying mountain of Mashu, through which the sun rises and sets every day.
In addition, Girtablili might also be connected to Sagittarius, and he is sometimes considered the prototype for the storm god Pazuzu in later Mesopotamian mythology, who likewise possesses wings, bird of prey feet, and a scorpion tail.
"He then distributed poisonous serpents, dragons, and sphinxes, giant lions, mad dogs, scorpion-men, powerful lion-demons, flying dragons, and centaur monsters, bearing their merciless weapons, entering battle without fear. He executed strict orders, so their obedience was also high."
Tomoe Gozen recited the records from the ancient texts, "Advancing together with these eleven kinds, forming his group among the newborn gods."
"She then established Kingu as the Sovereign to lead everyone, issue orders, and generously wield the spear to head into battle."
"Hehehe," that Scorpion Demon tilted his head upon hearing this, the tail behind him swinging continuously, occasionally probing forward.
Tomoe Gozen was as if facing a formidable enemy. In the first place, the Eleven Demonic Beasts were not characters that were easy to deal with, and there were so many Demonic Beasts assisting him. She herself was currently injured, and her right hand holding the blade was mostly useless.
She looked toward her right hand; a greenish-black color was rapidly spreading from the wound.
This was the deadly poison of the Scorpion Demon.
Naturally, how could a scorpion not be poisonous?
She did not have much time left. She looked at the wall behind her, where the soldiers of Uruk had already made their preparations.
If they were ordinary Demonic Beasts, the soldiers might not be unable to resist for a period of time while waiting for reinforcements to arrive, but if the Scorpion Demon remained... they definitely wouldn't be able to hold it off.
Therefore, it was time for her to sacrifice her life for humanity.
Tomoe Gozen took a deep breath and looked at the powerful Scorpion Demon before her, her heart already prepared to perish together with it.
As long as she traded her life for it! The Northern Wall defensive line would still be able to hold!
At this moment, the Scorpion Demon also sensed her resolve. His eyeballs rolled, and he actually slithered directly into the pack of Demonic Beasts.
"Coward!" Seeing this, Tomoe Gozen grit her teeth and used her left hand to swing her blade, slaughtering her way toward the direction where he was located, "Come on, face me!"
But the Scorpion Demon did not even turn his head. What a joke, who would face you?
As long as he stalled for time, he was guaranteed to win. His poison was no joke, so why should he risk his life against her?
As one of the Eleven Demonic Beasts, the Scorpion Demon still possessed his own wisdom, unlike those ordinary Demonic Beasts that were entirely muddled.
"Stop!" Tomoe Gozen desperately killed the Demonic Beasts along the path while advancing toward the direction of his escape.
But it was simply too slow; that Scorpion Demon was already several hundred meters away from her...
If it really didn't work out, then there was only one last move!
Tomoe Gozen grit her teeth and was about to begin completely burning her Saint Graph. If this strike hit, it should be able to take him down with her; if not, all would be lost.
"Aryavalokitesvara," she said through grit teeth, "Please protect me, the next move must absolutely..."
Right at that moment, that Scorpion Demon suddenly turned around craftily, the long tail behind him thrusting out toward her like a flash of lightning.
"Danger!" The combat instinct in her heart instantly sounded an alarm, but danger... might not necessarily not be an opportunity!
That beast calculated that I am gathering energy and cannot dodge this strike, but I didn't plan on dodging in the first place!
She merely straightened her body, letting the scorpion tail that was originally aimed toward her heart face her abdomen. As long as this strike of his hit, she would directly lock his tail completely, using it to draw close to the Scorpion Demon.
As long as she avoided a vital injury, it would be fine!
Tomoe Gozen stared fixedly at that gray scorpion tail, her hands already prepared to lock it down with the monstrous strength of an oni!
A cruel smile appeared at the corner of the Scorpion Demon's mouth. He naturally knew what idea the prey before him was harboring, but... being a Scorpion Demon who was cruel by nature, he loved to toy with his prey the most.
As for the opponent's desperate strike... heh, it wasn't as if a scorpion couldn't discard its own tail. He was a Scorpion Demon; it was merely a single tail.
He opened his eyes wide, just waiting to watch the opponent's expression plunge into despair after grasping onto hope only to find that all her efforts had come to nothing.
And right at that moment...
A beam of fire descended from the sky! Crashing straight onto his extended tail!
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T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me.
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Shilling time!
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