Chapter 692: Reversal

"Something terrible has happened! Lord Yagyu Jubei has been killed by that Battousai!"

"Battousai is addicted to killing; she's not a hero at all!"

"Lord Yagyu was such a good person, how could that Battousai bring herself to do it..."

"An executioner is an executioner. Her killing methods before were so cruel; I said how could this possibly be a hero..."

The next day, as new notices were posted all over the city, the entire Heian-kyo became lively once again. Battousai, who had been pursued by thousands just a few days ago and almost blown up into the savior of Yingzhou, was once again the protagonist of the topic. However, this time, her reputation had directly reversed.

And all of this was just because of the death of Yagyu Jubei.

Unlike Battousai, who had just come out these past two days, Yagyu Jubei was a veteran sword master, and one with a very high reputation at that.

She had been traveling around the island for years, acting chivalrously, and no one knew how many people had received her kindness. Now that their benefactor had been killed like this, many people immediately exploded.

They really weren't familiar with that Battousai, and that hero title was also claimed by the notices posted by the nobles. The ordinary Yingzhou witches didn't care much for what the noble lords announced, feeling it might be some kind of hype.

The more the lords praised her, the more they felt repulsed.

And now, a good sword master truly recognized by the public was dead, and she died at the hands of the person who had been hard-hyped before. This couldn't help but make people think of various conspiracy theories.

Therefore, for a time, Battousai, who had been lifted to the heavens and hadn't sat firmly on the altar, fell directly into the sewer and became a street rat that everyone shouted to beat.

"Hee hee hee, Eldest Miss, your hero experience card has expired."

Beside a notice board outside a certain village, among the indignant villagers, Wenwen turned to look at the Eldest Miss beside her and teased.

At this, Dorothy didn't feel much; she had long expected such a day.

"Nothing to care about. Let's go."

The Home Witch just shook her head, then wrapped her black robe tightly around herself and turned to leave.

Seeing her like this, another figure also wrapped in a black robe hurriedly followed.

"Sorry, Lord Tsukimi Kuro, it was I who implicated you."

After the three left the crowd, this hooded black-robed person raised her head and said to Dorothy with much apology.

This was none other than Yagyu Jubei, who was rumored to be a dead person.

Time returned to yesterday.

After Dorothy swung her sword, Yagyu Jubei was directly stunned.

The so-called Mutō-dori was, to put it plainly, catching a blade with bare hands. It required inserting oneself into the flaws of the opponent's sword moves at the appropriate time and then directly seizing the opponent's weapon.

The principle was just that; it wasn't complicated. The real difficulty actually lay in how to find and grasp the opponent's flaws.

But how could a peer-level opponent be so easily caught in a flaw? In a duel between true equals, who would dare to make a mistake? A mistake often meant death.

Therefore, Mutō-dori was actually not a move used on peer-level opponents at all, but one specifically for bullying the weak.

To put it plainly, it was because I was much stronger than the opponent; the opponent's attack was like a child's play in my eyes and could be handled at will.

What was strong wasn't the sword move Mutō-dori, but the swordsman who used Mutō-dori.

The mystery of this move lay in your sword art being several grades stronger than the opponent's.

And others didn't understand this; they only saw that the Yagyu family's swordsmen could easily handle opponents with Mutō-dori every time, so as it was passed down, it was passed down as a secret technique of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu.

However, Yagyu Jubei's Mutō-dori was different from the Mutō-dori that others could only use to bully the weak. Hers had true practical value. Not only could she bully the weak, but even against peer-level opponents, or even opponents slightly stronger than herself, she could easily handle them.

This move was a true secret sword for her.

And the mystery within...

Alright, actually, the mystery had nothing to do with sword art, but lay in the eyes.

Yagyu Jubei was a one-eyed sword master; this was a well-known fact. Regarding why she was one-eyed, there were many rumors.

Some said she was ambushed by villains while acting chivalrously and accidentally injured one eye.

Others said she was actually sparring with her mother, and because her talent was too high, she scared her mother into accidentally using her full strength, resulting in her not being able to hold back and injuring one eye.

In short, opinions varied.

But the fact was actually because she had awakened a magic eye later in life. Her right eye under the eyepatch was a magic eye, and a very powerful Diamond-rank magic eye at that.

The Magic Eye of Insight—this was the name of her magic eye.

And the ability of the magic eye was also very simple: she could see through other people's flaws at a glance.

As long as the gap between her and the target wasn't too disparate, then relying on the ability of this magic eye, other people's attacks were full of holes in her eyes.

And this magic eye and the technique of Mutō-dori could be said to be a perfect match. When someone slashed over, she would directly perform an insight and launch a counterattack along the opponent's flaws.

This magic eye wasn't innate to her, but awakened later. At that time, she was still young, following Teacher Tsukahara to practice in the mountains, when she accidentally encountered the overlord of the mountains, a winged tiger demon.

As soon as that tiger demon saw her, it performed a small combo of a tiger leap followed by a tiger pounce, while she performed an insight followed by a slide, backhanding the tiger demon open with the knife in her hand.

The Magic Eye of Insight was awakened at that time.

Clouds follow the dragon, wind follows the tiger. The pounce of that winged tiger demon carried the power of a gale and was extremely swift, far from what she, who was still young at the time, could compare to. At that time, she hadn't reacted at all, but when the tiger claw was less than a centimeter away from her, everything in her eyes suddenly became slow, and then the tiger demon's movements were decomposed and outlined bit by bit.

A silk thread that only she could see emerged from her field of vision, and little Yagyu Jubei, who was inspired at the time, raised the small knife in her hand and slashed along that thread, thus completing the achievement of killing a tiger with a slide.

And now, the ability of this magic eye had long been developed to perfection by her. Except for Teacher Tsukahara's perfect 'First Sword' technique, all other people's sword moves had flaws in her eyes.

Even the two great sword masters who had been famous for longer, her mother and grandmother, were the same.

If one didn't look at magic power and only compared sword art, her mother and grandmother were actually no longer her opponents.

But now, the sword-master miss had encountered a special situation she had never seen before.

The slash of that Battousai was actually full of flaws in her eyes. This slash couldn't even be called sword art. If an apprentice in her own dojo dared to slash like this, Yagyu Jubei would definitely scold the other party and make that fellow practice the nine swords and thirteen styles of basic sword art several thousand times. This basic skill was a mess; it was simply unwatchable.

Anyway, the lines of flaws seen by the Magic Eye of Insight were no longer a matter of a few; they were densely packed like a ball of yarn.

But clearly, it was such a sword full of flaws, but when Yagyu Jubei really wanted to perform Mutō-dori along any random line of flaws, she was stunned to find that the line just disappeared.

No, it couldn't be said to have disappeared; it should be said to have shifted, moving from this position to another position.

And when she changed to another one to try again, the same thing happened again.

The line of weakness of this Battousai was really like a ball of yarn in a cat's claws; you couldn't find where the end of the thread was at all, because it could change at any time.

Clearly full of flaws, but because of this constant change, it seemed to have no weaknesses.

The sword-master miss had truly seen this situation for the first time.

However, Yagyu Jubei wasn't the kind of trash who only relied on the magic eye and was vulnerable once she left it. Realizing that the magic eye was ineffective, she simply closed the magic eye and prepared to face the enemy directly with the sword art she had practiced hard for many years.

She was, after all, a true sword master, and the Battousai opposite didn't look very old either. Anyway, she should be younger than herself, who was already over sixty this year.

Facing a swordsman younger than herself, the sword-master miss didn't feel that her sword art would lose.

However...

The fact slapped her face so quickly.

It was fine when she relied on the magic eye to observe before, but once she switched to the sword-art perspective, Yagyu Jubei immediately saw the true power hidden in this sword strike.

That was the existence known as the Sword Soul.

Sword Soul, for a sword master-level swordsman, was actually not rare. Yagyu Jubei herself also had a Sword Soul; it was the sublimation of the living-person sword intent passed down through generations of the Yagyu family.

This soul of the living-person sword could greatly strengthen the deterrent power of their sword art, dissolve the opponent's hostility and fighting intent, and achieve the effect of subduing the enemy without fighting.

And besides the Yagyu family's Sword Soul, she had also seen the Sword Souls of other Yingzhou swordsmen, such as Teacher Tsukahara's Soul of Zen-Mind Emptiness, or Teacher Kamiizumi's Soul of the Only Sword.

But...

"Can this meow also be called a Sword Soul?"

Yagyu Jubei had never seen a Sword Soul as special as Battousai's before.

At this moment, in her eyes, what was slashing toward her wasn't a sword at all, but an entire civilization.

It was a beautiful scene of harmony among all races, one heart under heaven, as beautiful as a fantasy land in a fairy tale used to deceive children.

In the phantom of that Sword Soul, the sword-master miss saw witches and demons drinking happily, angels and dragons laughing together, orcs and elves being lovers, and winged people and sea people becoming friends.

The entire world was no longer respected by bloodline origin; all living beings were equal. Everyone only undertook different responsibilities because of the strength of their abilities. Positions might have high and low, but human rights were equal for all.

She saw that all the races, clearly with different cultures, were gathered under one...

Emmm, alright, it really was a hammer.

Everyone gathered under a hammer, and under the guidance of the laws and rules engraved on that hammer, they were of one heart. Everyone had only one goal, and that was to build this home that belonged to everyone better and better.

However, just as the sword-master miss was blinded by this scene of prosperity that she couldn't even dream of, and couldn't help but want to sink into it, suddenly, the people of all races in that fantasy land turned their heads to look at her in unison.

"Sister, are you sure you want to hinder us from building our home?"

"Sister, do you really want to be our enemy?"

That countless people shouted in unison, like thunder, questioning her, slamming heavily into her heart like an iron hammer, interrogating her inner self.

At this moment, Yagyu Jubei understood the meaning of the question Battousai miss had just asked her, and also understood the true pursuit in the heart of this cold-blooded and crazy-looking swordsman.

That was the great wish of the world being one, everyone for me, and I for everyone.

Where was this any Sword Soul? That was clearly the rolling torrent of humanity.

The scene of the fantasy land where all nations congratulated was not an illusion at all; it was the most sincere longing and prayer from the depths of the hearts of countless suffering and oppressed people in this entire world.

This world was a mind-only world, and the power of the heart was infinite. Even if various violence and desires occupied the mainstream now, suppressing the longing of the billions of weak people so they couldn't turn over for the time being...

But this people's wish was unstoppable. Quantitative change would lead to qualitative change. Sooner or later, this powerful and unstoppable force would break through all seals. At that time, as long as there was a little spark to ignite it, it would turn into a raging fire that dared to change the sun and moon, turning everything upside down.

Just like the sword intent of this Battousai now.

The vision of the fantasy land in her heart was just a primer. What truly made this sword intent terrifying to this degree was the rolling great wish of humanity attracted by the resonance of the sword intent.

Even if this only attracted the tip of the iceberg of that great wish of humanity, this power was already unstoppable.

Yagyu Jubei realized this in her heart.

This sword strike was simply not something she could block, and that sword strike carrying the wishes of the people was simply not something she could seize.

Let alone seizing the sword, even if this Battousai took the initiative to hand the sword to her now, the sword-master miss didn't feel she could grasp it.

She was afraid that as soon as she took the sword, the next moment she would be directly impacted by the wishes of the people, rolling her eyes, drooling, and becoming a fool who could only 'aba aba'.

The water in this sword strike was too deep; she really couldn't grasp it.

Fortunately, this Battousai had no killing intent toward her. This sword strike didn't even use magic power, so although she couldn't catch it, she could completely dodge it.

However, just as Yagyu Jubei prepared to dodge to the side, avoid this sword strike, and admit defeat at the same time...

She suddenly felt a pain in her heart.

The sword-master miss looked down and saw a sharp long sword extending from her heart.

Damn it, just now her mind was entirely attracted by Battousai's sword intent, so she didn't notice at all that someone had secretly come behind her.

At the very end, Yagyu Jubei turned around and saw the identity of the person who had ambushed her.

It was a figure she was very familiar with.

She hadn't come alone to block Battousai's path today; she had also brought a confidant, her junior sister—Takatsukasa Kaori.

And now, this junior sister she trusted the most had some heart-to-heart words she wanted to say to her.

"Senior Sister, please forgive me. I was also forced into this. I will soon go down to accompany you."

This junior sister, who had actually always admired her, said with teary eyes.

But that heart-piercing sword strike was truly fast, accurate, and ruthless.

As expected of the junior sister she had taught with her own hands, this sword art was truly not bad.

The sword-master miss thought to herself.

She believed that her junior sister was indeed forced into it; after all, she knew the kindness in this junior sister's daily life.

Then who forced her?

Yagyu Jubei sighed, and at the very end, she suddenly realized something.

Yes, some things are indeed unrelated to good or evil; their existence itself is a mistake.

The sword-master miss is in the midst of enlightenment...

That, it's the last day, tickets...

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 693 =====