Fūrinkazan.
The four characters rolled on the crimson banner as if they were about to burn through the fabric.
The position where that banner rose was behind the Imagawa Clan's military formation—on the ridgeline of the western hills.
Everyone present knew what this meant.
The Imagawa Clan's path of retreat had been cut off.
"Takeda Clan—!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's smile froze. On that pretty face, the excitement faded, replaced by an extremely rare gravity.
She spun around, the hem of her Junihitoe sweeping an arc on the ground.
Her gaze crossed the rear of her own army and cast toward the west.
On the ridgeline of the hills, figures of cavalry were emerging.
Not many.
Roughly three or four hundred riders.
But those horses were significantly larger than the mounts of the Imagawa and Hojo. Their bodies were covered in iron breastplates and face masks, and the riders' armor was equally heavy, glinting with a dull iron color in the setting sun.
Heavy cavalry.
The trademark of the Takeda Clan of Kai.
The most terrifying assault unit of this era—the Takeda Red Corps.
Regarding heavy cavalry in the age of cold weapons, in the current world, only Kai possessed such a unit.
Their numbers were few,
But they were absolutely a lethal weapon for achieving victory through surprise!
"How is this possible..."
Imagawa Yoshimoto gritted her teeth.
The Takeda Clan's main force should be in a standoff at the border between Kai and the other side of Suruga. She had confirmed the intelligence before setting out; Takeda Shingen showed no signs of moving troops.
Where did these three or four hundred riders spring from?
"My Lady! We are under attack from the rear!"
A messenger came rushing forward, practically crawling.
"Enemy cavalry has already broken into the rearguard lines—our rear guard is collapsing!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's face darkened completely.
She was not afraid of a frontal confrontation.
Even now, the Imagawa Clan still had two thousand troops, while the Takeda Clan forces only numbered three or four hundred.
But the problem was—she wasn't on her own territory right now.
She had come alone into the Hojo Clan's territory; there were no castles behind her to retreat to, and no reinforcements to call upon.
And ahead, Hojo Ujiyasu's fifteen hundred men were still watching like tigers eyeing their prey.
Enemies on both sides.
This was the situation she least wanted to face.
"All units, turn around! Block the rear first!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's voice rose, her usual leisurely laziness vanishing completely.
"Cavalry intercept, infantry form ranks—"
Before she could finish her sentence.
Boom—!
A massive roar came from the rear lines.
It wasn't the dull thud of horse hooves, but a much more violent sound.
It sounded as if something had been smashed into the ground.
Imagawa Yoshimoto turned to look.
She saw a single rider break away from the center of the Takeda Clan cavalry formation.
It was a woman.
A Hime-musha.
She rode a massive, pitch-black horse that wore no armor—because the horse itself was like a moving fortress, its muscles bulging in a way that didn't seem living.
The woman riding the horse was equally startling.
She wore a set of deep crimson armor; it wasn't the O-yoroi or Do-maru common in this era, but a sleeker, more form-fitting style.
The curve of the breastplate tightly encased the full contour of her chest, the waist armor narrowed, and then flared out again at the hip line. The armor plates at her thighs parted with her riding posture, revealing the inner thighs clad in chainmail.
That figure—
Exaggerated.
There was no other word to describe it.
It was pure, overwhelming, eye-catching exaggeration.
Her hair was deep crimson, tied into a thick ponytail behind her head that whipped wildly with the momentum of the charge.
Her face was young, about seventeen or eighteen, her features held a touch of wildness, and the corners of her mouth were naturally upturned, as if she were smiling at all times.
But that smile was by no means gentle.
It was the smile of a predator seeing its prey.
In her right hand, she gripped a short-handled great hammer.
The hammerhead wasn't forged of metal, but of—stone.
To be precise, it was a piece of rock polished into a sphere, its surface carved with Sanskrit characters, with a dark glimmer seeping from the cracks.
A colossal sense of pressure also radiated from her body.
Kanbe Hikaru was familiar with this pressure.
It was the same kind of power as that within the Hime-musha named Kakizaki Kageie.
But thicker.
More than a level thicker.
"Out of the way—!"
The red-haired woman roared.
That voice didn't sound like it could come from a human throat at all, as it carried a resonance that vibrated the eardrums.
Then, she swung the hammer.
Boom!
The hammerhead slammed into the ground.
A shockwave used the ground as a medium to spread outward, sending the Imagawa Ashigaru within a radius of several yards flying, armor and all.
Dirt churned, and the ground cracked and shattered.
The aftershock of that hammer strike even reached the Bone Forest ahead, causing the ground beneath Kanbe Hikaru's feet to tremble slightly.
"What on earth is that..."
Imagawa Yoshimoto's face turned pale.
The person before her wasn't Takeda Shingen.
She knew Takeda Shingen.
Takeda Shingen hadn't come in person; it was her subordinate who had arrived.
But this subordinate was extraordinary.
"My Lord! That's one of the Takeda Four Heavenly Kings..."
The vassal beside her spoke with a trembling voice: "Yamagata Masakage!"
Yamagata Masakage.
The commander of the Takeda Clan's Akazonae cavalry.
A Hime-musha known as the 'Fierce Bull of Takeda.' In the rumors of Kai, this person possessed Herculean strength, said to be able to bend the iron bolts of castle gates with her bare hands.
But rumors were, after all, just rumors.
Without seeing it with one's own eyes, no one would take it seriously.
Now that they saw it, however, it was different.
Imagawa Yoshimoto knew that among Takeda Shingen's subordinates were several 'abnormal' existences—and the Yamagata Masakage before her was undoubtedly one of them!
The red-haired Hime-musha charged into the Imagawa ranks, her hammer rising and falling, every strike leaving spiderweb-like cracks in the surrounding ground.
The Imagawa Ashigaru were tossed aside like scraps of paper.
Cavalry tried to intercept, but the massive black horse didn't slow down at all, directly slamming into two warhorses, sending flesh and blood flying.
Yamagata Masakage's charge path was very clear.
She wasn't killing at random.
She was going straight for Imagawa Yoshimoto.
Crushing all obstacles along the way, she charged straight toward the great banner of the Imagawa family crest.
"Stop her!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto took a step back, and the armored samurai around her immediately closed in.
These samurai were fully armored, belonging to the standard high-ranking warrior class and serving as the personal guards of the Suruga Provincial Lord. They couldn't be called anything but elite, yet when they gathered together before Yamagata Masakage, they couldn't even last a single round.
One hammer strike.
Two samurai flew out.
Another strike.
Three spears shattered into wood chips, their iron heads snapped into two segments.
The red-haired woman sat atop her horse, looking down at Imagawa Yoshimoto with eyes full of battle intent, her smile growing wider.
"Found you—the Imagawa General!"
She raised her hammer.
Imagawa Yoshimoto's pupils contracted.
Kanbe Hikaru, however, only felt speechless and silent, thinking his luck was truly poor.
Because, at this moment, he happened to be standing right between the two.
In the eyes of that blood-crazed Takeda Clan general, this fellow wearing a demon mask and covered in Demonic Qi was clearly a bodyguard summoned by Imagawa Yoshimoto.
So her target included him as well.
This strike encompassed him as well.
But he didn't retreat.
Not to save Imagawa Yoshimoto.
And not just because the attack had already locked onto him.
But also because.
[Target for conquest detected]
Another one.
After the Uesugi Clan's Bishamonten, did the Takeda Clan also have this kind of person known as a 'Divine Vessel'?
Interesting.
Kanbe Hikaru's hand rested on his sword hilt.
Since she's delivered herself to my door.
Then let me see if this so-called Fudo Myo-o can actually be moved.
[Thunder Muscle] fully activated.
Purple electric arcs instantly exploded, clashing with that crimson flame.
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