Imu and Shimotsuki Ryuma's battle was filled with a savage air.
Pitch-black purple blade flashes and dazzling purple-gold blade flashes shot out in every direction like brilliant beams of light.
Some landed among the higanbana flowers, plowing savage, crisscrossing gashes through the ground.
Others flew into the distance, only to be stopped by the golden wall of energy at the edge, setting off deafening roars.
There were simply far too many afterimages of the two.
It looked as though hundreds of swordsmen were clashing at high speed.
Their actual bodies could not be seen at all, nor could anyone tell where they were colliding.
Only blurry afterimages, fast as lightning, could be seen weaving back and forth through the dense barrage of blade flashes and sword energy.
The ground was cracking apart in great swathes.
Fields of higanbana flowers were continuously turning into withered petals and leaves that filled the sky.
Even the ancient manor backed against the Styx had long since been reduced to ruins beneath the torrent of blade light.
Time slowly passed.
The facts proved it.
Even within a domain belonging to the river of souls, the river of time still had its place.
Yet this earth-shaking battle between Sword Saints seemed to be gradually dying down.
And only a little over four hours had passed.
The next second.
A blade flash a thousand meters tall suddenly appeared out of nowhere, truly reaching from heaven to earth, gold tinged with a noble shade of purple.
At the same time, a blade flash nearly half its size, purple light wreathed in black mist, appeared right after it. Sweeping upward from below, it met head-on the purple-gold blade flash that cleaved down like divine punishment.
"Shimotsuki Ryuma, your time of death has come. Having your soul erased beneath Mu's