Makoto?”
Makoto’s mouth opened slightly, and after a long pause, he continued, “In my memory, in both the 2D and 3D worlds, there seems to be only one person with the surname Kibutsuji.”
“It’s the one you’re thinking of: the Demon King in Demon Slayer World, the progenitor of demons, the origin of all tragic plots.
Haha, if you want to call me Kibutsuji Muzan, that’s not entirely out of the question.”
Kibutsuji Makoto’s face showed a wry, helpless smile: “It’s just that my fortune is shallow and my fate is weak.
I don’t have Muzan’s ability to cling to life, and I kicked the bucket before the Taisho Era.”
Kibutsuji Makoto was born into a famous Onmyoji family during the Heian Period.
His life was unfortunate; he was congenitally weak, even being born into the world in the state of a stillborn infant.
Although he desperately clawed his way back from the gates of hell with the obsession to survive, he still suffered from an incurable disease, and the famous physicians of the time predicted he wouldn’t live past twenty.
Kibutsuji Makoto was precocious and a child prodigy, but unfortunately, also sickly, usually confined to his bed.
Until a physician developed a certain medicine for him…
“Someone kindly tried to save you, yet you killed the doctor?”
Kibutsuji Makoto gave a bitter smile: “I didn’t have past life memories, and the side effects of that medicine made me think my condition was worsening.
I just assumed he was a quack harming people, so in a fit of anger, I killed him.”
It wasn’t until the doctor died that he discovered he had recovered his health and gained an immortal and even stronger body.
However, at the same time, he could no longer stand in the sunlight and began to crave human blood and flesh.
Makoto’s expression shifted: “You really ate people?”
The demons in the Demon Slayer World needed to eat people.
As the progenitor of demons, Kibutsuji Makoto naturally couldn’t avoid it.
“I tried frying a piece with sesame oil.”
Kibutsuji Makoto couldn’t help but sigh: “Maybe it was a psychological block, but that taste, worse than fatty pork, was truly disgusting—so disgusting I immediately vomited it out.
So, for the next few hundred years, I stopped trying to eat flesh and switched to drinking human blood, living like a vampire.”
Compared to ogres, vampires were often more easily accepted.
“I researched that physician’s prescription.
The most crucial ingredient in that medicine was a plant called the blue spider lily.
However, I searched through all the family texts and scoured the vicinity of Heian-kyō, but I couldn’t find it.”
“And so…”
To be able to live under the sun and to eliminate his urge to eat people, Kibutsuji Makoto began to interfere in the secret struggles between the Emperor and the Fujiwara clan.
Utilizing the rise of the samurai factions, he established an organization similar to the Embroidered Uniform Guard, monopolizing the power of life and death, and at one point became the dark side of Heian-kyō.
He mobilized vast human and material resources to search for the blue spider lily.
However, not long after, because he couldn’t appear during the day, he was suspected of being a demon and was driven out of Heian-kyō.
But that didn’t stop Kibutsuji Makoto from continuing his search for the spider lily.
If he lacked manpower, he would create manpower himself.
Kibutsuji Makoto began creating numerous demons, developing his own demon forces, once rivaling human powers.
In the centuries that followed, he left behind the legend of the ‘Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.’
“Even so, I still never found the blue spider lily.”
A self-mocking smile appeared at the corner of Kibutsuji Makoto’s lips: “This is the downside of transmigrating without memories.
Kibutsuji Makoto was born into a prestigious Onmyoji family, naturally precocious, mastering the essence of Onmyōdō.
He was skilled in astromancy, divination, physiognomy, and various sacrificial rites.
After the initial fifty years of his life, he vaguely calculated from the changes in the stars and his own facial features that he would not meet a good end.
Heaven intended to kill him.
So, for the subsequent five hundred years, Kibutsuji Makoto stopped acting ostentatiously and instead hid in the shadows of history.
He quietly searched for the blue spider lily.
Besides the necessary subordinate forces, he no longer created followers wantonly.
Only when he discovered certain interesting people unwilling to accept death would he bestow his demon blood upon them, allowing them to live on.
Even so, fate did not spare him.
“After the Heian Period ended, I wasn’t in such a hurry.
I thought, this body is immortal, so I have plenty of time to search.”
“As a result, I searched for nearly six hundred years.”
“Time flies like a swift horse whipping its reins; years pass like flowing water over fallen flowers.”
“How can anything in this world never age?
My body didn’t age at all, but my spirit couldn’t withstand the erosion of time.
Perhaps it was because my mentality aged that I was killed by Tsugikuni Yoriichi.”
Kibutsuji Makoto was slain by Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
In the blink of an eye, one thousand eight hundred slashes!
All five brains and seven hearts were destroyed!
“Brother, why are you even weaker than Kibutsuji Muzan?
That trash boss at least managed to escape.
You didn’t even manage to flee?
Can you even do it?”
“Stop your yapping.
You know perfectly well that Tsugikuni Yoriichi is a shameless cheater.
Besides, I only drank blood and didn’t eat meat for several hundred years; I might have been slightly malnourished…
Of course, those weren’t the main reasons.
The main reason is that I was very tired.”
Kibutsuji Makoto looked at the two graves and sighed, lying down beside them.
“As I said before, I have lived for a long time.
My spirit is already like that of an aging elder; I have no desire to live on anymore.
So, you live on in our place; I am going into a long slumber.”
“According to procedure, you must state your dying wish.”
“A dying wish, you say…”
Kibutsuji Makoto pondered for a moment: “If I have any regrets, it’s that I wanted to see that long-lost sunrise again, to live under the sun once more.
That should be simple for you, right?”
“It’s a small effort.”
Theoretically, after I die, all the demons under my command should also die.
But that’s not certain.
If they are still alive, please see them off for me, lest they continue to harm the world.”
“Understood.”
“There’s one more thing.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi is such a pitiable person.
He seems like a tool Heaven used to kill me.
Please grant him release.”
“Revenge is revenge; why phrase it so elegantly?”
“There’s one more thing…”
“Just hurry up and cool down already!”
“Sigh.”
After delivering his final testament, Kibutsuji Makoto hummed a little tune and slowly closed his eyes.
“In this life, all matters are empty; going to life, going to death, all with ease.”
“Spill wine into the sea, intoxicate heaven and earth, cast oneself into the firmament, embraced by all things…”
The softly hummed melody gradually drifted away.
The Demon King, who experienced six hundred years of ups and downs, returned to nothingness, transforming into an unremarkable grave.
On the tombstone’s black-and-white memorial portrait, the young Onmyoji, wearing a high official’s cap and wide robes, wore a look of relief and a slight smile.
“Tsk, what a dashing fellow.”
After staring blankly for a long time, having accepted Kibutsuji Makoto’s long life memories, Makoto commented on the other version of himself.
He looked at his own status panel.
[Name: Makoto]
[Race: Human]
[Spirit: 35]
[Constitution: 52]
[Energy: 10]
[Skills: None]
[Passive: Jumper]
[Remaining Points: 360]
[Inheritable Skills: Blood Demon Art: Blood Manipulation, Blood Demon Art: Six Movements of Heaven and Earth]
[Inheritable Passive: Immortal and Imperishable Body (Flaw)]
“Heaven and Earth?
And damn it, Six Movements?”
He couldn’t help but marvel, “Quite romantic in temperament.”
After looking at the two Blood Demon Arts, Makoto’s gaze was drawn to the new passive, his eyes gradually heating up.
Immortality, eternal life.
Who wouldn’t want that?