The two blades collided in midair, sending sparks flying.
One was a mass-produced Muramasa blade.
The other looked rusted and battered.
Yet the result was that Kobe Hikaru, the one holding Muramasa, was forced three steps back, his grip going numb.
The gap in strength was too great.
The hannya-masked oni samurai’s Six Changes of Body Transformation were not for show.
Every change brought a qualitative leap to a yokai’s basic abilities, and at least two of its changes were clearly focused on increasing strength.
Otherwise, even Hikaru, whose arm strength had surged thanks to [Archer Change], would not have been unable to block it.
In a battle between the same kind of yokai, even one change could create a difference as vast as heaven and earth.
“That’s all you’ve got?” The hannya-masked oni samurai’s voice came from behind the mask, thick with mockery.
“And you still dared to sneak in here?
You really don’t know how to value your life.”
It swung its blade again.
This slash was faster and heavier than the last.
Hikaru barely managed to block, but both arms were shaken so hard they nearly dislocated, and his body flew backward.
His legs dragged across the ground for several meters before he finally steadied himself.
The hannya-masked oni samurai let out a cold laugh, and its figure abruptly vanished.
‘Fast!’
This was not simple speed.
It was propulsion created by an instant burst of leg strength.
This guy’s legs had clearly undergone one change as well.
Hikaru’s pupils contracted.
The eye change he had obtained from a max-affection dagger, [Sharp Eye Change], desperately tracked the afterimage cutting through the air.
Left side!
He instinctively raised his blade to block, but in the next second, the hannya-masked oni samurai’s sword arm suddenly made a sharp crack in midair.
Its wrist joint dislocated, and then, visibly, the arm stretched and swelled.
An arm that had been normal length suddenly extended by three shaku.
Cartilage extension.
That sudden extension pushed its attack range beyond Hikaru’s prediction in an instant.
The long blade slipped around Muramasa’s blocking line and lashed toward his ribs like a venomous snake.
“Fuck!”
Hikaru gritted his teeth and activated [Spear Waist].
His upper body folded backward at an angle no human could possibly achieve, tough and flexible like a bent spear.
Hissss—
The rusted blade scraped across his chest armor.
The battered armor that looked solid enough began hissing and smoking the instant it touched the filthy energy on the blade, as if splashed with strong acid, then quickly rotted and softened.
Agonizing pain pierced through him.
Hikaru rolled aside in a sorry state and dropped to one knee, a scorched-black wound now carved across his chest.
[Demon Blade Muramasa: Mood: “Terrified.” It says the rusted blade carries poisonous energy that will make it dull.
It does not want to touch that thing!]
“Shut up.
I don’t want to touch it either.”
Hikaru spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
It was yokai blood, unlike human red, murky and gray-black.
He quickly organized the information he had gained from these exchanges.
At least two changes in the arms, causing a massive increase in strength.
A poison change from body to blood, corroding anything on contact.
A bone change that allowed the body to stretch, making its attack range hard to predict.
And those eyes, with occasional flashes in their deathly gray pupils, were clearly another change.
Six Changes.
They almost perfectly countered his Five Changes.
Even more troublesome, Kikyo could not spare any attention right now.
In the distance, three thunderous impacts rang out from the direction of the barrier.
The single-horned oni’s spiked club, the giant python’s poison mist, and the three-eyed crow’s demonic light struck together, causing cracks to appear in the barrier again.
Kikyo was repairing it with all her strength.
Her spiritual power was still abundant, but her stamina was being drained faster and faster.
Maintaining the barrier, shooting arrows to purify the yokai horde, and covering Hikaru had already pushed her to the limit; earlier, when she had been attacked from four sides at once, she could only defend as much as possible.
Now, with three high-level yokai attacking the barrier wildly, she had no room to help him.
In the end, the current Kikyo was still too “young.” She was still the shrine maiden who could be worn down by low-level yokai, possessing the strongest spiritual power but not yet the strongest battle technique.
Hikaru understood that.
So he did not count on Kikyo’s support.
At least in this fight, he could only rely on himself.
“Interesting.” The hannya-masked oni samurai raised its rusted blade, and thick demonic energy erupted from the metal.
“It’s been a long time since I met one of my own kind.”
“Let me see whether your bones are hard enough.”
It charged.
Hikaru met it head-on, not because he was confident he could win, but because he had no way to retreat.
If he backed down, the hannya-masked oni samurai would turn and attack the barrier.
If all four high-level yokai attacked together, the barrier would definitely fail.
He had to keep this one pinned here, even if all he could do was delay it for a quarter hour and buy Kikyo some time.
Clang—!
The two blades collided again.
Hikaru was forced back five steps, gray-black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, but he steadied himself and raised Muramasa once more.
The hannya-masked oni samurai pursued him, sweeping its rusted blade horizontally.
Hikaru did not block.
He knew taking it head-on would only drain him faster.
[Ghost Step].
His figure vanished and reappeared behind the enemy’s right side.
His blade thrust out, aiming for the lower back.
“Cheap trick.”
The hannya-masked oni samurai did not even turn around.
It slapped its left hand backward, and the arm stretched again, whipping toward Hikaru’s face like a lash.
Hikaru tilted his head back to avoid the strike, [Spear Waist] folding his upper body at an impossible angle once more.
But his thrust also missed.
The two pulled apart and faced each other again.
Hikaru was panting.
Although an oni samurai did not need to breathe, the rapid consumption of demonic energy caused his body to make the motion instinctively.
During that brief pause, he used the blood mist drifting across the battlefield to carefully observe every detail of the hannya-masked oni samurai.
The effect of [Blood Resonance] was still active.
Every blood droplet scattered across the ground or drifting through the air was one of his eyes.
Although oni samurai did not breathe, the flow of demonic energy followed a similar pattern.
Every muscle contraction, every shift in its center of gravity, all of it became clear.
Its left knee had an old wound.
The movement there was slightly stiffer than the rest of its body.
It was not obvious, and if Hikaru had not been observing from multiple angles at once through the blood mist, he almost certainly would never have noticed.
But he did notice.
And it made sense.
An oni samurai was a demon born when a powerful warrior’s lingering obsession clung to armor or a corpse.
Most of them carried wounds—the wounds from the battles in which they had died.
Hikaru’s eyes narrowed slightly.
There was an opening.
But knowing the weakness was not enough.
With his current strength, even if he knew the weak point, it would still be difficult to kill the enemy in one blow.
This guy was not at the Substance Transformation stage—no, it was still at Six Changes and had not broken through yet—but it already stood at the peak of Body Transformation, and its defense was no joke.
He needed a chance.
A chance to break the deadlock.
And that chance—
Bzzzt.
The Shikon Jewel in his clothes suddenly trembled.
[Shikon Jewel: Naohi has conveyed a message to you: “She is about to free her hand.”]
Naohi was actually warning him?
And more importantly—
Hikaru’s heart stirred.
Kikyo?
His gaze shot past the hannya-masked oni samurai’s shoulder and swept quickly toward the barrier.
The three high-level yokai—the single-horned oni, the giant python, and the three-eyed crow—were still bombarding the barrier, but the cracks in the barrier had already been repaired.
Kikyo stood on the stone steps, her left hand maintaining the barrier seal, while her right hand…
Had already grasped her bow.
She was waiting.
Waiting for the right moment.
Waiting for Hikaru to create that moment.
“Got it.”
Hikaru drew in a deep breath—or rather, his demonic energy did.
He knew what to do.
He did not need to win alone.
He only needed to create an opening and expose the hannya-masked oni samurai’s weakness to Kikyo, the shrine maiden who was about to free her hand.
Even while dividing her attention, she would be able to land the shot.
Then—
He would finish it.
She would purify it.
All in one smooth motion.
That would be enough.
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