If immortality was a demon’s baseline and greatest guarantee, then the Blood Demon Art was a demon’s ceiling and greatest source of pride.
Even with the system’s restriction against absorbing the Twelve Kizuki, there were still plenty of formidable existences outside that group.
Even a small hand had its own way of playing the game, and the right combinations could absolutely become an extraordinary asset.
And beyond that…
A small but enormous suspicion had been quietly forming in Shinsuke’s mind.
Did Muzan count as one of the Twelve Kizuki or not?
If he didn’t, could Shinsuke absorb his Blood Demon Art?
If that loophole could be exploited, then in the future…
Tch.
Muzan had spent a lifetime eating humans, and the idea of him being eaten by someone in the end had a certain satisfying ring to it.
Of course, even if it was possible, his own strength was still nowhere near enough for that.
Rather than thinking about how to absorb Muzan, he needed to think first about what kind of Blood Demon Art would actually be capable of killing Muzan, and in a way that kept him out of sunlight so he wouldn’t crumble to ash before being absorbed.
And to achieve that goal, the Tier Four reward for human-type females, the combat Three-Piece Set, became the highest priority of all.
Without the Transparent World, he couldn’t strike Muzan’s vital points or follow the dotted lines to cut him apart.
Without the Crimson Red Blade, striking Muzan’s vital points would be useless anyway, since he could heal in seconds.
As for the Demon Slayer Mark…
Put plainly, it was a forced release of a lethal dose of adrenaline.
Activate it and you wouldn’t live past twenty-five.
That thing…
honestly, Shinsuke had no interest in it at all.
After all, the system had been clear: it would unlock an ordinary Demon Slayer Mark, not an innate one.
He had no desire to die at twenty-five in the prime of his life just to kill Muzan.
What would be the point?
Why should he?
He had no intention of spending his own lifespan selflessly protecting this land.
But the Three-Piece Set reward was random.
By Murphy’s Law, unless he decided to never pursue the set at all and just live out his life as a “demon knight,” the very first thing he unlocked would most likely be the Demon Slayer Mark.
And even if his luck was absurdly good and he avoided drawing the Mark twice in a row, someone was going to activate it before the final battle at the Infinity Castle.
As long as he wasn’t hiding somewhere, he would inevitably be caught by the spread of the Mark.
Thinking it through from every angle, Shinsuke still felt he needed to prepare a backup plan.
To activate the Demon Slayer Mark and not die from it, the only people who had achieved this outside of the naturally marked Yoriichi Tsugikuni were, at present, one single person.
Yoriichi’s older brother, Michikatsu Tsugikuni.
Or as he was known now, the strongest of the Twelve Kizuki.
Upper Moon One, Kokushibo.
Using his path of surviving after activating the Mark as a reference, the answer was clear.
Shinsuke’s backup plan was to become a demon.
Of course, the kind of demon he intended to become was not the grotesque variety that died in sunlight and had to eat humans.
That low-grade demon type not only lost its memories and suffered psychological corruption, but could also be recalled as cannon fodder by Muzan at any moment.
That kind of demon held no interest for Shinsuke.
Indistinguishable from an ordinary person in appearance, free from Muzan’s control, and able to survive on blood alone.
That kind of existence, rather than calling it a demon…
Shinsuke preferred the term: Blood Clan.
The idea of becoming a demon filled him with resistance.
But Blood Clan was the complete opposite.
Shinsuke was willing to open his arms wide and embrace with twelve parts enthusiasm the prospect of becoming an apex predator.
The prerequisite, of course, was solving the “sunbathing equals death” problem.
He had no desire to leave himself with a vulnerability that enormous.
And the key to that problem still lay with the small girl sleeping right in front of him.
Nezuko!
In his past life, there had been many theories about why Nezuko, after becoming a demon, was unafraid of sunlight.
The most widely circulated one was that the Kamado family had the Blue Spider Lily growing near their home.
The Kamado family had been eating the flower that Muzan had spent centuries desperately searching for as though it were a wild vegetable, which was why she could become a sun-walking demon.
But the official creators had actually debunked that theory later, since the Blue Spider Lily only bloomed for two or three days a year, always during the day and only for a very short time each occurrence.
Tanjiro had only seen it once by chance, while accompanying his mother to visit a grave.
So whether Nezuko’s immunity to sunlight was connected to the Blue Spider Lily at all remained unknown.
There was also the theory that the Kamado family had been passing down Sun Breathing as a ceremonial Kagura dance for generations, which had altered their very genes, allowing the Kamado siblings to remain unafraid of sunlight even after becoming demons.
There was also a more idealistic view: because Nezuko had never drunk blood, her power came entirely from protection rather than predation, and she even had to recover through sleep, and perhaps that was the reason the sun chose not to destroy her.
But regardless of which theory was correct, Shinsuke had no way to verify any of them right now, and naturally had no desire to gamble on it.
Feeding Nezuko blood would certainly let her awaken sooner and forge a connection with him, but there was also a slim chance it would cause Nezuko, once she had tasted blood, to lose the opportunity to become a sun-walking demon.
Rather than betting on that outcome just to bind Nezuko to his side two years earlier, he felt it was better to let Nezuko develop according to her own natural path.
At the very least, the broad direction could not be changed.
That was how she would become the key to him obtaining a perfect Blood Clan bloodline in the future.
If he could truly achieve that goal, then in the future, with his strength, he could freely reshape or even govern this country however he wished, and build a paradise of his own design.
Having made his decision, Shinsuke let out a breath of relief.
He ruffled Nezuko’s adorable little bun-shaped face with one hand and cheerfully told the system, “Claim the new player gift pack!”
The next instant, a surge of memory rushed into his mind, and a jet-black long blade appeared in his hand without warning.
Feeling the increasingly clear basic swordsmanship knowledge settling into his mind, Shinsuke drew the Soul-Nurturing Nichirin Blade from the system reward with a familiarity that felt entirely natural.
He ran through a brief set of blade movements.
Nothing in the surrounding area changed, only three evenly spaced, neatly aligned hairs now clung to the flat of the blade.
Shinsuke’s eyes filled with satisfaction.
The basic swordsmanship was genuinely basic.
No flourish, no complexity, just the simplest possible mastery of control over the blade itself.
No forms, no named techniques, yet it allowed him to wield the blade as precisely as though it were an extension of his own fingers.
As for the blade itself, it was not a standard katana.
Although the two were similar in silhouette, anyone familiar with swords could tell the difference at a glance.
But the blade in Shinsuke’s hand had a spine as straight as a pine tree, running without a single curve all the way to the tip.
A Tang Hengdao!
The ancestor of the katana!
The straight blade of the Tang Hengdao allowed for slashing attacks while also enabling easy thrusts, and its overall thicker spine compared to the katana also gave it a chopping capability when facing heavily defended enemies.
To be fair and balanced about it, at this stage of demon slaying, the katana with its edge-forward geometry was better suited to the beheading strikes that killed demons.
But the katana had one fatal weakness: to maximize its cutting power, its edge was often ground very deeply, which left the spine thin and fragile, sharp but prone to breaking, snapping, or chipping.
That was why in the story, it could take a head clean off when facing a weak opponent, but when facing a highly durable enemy, a Demon Slayer Corps member could end up fighting on with a broken blade after a single exchange.
The Tang Hengdao had no such weakness, with a shallower grind and a substantially thicker spine, so opportunities for it to break or chip were rare.
On that point alone, it would have made “Broken-Blade Tanjiro,” who seemed to go through one sword per arc, drool with envy.
It would also leave the top-tier sword-forger Haganezuka with nothing to complain about.
Of course, whether it broke or not wasn’t really the main point.
The system had confirmed it anyway: special custom blade, no breaking, no snapping, and no wear ever.
Shinsuke mainly just liked the look of it.
Cool!
Cool was all that mattered!
Compared to the curved, slender katana, this straight-edged long blade handed down from his ancestors fit Shinsuke’s aesthetic far better.
He wondered whether this blade would change color in response to its user’s constitution and Breathing Style.
Worth testing.
Gripping the hilt in one hand and holding the blade upright before his chest, Shinsuke drew a deep breath: Harem Breathing, activate!
The next instant, a faint pale pink rose gradually from the base of the blade, and where it blended with the bright white of the blade body, it produced a slightly purple-tinged violet-pink color across the entire surface.
Bewitching, mysterious…
Gorgeous.
Shinsuke’s eyes narrowed with appreciation.
The solemn, serious shape of the blade paired with that flamboyant violet-pink body…
He loved it.
And it didn’t stop there!
As the first reward from the system, as the most important companion that would accompany Shinsuke for the rest of his life, the blade was naturally not this simple.
According to the system, this blade would awaken a special ability based on the Breathing Style its master had awakened, or more precisely, a trait.
If the master used Water Breathing, the blade’s trait might be exceptional flexibility and adaptability, capable of being as fluid as water or as piercing as ice.
If it were Flame Breathing, perhaps each swing would carry scorching heat, halfway to a Crimson Red Blade effect.
Thunder Breathing, numbing lightning strikes?
Insect Breathing, inherent poison?
Shinsuke didn’t know what all the possibilities were.
What he could say with certainty was that the trait belonging to his Harem Breathing was this:
Soul Nurturing!
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