“Come on!”
The Ghost Samurai’s Demonic Aura surged as its voice rang out again.
Kōbe Hikaru channeled his Demonic Power, activating [Ghost Step] once more.
He didn’t retreat.
Instead, he charged straight at the Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai.
But this time, his target wasn’t the front.
It was the left side.
The left side with the old injury.
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai clearly sensed his intent.
It swept its rusted sword horizontally, cutting off his path of attack.
Hikaru didn’t take the blow head-on.
He changed direction in mid-air—[Spear Waist Transformation] allowing his torso to twist like a snake—and flipped right over the blade.
The moment he landed, he was standing on the Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s left side.
The tip of his blade pointed straight at the left knee.
“You’re courting death!”
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai sharply lifted its left leg, dodging the thrust while simultaneously driving its knee straight into Hikaru’s face.
The strike landed squarely on Hikaru’s chin.
His head snapped back, and a crack appeared on his oni mask.
But his blade didn’t stop.
Muramasa carved an arc through the air, slicing toward the Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s abdomen.
It was a mutual destruction tactic.
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai violently raised its left hand, forcefully catching the blade.
The black edge bit into its palm, sending blood spraying.
But it didn’t care in the slightest.
It raised its rusted sword high, chopping down toward the top of Hikaru’s head!
Hikaru didn’t dodge, nor did he plan to.
Because his goal had never been to win.
It was—
To force the Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai to put its entire center of gravity on its left leg.
At this moment, having just landed after kicking him with its left knee, its balance wasn’t fully stabilized.
All its weight was concentrated on that previously injured left leg.
And with its rusted sword raised high above its head in a full offensive stance, it had completely abandoned any defense of its left knee.
That weak point.
That old injury.
It was now completely exposed within—
Kikyō’s firing range.
Yes, at this exact moment, the shrine maiden had freed up her hands and once again raised her bow.
In that split second.
“Swish!”
A streak of white light shot out from the barrier.
This arrow was brighter than any before it.
The radiant Spiritual Power wrapped around the shaft was blinding.
The arrow tore through the night sky like a falling meteor.
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s pupils shrank.
It felt the scorching heat approaching from its rear flank.
But it was too late.
Its weight was entirely on its left leg, and its rusted sword was raised to the highest point.
Even if it wanted to dodge, there was absolutely no time left.
“Thwack!”
The Exorcism Arrow pierced straight through its left knee.
Spiritual Power erupted at the wound, the white light searing its demonic body like a branding iron.
“Ahhh!”
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai let out a heart-wrenching scream and fell to one knee.
Its left leg had completely lost its mobility.
Spiritual Power continued to corrode the wound, throwing its Demonic Aura into chaos and making it impossible to condense.
Hikaru gave it no chance to catch its breath.
Because the master had fallen to its knees, the rusted sword that was raised high and about to strike down deviated from its trajectory.
It scraped past Hikaru’s shoulder, severing only a few strands of his pale hair.
Meanwhile, Hikaru’s Muramasa had already been pulled free from its palm.
Coated in grayish-black blood.
He flipped the blade.
There was no flashy sword technique in this strike, just the most basic, unadorned forward thrust.
From the front, piercing straight through the back of the neck!
The tip of the blade burst out from its throat.
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s body stiffened.
It lowered its head, staring at the black blade protruding from its own neck.
For the first time, a look of confusion appeared in those dead, gray eyes behind the mask.
“You…”
It tried to speak, but with its throat pierced, it could only produce a muffled gurgle.
The arrow wound continued to release Spiritual Power, which crept up its meridians from the left knee, burrowing into its body like a venomous snake.
When the Spiritual Power reached the wound at the back of its neck—the two forces converged.
The external blade wound.
The internal Spiritual Power corrosion.
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s body seemed to ignite from the inside out.
White light spilled from every pore.
Light burst from its eye sockets, the corners of its mouth, and even between its fingers.
The Hannya mask began to crack.
Fissures spread from the forehead to the chin, and fragments peeled off piece by piece.
The face beneath the mask—was also the face of a dead man.
Pale, withered, and bearing the scars of blade wounds from when he died in battle.
It looked at Hikaru.
Hikaru looked back at it.
Two Ghost Samurai.
One at the Five Stages, one at the Six Stages.
One fighting for humans, one dying for yōkai.
“Damn…
traitor…”
The Hannya-Mask Ghost Samurai’s mouth seemed to twitch, as if it wanted to curse and berate him, but it had no chance left.
Because the white light violently exploded.
Its body disintegrated under the searing Spiritual Power, turning into ashes that scattered across the sky.
Those ashes weren’t ordinary remains.
They drifted lightly into the air, shimmering with a faint silver glow under the moonlight.
That was the trace left behind after resentment had been purified.
Clean, pure, without the slightest trace of Turbid Qi remaining—
Purification.
Purification in the truest sense.
Hikaru stood amidst the falling ash, feeling the residual warmth of the Spiritual Power in the air.
Warmth.
A warmth completely opposite to the Demonic Aura within his own body.
‘It seems I don’t get a reward every time there’s a purification…
It depends on the mood of the Jewel of Four Souls, and on my own performance.’
Hikaru thought silently, though he didn’t let his guard down.
Because it wasn’t over yet.
Because…
He gripped Muramasa even tighter and looked up at the remaining yōkai horde.
The One-Horned Demon, the Giant Serpent, and the Three-Eyed Crow were all staring at him in terror.
One of their leaders, a Ghost Samurai at the Six Stages of Body Transformation, had just died.
Killed by a guy who looked weaker than it.
It was well known that while most Ghost Samurai were muddle-headed, they were rarely considered weak or inferior among yōkai of the same tier.
“Who’s next?”
Hikaru held his sword hilt, his voice calm.
The yōkai horde grew restless.
The One-Horned Demon’s face looked incredibly grim.
It wanted to order a continued assault, but its throat felt blocked by something.
Fear.
This was fear.
Although this Ghost Samurai didn’t look very strong, he seemed exceptionally unique.
They all knew the capabilities of the Ghost Samurai that had just been slain.
As a naturally humanoid yōkai, it was often much stronger and more formidable than others of the same level.
Coupled with the shrine maiden inside…
even if she was holding back her full power out of concern for the village behind her, needing to divide her attention to maintain a massive barrier to protect the civilians, her depth of power was still unfathomably terrifying.
This was clearly a case where one plus one equaled far more than two.
It was an unwinnable fight.
They couldn’t fight this.
Possessing an intellect greater than that of lesser yōkai, the One-Horned Demon made its judgment.
“Fall…”
It forced out a single word with great difficulty.
“Fall back!”
Although the remaining lesser yōkai lacked much intelligence, their instincts had long been urging them to flee.
They had only been suppressed by the high-level yōkai until now.
Hearing this command, the horde felt as if they had received a grand pardon and retreated like a receding tide.
The Giant Serpent was the first to turn around, its fifty-foot-long body slithering into the tall grass with astonishing speed.
The Three-Eyed Crow flapped its wings and vanished into the night sky in the blink of an eye.
The One-Horned Demon ran at the very back, shooting a vicious glare at Hikaru before leaving.
“Remember this, you brat!”
Then it ran away too.
Hikaru stood in place, watching the retreating backs of the routed yōkai horde.
“…That’s it?”
Now he was actually a little disappointed.
Although the Affinity from the Jewel of Four Souls wasn’t guaranteed, he had been hoping to farm a bit more Affinity for Muramasa.
Maxing it out right away would have been best!
‘Next time, then.’
Hikaru patted his sword hilt.
Then he turned around and looked toward the shrine.
The barrier was still there, its pale white canopy of light continuing to envelop the shrine and the surrounding villagers.
The figure on the stone steps was still there, too.
White kosode and red hakama, with black hair cascading like a waterfall.
Kikyō was looking at him.
She still held her bow, but her quiver was empty.
Half of those arrows had been used to coordinate with him.
He hadn’t had the time to look closely during the battle, but now that things had quieted down, her figure fell completely into Hikaru’s eyes, like a perfect painting.
Her black hair draped over her shoulders, a few strands blown to her chest by the night wind, resting against the collar of her white kosode and making that pale moonlight color even more dazzling.
The tips of her hair fell perfectly over the curve of her chest, trembling slightly with her breaths, like dark petals floating on a stream.
And her face—
Cold, pale, and so exquisite she didn’t seem mortal.
There was exhaustion from maintaining the barrier and continuously firing arrows for so long.
But despite her fatigue, she still stood perfectly straight.
That posture wasn’t a deliberately feigned elegance, but something carved into her very bones—an almost instinctive uprightness that only belonged to someone who had spent their entire life protecting something.
Like a white blade thrust into the dark night.
Cold, yet making people irresistibly want to draw closer.
Hikaru looked at her, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly beneath the oni mask.
This was Kikyō.
The girl he had watched countless times on a screen in another world three months ago was now standing just a hundred feet away.
Not lines and blocks of color from a 2D world.
She was alive, possessing warmth—even if that warmth was the heat of Spiritual Power rather than body temperature—breathing, with hair fluttering in the wind, clothes billowing, and eyelashes casting fine, fragmented shadows in the moonlight.
The real Kikyō.
More beautiful than any version he had ever imagined.
And more—heart-stirring—than any version he had ever imagined.
‘Yeah…
this damn Turbid Qi is affecting me again!’
Hikaru silently made an excuse for himself in his heart.
Their gazes met across the night.
Hikaru opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
But before he could speak, a new prompt suddenly popped up on the system panel.
Hikaru looked down at the Jewel of Four Souls in his embrace.
The pale purple orb lay quietly in his palm, its light soft and mysterious.