After confirming there was no danger nearby and finding no trace of any yōkai, Kamamara let out a breath of relief and began carefully studying his surroundings.
He was standing on a mountainside close to the summit.
The cave he had just emerged from was beside him.
Broken stones and low shrubs were scattered all around, while below him stretched a lush, dense forest.
With the view from higher ground, he quickly spotted a river not far away, its surface glittering under the morning light.
“Where there’s a river, there are fish, or animals coming to drink!” Kamamara’s eyes lit up.
He immediately locked onto his target, grabbed his scythe, and hurried down the mountain.
As he traveled, he kept using his demonic power to form a faint breeze around his body, sensing the situation nearby to guard against surprise attacks from yōkai while also searching for prey.
Before long, he discovered something.
A faint nibbling sound drifted through the wind.
It was not a yōkai.
Instead, it seemed like some small animal was foraging.
Kamamara immediately restrained his aura.
He let his demonic power coil around him as a light breeze, softened his footsteps, and silently approached the source of the sound.
Through the gaps between the branches and leaves of the shrubs, he saw a brown wild rabbit not far away, lowering its head to nibble at the grass.
Its long ears stood alert, and from time to time, it turned its head to observe its surroundings.
The next second, the rabbit seemed to notice something.
It abruptly raised its head, its eyes sharply scanning the area.
Then it turned into a brown blur and shot toward the deeper bushes.
“Whoosh!” But in the next instant, a sharp wind blade shot out from behind a tree, slicing through branches and leaves along the way.
It instantly swept across the fleeing rabbit’s body before dispersing into a small whirlwind not far away.
The rabbit struck by the wind blade was cut cleanly in two.
Momentum carried it rolling far across the ground, covering it in grass and mud.
Blood spilled along the way until it finally lay still.
“Went a little too hard.
Now it’s a bloody mess…” Kamamara stepped out from behind the tree and bent down to pick up the rabbit, now split in two.
Looking at the bloodstains and exposed organs, he frowned slightly, his tone full of distaste.
Complaints were complaints, but he still carried the prey in his hand.
This was his first meal after transmigrating.
Right now, having something to fill his stomach was already good enough.
He could not afford to be picky.
Before long, he brought the rabbit to the riverbank.
With the previous owner’s memories, he skillfully skinned the rabbit.
Looking at the pelt in his hand, which had also been sliced into two by the wind blade, he simply tossed the organs and fur into the river to feed the fish, leaving only the clean rabbit meat behind.
After washing it, Kamamara relied on the previous owner’s memories and smoothly started a fire by drilling wood.
He lit a campfire on the open ground beside the river, skewered the rabbit meat on wooden sticks, and set them beside the flames to roast.
As a half-demon who had wandered for years, the previous owner had long since grown used to surviving in the wild.
These skills had already been carved into his muscle memory, so Kamamara had no difficulty doing any of it.
When the rabbit meat began to sizzle with oil and release a rich aroma, he pulled a small bamboo tube from inside his robe, removed the wooden stopper, poured out a few grains of salt, and sprinkled them on the meat.
Then he impatiently picked up a skewer and shoved it into his mouth.
The salty, savory juices burst across his tongue, instantly driving away some of his hunger.
The salt had been stolen by the previous owner from a nearby village.
For survival supplies like clothing and salt, the previous owner’s usual method had been to find a village and steal them.
He almost never took the initiative to interact with humans.
Occasionally, he would also run into bandits and take some money or goods from them.
His childhood experiences, combined with his identity as a half-demon, had turned the previous owner into someone extremely afraid of human contact.
He had lived himself into a wild man cut off from society.
Kamamara quickly ate the roasted meat while going through the previous owner’s memories.
Just as he reached out to pick up another skewer, his expression suddenly changed, and he jerked his head up.
A massive fireball nearly two meters across was hurtling toward him at high speed.
Raging flames wrapped in scorching air currents rapidly enlarged in his eyes.
“Boom!” A violent explosion thundered through the area.
Firelight and smoke instantly swallowed the spot where Kamamara had been.
When the smoke and dust gradually dispersed, only a smoking crater remained.
Flickering flames still lingered inside the pit, while Kamamara himself had already vanished.
“Crack!” Not far away, the ground suddenly split open.
A huge, bizarre yōkai covered in red fur crawled out.
It looked like a spider, with six thick walking legs.
Its head had only one enormous single eye, and beneath it split open a huge mouth filled with savage fangs.
“Shikon Jewel…” The yōkai let out a low, hoarse growl.
It moved its heavy legs to the edge of the crater and soon discovered the Shikon Jewel lying at the bottom, glowing with a faint radiance.
The instant it saw its target, the yōkai became excited.
It charged forward without hesitation.
Two thick tentacles quickly extended from either side of its single eye and reached straight for the Shikon Jewel.
“Whoosh!” Just as the tentacles were about to touch the jewel, a wind blade suddenly shot out from behind a nearby tree trunk.
It accurately severed both tentacles, then struck the yōkai’s enormous single eye.
“Roar!” A foul-smelling, dark green liquid gushed from the blinded eye.
The yōkai let out a shrill scream, its massive body staggering backward.
Before it could steady itself, a gale rose.
Kamamara’s figure, wrapped in a whirlwind, leapt down from a tree.
Like a flash of lightning, he rushed to the yōkai’s side, and the giant scythe in his hand turned into a cold streak of light as he brought it down with the momentum.
“Slash!” Three thick spider legs were cut off in one blow.
Having lost its support, the yōkai’s center of gravity collapsed.
It toppled heavily to one side, kicking up dust from the ground.
Kamamara landed his strike and retreated without the slightest hesitation.
The next second, dozens of slimy tentacles shot out from the yōkai’s mouth toward the spot where he had just been, stabbing deep into the soil.
But he had already used the raging wind around him to quickly circle to the yōkai’s other side.
His scythe swung out again, and with an ear-piercing cutting sound, the remaining three walking legs were severed all at once.
At this point, the yōkai had completely lost its ability to move.
Its blinded eye kept bleeding, and the tentacles in its mouth thrashed wildly, making it look like a fish on the chopping block.
Kamamara did not rush to finish it off.
Instead, he walked to the edge of the crater, bent down, and picked up the Shikon Jewel he had deliberately left behind as bait.
He carefully tucked it back into his robe.
Only after doing all that did he turn to look at the immobile yōkai.
His eyes turned cold.
He leapt up, raising his scythe high as he prepared to cleave the yōkai’s head apart.
At the instant he rose into the air, with nowhere to push off from, the yōkai suddenly opened its enormous, fang-filled mouth.
A ball of scorching flame blasted from its maw and instantly engulfed him.
Clearly, this yōkai had been waiting all along for this chance to turn the tables.
“Hmph.
I saw that coming.” A triumphant smile curled at the corner of Kamamara’s mouth.
The breeze around him suddenly surged, becoming a powerful whirlwind that wrapped around his body and carried him sideways at extreme speed.
The searing fireball brushed past the edge of his clothes and slammed into a distant tree trunk, igniting it in roaring flames.
“Surprised?
I can fly!” Kamamara’s face showed open smugness as he mocked it from the air.
Then he abruptly accelerated into a dive, the scythe in his hand wrapped in sharp demonic power as it swept straight across the yōkai’s massive body.
“Splurt!” A huge wound split open across the yōkai from end to end.
Foul demon blood sprayed into the air.
The yōkai’s roar stopped abruptly, and its life vanished completely.
Kamamara landed steadily on the ground.
He had just been about to catch his breath when he suddenly froze in place.
At the instant the yōkai died, the demonic power spilling from its body seemed to be pulled by some unseen force.
It rushed toward him, pouring into his body all at once.
Immediately afterward, a faint line of text appeared abruptly before his eyes.
[First yōkai killed.
Eight Inner Gates Formation status panel unlocked.] “Holy crap!
I have a cheat?!” Looking at the words before him, Kamamara could not help blurting out a curse.
His eyes went wide, his face filled with disbelief and uncontrollable joy.