The deafening roar of the Nichirin shotgun tore through the eerie silence of Kaza town, momentarily drowning out the sound of the rushing canal.
A concentrated cone of fire, smoke, and jagged, sunlight-absorbing iron sand erupted from the right barrel, tearing across the cobblestone street directly toward the aristocratic demon.
Akuro didn’t flinch.
He simply raised his left hand, his long fingers casually swiping at the air.
A thick, undulating wall of dark purple swamp water materialized instantly in front of him, hardening into a barrier with the consistency of solid steel.
The shotgun blast hit the wall with explosive force.
For a fraction of a second, the barrier held.
But Juzo’s engineering was a masterpiece of lethal pragmatism.
The sunlight-infused iron sand superheated upon contact with demonic energy.
The shrapnel hissed, searing right through the compressed water and shredding the left side of Akuro’s extravagant crimson kimono, taking a massive chunk of pale flesh off his shoulder with it.
The aristocratic demon stumbled back a single step, his crimson eyes widening in genuine shock as the smell of burning meat filled the air.
“You dare,” Akuro whispered, staring at his ruined sleeve.
The flesh beneath was already bubbling, fighting to regenerate against the corrosive effects of the Nichirin ore.
“You dare soil my garments with human toys?” “It’s called a twelve-gauge, idiot,” I grunted, keeping the smoking barrel leveled at him.
“And it ruins more than just laundry.” [CRITICAL WARNING: Target regeneration speed is anomalous!
The ‘Absolute Defense System’ offers a one-time impenetrable shield!
Bind now before your vessel is obliterated!] I exhaled sharply through my nose, ignoring the flashing blue text entirely.
I didn’t need a magical shield.
I needed leverage.
Akuro’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure, hateful malice.
The air around him warped, cracking with dark purple energy.
“I will mount your head on the gates of my domain.” He vanished.
There was no sound of footsteps, no displacement of air.
One second he was standing on the water, and the next, he was directly in front of me, his elongated, sharpened fingernails glowing with a sickly purple aura as they swept toward my throat.
My old body would have just stood there and taken the hit, relying on muscle density to shatter his hand.
But Genya Shinazugawa’s wiry frame would be decapitated in an instant.
I didn’t try to block.
I let my knees buckle entirely, dropping my center of gravity into a dead fall.
Akuro’s claws whistled less than an inch over my mohawk, the sheer wind pressure slicing a shallow cut across my cheek.
Before I even hit the cobblestones, I pivoted my hips, driving my right heel into the ground to arrest my fall, and swung my moss-green katana in a brutal upward arc.
The green steel sparked violently against the demon’s ribcage.
It didn’t cut through completely—his skin possessed a terrifying, supernatural density—but it bit deep enough to draw a fountain of black blood.
Akuro snarled, twisting mid-air with impossible agility.
He brought his knee down, aiming directly for my sternum.
I brought the flat of my blade up to parry, bracing my left hand against the spine of the sword.
The impact was like getting hit by a runaway train.
The kinetic force traveled straight down my arms, vibrating violently through my shoulders and spine.
I heard a sickening crack echo in my left wrist.
I was sent skidding backward across the cobblestones, my boots tearing deep gouges into the stone until I finally managed to dig my heels in and stop.
“You’re fast,” Akuro sneered, landing gracefully on the street, his severed ribs already knitting back together.
“But your body is fragile.
You possess none of the breathing techniques of the Hashira.
You are just a boy swinging a piece of metal.” I spat a wad of blood onto the street, rolling my left wrist.
The pain was sharp, but manageable.
“I prefer to let the metal do the talking.” I raised the shotgun with my right hand and pulled the second trigger.
KABOOM!
Akuro was ready this time.
“Blood Demon Art: Abyssal Geyser!” The cobblestones beneath my feet exploded.
A geyser of highly pressurized, dark purple swamp water erupted from the ground with the force of a cannonball, slamming directly into my chest.
The shotgun blast fired wild into the sky as I was launched backward into the air, crashing violently through the wooden wall of a nearby tea shop.
Wood splintered.
Paper screens tore.
I hit the floorboards, rolling violently until I slammed into a heavy wooden pillar.
My vision swam in a sea of red and black.
I coughed, and a concerning amount of blood splattered onto the tatami mats.
My ribs were definitely fractured again, and my left arm felt like it was on fire.
I pushed myself up onto my knees, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
Through the massive hole in the wall, I could see Akuro slowly walking toward the shop, a condescending smirk on his face.
“Is that the extent of your bravado?” the demon mocked, raising a hand.
“I expected a slightly longer diversion.” Out in the street, the last remaining Swamp Demon, the one who had dropped the kidnapped girl, saw its master winning and finally regained its courage.
It crawled toward the unconscious girl in the nightgown, its liquid jaws opening wide.
“A snack while the Lord finishes his work…” I gritted my teeth, reaching for my katana.
I couldn’t reach her in time.
My legs weren’t responding fast enough.
But I didn’t need to.
Lying in the mud exactly where he had fainted, Agatsuma Zenitsu’s body shifted.
His eyes were completely closed.
He was entirely, undeniably unconscious.
Yet, a strange, rhythmic breathing sound emanated from him, deep and heavy, followed by the unmistakable, ozone-rich scent of an approaching storm.
Thunder Breathing: First Form.
Zenitsu’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
Thunderclap and Flash.
It was a phenomenon of pure, concentrated physics.
There was a blinding flash of yellow light, a sound like the sky tearing open, and a violent shockwave that rattled the tea shop to its foundations.
A streak of golden lightning painted the dark street.
When the light faded, Zenitsu was standing ten feet past the Swamp Demon, his yellow blade slowly clicking back into its scabbard.
The demon remained frozen for a fraction of a second before its head smoothly slid off its shoulders, its liquid body dissolving into ash before it even hit the ground.
Zenitsu immediately collapsed face-first onto the cobblestones, snoring loudly.
Akuro stopped walking.
He stared at the sleeping boy, his aristocratic composure shattering into genuine, wide-eyed alarm.
“What…
what was that speed?
He was asleep!
How did he—” “Hey.” Akuro whipped his head back toward the tea shop.
I stepped out through the broken wall, the green Nichirin katana in my left hand, the sawed-off shotgun in my right.
Blood was pouring down my forehead, blinding my left eye, and my purple Slayer uniform was ruined.
I cracked the shotgun open with a flick of my wrist, the two spent shells ejecting into the dirt.
I slammed two fresh ones from my bandolier into the chambers and snapped it shut with a sharp, heavy clack.
“That was my alarm clock,” I growled, resting the smoking barrel over my shoulder.
“Now pay attention to me, executioner.” Akuro’s face twisted into a mask of pure, demonic rage.
“You arrogant, miserable insect!
I will grind your bones to dust!
Blood Demon Art: Devouring Miasma!” The air around him turned a toxic, suffocating shade of violet.
Thick, corrosive mist poured from his sleeves, turning the very cobblestones to sludge.
He didn’t just summon water; he coated his entire body in a hardened armor of compressed, toxic swamp muck, transforming himself into a towering, armored juggernaut.
He lunged, tearing up the street in his wake, his clawed hands forming massive, hardened scythes of purple water.
I didn’t retreat.
If I backed away, the miasma would catch me, and this fragile body didn’t have the lung capacity to filter out the poison quickly enough.
I had to close the distance.
I had to end it now.
I exploded forward, pushing Genya’s wiry muscles past their biological breaking point.
Akuro swung his right scythe in a devastating horizontal arc meant to cut me in half.
I dropped into a slide, the corrosive water shaving the top of my mohawk, and brought the double-barrel up, firing the first shell directly into his knee joint.
KABOOM!
The iron sand shredded the hardened armor, blowing the kneecap out in a spray of black blood.
Akuro roared, his leg buckling, but he used the momentum to spin, bringing his left scythe crashing down toward my skull.
I couldn’t dodge it.
I brought the moss-green katana up with both hands, bracing my body for the impact.
CLANG!
The force drove me to my knees.
The cobblestones shattered beneath me.
I felt the tendons in my forearms screaming, tearing under the supernatural weight.
The corrosive miasma burned my skin, melting the fabric of my uniform.
[DING!
The ‘Martial God System’ offers an instant stat multiplier!
Do not throw your life away!
Bind now!] Shut up, I thought, blood filling my mouth.
I’m working.
“Die!” Akuro screamed, pressing all his weight down on the scythe.
The moss-green blade groaned, a spiderweb crack forming near the hilt.
My arms were giving out.
I couldn’t out-stat a demon lord.
It was mathematically impossible in this body.
So, I did what I always did when the math failed.
I cheated with spite.
I didn’t push back.
I let my guard collapse entirely.
Akuro’s eyes widened in triumph as my sword gave way, his hardened water-scythe plunging downward.
But because I stopped resisting, the blade didn’t hit my neck.
It plunged directly through my left shoulder, pinning me to the cobblestones.
The pain was absolute, blinding, white-hot agony.
The corrosive water burned the muscle right off the bone.
But I didn’t scream.
I smiled, a blood-soaked, feral grin that made the demon lord freeze in pure terror.
“Gotcha,” I whispered.
Because his arm was buried to the hilt in my shoulder, he couldn’t pull away.
I dropped the green katana, reaching up with my bloody left hand, and grabbed the lapel of his crimson kimono in a vice grip, locking him in point-blank range.
I jammed the barrel of the Nichirin shotgun directly under his jaw.
“Swallow this.” I pulled the second trigger.
KABOOM!
The explosion in such close proximity ruptured my own eardrums, throwing a shockwave of dust and blood across the town square.
The heavy, sunlight-infused iron sand detonated directly upward, tearing through Akuro’s lower jaw, shredding his throat, and blowing the top half of his skull completely off into the night sky.
The demon lord’s body went completely rigid.
I shoved his massive frame off me, pulling my torn shoulder free with a wet, sickening tear.
I collapsed onto my back on the broken street, my vision fading in and out.
The shotgun slipped from my numb fingers.
Above me, the headless, armored body of the aspiring Kizuki wavered for a second.
The flesh bubbled violently, the toxic miasma dissipating as the Nichirin ore burned away his existence from the inside out.
He didn’t even have the chance to scream before his body turned to grey ash, blowing away in the cold night wind.
I lay on the cold stones, staring up at the paper lanterns swaying in the breeze.
Every nerve in my body was screaming.
My left arm was completely useless, my ribs were fractured, and I had lost enough blood to kill a normal man twice over.
But I was still breathing.
A few feet away, Zenitsu snorted in his sleep, completely oblivious to the fact that a warlord had just been vaporized next to him.
“Hey…
lightning boy,” I croaked, my voice barely a whisper, fully aware he couldn’t hear me.
“When you wake up…
tell that girl to make us some rice balls.
I think I’ve earned a buffet.” My eyes rolled back, and I let the darkness drag me under, hoping my Iron Stomach had enough residual fuel left to keep me alive until morning.
___________________________________ Yawns loudly and pushes a stack of anatomy notes aside…
Typing_In_My_Sleep here!
I am officially abandoning all shame today.
If you want me to keep fighting off sleep and churning out more of these chapters while juggling my studies, I am going to need you to feed my motivation!
Consider it a very simple transaction: you supply the stones and the hype, and my zombie brain will magically supply you with more chapters (even if it means sacrificing my precious nap time).
Alright, the shameless begging is over.
Retreating back to my textbooks until the notifications wake me up!