For someone like Mai Shiranui—or any traditional martial artist, really—living in the modern world was a unique paradox of tragedy and blessing.
The tragedy lay in the reality that raw martial prowess could no longer elevate a person above the rest of society. No matter how rigorously they trained, no martial artist was ever going to survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. Even if some mythological anomaly could achieve such a feat, they were the exception, not the rule.
In fact, even a master of Mai Shiranui's caliber couldn't guarantee her own survival if she found herself staring down the barrels of dozens of submachine guns.
They were remarkably powerful, yes, but they remained fundamentally human. They still caught fevers, suffered from the flu, and fell victim to illness or permanent injury.
Their only distinction was that they were exponentially stronger than the average citizen, having mastered the energy known as Qi, and possessed a relentless drive for self-improvement that ordinary people simply lacked.
In the modern era, the path of the martial artist had evolved. It was no longer strictly about slaughtering an opponent, but about defeating a rival and elevating one's own limitations. Killing had ceased to be the primary objective because their individual martial arts could no longer dictate the outcome of a war.
In the distant past, if a martial artist of Mai's caliber donned armor, wielded a masterfully forged weapon, and led a charge, they would manifest an absolute military force that common soldiers simply could not withstand.
The Shiranui style, in particular, was built for the grim arts of assassination, arson, and deep-reconnaissance sabotage. A skilled practitioner could effortlessly dismantle a conventional army's supply lines, or orchestrate the demise of a powerful warlord through seduction and targeted murder.
Indeed, historically speaking, as ninjas, using seduction as a weapon was a core component of the Shiranui clan's operational mandate. This historical reality was the precise reason Mai's combat attire was so notoriously revealing.
In ancient times, that provocative garb was simply a tool of the trade.
But in the modern world, selling sex appeal was supposed to be a relic of the past. If Andy had only married her and used the prestige of the Shiranui Dojo to make a name for them in the global circuit, Mai would never have had to resort to wearing such scandalous clothing just to market and preserve her clan's ninja heritage.
She was acutely aware of how indecent her outfit looked to outsiders. Yet, for the Shiranui style to successfully transition into the modern era, they didn't just need to adapt their combat techniques for standard tournament brackets; they desperately needed global visibility.
One only had to look at the Kyokugenryu Karate school to see the pattern—their practitioners constantly entered every tournament available, big or small, and frequently traveled across the world to challenge rival dojos.
That notoriety was the lifeblood of a martial arts school.
Martial artists had to put food on the table, after all. But the strict pride and generational inheritance of their craft barred them from turning to petty thievery or common crime. Even if a master did choose a dark path, they wouldn't settle for being petty thugs; they would be the kind of syndicate bosses who ruled an entire metropolis from the shadows.
Therefore, promoting one's dojo and style to recruit disciples became the ultimate way to make a living. While wealthy people might not necessarily endure the grueling training, a grand reputation naturally brought in larger crowds. More students meant a higher chance of finding gifted disciples, which inevitably translated into financial security. Everyone understood this reality.
But what about the martial artists who lacked overwhelming strength or notoriety? They either cooperated with the government or took up the mantle of vigilante justice.
This was precisely why Mai Shiranui could empathize with Andy's obsession. He spent all his time training under the radar with his brother, constantly pushing his limits through bitter, incognito asceticism. His enemy was incredibly powerful, making it highly irrational to expose himself prematurely.
Because he couldn't step up, she took it upon herself to revitalize the Shiranui style, using acts of vigilantism to spread their name. Fortunately, she possessed an incredibly strong sense of justice. The Shiranui lineage itself carried a long-standing tradition of slaying demons and purging evil—it was just that the modern era lacked actual monsters to hunt.
She utterly despised those who used their power to bully and oppress the weak. Acting as a hero of justice was just part of her daily routine, a habit, and a way of life. Above all, it was the sacred honor of the Shiranui clan that she carried squarely on her shoulders. Helping those in distress was the natural duty of a righteous martial artist like her.
Times had changed. The Shiranui clan no longer needed shadow-dwelling ninjas; they needed public-facing martial artists who could connect with the masses. Both her intrinsic morality and her practical goals aligned perfectly to support this path.
Li Ke wasn't entirely privy to the complex web of thoughts inside Mai's head. In his eyes, she was simply driven by pure, unadulterated kindness. While that was technically correct, he still didn't fully comprehend the crushing weight of the legacy she bore, or what Andy truly represented to her entire universe.
He simply looked at the fiercely motivated Mai. To ensure she wouldn't wander blindly into a lethal trap, he shared the intelligence he had gathered so far.
"I managed to pick up some useful information earlier," Li Ke said, shifting into a serious tone. "This world was originally plagued by creatures known as demons. They feed on humans and possess a variety of bizarre, supernatural abilities. A regular decapitation won't kill them. They can only be permanently destroyed by absolute exposure to sunlight, or by being beheaded with special katanas forged specifically for the Demon Slayer Corps. Furthermore, the breathing techniques used by the Corps members are highly intriguing. I suspect their specialized breathing styles grant some remarkably unique physical enhancements."
Li Ke laid out everything he knew about the world of Demon Slayer. It wasn't that he wanted to keep her in the dark about the original storyline; rather, under the current cataclysmic circumstances, the canon plot had already been rendered completely meaningless.
Besides, when it came to sharing plotlines, Li Ke wouldn't particularly mind letting her know that her own world had a scripted storyline too. However, he truly knew very little about the King of Fighters lore, aside from the fact that massive bosses constantly popped up to cause trouble.
And then there was Orochi, who claimed to be the absolute will of the planet.
To Mai, that information would still be completely useless.
Because although Mai's explosive popularity stemmed from King of Fighters, she wasn't originally a character from that series. She belonged to Fatal Fury. Her role in the King of Fighters tournament arcs was practically microscopic, serving strictly as eye candy.
Telling her the plot would serve no purpose; she didn't belong to the Three Sacred Treasures clans, so she had no way of dealing with Orochi anyway.
Furthermore, given her current fragile mental state, she was in no position to handle any more emotional shocks.
"Yes, indeed. I felt it too. Their breathing is highly intriguing. But if I'm not mistaken, this kind of breathing technique inflicts massive toll on the human body."
Mai frowned. If even Li Ke could sense the anomaly, she, as a seasoned martial artist, could perceive it with absolute ease. Her actual combat experience allowed her to look deeper than Li Ke; she could tell that this style of breathing easily damaged the internal organs, existing solely to squeeze out every drop of a human's combat potential.
Under these circumstances, the physical health of the Demon Slayer Corps members would inevitably deteriorate. If they overused it, their bodies would completely collapse.
Yet, the closer they edged toward total collapse, the stronger the power granted by the breathing technique became. This exact paradox caught Mai's full attention.
"They have no choice. The world is built this way, and their baseline physical attributes aren't that high to begin with. If they want to fight non-human entities, this sacrifice seems completely mandatory."
Li Ke nodded, resting his hands behind his head as he spoke with an air of casual detachment.
He had honestly considered the idea of joining the Demon Slayer Corps to handle the local abominations. After all, when dealing with a global crisis, tracking down a functional, official organization like this was always the best course of action.
Besides, the Corps had been operating in this world for over a thousand years. Their extensive information network was something interdimensional outsiders like them could never hope to match.
"That's true..."
Mai let out a heavy, melancholy sigh. If their theories were correct, then these Demon Slayers were actively burning away their own lifespans to protect everyone else. Just like the ancestors of her Shiranui clan, they chose to turn themselves into deadly weapons solely to shield ordinary people.
This realization naturally kindered a strong sense of respect and fondness for the Corps within her heart.
Li Ke, however, remained completely unimpressed. In his eyes, the whole mess only persisted because Japan's historical structure was too chaotic. If Muzan had tried his pathetic grand strategy and terrible operational tactics back in ancient China, he would have been systematically hunted down by the imperial government or ended up strapped to a lab table as a test subject long ago.
But things were just different here in Japan. After all, it was a small country with a dense population, and the locals killed far more of each other than the demons ever did. It was a land that almost never knew peace. Even when it wasn't the Warring States period, rival daimyos were constantly beating each other's brains out. Who would have had the spare time to deal with Muzan?
"So, the best way for us to join the Demon Slayer Corps is to kill a demon to prove our worth. But I'm not entirely sure what the demons around here actually look like. I just know they eat people and hate wisteria flowers and sunlight."
Li Ke yawned as he looked around at the bustling sights. He watched the geishas—or to put it more bluntly, the prostitutes—entertaining their customers with alcohol.
In a place like this, the idea of "selling one's art but not one's body" was always a joke. Furthermore, in an era thrown into such chaotic warfare, people had an even greater urge to drown their sorrows in oblivion. So while the outside world was crawling with monsters, it was still all singing and dancing here, creating a staggering sense of contrast.
The sounds of flowing liquor and music echoed continuously. Li Ke even noticed a large group of beautifully dressed and made-up women lining up on the street, seemingly waiting for something.
Li Ke really didn't know much about Japanese culture. After all, he didn't even know how brutal China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period had been, let alone the history of other nations.
He hadn't even known that the "shoes" on Mai's feet were actually tabi socks.
"What's that? Are those prostitutes about to do a street parade? I recall you guys having a tradition like that in Japan?"
If Li Ke remembered correctly, wasn't there a certain demon who hid herself by posing as an Oiran?
Mai rolled her eyes at him. From the moment they arrived, Li Ke's eyes had been wandering over the bodies of the nearby geishas, focusing especially on the women being held in the customers' arms. His gaze hadn't been honest for a single second, which made her feel both embarrassed and annoyed.
"That's a pageant to select the Oiran. And geishas aren't all prostitutes... Forget it, why am I even explaining this to you?"
Mai gave a sharp, exasperated reply and tried to quicken her pace.
But Li Ke abruptly halted his steps, massively amping up his Haki-driven perception.
He didn't know if that guy named Muzan had the guts to interact with those Cthulhu-esque abominations, but that didn't stop him from using his "Observation Haki" to check if there were any "demons" lurking in this specific area.
After all, plenty of demons were cowardly and terrified of trouble. Li Ke didn't know if the zombie virus had any effect on demons, and he figured the demons themselves probably shared that exact same worry. Therefore, Li Ke believed it was completely normal for a major human gathering hub like this to harbor a few hidden demons.
Besides, the Corps' methods for identifying demons boiled down to using sunlight and wisteria flowers. Those criteria weren't impossible to disguise or bypass. After all, the members of the Demon Slayer Corps weren't all superhuman Hashiras; the vast majority were just ordinary people.
Li Ke's Observation Haki violently expanded outwards. The raw strength of his Haki wasn't particularly high in this reality; even when pushed to its absolute limits, it only covered a radius of thirty to forty meters, making it completely incomparable to his capabilities back in the One Piece world.
In the One Piece world, he could easily scan a distance of a thousand meters, hearing people's inner thoughts and picking up on every single movement from a kilometer away!
However, for a street like this, his current range was already more than enough to be considered a massive cheat.
Everything in front of Li Ke's eyes began to turn completely transparent, especially the fabric of everyone's clothing...
Li Ke saw it all very clearly; Mai Shiranui's body remained as breathtakingly captivating as ever, but soon, a further shift in his Observation Haki forced his perception to drill down into deeper details.
He began to see the very clockwork inside the human body.
He strolled sluggishly behind Mai. Noticing his dragging pace, she finally lost her patience, turning around to glare directly at him.
"Why are you walking so incredibly slow? Don't tell me you're actually planning to spend the night here?"
Her eyes were swimming with sheer annoyance. In her mind, the only reason Li Ke was dragging his feet in a district like this was because he was completely mesmerized by the tragic women whose bodies could be bought for a handful of coins.
Though she fiercely guarded her own purity, Mai still harbored a deep sense of sympathy for these women.
There was a damn good reason why prostitution, gambling, and drugs were universally labeled as the three great social evils.
On the surface, prostitution might seem the least threatening, but its actual societal damage was monstrous due to the staggering profit margins it generated. Human trafficking, extortion, coercion, and kidnapping were almost always tied directly to the trade. It was a dark, systemic pipeline that extended far beyond a casual viewer simply watching a video or looking at provocative fan service pictures online.
After all, a consumer could rarely verify if the performers in those industries were acting under extreme duress, or if they had been blackmailed, kidnapped, and deceived into the trade.
If one held themselves to the highest moral and ethical standards, consuming that kind of exploitation technically made them an indirect accomplice.
Of course, most people inherently understood this dark reality; they just preferred to ignore it and make a scene when anyone pointed it out.
After all, the arbitrary hand of censorship bureaus could be utterly ridiculous at times.
But both Mai and Li Ke knew the brutal truth: in a chaotic era like this, these beautiful women were pure victims. They hadn't chosen these professions out of a desire to degrade themselves; they were simply left with absolutely no other choice to survive.
"I mean, it's not a bad idea."
Li Ke muttered, his eyes tracing over several remarkably well-endowed, gorgeous young ladies in the crowd. He wasn't entirely immune to their charms. Even if they were considered "public property" by the district's standards, Li Ke genuinely felt the urge to throw a massive pile of money at them to permanently rewrite the tragic destinies of these beautiful souls.
This wasn't driven purely by altruistic charity either—there was a practical evolutionary benefit for someone like him. If more stunning women safely married and bore children, those exceptional aesthetic genes would be successfully passed down to future generations, resulting in an abundance of beautiful people in the world.
Conversely, if these women were left to rot and wither away in the dark corners of the pleasure quarter, those exquisite genetic lineages would effectively vanish from the face of the earth forever.
This self-awareness made Li Ke chuckle internally; if he ever became a king, he would probably turn into an absolute tyrant who fiercely crushed the sex trade, legally barred beautiful women from ending pregnancies, and aggressively pushed for eugenics.
"Huh?! Can't you just keep it in your pants for five minutes?!"
Mai was completely exasperated.
"No, that's not it. The main thing is..."
Li Ke raised his eyes, tracking his gaze toward a specific room on the upper floor of a nearby building. Through his heightened perception, he had just detected a completely distinct, anomalous life force radiating from that spot.
He had officially hit the jackpot.
"...I just want to see how tough the local specialties are around here."
Those undead monsters from 7 Days to Die didn't stand a chance against his fire manipulation. He had been highly curious whether the notorious demons of Demon Slayer could actually withstand the destructive heat of his flames, and this was the perfect opportunity to test them.
But looking at the deadpan sincerity on Li Ke's face, Mai marched right up to him in a fury, repeatedly pounding her fist against his chest.
"And here I thought you had actually grown up and become reliable! Turns out you're still just a hopeless, horny degenerate! Those poor women suffer enough as it is! Don't you dare go adding to their misery!"
Mai delivered her lecture with absolute moral authority, but Li Ke calmly pointed out the massive flaw in her logic.
"But if clients don't visit them, how are they supposed to survive? Do you honestly believe there's some charity organization out there offering them alternative career paths right now? Getting a massively generous client like me is their best shot at earning enough to buy back their freedom."
Li Ke gestured toward the geishas who were forcing smiles for their customers. The grim reality of the era was that these women had no agency whatsoever.
He gave his storage pouch a light shake, making the contents clink.
"I happen to be incredibly generous when it comes to girls—especially the cute and beautiful ones. If they spend a pleasant evening with me, I won't just buy out their contracts; I'll throw in enough cash for them to settle down comfortably. Of course, if you chose to fix your attitude, I wouldn't mind buying out their freedom even without the night together... A righteous martial artist like you would definitely support that, right?"
The pouch was packed tightly with gold leaves. He fully intended to use them to liberate these women, but he wasn't about to pass up a chance to tweak Mai's nose.
It wasn't just mindless teasing either; if Mai genuinely planned to partner up with him in this world, she needed to drop her disrespectful, snippy attitude immediately.
Li Ke never took crap from women!
And if he ever did, he made sure to pay it back on the spot!
Mai took a sharp, ragged breath, her ample chest heaving violently with indignation.
"You absolute bastard!"
She was practically shaking with rage. She could see right through him; Li Ke was purely retaliating against her earlier scolding while trying to break the heavy tension between them. Yet, for some reason, looking at his smug "I'm a pervert and I'm proud" expression made her blood boil like nothing else.
"Can't you just be serious for a second?! We are in a highly dangerous place! Is it really smart to waste your stamina like this?! Please, show at least a little bit of urgency!"
She grabbed Li Ke's collar and yelled right into his face. She couldn't quite explain why, but she found it remarkably easy to lose her emotional composure whenever she was around him.
Naturally, she would never admit it was because they had shared an intimate encounter, or that the dynamic between them had become incredibly tangled.
Furthermore, she had always assumed Li Ke's overall combat strength had a distinct ceiling. Wasting vital stamina in an unfamiliar, volatile environment like this was a surefire way to get himself killed!
Li Ke looked down at the bristling Mai and let out a silent, internal sigh. Any rational person trying to visit a brothel during an apocalypse would be viewed as completely unhinged. Yet, because of his notorious track record, his behavior felt perfectly in-character to her, effectively masking his true intentions. He honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He tried blinking rapidly at Mai, hoping a few exaggerated winks would signal that he wasn't actually hunting for cheap thrills this time.
Even if he wouldn't mind doing exactly that a bit later.
However...
"What are you blinking at me for?! Oh, right... we're right out on the open street..."
Mai suddenly noticed that a small crowd of onlookers had gathered, watching their domestic dispute like a public theater troupe. She immediately released his collar, refusing to let the public make a mockery of him any further.
But since the surrounding crowd was growing too dense, she threw all her refined etiquette out the window and snapped at the bystanders.
"What are you all staring at?! Is this any of your business?!"
She was thoroughly vexed, completely discarding her usual ladylike demeanor.
Li Ke, meanwhile, found himself in a tight spot. Through his sensory perception, he realized that the anomalous entity on the upper floor had picked up on their chaotic argument. It was beginning to move, though he couldn't tell if it was preparing to flee or looking to investigate the source of the noise.
In fairness, he couldn't entirely blame Mai for the misunderstanding; this was simply the logical byproduct of his consistently shameless reputation catching up to him.
Deciding it was time to stop playing around, Li Ke abandoned any further attempts at stealth.
"You really are a handful..."
Gripping Mai firmly by the shoulders, he yanked her directly into his chest. The sudden physical contact hit Mai like an electric shock, and she instinctively tried to twist out of his embrace.
Yet, in that exact split second, she saw Li Ke reach back and unseat his massive greatsword, his booming voice echoing above the street.
"Hey, friend up there! Care to step out and catch some sun?!"
With a single, sweeping slash, a violent arc of fire erupted from the blade. The thermal blast incinerated the second-floor awning, shattered the thin window frame, and exposed a remarkably beautiful woman hiding in the room above.
But the moment the harsh moonlight and the heat bared her skin, the beautiful woman's hands began to blister and emit thick plumes of burning smoke!
Mai saw the transformation with absolute clarity. In that precise instant, a jarring thought flashed through her mind.
...Has he actually become reliable?