In moments like this, when a perfectly shaped, soft, and wonderfully elastic backside was presented right before him — belonging to a girl who wouldn't resist no matter how he touched her — Li Ke naturally couldn't hold back.
His hand moved almost instinctively, reaching out to firmly cup Shinobu's plump, rounded rear. The moment his palm made contact, he was greeted by an incredibly satisfying sensation. Her skin was smooth and warm, while the flesh beneath was luxuriously soft yet possessed a delightful springiness that made his fingers sink in deeply. With every gentle squeeze, the generous curve yielded beautifully, then bounced back against his hand with a tempting resilience.
It was the kind of backside that felt both delicate and incredibly indulgent to touch.
Shinobu's body tensed slightly at first, a small sound of protest escaping her lips. However, after the exhausting battle they had just endured, even she couldn't deny how comforting and relieving such intimate contact felt. She allowed his hand to continue exploring, her cheeks flushed as she endured his fondling with quiet acceptance.
Unfortunately, the surrounding environment was far from ideal. The ground was covered in dark, viscous fluids and rapidly decaying organic matter, creating an unpleasant and unsettling atmosphere. Although watching the corruption disappear was somewhat satisfying, it was hardly the kind of place where Shinobu wished to lie down.
"Mmm… Shall we head back first?" she suggested softly. "The Demon Slayer headquarters isn't too far, right?"
Li Ke reluctantly released her soft rear, but his hand didn't stay idle for long. As Mitsuri innocently moved closer, his palm naturally found its way to her generous backside as well.
The sensation was equally delightful, though noticeably different. Mitsuri's curves were even fuller and softer, with a greater abundance of plush flesh that filled his hand more completely. However, when compared to her taller frame, Shinobu's smaller, more compact backside actually felt proportionally more impressive — perfectly shaped and remarkably perky despite her petite height.
It was truly a shame that Shinobu was so small. Her child-bearing hips and soft, rounded rear were exquisite, yet when standing beside the taller and more voluptuous Mitsuri, they appeared slightly more delicate in scale.
Li Ke gave Mitsuri's plush rear a gentle, appreciative squeeze, savoring the warm, yielding softness for a moment longer before finally pulling his hand away.
However, because they were not in a desperate rush this time, Li Ke simply handed his horse over to Tanjiro, who was not very good at riding. He planned to hold Shinobu Kochou on his own horse, hoping to get a bit intimate with her along the way.
Just a bit of teasing.
But Shinobu rejected the offer, arguing that it would only delay their journey. Since Li Ke could not logically deny it, the matter was settled.
Thus, Li Ke could only continue holding Nezuko, leading a visibly anxious Tanjiro as they advanced toward the Demon Slayer base.
Just like after defeating the previous female monster, they encountered absolutely zero issues along the way. Even those eerie humanoid monsters had completely vanished.
It was glaringly obvious. Once the leader of the monsters died, all the other monsters in the region perished along with it.
Yet, the moment Li Ke and the others drew close and spotted the frantic expressions of the crowd ahead, he knew his previous intuition had been spot on. Because...
The Demon Slayer Corps was locked in a bloody civil war.
As they approached the camp on horseback, the chaotic din of shouting and clashing blades filled the air. Shinobu and Mitsuri Kanroji immediately realized something was horribly wrong. The two spurred their horses, leading the group as they charged toward the Demon Slayer Headquarters.
But before they could even reach the main building, countless corpses came into view.
"Damn it! What happened?!" Shinobu roared in fury. Looking at the fallen members of the Corps, she realized the wounds weren't left by demons—they were marks from blades and firearms!
Combined with the battle cries echoing around them, it was undeniably an internal revolt.
Seeing this, Li Ke already had a theory. Since the parasites capable of mimicking his acquaintances could sow discord between him and his companions, turning the Demon Slayer Corps against itself would be trivial for them.
As for why these people were still killing their own comrades even though the strange insects had already disappeared...
The reason was painfully simple.
Sometimes, once blood is shed, things cannot be easily undone. Blood feuds can only be wiped clean with more blood. Even if it was a monster's deception that drove someone to kill another's family, that hatred does not magically vanish just because the monster dies.
If these were the veteran members of the original Demon Slayer Corps—those who would sacrifice absolutely anything to kill demons—they might have been pacified by the sheer charisma of Kagaya Ubuyashiki.
But looking at things now...
Li Ke looked toward the distance, where thick plumes of smoke were already beginning to billow from the Demon Slayer Headquarters.
How could a blind, nearly paralyzed man possibly survive this?
"You need to brace yourself for the worst, Shinobu," Li Ke said.
Shinobu did not answer. To her, Kagaya Ubuyashiki was practically a father figure. If it had not been for him, she would never have managed to step out from the shadow of her older sister's death.
How could she possibly remain rational right now?
Moreover, just a few steps after Li Ke finished his sentence, the group witnessed the horrific scene of the Demon Slayers slaughtering each other.
"Kill these bastards!!" a man dressed in the Demon Slayer uniform roared, holding a firearm. He screamed at several other uniformed members and pulled the trigger without a second thought.
A gunshot rang out. A Demon Slayer member who had his back turned collapsed instantly.
The moment the man hit the ground, Li Ke saw Shinobu's eyes widen. Before she could draw her blade in a rage, Li Ke drew one of his spare, low-quality katanas and swung it, unleashing a massive wave of fire!
The flames instantly cut through the battlefield, forcing the warring factions apart. Simultaneously, Li Ke hurled a blast of dragon fire onto the gunshot victim, using the Living Flame to heal his bullet wound.
"What do you think you are doing?!" Shinobu roared in absolute fury.
She had never envisioned a nightmare as horrific as this. She genuinely cared about the Demon Slayer Corps. She would rather die a thousand deaths than watch the Corps destroy itself. To her, this place was home.
But the warring Demon Slayers had no intention of listening to reason. Their eyes were completely bloodshot with murderous frenzy. They glared at Shinobu, and one man—who clearly knew how to use Breathing Styles—snarled aloud.
"Tch! A Hashira? No, wait! The Insect Hashira is supposed to be in another town right now! You're one of those monsters! Kill her!"
The moment the words left his mouth, the crazed Demon Slayer scooped up a firearm from the ground and aimed it straight at Shinobu. Shinobu instantly realized what was about to happen.
"Li Ke, don't—!"
Before she could finish her sentence, the cheap katana in Li Ke's hand shattered under his sheer brute force. Wrapped in golden flames, the fragments shot forward, piercing straight through the rogue Demon Slayer and dropping him instantly to the ground.
Shinobu didn't waste time blaming Li Ke like a mindless character in some cheap TV drama. She simply let out a sharp sigh and turned to face the remaining Demon Slayers, who were now staring at Li Ke in absolute terror.
"The monsters are already gone! If you keep slaughtering each other, you will face severe punishment! But if you stand down and follow me to suppress this riot, everything you've done up to this point will be pardoned!"
She was desperate to check on Kagaya Ubuyashiki and had zero patience to waste on these rioters.
The Demon Slayers exchanged tense glances before silently lowering their weapons. The Insect Hashira's authority carried immense weight, but more importantly, it was painfully obvious that they stood absolutely no chance against Li Ke.
"Move!"
Seeing no further resistance, Shinobu immediately spurred her horse forward, charging straight toward the central estate.
Yet, the exact moment they broke into a sprint, a silent Demon Slayer in the crowd quietly raised his firearm and aimed it directly at Li Ke's back. Li Ke had already predicted the movement through his Observation Haki. With a casual backhand wave, a burst of intense flame engulfed the treacherous soldier, instantly turning him to ash.
Unfortunately, the situation deeper inside the compound was just as grim. The paths were littered with the corpses of Demon Slayers. Some who were still drawing their final breaths clutched their blades with white knuckles, looking ready to strike at anyone who approached.
"Damn it... How did it come to this?!"
Shinobu's mind spun into complete chaos, torn between profound grief and boiling rage toward the monsters.
She had pieced together the puzzle. It had to be those parasites—the ones capable of perfectly mimicking people you knew—that had triggered this massive outbreak of violence within the Corps. She knew all too well that if Li Ke hadn't noticed the anomaly and killed that initial monster, she wouldn't have sensed anything wrong either. If creatures like that infiltrated an organization en masse, a catastrophic collapse was inevitable.
As they pushed deeper, the resistance only grew worse. The Demon Slayers were attacking each other like rabid animals. Unless Li Ke physically intervened, they ignored Shinobu's commands to stop. Even when they did stand down, Shinobu knew the bitter truth: the moment they rode away, these men would just resume tearing each other apart.
Then, the ultimate disaster came into view.
"Master Ubuyashiki!" Shinobu cried out in horror, staring at the burning courtyard ahead.
It was the residence of Kagaya Ubuyashiki, and with the flames engulfing the structure...
"Li Ke! Please, help me!"
Without a second thought, she locked eyes with Li Ke. He nodded understandingly, leaped from his horse, and dove toward the courtyard pond.
While Li Ke usually relied on fire, his rarely used Waterbending took center stage this time to showcase its true power. The pond's water spun violently beneath his feet, rising to form a massive water dragon that surged toward the blazing manor.
The torrential wave instantly extinguished the flames. It also propelled Li Ke forward at breakneck speed, sweeping aside the brawling Demon Slayers who blocked the path so Shinobu and the others could rush toward the Headquarters.
Shinobu pushed herself to her absolute physical limits, sprinting ahead—and then, she froze.
Through the smoke, she saw Amane Ubuyashiki sitting serenely amidst the fading flames, cradling the body of her long-deceased husband, Kagaya. Beside them sat their two white-haired daughters, completely motionless.
Right at that exact second, the burning support beams directly above them snapped and collapsed.
"Li Ke!!"
Shinobu's voice cracked in a desperate, tearful sob. In a flash, Li Ke charged straight into the crumbling house, bringing the torrent of water with him.
With a massive surge of hydrokinetic force and a devastating strike from his blade, Li Ke cleaved the falling roof to pieces. Simultaneously, the water around him split into liquid arms. In a single, seamless motion, the currents wrapped securely around the white-haired beauty, her children, and her late husband.
The very next moment, the entire building caved in.
Shinobu stared blankly at the smoking ruins, her entire body trembling with sheer terror. She was utterly paralyzed by the horrifying thought that Li Ke might have just died inside.
Li Ke, however, had everything completely under control.
Using his precise manipulation, he instantly froze the surrounding water into a dense, solid shield of ice, perfectly insulating himself and the Ubuyashiki family from the collapse.
Once he verified the shield had taken the impact safely, a brilliant golden dragon fire erupted from his hand. He swung his blade, unleashing a flash of heat that incinerated the wooden debris into pure ash, revealing his upright figure standing in the center.
"Don't worry. I got them all out safely."
He cast a grim look at the man resting in the white-haired woman's arms and gave a slight shake of his head.
"Though there's nothing I can do for him. He's completely gone."
Li Ke's Observation Haki had already confirmed the bitter truth: the man was thoroughly and irreversibly dead.
Shinobu and Mitsuri Kanroji knew it too. If their Lord were still drawing breath, Lady Amane would never have chosen to stay behind and burn with him.
"Master Ubuyashiki..."
Mitsuri's legs gave out, and she collapsed heavily to the ground. While Shinobu felt an identical, crushing weight in her chest, she suddenly remembered something crucial: Li Ke possessed methods to bring people back to life.
During their private, intimate moments, Li Ke had mentioned to her that his abilities could grant a few extra decades of life. She knew, without a doubt, that their Lord could be brought back.
"Who says Master Ubuyashiki is dead? He is merely grievously injured!" Shinobu declared loudly without a moment's hesitation, shooting a sharp, meaningful look at Li Ke.
Li Ke caught her drift instantly. Yet, as Shinobu stepped closer to him, he couldn't help but open his mouth to speak.
"But his head was literally chopped off... Won't someone notice?" Li Ke whispered back, raising an eyebrow. "Besides, even with resurrection, you know it can't last very long."
Li Ke had absolutely zero interest in wasting his rule-bending lifespan on a total stranger.
He was no saint. He recognized that Kagaya Ubuyashiki was a thoroughly decent man, but the world was full of decent men. Was he supposed to hand out decades of his own life to every single one of them? It wasn't like he was getting a girl out of the deal either.
Li Ke glanced at the girls in the white-haired woman's arms. He had already surmised that this woman was Amane Ubuyashiki, but the moment he looked at the children she was holding, any bold ideas completely vanished.
Those two girls couldn't have been more than eight years old.
At eight years old, having any inappropriate thoughts wouldn't just be a question of prison time—it would be a question of a death sentence.
And here I was, actually looking forward to something, he thought to himself.
He looked back at Amane. Her willingness to burn alive proved her absolute devotion to her husband, and Li Ke made it a strict rule never to mess with genuinely loving couples. Besides, the husband's corpse wasn't even cold yet. Using resurrection as leverage to force a grieving, suicidal woman into bed would be completely unhinged. Even he couldn't bring himself to do something that twisted.
"I just mean revive him for a few days!" Shinobu bit her lip, realizing her only option left was to completely sell out her best friend. "I'll help you convince Mitsuri!"
"Deal."
Li Ke agreed instantly, his sheer decisiveness catching Amane completely off guard. She sat there in the ashes, staring blankly, unable to comprehend what the two were even discussing.
In the next breath, Li Ke whipped his arm forward. A blazing wall of fire erupted like a massive curtain, completely blocking them from outside eyes. He extended his hand, and a brilliant golden light instantly materialized, channeling straight into the decapitated man.
Right before Amane's utterly dumbfounded eyes, Kagaya's head lifted from her arms, floated through the air, and seamlessly reattached itself to his shoulders. A split second later, he drew a sharp breath.
Her mouth fell open so wide that Li Ke found himself genuinely amazed her tiny, cherry-like lips could even stretch that far. Then, Kagaya sat right up.
Though his eyes were completely sightless, he turned his head directly toward Li Ke and Shinobu.
"You must be Li Ke," Kagaya said, his voice remarkably calm. "Kanao introduced you to me just a moment ago. Thank you for saving my wife and my two daughters."
Showing incredible composure, Kagaya gently patted his two stunned daughters—who had fully expected to join him in the afterlife—and offered a warm smile to Li Ke and Shinobu.
"Time is of the essence, so I cannot properly express my gratitude right now. But I must boldly ask for your assistance once more. Please help me stabilize this place... Enough blood has been shed."
"Sure thing."
Li Ke was slightly surprised. He hadn't expected to hear Kanao's name, but remembering that Kanao's spirit spent all her time lingering by Shinobu's side, it made perfect sense.
With a casual wave of his hand, the wall of fire parted. Supported by his wife, Kagaya stepped quickly out of the smoking ruins.
The very second he appeared, the Demon Slayers who had been locked in mortal combat immediately froze and dropped their weapons. Even the few rogue cells who refused to give up surrendered their arms after Kagaya spoke just a couple of sentences.
Just like that, the chaotic civil war—which Li Ke hadn't been able to stop even by carving a bloody path inside—was instantly resolved the moment Kagaya showed his face.
Everyone knew there were still countless deep-seated issues to untangle, but there was no denying that order was rapidly returning to the Demon Slayer Corps.
Shortly after, Shinobu led a squad to locate the Hashira who were supposed to be guarding the base. They found Obanai Iguro and Gyomei Himejima locked deep within the dungeons.
When they discovered the two Hashira, they were severely poisoned and hovering on the absolute brink of death. It took a direct application of Li Ke's dragon fire to trigger the Living Flame and pull them back from the grave.
Fortunately, the medical division had not joined the revolt. Though the atmosphere among the medics had been deeply unsettling before the outbreak, their medical facilities were fully operational, allowing the wounded to receive immediate treatment.
With the chaos finally contained, Li Ke and his group finally pieced together exactly what had triggered the disaster.
The entire crisis had erupted just today. While the atmosphere around the Corps had felt slightly off for a while, everything had collapsed at breakneck speed. People suddenly started dying, and the two resident Hashira vanished without a trace.
According to Obanai and Gyomei, they had run into people they knew intimately. They sat down to share a meal with them, and everything went entirely downhill from there.
Obanai admitted he had sensed an anomaly the moment he received the invitation. However, the enemy numbers were simply too overwhelming. The exact instant he realized something was wrong, he was completely ambushed, subdued, and thrown into the cell alongside Gyomei.
At that point, Kagaya Ubuyashiki still possessed enough presence to temporarily steady the immediate crowd. Yet, as more personnel poured in—including various rank-and-file Demon Slayers and arriving Hashira—the deep-seated fractures quickly splintered wide open.
And then, the internal purge truly began.
With the body count climbing by the minute, the remaining Demon Slayers turned on one another, shouting bitter accusations. The newer recruits, who already harbored simmering grudges and lacked disciplined training, completely broke ranks. Kagaya, physically weakened and stripped of his enforcement mechanisms, found it entirely impossible to maintain control over the volatile factions. Naturally, total chaos erupted.
The Demon Slayer Corps collapsed into absolute tribal warfare.
Members banded together into small, frantic cliques to slaughter rival groups. But soon enough, even those fragile alliances ruptured from within, sparking infighting within the factions themselves. Trust had vanished entirely. No one could afford to trust anyone.
This literal living hell dragged on for what felt like an eternity. Ironically, it was right when a loyalist unit finally managed to secure Kagaya's immediate person that the bodies of countless Demon Slayers suddenly began to liquefy and rot.
The hidden memory parasites shrieked in agony as their true, grotesque forms were forcibly exposed to the light. The blood-crazed Demon Slayers finally realized they had been systematically manipulated by outside monsters—but by then, nobody actually cared.
The sheer trauma of watching their comrades, close friends, and family members die had pushed them past the point of reason. The swordsmen and former public officials who had transitioned into the Corps were now locked in a vicious cycle of violence, using the chaos to settle old political scores and deeply rooted personal vendettas.
The ultimate irony was that Kagaya Ubuyashiki had survived the initial infiltration of the memory parasites entirely unscathed. Instead, he met his end during the true human civil war that followed, decapitated by a resentful, disgraced samurai who had joined the ranks of the Corps.
If a handful of fanatically loyal Demon Slayers hadn't thrown their lives away to protect Amane Ubuyashiki and her young daughters, the rest of the family would have been slaughtered right then and there.
Unfortunately, even with the localized violence halted, the Demon Slayer Corps was now an organization that existed solely in name.
Roughly three-fifths of the personnel stationed at the Headquarters lay dead. The surviving minority were consumed by a mutual, blinding hatred that had escalated to an entirely unresolvable degree. Forcing these people to stand side by side on a battlefield was now a logistical impossibility.
Worse yet, the squads currently deployed on active missions across the country could no longer be fully trusted either.
Many of those field agents had siblings or relatives who had just been butchered at the Headquarters. The moment word of the massacre spread, those distant swordsmen would inevitably inherit the bitter blood feud.
Simply preventing the remaining factions from utterly annihilating one another in a permanent cycle of revenge would be a monumental achievement for the leadership. As for organizing a coordinated counteroffensive, deploying troops, or systematically hunting down demons—that was now completely out of the question.
In reality, if Li Ke's overwhelming physical dominance hadn't been actively suppressing the survivors, more than half of the remaining Demon Slayers would have immediately drawn their weapons to continue the slaughter until their personal enemies were entirely wiped from the earth.
Once the immediate perimeter was stabilized through raw intimidation, Kagaya sat quietly, listening to Shinobu's grim situational report. With a heavy heart, the resurrected leader bowed his head deeply toward Li Ke.
"I am utterly ashamed, Mr. Li Ke. You single-handedly hunted down and eliminated two of the three monster leaders, yet the entire Demon Slayer Corps has effectively marched to the brink of total annihilation under my stewardship."
He was gripped by a profound sense of helplessness. Under normal circumstances, his direct operational capabilities were already severely limited by his failing health. By the time he had sensed the subtle anomalies within the base, the parasites had already infiltrated every layer of the organization. He hadn't even been able to definitively verify if the initial disruption was caused by actual monsters or internal corruption.
Though he had known something was deeply wrong, the internal conflict exploded at such a breakneck pace that the situation became completely irreversible before he could implement a single countermeasure.
He had even managed to get himself killed in the crossfire.
To be perfectly honest, he viewed his entire tenure as a catastrophic failure.
But Li Ke did not see it that way. He looked down at the blind leader, shaking his head. Even after being brought back by his conceptual resurrection ability, the man's body remained terrifyingly frail.
"You can't blame yourself for this," Li Ke said. "These monsters were simply way beyond your scope."
Li Ke was absolutely certain of this fact. If the previous female monster could at least be countered with human-wave tactics, the star-spawn monster he had personally fought was a different story. Defeating a creature like that would likely require Nezuko to achieve a massive evolutionary leap, just as he had suspected.
If things had played out normally, the Demon Slayer Corps would have been completely wiped out by the time these entities were finally defeated.
Take that female monster, for example. Her most prominent ability was converting victims into more creatures. Without Li Ke's intervention, Shinobu would have almost certainly used her own poisoned body as bait to take down that monster or the spider creature.
Then, she would have relied on someone like Nezuko or Tanjiro to seize the opening and deliver the final blow.
Even with the mysterious golden light providing assistance and letting them level up through combat, the sheer power of these invading monsters was still vastly superior to anything the Demon Slayers could handle.
"Yes, I understand," Kagaya said, nodding softly. "You are a man who carries a heavy destiny, Mr. Li Ke. We truly cannot compare to you. However, if I may be so bold, I have one final request."
Kagaya fixed his blind gaze intently in Li Ke's direction and suddenly bowed all the way to the floor.
"Please, take my place and assume command of the Demon Slayer Corps!"
In his eyes, Li Ke was a god descended from the heavens, specifically chosen to handle this apocalyptic threat.
"Forget it. You'd better find someone else," Li Ke replied smoothly. "As for me, the moment I kill the final monster, I'll likely have to leave this world for a while. I really don't have the time to manage an organization like this. Don't you have a son? Just hand the position over to him."
Kagaya was a genuinely good man, but Li Ke had absolutely no intention of taking over a sinking ship. Granting the leader a few extra days of life to settle his final affairs was already doing him a massive favor.
As for acting as the proxy leader of the entire Corps?
Setting aside the endless list of logistical headaches, could he even convince the surviving Hashira to follow his orders? It would be a joke if the entire Demon Slayer Corps completely fractured into a disorganized mob under his watch within a matter of days.
More importantly, he refused to waste his limited time in Taisho-era Japan.
Aside from Shinobu and Mitsuri Kanroji, this era had absolutely nothing else to offer him.
Having delivered his refusal, Li Ke turned and walked away, showing zero interest in accepting Kagaya's desperate plea.
However, Shinobu watched Li Ke's departing back. Her gaze then shifted to a medical division girl who was attentively treating Obanai Iguro. Finally, she turned to face Mitsuri, who was standing right beside her.
"Mitsuri."
"Yes?"
"I have a favor to ask of you."
"Okay!"
After leaving the estate, Li Ke met up with Mai Shiranui. The two headed straight to the kitchen to scrounge up some food before finding a quiet room to sleep. He deliberately avoided bothering Shinobu, knowing full well that she would be buried in emergency paperwork for the foreseeable future.
Yet, right in the middle of his deep slumber, he suddenly felt someone gently prying his mouth open. And then...
A rush of sweet, nectar-like flavor filled his senses.
He snapped his eyes open. There, sitting right before him with a completely crimson, blushing face, was Mitsuri Kanroji.