Chapter 141: The Dust Settles
A booming laugh erupted from the bottom of the pit, a sound so deep and powerful it sent tremors through the petrified ground for miles, making the very earth hum in resonance.
Tsuchigumo stood there.
His twelve-meter, grayish-white body was indeed missing an arm. From the cross-section of his upper left shoulder, dark gray demonic blood still dripped, each drop sizzling as it struck the stone-hard ground, eroding a small pit upon impact.
But he was still laughing.
Laughing with unbridled joy.
Behind the gaps in his bone mask, his dark green eyes curved into gleeful crescents. The sheer force of his laughter etched even more fine lines across the white, skeletal facade of his face.
"Exhilarating!" His voice vibrated through the air. "Damn exhilarating!"
One arm was completely destroyed, but the other five spread wide, as if to embrace the battlefield he himself had turned upside down with his Yao Qi.
"Four hundred years—it's been four hundred years since I've had a fight like this! The last time was against that bastard, the Supreme Commander of All Pandemonium!"
He lowered his head, his eerie green gaze falling upon the pair standing side-by-side at the crater's edge.
The six-meter-tall Bone-Thunder Giant was also wounded. Its right arm was shattered, its left leg was torn open, and unstable arcs of purple lightning flickered across its frame. But beneath the Crimson Oni Mask, a pair of crimson eyes remained locked onto him, unwavering.
And beside the giant stood the shrine maiden—pure white spiritual power condensed at her arrowhead, the bowstring drawn taut, ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.
Tsuchigumo looked at them.
Then, he suddenly retracted his five arms.
The intact upper right arm settled back onto his knee. The two lower arms hung loosely by his sides. The one on his left, still trembling from the power of Soul-Snatching, slowly folded back against his chest.
He was curling into himself.
It was the same posture he'd held just before he had smashed down from the sky.
He sat down, knees bent, legs crossed.
Hikaru froze.
Kikyo, too, was taken aback. But the fully drawn arrow in her hands did not slacken—she couldn't be sure if this was some kind of ruse.
"Not fighting anymore," Tsuchigumo said, his tone utterly casual. So casual, it was as if he had just eaten his fill and couldn't be bothered to move.
"Are you sure?" Hikaru's voice, filtered through the Crimson Oni Mask, was laced with clear vigilance.
Though he had some understanding of the Great Yokai before him—that his nature was combative, straightforward, and disdainful of deception—this world was far too chaotic to completely trust any information he possessed.
"If I say I'm not fighting, then I'm not fighting." Tsuchigumo used the index finger of his upper right arm to idly pick at the edge of his bone mask, the gesture reminiscent of a common street ruffian. "I only came out here to stretch my muscles. After sleeping for hundreds of years, my bones had gone rusty."
"Everything else was just incidental!"
He looked at Hikaru, the eerie green light flickering behind the gaps in his mask.
"Kid, what was your name again?"
"...Hikaru."
"Hikaru." The Great Yokai repeated the name, his tone brimming with a strange excitement. "Interesting name. Interesting power."
"But it's still not enough!" His voice suddenly deepened, and the green light behind the bone mask solidified into a piercing glare. "You're not strong enough yet."
"At your current level, if I got serious, I could crush you with two hands."
"Even with that shrine maiden beside you providing cover, I could still crush you to death with three!"
He was speaking the truth.
Hikaru knew it well. The only reason their combined assault had managed to sever his arm was due to a perfect storm of circumstances: the tacit understanding between him and Kikyo, his own breakthrough in the heat of battle, and the momentary opening created by the unexpected power of Soul-Snatching.
It was only possible because Kikyo was there.
He was still a long way from possessing the strength to defeat a phenomenon-level Great Yokai head-on. On his own, the gap was immense.
"The shrine maiden beside you is qualified, though," Tsuchigumo's gaze shifted to Kikyo. "In terms of the concentration and purity of spiritual power, she ranks in the top three of all the shrine maidens I've ever seen. Midoriko, that crazy woman from the Heian era, was about on your level—no, wait. Midoriko was a bit fiercer. Your spiritual power is purer, but your arrows lack a certain ruthlessness. That woman… when she fought, she truly didn't give a damn about her own life."
"But whether it's you or Midoriko, you're not the ones I want to fight. Fighting you lot is pointless, just too much trouble. One wrong move and I'll end up sealed for decades, unable to fight at all."
Midoriko again. The name of the strongest shrine maiden, who had perished alongside countless powerful demons hundreds of years ago, giving birth to the Shikon Jewel.
Kikyo did not lower her bow, but a flicker of emotion passed through her eyes.
"But you, kid, you've got good talent," Tsuchigumo looked back at Hikaru. "That form just now was good. Trading blows, blow-for-blow… it was satisfying. It's just a pity you haven't grown to your peak yet."
"So I've decided. I'll wait."
"I'll wait until you become a true Great Yokai."
"Once you reach that level—I want to have a real, hearty battle with you again."
"Not this kind of half-assed probing, but a real one. The kind that can collapse mountains and pierce the sky. This era is too damn boring. The guys who could fight me have either hidden themselves away, are running around all over the place, or are just plain dead."
"Otake-maru, Daitengu, Shuten-doji, Itsumade… even that mutt Toga… one by one, in the blink of an eye, they've been gone for hundreds of years!"
"It's hard enough to find an interesting kid like you. I have to cherish the opportunity!"
His tone carried an undisguised, almost predatory anticipation. He sounded like an old hunter, content to wait for a young beast to grow into a magnificent tiger worthy of the hunt.
Hearing the names of those renowned Great Yokai, Hikaru did not respond.
Neither did Kikyo.
Neither of them mentioned the Shikon Jewel. No one felt the need to remind the ancient demon of his original mission.
There was absolutely no need.
Although he had lost an arm, Tsuchigumo still had five. If the fight continued, the Asura Transformation wouldn't last much longer. While Kikyo's spiritual power could hold out, and her abilities ensured she could protect herself, forcing their opponent to retreat would still require a devastating, perhaps pyrrhic, effort.
Severing one of his arms had been a victory born of a fleeting opportunity.
Such opportunities did not always present themselves.
The silence stretched for several breaths. Then, Tsuchigumo spoke again, his tone shifting. The wild laughter was gone, replaced by a rare and heavy solemnity.
"By the way—kid. And you, shrine maiden."
"I'll give you a warning." He poked the stump of his severed shoulder with the index finger of his lower right hand.
"Something has come to find me. Several times."
"It's not a demon, not a human, not any god or Buddha. I can't even tell what kind of thing it is—but that guy's blood is disgusting. It can turn ordinary people into immortal monsters."
"I swatted it to death seventeen times. Left nothing but a mess of flesh and blood. And it came back seventeen times."
"That kind of thing… it shouldn't exist."
"And although that guy hides it well, I can feel it. He harbors an intense malice toward you."
"You'd better be careful."
"That guy has ties to Hagoromo Gitsune in Kyoto."
Hikaru and Kikyo both stiffened slightly.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
The name surfaced in both their minds simultaneously. They had already encountered an immortal demon at the Demon Slayer Village and had been forced to destroy fiends drawn by demonic blood in Kaede Village. Tsubaki herself had consumed that blood, half-demonizing before turning to ash in the sunlight.
The source of it all—the Progenitor of Demons.
Without a doubt, it was the existence Tsuchigumo mentioned. The one that could regenerate even after being swatted to death seventeen times. It sounded as if Muzan had tried to use Hagoromo Gitsune's name to persuade Tsuchigumo, and in the process, had been unceremoniously splattered seventeen times. And this Great Yokai, for all his bloodlust and irritability, had remembered the unkillable oddity.
Tsuchigumo added one last thing.
"As for Hagoromo Gitsune asking me to come take some Shikon Jewel—"
He paused. The green light behind his bone mask narrowed into slits, filled with utter disdain.
"Whatever. I'll fight whoever I want. If I feel like fighting, I'll come back for another round. Never mind Hagoromo Gitsune, even that thing in her womb has no right to command me!"
"Now, I've fought enough. Time to go. This place isn't suitable for me to stay for long!"
With that, he stood up.
His five arms retracted, and his reverse-jointed knees bent low. The twelve-meter body crouched down, coiling like a fully drawn bow.
Then, he jumped.
It was just a jump.
But the blast wave kicked up by his departure shattered the petrified ground for dozens of yards, the shockwave spreading in all directions and nearly knocking over the half-kneeling Asura Transformation once more.
His figure shot up from the ground, a gray-white missile charging into the murky, overcast sky.
When the dust settled, only a gaping hole remained in the clouds where he had crashed through. A single shaft of sunlight leaked down from the opening, spilling onto the devastated earth.
Tsuchigumo had descended from the sky when he arrived.
He shot back into the sky when he left.
He came with barbarism.
He left with barbarism.
However he came, that's how he left. He hadn't discussed it with anyone.
And he had no need to.
The exoskeleton of the Asura Transformation finally gave out.
The skeleton began to disintegrate from the shoulders, white Bone Spikes snapping and falling away one after another. Purple lightning dissipated from the cracks, and within a dozen breaths, the six-meter-tall Bone-Thunder Giant dissolved completely.
Hikaru stepped out from within.
His gray robes were mostly in tatters, and his long, pale hair was stuck messily to his face and neck. A fresh crack ran down his Crimson Oni Mask, extending from the forehead to the jaw.
He stood amidst the pile of bone rubble, looking down at his hands.
On the backs of his hands were several patches of grayish-white 'frost'—traces of petrification from the yokai's attacks. But they were already receding, being forced out of his body bit by bit by his newly transformed Yao Qi.
He said nothing.
Kikyo lowered her bow and put away her arrow. She looked up at the hole in the sky as it slowly closed, her pitch-black eyes reflecting the last ray of sunlight leaking down.
"Kibutsuji Muzan," she murmured, repeating the information Tsuchigumo had just given them. "Hagoromo Gitsune in Kyoto."
Hikaru nodded. Two clues, both pointing in the same direction.
But that was a matter for the future.
Right now—he was exhausted.
The mental strain from dealing with Uesugi Kenshin, combined with the sheer physical exertion of fighting Tsuchigumo—the two back-to-back had left him drained. Even with his explosive increase in strength, it couldn't compensate for the massive exhaustion of his spirit and Yao Qi.
He needed to rest.
He needed to digest all the changes brought about by this qualitative transformation.
Kikyo walked to his side. She reached out and took his hand.
Her fingers were slightly cool.
Just like every other time.
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