Chapter 181: Brute Force Sword Technique
Will. During the past few days spent inside the sweltering volcanic mine, Hikaru had finally deciphered its true nature. Just as Taigen Sessai had previously mentioned, 'reason' was the absolute foundation of existence—what you are, why you exist, and why you take this specific form instead of another.
It was the threshold of a Great Yokai, the key to Gaseous Transformation, and the prerequisite for projecting one's internal power outward to become a living 'phenomenon'.
Totosai's concept of 'Intent', however, was narrower and far more specific. It was the reason a blade was swung, the singular thought occupying the mind during the strike, and the exact destination of the edge.
The former dictated why one existed.
The latter dictated why one killed.
One pointed inward; the other pointed outward.
They reached the same destination through entirely different paths, but in reality, they were not the same road. Hikaru hadn't mastered either, but he felt an intrinsic pull toward the latter—Intent.
Back in the human world, he had heard a specific term for it.
Sword Intent.
In this chaotic Sengoku era, demons roamed freely. Human bodies were fragile, easily torn apart by claws and fangs, and spiritual power was a rare gift reserved for a select few. For the vast majority of samurai, crossing paths with a demon ended in a swift, bloody death.
Yet, rare exceptions existed.
Men revered as 'Sword Masters'or'Sword Saints'.
They possessed no shrine maiden's spiritual purity, no Onmyoji's esoteric sorcery, and no divine blessings. They carried only a single blade of folded steel and a fragile body of flesh and blood.
Even so, they slaughtered demons. They stood their ground against high-level Yokai and walked away breathing.
The samurai families attributed this impossible strength to 'Sword Intent'. It was the absolute condensation of a warrior's understanding of the blade, an unyielding martial belief forged into an intangible force that coated the steel.
Hikaru deduced that, at its core, this was a form of faith.
Unlike the 'Momentum'of a massive army—a collective force field of faith that crushed enemies through sheer numbers—Sword Intent was the isolated, fanatical'faith' of a single person.
The scale was microscopic in comparison.
Yet, its purity was absolute. It was sharp enough to slice straight through Yao Qi.
Ironically, this mirrored the 'Truth'Taigen Sessai spoke of, but moving in the exact opposite direction. A Great Yokai's'Truth' condensed Turbid Qi. Demons dug into their own chaotic essence, expanding their existence until they became a walking natural disaster that overwrote reality. Downward, inward, plunging into the absolute extreme of Turbid Qi.
Sword Intent, conversely, condensed clear qi. Humans clung to their fragile beliefs, compressing their willpower until it transcended the limits of mortal flesh. Upward, outward, reaching for the absolute extreme of clear qi.
One was the path of the demon.
One was the path of the human.
Hikaru was a demon. By all laws of this world, Sword Intent should have been entirely out of his reach. For a vessel forged from Turbid Qi to chase the purity of clear qi was like demanding fire to mimic water. The directions clashed; the fundamental essences violently rejected one another.
But Hikaru was no ordinary demon.
Beneath his demonic exterior rested a human spirit—a dead one, certainly, but human still. More, it was the soul of a transmigrator, retaining every ounce of his human cognition, logic, and memory.
If he could anchor his human soul as the core to forge his own 'Intent'—even a fragmented, half-finished version—that 'Intent' could serve as a bridge.
A bridge spanning the chasm between the clear and the turbid.
A bridge linking the human soul to the demon soul.
Once he completed his ten transformations and breached the eleventh, he could use the Shikon Jewel to finalize his celestial soul. From there, comprehending his human soul to finish the three-soul construction for the Asura Transformation would fall perfectly into place.
And Muramasa—the demonic blade that had waited in the dark for so long—could finally absorb this intent to patch its fatal flaw.
Besides, a demon wielding Sword Intent wasn't entirely unmatched.
According to Totosai's ramblings, Toga absolutely possessed it. Without it, the Great Dog Demon's fangs could never have forged Tessaiga and Tenseiga—two peerless blades governing slaughter and salvation.
Even Sesshomaru, who had been denied the Tessaiga, eventually nurtured a devastating demon blade within his own body, one that rivaled his father's legacy. Hikaru suspected the core of that internal blade was purely a physical manifestation of Sesshomaru's own 'Intent'.
Following this logic, any Great Yokai wielding a self-forged Demonic Tool possessed some grasp of this concept. Just because it was rare didn't mean it didn't exist. Then again, beings capable of evolving into Great Yokai were extreme anomalies to begin with. This also neatly explained why so many of them obsessively pursued a humanoid form.
However, epiphanies of the sword couldn't be achieved by sitting in a sweltering volcanic cave watching an old man hammer iron.
Hikaru evaluated his current swordsmanship. To put it politely, it was highly practical. To put it bluntly, it was just unadulterated brute force.
Extreme strength, blinding speed, and tyrannical control.
Initially, he relied on the basic Archer Transformation. Now, he leaned heavily on the terrifying arm strength, precision, and target-locking of the Spirit-Tracking Archer Transformation, paired with the explosive acceleration of the Thunder Muscle.
Fast, accurate, ruthless. A literal aimbot layered over raw physical suppression.
There was no Intent. No martial belief. Nothing resembling true 'Sword Intent'.
Therefore, he needed to step out into the blood-soaked world. He needed to observe, learn, and kill. He had to cross blades with genuine swordsmen, to feel the weight behind the strikes of men who had dedicated their entire fleeting lives to a single piece of steel.
Only then could he dissect their techniques, extract the essence, and forge a path entirely his own.
Decision made, Hikaru slid Muramasa into its sheath. The sharp click of the tsuba against the scabbard echoed in the cavern. He stood up, brushing the ash from his hakama.
It was time to move. He was never one to linger when a goal was set.
"Looks like you're leaving, brat?"
Totosai crouched beside the half-collapsed furnace. His large, bulging eyes tracked Hikaru as he gathered his meager belongings.
"What about the blade?"
"Taking it with me," Hikaru replied, his tone flat.
"It's not perfect yet."
"I know. I'll finish it on the road."
The old demon sucked on his gums. His wrinkled face scrunched up, caught somewhere between deep dissatisfaction and grudging helplessness.
"Stupid... Hmph. You finally get a foot in the door, only to give up halfway."
Even as he grumbled, his calloused hands hoisted his massive iron hammer, and he turned toward the darker depths of the cave.
He took two steps, then paused.
"When you're done with my hammer, bring it back. Don't lose it—I've been using that hammer for three hundred years."
"I already returned it. It's sitting right next to the furnace."
Totosai glanced over his shoulder. The iron hammer was indeed leaning neatly against the stone bricks.
He let out a sharp huff and faced forward again.
He took a few more steps, then stopped once more.
"...Take care on the road."
The words sounded as though the irritable old blacksmith had to physically pry them from between his teeth.
Hikaru looked at his hunched back. He didn't offer a word of thanks, merely giving a silent nod.
He turned toward the exit, but a thought made him pause.
"Totosai."
"What now?"
"Do you know anything about the Demon Slayer Corps?"
The cavern fell dead silent.
Totosai's bulging eyes rolled around in their sockets, his brain clearly grinding through centuries of memories.
"Demon Slay... what?"
"The Demon Slayer Corps," Hikaru clarified, his voice steady. "An organization dedicated to hunting a specific type of immortal demon that isn't a Yokai. They use weapons called 'Nichirin Blades'—forged from Scarlet Iron Sand and Scarlet Ore. The steel absorbs sunlight to sever the demons' immortality."
Totosai's expression shifted. Confusion melted into deep contemplation. His wrinkled face twisted in thought, his eyes staring blankly at the rocky ceiling.
"Immortal demons that aren't Yokai... Nichirin Blade... Scarlet Ore..."
He muttered the terms over and over.
Suddenly, he slapped his thigh.
"I remember now! I had a human apprentice once—no, not an apprentice. Just some human brat who snuck in to steal my forging techniques. I caught him, but the little rat refused to leave. Eventually, I got sick of looking at him, taught him a few absolute basics, and kicked him out."
Totosai scratched his chin. "That brat kept rambling about forging some 'Sun Blade' for someone... going on and on about how the steel needed to soak in sunlight, and the ore had to be bathed in the sun for hundreds of years. Stupid to death. Sunlight isn't Yao Qi. What good does baking iron in the sun do? But I, being a generous old man, pointed him in the right direction and told him how to refine it properly—"
He muttered a few curses under his breath before stopping.
"That brat's craftsmanship actually wasn't terrible. At least he didn't completely shame my name."
"Where is he?" Hikaru asked.
"Last time I heard from him was... thirty or forty years ago? He mumbled something about living on a mountain north of Kanto. I don't remember the exact peak."
Totosai dug into his robes and pulled out a scorched scrap of cloth. He rummaged around again, producing a stub of charcoal, and aggressively scribbled a few crooked lines onto the fabric.
"It's roughly in this direction. Take this and go find him. When you see him, show him this cloth. He'll recognize my handwriting. And if the brat is already dead... show it to whoever is around him. His people will definitely recognize my mark."
He tossed the cloth to Hikaru.
Hikaru caught it. The drawing was an incredibly abstract outline of a mountain, accompanied by two lines of text so sloppy they barely qualified as writing.
Hikaru tucked the cloth securely into his robes.
"Many thanks."
"Spare me the pleasantries. Get lost, you're being an eyesore." Totosai waved a dismissive hand and trudged into the pitch-black depths of the cave.
The rhythmic ringing of hammer strikes echoed out shortly after. He was already preparing to move his forge.
Near the cave entrance, Myoga popped out from a narrow rock crevice. The flea demon stood on a boulder, his six spindly legs pressed together. His flat little body stared out in the direction Hikaru had vanished.
"As expected of the man who brought 'change' to Master Inuyasha..."
The flea demon's voice was barely a whisper, murmuring to himself.
"That burst of Yao Qi just now, it was truly—"
Clang!
A small iron hammer flew out from the dark cave, slamming squarely into the back of Myoga's head.
His flat body launched into the air, tumbling end over end before face-planting into the dirt ten paces away.
"Stop your useless chattering and help me move immediately! You always brag about living in the household of Zhuge Wuhou on the continent, yet you're completely dense! Don't let them track us down again!" Totosai's roar boomed from within.
Myoga's six thin legs flailed wildly in the air. It took him a solid minute to flip himself upright.
"Yes, yes, yes... moving right away..."
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