Chapter 183: Sword Saint
On the rugged mountain path bordering Shinano and Kozuke Province, thick clouds swallowed the moonlight, plunging the world into pitch blackness.
A demon fled through the underbrush.
It used to be a farmer.
Around forty years old, the faint outline of a mundane life still lingered on its features. But only the outline remained. That visage was no longer human. Its skin stretched tight, gray and white like hardened wax. Bulging eyeballs strained against their sockets, looking ready to burst out at any second. A grotesque maw split all the way to the ear roots, revealing rows of interlaced, razor-sharp teeth.
Kibutsuji Muzan's blood had somehow found its way into this remote mountain village, infecting the poor wretch. The mutation had taken hold no more than three days ago. In that short span, it had already devoured seven of its former neighbors.
Right now, it scrambled wildly through the dirt because something was hunting it from behind.
And that hunter had already caught up.
A blade pierced cleanly through its back and erupted from its chest. There was no flash of light, no surge of spiritual power, not even a trace of Yao Qi coating the steel. It looked like a completely ordinary katana, thrust forward by some passing samurai in the dark.
The creature lowered its heavy head, staring blankly at the bloodless steel protruding from its sternum.
Then, it smiled.
The split maw stretched into an utterly hideous arc, exposing gums and jagged fangs. It reached down with a clawed hand, gripping the cold metal, and yanked itself forward. The blade slid out of its flesh with a sickening squelch. The gaping wound knitted together in a fraction of a second, leaving behind smooth, unblemished gray skin. Not a single drop of blood spilled.
It was a trap.
Against an immortal demon, ordinary steel was entirely useless.
The young samurai gripping the hilt froze, his eyes widening in horror. Before he could even think to retreat, the demon lunged. Its hooked claws slashed through the night air, aiming straight for his face.
Then, the motion abruptly stopped.
The deadly claws hovered a mere three inches from the samurai's nose.
The demon blinked, confused. Its arm was gone.
From the elbow down, the entire forearm had simply vanished. The severed stump was neat and perfectly smooth. Its edges were heavily scorched and blackened, curling inward while emitting thin wisps of white smoke. It was the obvious mark of flesh being instantly vaporized by extreme heat.
The creature stood stunned. Its survival instincts kicked in, causing the charred stump to wriggle violently. Fresh muscle fibers and blood vessels regenerated at a speed visible to the naked eye, while pale new bone pushed out from the broken end.
But this time, the regeneration only made it halfway.
The second blade arrived.
This strike descended from the heavens, a brutal vertical slash tearing through the darkness. The steel was wrapped in a suffocating dark red light. It was not spiritual power. It was not the purifying rays of sunlight.
It was pure demon fire.
Blood-Fire Transformation.
The scorching edge touched the demon's crown. Dark red flames poured directly into the creature's body along the descending steel, splitting its entire form perfectly in two from top to bottom. The bisected halves of flesh collapsed to the dirt, still wriggling, still desperately trying to crawl back together and merge. The demonic regenerative ability was running frantically, pushing its cells to the absolute limit.
The third blade followed without a breath of hesitation.
A horizontal cut.
The Muramasa traced a deadly arc through the night, slicing the bisected body into four distinct pieces.
The fourth blade. The fifth blade. The sixth blade.
Crimson streaks of light became so dense they formed a continuous, inescapable sheet of destruction. Locked onto the target by the Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation, every single strike landed precisely on the most actively regenerating clusters of flesh, violently disrupting their reorganization.
The terrifying high temperature of the Blood-Fire Transformation seared every exposed cut surface, suppressing the demon's regeneration speed down to nothing.
In a mere instant, taking less than a single second, seven flawless strikes linked together in a storm of fire and steel.
The demon opened its split mouth to wail, but only ash poured out. Its body crumbled away, leaving behind nothing but a pile of carbonizing cinders on the scorched earth. Even those ashes continued to shrivel under the lingering heat.
Repeatedly sliced. Repeatedly burned. The absolute limits of demonic regeneration had been forcibly breached through overwhelming physical destruction.
It was not the purifying sunlight of a Nichirin Blade, yet in its sheer brutality, it completely surpassed sunlight.
Kobe Hikaru stepped out from the shadows and slowly sheathed his blade.
Click.
The metallic snap echoed in the quiet woods. Crimson demonic eyes beneath the wide brim of a straw hat swept a cold glance over the samurai slumped in the dirt. The young man, barely over twenty, stared up with wide eyes, his sword-gripping hand trembling uncontrollably.
Hikaru said nothing. He only offered a single, dismissive look.
The young samurai scrambled backward, dropping his weapon and fleeing down the mountain path, half-running and half-crawling in absolute terror.
Hikaru did not bother watching him go. He adjusted his straw hat, his expression remaining entirely deadpan.
This was the sixth demon he had hunted down and slain in the past half month. His technique was becoming increasingly precise with every encounter. It was not the fastest execution method in the world, but considering he lacked a proper Nichirin Blade, achieving this level of efficiency was more than sufficient.
He raised his head, letting the cool night breeze wash over his pale face.
A thin sliver of moonlight finally leaked through a gap in the heavy clouds, casting a pale glow over the silhouette of the ridge ahead.
A castle stood in the distance.
The sprawling skyline of a famous stronghold in the Kanto region slowly appeared in his view. Its stone walls were not particularly high, but they stretched incredibly long, firmly encircling the entire mountain basin. Below the fortress, the warm lights of the bustling castle town sparkled in the deep night, looking like a cluster of fireflies scattered across a sheet of black velvet.
He had already crossed all the way through Shinano Province, a territory tightly controlled by the Takeda Clan. Now, his boots stepped onto the land under the banner of the Uesugi Clan. This was a prominent castle situated in Kozuke Province.
Hikaru did not particularly care about the historical name of this fortress.
He only cared about the specific person residing within its walls.
The next day arrived with a crisp morning breeze.
The sprawling market in the castle town had just opened its gates to the public. Sellers and buyers crowded the dirt streets, their voices mingling in a chaotic chorus. Stalls displayed wooden barrels of pickled vegetables, neat stacks of black charcoal, rolls of coarse cloth, and freshly woven straw sandals. In these turbulent, blood-soaked times, commoners simply had to get by, no matter how difficult the daily grind became.
Life for the residents of Kozuke Province was somewhat manageable, especially while living under the Uesugi Clan's strict banner of righteousness. It certainly could not compare to the famously benevolent rule of the Hojo Clan in the neighboring territories, but at the very least, the people here could eat and survive without constant fear of being slaughtered by rogue bandits.
Hikaru walked silently through the bustling market, his woven straw hat pulled low over his brow.
A worn straw raincoat covered his simple gray robes, keeping the dark red sheath of the Muramasa completely hidden from prying eyes. His unnaturally pale face remained mostly concealed within the deep shadow of the hat's brim, leaving only the sharp line of his chin visible to the passing crowds.
He walked with a slow, measured pace. To anyone watching, he looked exactly like a wandering ronin on a long, aimless journey.
"Have you heard the rumors? Recently, the core dojos of famous sword schools all over Kanto have been challenged by a madman."
Beside him, two merchants squatted lazily behind their vegetable stall. They cracked roasted sunflower seeds between their teeth, their voices carrying easily over the morning chatter.
"I heard about it," the second merchant replied, spitting a shell onto the dirt. "Challenging masters all the way from Totomi. The Tenshin Shoden-ryu, Kage-ryu, Chujo-ryu... over a dozen prestigious schools, all completely defeated."
"Is he really that powerful?"
"They say every single opponent was dealt with within three moves. And the craziest part? He beats them using their own techniques. He learns their secret arts on the spot and immediately counters them. Isn't that terrifying?"
"What does this guy even look like?"
"No one ever gets a clear look at him. Wears a straw hat and a ratty raincoat, then just leaves without ever giving a name. Some of the defeated disciples say it's a young man with a face as pale as a fresh corpse. Maybe a fallen noble from Kyoto? I hear those high-class nobles like to powder their faces white."
Hikaru walked right past their stall, his footsteps making no sound against the packed earth. The brim of his straw hat swayed slightly with his movement.
He found these exaggerated rumors somewhat absurd, but he was already used to the gossip of humans. It was entirely impossible for his relentless dojo-crushing journey to not have caused any ripples across the provinces.
The two merchants remained completely unaware of the pale 'noble' passing inches from their faces, happily continuing to crack their seeds.
"The strangest thing is," the first merchant leaned in closer, "this morning, someone swore they saw that exact guy enter the city gates. He's probably looking for Lord Kamiizumi."
"Kamiizumi Nobutsuna?!"
"Exactly! If he really goes up the mountain to find the Sword Saint, things are going to get incredibly lively around here."
Their gossiping voices gradually faded away into the background noise of the market.
Hikaru passed through the crowded market without stopping, following the main dirt road of the castle town all the way to the quiet foot of the northern mountain.
Kamiizumi Nobutsuna.
That was indeed his sole target for coming to this remote city.
The legendary founder of Shinkage-ryu. A man who, in an incredibly rare feat for this blood-soaked era, could genuinely be called a Sword Saint.
His fame was destined to persist long into later generations. Compared to the likes of Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi, who had not even been born yet, this man was a true, unmatched master.
If Tenshin Shoden-ryu represented the absolute foundation of swordsmanship, and Kage-ryu represented its unpredictable variation, then the Shinkage-ryu created by Kamiizumi Nobutsuna was something entirely different. It was a style that perfectly unified foundation and variation, before ascending to a realm far beyond mortal limits.
Its core concept was the 'sword of life'. The blade was not meant for mindless killing, but for preserving life.
The highest possible world of his swordsmanship was not the raw power to cut through everything in his path, but the absolute control to be able to choose not to cut anything at all. But conversely, if he truly wished it, he could effortlessly cut down everything in the world, leaving untouched only the single falling leaf he chose to spare.
In this turbulent, chaotic era teeming with immortal demons and bloodthirsty Yokai, for a mere human swordsman to comprehend such a deep realm...
Hikaru wanted to see it with his own eyes.
He needed to see exactly what kind of intent resided within that man's blade.
Over the passing half month, Hikaru had systematically visited seventeen different dojos, challenging seventeen distinct schools of combat. He had crossed blades with seventeen different masters, observing how each of them understood the sword in seventeen completely different ways.
The sword of Tenshin Shoden-ryu acted as an extension of the three realms of heaven, earth, and man, rigidly encompassing everything within its upper, middle, and lower stances.
The sword of Kage-ryu relied entirely on the art of waiting, focusing on striking later but arriving first to claim the throat.
The sword of Chujo-ryu was a masterclass in distance; controlling the exact distance between bodies meant controlling life and death itself.
The sword of Jigen-ryu possessed only one single, explosive strike, a suicidal charge that demanded the wielder pour forth absolutely everything they had.
Each style possessed its own internal logic, yet each was merely one small facet of a much larger truth.
And what about him? What exactly was his sword?
He had not found the answer yet. But as he climbed the winding mountain path, he was beginning to faintly grasp something just out of reach.
Those proud swordsmen from the various dojos... what resided within their flashing blades seemed vastly different on the surface, but at their very core, they were actually strikingly similar.
It was a desperate belief in survival. A belief in protecting one's clan. A belief in having the power of choice. More often than not, it was simply a burning belief in rising above others, in establishing one's own legendary name in a violent world.
When that raw human belief condensed on the cutting edge of a katana, it transformed into 'intent'.
And Kobe Hikaru, what did he truly believe in?
Ever since crossing over into this demonic body, he had been endlessly swinging his sword. At first, it was purely for self-preservation, a frantic struggle to avoid being eaten. Later, it was a calculated grind to become stronger through his system. After that, upon meeting Kikyo, his blade swung for the sake of protection.
But those were merely logical reasons. They were neither the process itself, nor the final result.
True intent was the absolute culmination of why one draws the sword, why one swings it, and why one can strike true against an enemy's neck.
The invisible force that permeated all of this was 'faith'.
And now, after seventeen victories, what he believed in was becoming increasingly clear in his mind. His own unique intent was finally beginning to sprout from the blood-soaked soil of his experiences.
He only needed a little more. Just one final step.
Therefore, he had come here.
The Muramasa resting at his waist vibrated faintly against his hip. A dark red light flashed across the guard for a brief instant. It felt as if the demonic blade was actively urging him forward, silently demanding that he hurry up and finally understand his own nature.
"To meet the Sword Saint," Hikaru muttered, his voice dry and flat.
At the very end of the mountain path north of the castle sat a modest-sized compound.
It featured simple bamboo fence walls and a rustic thatched roof. An ancient pine tree stood proudly in the center of the yard, extending a massive, gnarled branch that seemed to cover half the sky. There was no grand wooden plaque above the gate. There were no colorful banners fluttering in the wind, not even the common, cheap recruitment signs used to attract eager dojo disciples.
It looked exactly like an ordinary, impoverished mountain dwelling.
However, the packed earthen ground just before the gate told a completely different story. It was heavily imprinted with countless overlapping footprints. The distinct marks of woven straw sandals, heavy wooden clogs, and even calloused bare feet covered the dirt. They were all left by a constant, never-ending stream of hopeful visitors seeking an audience.
Hikaru stood quietly outside the gate.
He reached up and removed his straw hat, then shed his heavy raincoat, tossing them aside. His simple gray robes were heavily stained with the pale dust accumulated from half a month of relentless travel. His long, unnaturally pale hair was casually tied back at the nape of his neck with a frayed black cloth strip.
The Muramasa hung securely at his waist.
He reached out and pushed open the bamboo gate. There was no lock. There were no guards stationed to stop him.
Seven or eight young men stood scattered across the yard, dressed in various styles of worn samurai attire. Some carried real steel swords tucked into their sashes, while others gripped scarred wooden practice swords. They were clearly the accepted disciples of this hidden dojo.
Every single one of them stopped their training movements the exact moment they saw Hikaru step through the gate. Their wary gazes immediately locked onto his pale, stern face, lingering on the unsettling crimson hue of his demonic eyes. A few of the younger men instinctively took half a step back, their hands drifting toward their hilts.
Hikaru was long accustomed to this exact reaction from humans. He simply considered himself a rather unique individual and ignored them entirely. He walked straight through the center of the yard, his boots crunching softly against the gravel, heading directly for the open doors of the main house.
He paid the tense disciples absolutely no attention whatsoever.
The paper shoji door of the main house was slid half-open to let in the morning breeze.
Inside the shadowed room sat a solitary figure.
He appeared to be over fifty years old, possessing a lean, weathered face with high, sharp cheekbones and a rugged jawline. His thinning gray hair was tied neatly in a traditional bun, though his sideburns had already turned completely white. He wore nothing but a plain, heavily faded white Kosode.
The old man did not have a steel sword resting at his waist. Instead, a simple wooden practice sword lay horizontally across his knees. It was carved from ordinary white oak, bearing dents and scratches from years of use, with absolutely nothing special or magical about it.
But the exact moment Hikaru's boot stepped over the wooden threshold of the main house, his body froze.
Just as his foot crossed that invisible boundary, an overwhelming, unseen force slammed directly into his chest.
It was not the suffocating pressure of Yao Qi. It was not the purifying burn of spiritual power. It was not the divine weight of gods and Buddhas, and it was certainly not the primal instinct of Fear.
It was pure, unadulterated Conviction.
Or rather, it was an unimaginably pure manifestation of Sword Intent, flawlessly condensed from decades of ascetic cultivation.
The pressure was not outwardly aggressive. In fact, it felt somewhat gentle, much like a cool spring breeze brushing softly against the face. However, the psychological sensation it produced was terrifying. It felt exactly like standing on the crumbling edge of a bottomless cliff, being gently pushed forward by the wind. Just one single step away from plummeting into the abyss.
The touch was incredibly light, but the lethal danger behind it was absolute and very real.
'Is this a Sword Saint?'
Hikaru paused his step, a rare flicker of genuine realization crossing his deadpan features.
He knew without a shadow of a doubt that the unassuming old man sitting before him was Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, the legendary founder of Shinkage-ryu.
This was the man universally revered as a Sword Saint by every single warrior who dared to hold a blade in this bloody era.
He had also long since gone into quiet seclusion. He no longer accepted new disciples into his inner circle, no longer engaged in life-or-death duels for honor, and absolutely refused to serve any ambitious Daimyo. He stayed only in this small, quiet mountain courtyard, occasionally offering a few words of guidance to the stubborn young people who came seeking his fame.
At this moment, the secluded Sword Saint slowly raised his head.
His weathered expression showed a slight, almost imperceptible hint of surprise, yet his deep eyes remained perfectly calm. He looked at the demonic intruder standing in his doorway as if he were looking at nothing more than an ordinary tea merchant.
"A guest has arrived. Please, have a seat."
He spoke casually, as if he had been sitting there waiting for Hikaru for a very long time. His voice was not loud, but it carried a clear, resonant quality that easily pierced the heavy atmosphere of the room.
Hikaru did not hesitate. He pushed his body straight through that invisible, cliff-edge pressure, walked into the center of the main house, and sat down cross-legged exactly three steps away from the old man.
Between the two of them lay nothing but an empty, polished expanse of wooden flooring.
"It seems that you, sir, are the mysterious swordsman who has been challenging dojos everywhere across the provinces recently?" Kamiizumi asked, his hands resting lightly on the white oak blade.
Hikaru gave a single, stiff nod. "I am learning the way of the sword."
Kamiizumi paused slightly again. It was as if he had already deduced the answer, but hearing the undead creature confirm it still brought a touch of genuine surprise to his heart.
"So, tell me. What have you learned?" he asked. His tone was direct and perfectly clear, devoid of any mocking intent.
Hikaru was equally direct. He had no patience for riddles.
"I have learned many physical techniques. I can replicate their forms. But what I actually want—my own Sword Intent—is still a bit lacking. I cannot grasp it."
The deep wrinkles at the corners of the old man's eyes twitched slightly. It looked like a smile, yet not quite.
"So, you climbed my mountain to find me for this exact reason as well?"
"I came to take a look," Hikaru replied flatly.
"At what, exactly?"
"To see what is contained within your blade. I want to see the intent of a Saint."
The old man slowly lowered his gaze to the scarred wooden sword resting on his knees. His withered, calloused fingers lightly brushed over the smooth surface of the oak.
"There is nothing contained within my blade," Kamiizumi said softly.
Hikaru did not respond. He simply sat in silence, waiting for the explanation.
"When I was a young, hot-blooded man, my blade contained the absolute intent to 'kill.' I would mercilessly cut down whoever stood in my path, and I felt immense joy whenever I won a duel," the old man reminisced, his eyes distant.
"Later in life, as I grew, it contained the intent to 'protect'. I swung my steel to protect my family, to secure my territory, and to shield the loyal people who followed me into battle."
Kamiizumi's fingers stopped moving over the wood.
"Even later, as my hair turned gray, it contained the pure intent of the blade itself. I finally understood exactly why the blade exists in this world, and I truly understood the deep difference between the act of slaying and the choice of not slaying."
"But in the end..." The old man let out a long, quiet breath. "Everything was poured out."
"It became completely empty."
He raised his head and looked directly into Hikaru's crimson demonic eyes. There was something extremely clear, something terrifyingly vast, hidden within those cloudy old eyes.
"When the blade is entirely empty, the person wielding it is finally free. I no longer need my blade to contain any heavy burdens or grand reasons. I stand here. The blade is here. The intent is here. All the 'whys'and'hows' of the world have completely vanished from my mind."
Kamiizumi smiled gently. "There is no need to contain anything at all."
"Because I, myself, am the intent."
As those heavy words fell from the old man's lips, the main house plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence.
Hikaru stared at the withered human sitting opposite him for a very long time.
His demonic senses flared. He could feel it now. That overwhelming intent was emanating directly from the fragile human body opposite him. It was not attached to the wooden sword. It was not attached to any weapon at all. It was an intent so incredibly pure that it had become entirely transparent.
The man is the blade, and the blade is the man.
There was absolutely no boundary left between flesh and weapon. Thus, there was no longer any need for him to physically draw a sword to cut down an enemy. Thus, whether he held a wooden practice sword, a legendary iron katana, or simply stood with empty hands—the lethal result would be exactly the same.
This was the true nature of a Sword Saint.
It was the absolute world of 'Emptiness,' completely surpassing the flashy Sword Intent of ordinary dojo masters. It was a void that could swallow the world.
Completely empty.
Hikaru slowly stood up.
He did not reach for the Muramasa at his waist. He did not draw his sword or make a sudden, aggressive move to test the master, as he had done when visiting every single human dojo over the past two weeks.
The violent clash of intent against intent that he had originally envisioned on his walk up the mountain did not happen.
Because it was no longer necessary.
Because he had already seen exactly what he needed to see.
He clearly saw where the massive gap in comprehension between himself and the old man lay. More, he saw the exact direction in which that gap pointed.
Kamiizumi Nobutsuna's ultimate intent was 'Emptiness.' It was the spiritual freedom achieved only after emptying one's soul of everything.
But that was the specific path of a mortal human. That was what a human's journey looked like at the very end of the road.
Hikaru's path was fundamentally different.
He was an undead Yokai. He was a wandering ghost, and he would eventually evolve into a true Demon. He did not need the philosophical concept of emptiness; he needed absolute fullness.
His path required him to pack in all changes, all physical objects, and every single artifact that merged into his system until his demonic body could hold no more. He needed to become the ultimate, unbreakable vessel that could contain everything in the world.
Not emptying out.
But gathering to absolute fullness.
It was simply the other end of the exact same destination.
"Thanks," Hikaru said, his voice returning to its usual deadpan monotone.
He turned on his heel and walked straight out of the main house. He crossed the dusty courtyard, ignoring the stares of the disciples, and pushed open the bamboo fence gate without ever looking back.
The young disciples standing in the courtyard looked at each other in utter confusion.
"That person... he must be the madman everyone in town has been talking about lately, right? The one who crushed seventeen dojos in a row? He's just leaving?"
"They didn't even fight?" another whispered, gripping his wooden sword.
"They didn't draw blades at all. Maybe he felt the pressure and realized he wasn't a match for Master Kamiizumi?"
"Judging by the Master's calm attitude, it doesn't seem like he chased him off!"
No one in the yard could answer the questions.
Back inside the shadowed main house, Kamiizumi watched the gray silhouette cross the bamboo fence and completely disappear at the end of the winding mountain path. His withered fingers finally stopped tapping against the wooden sword.
After a long, quiet while, a small smile touched his lips.
"Interesting," he murmured. His voice was incredibly soft, as if he were merely talking to the empty room. "An undead Yokai coming to my doorstep to politely learn the philosophy of the sword... in this chaotic world, there truly is a bit of everything."
From the very first step the pale young man had taken through the courtyard gate, Kamiizumi had felt it clearly. The dark, heavy energy flowing within that cold body was by no means human.
But the Sword Saint did not draw his blade to slay the demon.
Because his absolute mastery of intent told him a harsh truth: he could not defeat the creature. Let alone now in his frail old age, even in his absolute physical prime during his youth, he would never have been a match for that monster's raw, terrifying power.
That was no ordinary Yokai wandering the woods.
Human swordsmanship was ultimately a tool used to compensate for a mortal's lack of physical strength. But if the raw strength gap between two beings was simply too unimaginably large, then neither flawless technique nor transparent intent mattered much in the face of absolute destruction.
Besides that pragmatic truth, there was another reason.
The demonic visitor had likewise not drawn his sword. There was absolutely no killing intent leaking from his body, no malice directed at the humans in the yard. A powerful Yokai had walked right up to the greatest human Sword Saint of the era, not to kill, not to fight for supremacy.
He came only to take a quiet look at an old man's sword.
And having seen it, he simply turned and left.
Such blunt, straightforward openness was far more honorable than the behavior of most human samurai Kamiizumi had dealt with in his long life. This level of instant comprehension was almost entirely comparable to that other genius among geniuses he had met before—a human whose monstrous swordsmanship had already exceeded his own despite being at such a young age.
One was a Yokai who acted remarkably like a rational human.
And the other was a human whose talent made him resemble a terrifying Yokai to the extreme.
"Interesting..." The old man murmured softly, looking up at the thatched ceiling. "They will probably end up crossing paths, won't they?"
After all, in this world, dangerous anomalies always tended to attract one another.
Miles away, far outside the bustling city walls and just west of the main mountain road, sat a quiet, unnamed hill.
The view from the peak was incredibly wide, allowing anyone standing there to see the endless, layered mountain ridges fading into the distance, and the vast skyline stretching even further beyond them.
Hikaru walked slowly to the very top of the hill and suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Then, without a single word, he sat down.
There was no warning or hesitation. It was as if, while casually walking, his brain had suddenly been struck by a bolt of lightning. His legs simply bent beneath him, and he dropped into a cross-legged position on the tall, swaying grass.
He unclipped the Muramasa from his waist and placed the dark red scabbard horizontally across his knees, mimicking the old man's posture.
He slowly closed his crimson eyes.
Countless fragmented memories surged violently through his mind.
He saw the seventeen distinct sword styles of the seventeen defeated dojos flashing before him.
He saw the cloudy eyes of Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, a gaze that was clear to the absolute point of transparency.
And finally, he heard the gruff, echoing words of the old demon blacksmith, Totosai.
"What are you thinking about when you swing your sword?"
What was he thinking about?
He was thinking. He was thinking deeply about absolutely everything that had merged into his undead body. He thought of every single bizarre artifact he had painstakingly ground to full favorability. He thought of every single layer of physical transformation, every tedious, calculated process of pushing a bar from 0 to 100.
A random stone. A sturdy tree. A stone wall. A farmer's hoe. The massive bone boomerang, Hiraikotsu. The razor-sharp Nekomata Claws. The crackling Thunder Horn. The heavy forging hammer.
They were not just inanimate tools to be used and discarded.
They were a literal, physical part of him.
What was he thinking about when he swung his sword to kill?
He was thinking about integrating all of these disparate, chaotic elements into one single, perfect strike. He was thinking about making his own demonic body the ultimate container that could hold the weight of everything he had conquered.
All paths eventually lead to the exact same destination; it was truly a grand convergence of entirely different roads.
As the wind howled across the unnamed hill, his own unique Sword Intent finally began condensing into reality.
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