There is a darkness in human nature that much is undeniable. Even saints cannot avoid having shadowed thoughts.
But, the shining points within human nature are what truly need to be noticed, the sacred radiance that cannot be ignored.
Kindness, perseverance, courage, loyalty, tolerance, tenacity…
These countless shining points are like the innumerable brilliant stars hanging in the night sky, glowing and dispersing the darkness.
Whereas a twisted-hearted Demon is greed, cruelty, violence, selfishness, lies…
They only possess endlessly ugly traits, as if all the goodness in human nature has been stripped away, leaving only deep, pure evil. This evil forms a Demon.
"Three parts humanity not yet learned, seven parts beast nature already ingrained."
"You, a chaotic evil Demon who only follows the beastly instincts in your heart, what right do you have to discuss with me the human ethics, morals, and the natural cycle?"
Black Fang: "......…"
The fuck, you're also a Demon. You really think you're human?
And yet, Kamado Asaki truly treated himself as human, though turned into a Demon, he used a human heart to drive a Demon's body. My blade will only be raised against man-eating Demons.
Right now, Black Fang was burning with rage. Seven parts beast nature? Demons were a higher form of life than humans, and this brat actually compared him to a wild beast.
"A flaw!"
Asaki sharply noticed the change in Black Fang. In battle, unnecessary emotions were fatal. Anger was unacceptable, and so was fear.
Only by rationally delivering proper attacks and rationally defending against the opponent's killing strikes could victory be gained in combat.
"Scorching Feathures: Heavenward Blade!"
In their earlier close-quarters combat, Asaki had never used the Scorching Feathers for attacks, only for acceleration or leveraging movement. It wasn't that the Scorching Feathers truly lacked energy.
It was that Asaki wanted to numb Black Fang's vigilance, quietly waiting for him to relax his guard against the Scorching Feathers, waiting for him to expose a weakness.
In battle, Asaki was like a cold, unfeeling combat machine. Though his actions were frenzied, trading blows with Black Fang injury for injury, his heart was without much fluctuation.
The Scorching Feathers had another use. But if used rashly, Black Fang would only evade, at most be heavily injured, and for a Demon, heavy injury was nothing more than drizzle.
So Asaki wanted to strike the deciding blow. The instant he unleashed the Scorching Feathers, it had to determine the outcome of the fight.
His display of anger earlier was only to plant the idea in Black Fang's head that he could no longer use the Scorching Feathers. Fortunately, Black Fang fell for it.
The Hinokami Kagura was already making Asaki's bones emit sounds of unbearable strain. If Black Fang hadn't exposed a flaw, and instead fought with a frenzied yet cautious style, Asaki would have had no options left.
But fortunately, the chance came.
In his fury, Black Fang relaxed the vigilance he had always held toward the Scorching Feathers. Before, even while trading injuries, he had always kept watch for it, retreating the moment there was any movement.
Now, he had almost completely abandoned defense, pouring everything into attacking Asaki.
Abandoning careful defense for full-on offense, Black Fang's ferocious claw came at Asaki's neck without reservation, the angle tricky and the speed fast.
His sharp nails and joints stabbed directly into Asaki's neck, making him ache in agony. Black Fang's eyes gleamed viciously as he prepared to violently rip Asaki's neck apart.
But just then, a sudden bright white light slashed down in front of him.
Black Fang instinctively raised his cleaver to block, but in his haste, it had no strength and was split apart instantly.
In that emergency, Black Fang tilted his head aside, feeling something slice into him. The next second, half his body felt as if it were burning in a fire. The claw gripping Asaki's left side lost all strength and let go.
"You… weren't you unable to use your Blood Demon Art again?"
Asaki's throat had been torn, his voice hoarse and grating. "That was, of course, a lie."
"Idiot, you've fallen for my tricks three times."
"If our strength were equal, you'd have died three times already…"
Speaking made blood spill from his throat, so Asaki stopped talking, only giving Black Fang a strange look.
From Black Fang's left shoulder to his right-side waist, a white line glimmered faintly.
Asaki reached out and shoved, and Black Fang's body split into two uneven pieces, collapsing to the ground.
The huge wound surface was scorched black, with no blood flowing—this was the high-temperature damage carried by the Scorching Feathures.
Just now, when Black Fang had seized Asaki's neck, the blazing white wings on his back, which had seemed like mere decoration in close combat, had shot sharply upward.
The densely packed, razor-edged feathers lined together like a massive three-meter-long white wing-blade, then slashed down viciously from above toward Black Fang's skull, aiming to cleave him in half.
Black Fang's reaction was decent—he tilted his head to avoid losing it outright—but the outcome was already set. This only bought him a few more breaths.
Black Fang desperately drew on his energy and stamina to try to repair his body, but being cleaved in two was not an injury that could be fixed at will.
Not to mention, Asaki's Scorching Feathers carried a strange sunlight energy that caused him extreme pain and weakened his regeneration.
One hand on the ground, Black Fang struggled, his other hand grabbing the cleaver beside him. He needed to buy time to heal.
But Asaki had learned his lesson. He gave Black Fang no chance. The white Scorching Feathers slashed again, this time at his neck.
The heavily wounded Black Fang had no strength to resist. Before his blade could even rise, the white Scorching Feathers severed his head.
At that moment, Black Fang's body stiffened and completely lost all strength.
His form began turning into black-and-red ash, rising upward.
"This feeling… am I dying?"
"How… there's no sunlight, and I wasn't beheaded by a Nichirin Blade, so why am I dying?"
"This newborn Demon's Scorching Feathures… has the same killing power as a Nichirin Blade…"
"But… why am I not in pain anymore, and instead feel warmth, like when I basked in sunlight as a human…"
"So, sunlight is this warm? I'd forgotten the feeling for so long… No wonder that lord was so obsessed."
"I remember now… I remember why I stayed in this town and refused to leave."
"I'm sorry, Nanako… in the end, I still didn't wait for you…"
In Asaki's astonished gaze, Black Fang turned entirely to black-red ash. Asaki had no idea what had just happened.
"What's going on?"
"My Blood Demon Art… these blazing white wings can actually kill a Demon?"
"That's great. I thought only sunlight could kill Demons, but as a Demon myself, sunlight is deadly to me. It's too inconvenient. Now, I've got more confidence facing Demons."
At this point, Asaki still didn't know Nichirin Blades existed.
Then, the blazing white wings on his back suddenly sent a strong instinctual impulse… something like… wanting to eat.
Following that instinct, Asaki willed it to act.
In an instant, a suction force came from the blazing white wings.
The black-and-red ash that Black Fang had become flew into the wings like swallows returning to the forest.
Asaki was shocked.
"Hss, hey, don't eat random things."
"That was a Demon. What if something goes wrong?"
Just then, the blazing white wings shone, and a flood of sorrow-filled memories poured into Asaki's mind…
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10+ early chapters on P@treon // Kryzt