Rokuro had not failed to react to Asuka's blade, yet he was still struck.
He stared in shock at his blurred body, formed by the Blood Demon Art: Mirage, and at the arm that had been severed, blood gushing endlessly from the stump, refusing to heal. His expression changed drastically, his yellow pupils shrinking to pinpoints.
"What is this??"
Mirage was not true physical immunity. It was an optical distortion created through flesh-and-blood energy, combined with extreme bodily warping, making it impossible for enemy swordsmen to determine the location of his true core. No Nichirin Blade should ever be able to strike his real body.
Yet now, fine gray-black ripples churned along the surface of his wound, gnawing at his flesh without pause, sending a numbing chill straight into his soul.
For countless years, he had been the one devouring humans. When had he ever experienced such a hair-raising sensation?
Meanwhile, Asuka's complexion grew more and more flushed.
Though his breathing rhythm had been thrown into disorder because of his Shikai, the sense of power within him swelled even further.
He could feel it clearly—a surge of pure, immense life force flowing from Nugata in his hand, pouring into his body, nourishing every tendon and bone.
The power was cold, dim, yet incomparably forceful.
In other words, he was eating a demon.
"...So this is your power, Nugata?" Asuka murmured inwardly, quietly feeling the feedback from the blade.
Nugata did not speak. It only let out a low, vibrating hum, the blade trembling as it released its battle intent.
"Still not enough... I understand..."
Lowering his body with blade in hand, Asuka pushed off the ground and charged at Rokuro once more.
He did not use any fixed Wind Breathing forms. Instead, he let the surging power within him, desperate for release, wrap itself in wind pressure and tear through everything in its path.
"Seeking death!"
Rokuro roared in shock and fury. His remaining left hand spread wide, and dense darkness instantly spread out from beneath his feet.
"Blood Demon Art: Abyss!"
In an instant, the ground beneath Asuka turned viscous and soft, as if it had become a swamp.
Countless pitch-black ghostly arms reached up from within, wrapping around his legs, attempting to drag him down into a lightless hell.
At the same time, Rokuro's figure blurred within the darkness. Several identical "Rokuro" forms emerged from different shadowed corners, each exuding nearly identical auras, making them impossible to distinguish.
This was Rokuro's favored method of combat.
Using shadows to create traps, illusions, and clones—confusing, exhausting, ambushing—never confronting his enemy head-on.
His cowardice and caution were etched into his bones, born from the weak human he once was, who could only tremble in the corners of shadows.
Even after receiving that Master's blood and becoming a powerful Lower Rank demon, nothing had changed.
Asuka's momentum faltered for a fraction of a second, but instead of trying to break free from the grasping demon hands, he used the downward force of his swing to smash Nugata fiercely into the swamp beneath him.
Screech—!
The serrated blade plunged into the mire like a branding iron thrust into water, erupting instantly into hissing steam.
The ghostly arms recoiled as if burned. The swamp itself was blasted apart, revealing the solid floor beneath.
At the same time, Nugata conveyed another sensation of satiation. The feedback of power refreshed Asuka's spirit.
Relying on his increasingly sharp spiritual pressure perception, he quickly scanned the flickering phantom clones around him and finally locked onto one direction.
Rokuro's Blood Demon Art was formidable. Neither the naked eye nor spiritual pressure could easily tell the difference.
But he had forgotten one thing—
On his severed arm still lingered the creaking spiritual residue of Nugata, something no illusion could replicate.
Dragging the heavy great blade, Asuka burst out of the swamp without hesitation, slashing toward Rokuro's true body.
"What?!"
Rokuro's pupils trembled violently.
His Mirage had been seen through? Impossible! Even Hashira-level swordsmen had struggled to kill him because of it!
Then he realized something and glanced at his severed arm.
"That thing? That brat locked onto this strange power?"
Tsk!
He hurriedly commanded several clones to lunge at Asuka, trying to disrupt his advance.
Meanwhile, his true body retreated rapidly, attempting to melt into deeper shadows.
Slash! Slash!
Asuka's blade shattered two blocking clones effortlessly. Though another clone's claws tore a deep wound into his shoulder, exposing bone, he did not alter his forward charge in the slightest.
Blood sprayed from his wound, splattering onto Nugata's blade, only to be silently absorbed by the gray-black serrations. The blade's glow grew even more dangerous and brilliant.
Reaching Rokuro, Asuka swung Nugata relentlessly, clashing repeatedly with demonic claws.
During the exchange, Rokuro relied on his Blood Demon Art and immense strength to continuously wound Asuka, but the latter refused to retreat.
Asuka clung to him in close combat, carving wounds of varying depths across Rokuro's body. One slash had nearly taken his head.
He was fighting as if trading wound for wound, life for life.
Rokuro began to panic. He had not expected such unyielding resolve.
"You mad dog! Why won't you retreat?!"
His illusions and traps were drastically weakened before that blade that devoured everything—worse, they were backfiring on him.
He could feel it clearly. Every time this brat struck, no matter how deep or shallow the wound, lethal or not, his life force continued to drain away.
And the opponent only grew more ferocious with each passing moment.
This ebb and flow left him trembling, restrained. He could not even unleash seventy percent of his full strength.
"Blood Demon Art: Thousand Shadows, One Kill!"
Rokuro shrieked. All the shadows within the shrine seemed to come alive.
They transformed into countless pitch-black chains, screeching through the air as they shot from every direction toward Asuka.
He no longer wished to prolong this battle. He would bind and annihilate this dangerous madman entirely.
The dense shadow chains sealed off every path of escape. Asuka felt an unprecedented pressure.
Gripping Nugata tightly with both hands, he fused his violent spiritual pressure with the strange demonic power he had just plundered, pouring it into the blade without reservation.
The gray-black radiance on the blade surged violently, and a wild, heart-stirring fluctuation spread outward.
"...Howl! Nugata!"
Asuka roared and swept horizontally toward the densest cluster of shadow chains ahead.
Buzz—!!!
It was not a single slash, but dozens. Hundreds.
Gray-black spiritual slashes erupted like a pack of starving mad dogs breaking free of their cage.
With piercing shrieks, they shot from the blade's edge, without fixed trajectory or unified target, simply lunging forward in frenzied hunger.
They collided and tore at one another midair, creating chaotic and violent currents of spiritual pressure, howling like a hundred dogs fighting over meat.
Screech—!!!
The rabid slashes slammed into the dense shadow chains.
The seemingly resilient chains were torn apart and shattered under the mad dogs' savage biting.
Though the uncontrollable spiritual hounds weakened somewhat in their mutual tearing, their numbers were overwhelming, ripping a massive gap in Rokuro's encirclement.
The remaining slashes rampaged forward like an unbridled beast pack, shredding the shrine's pillars, floorboards, and offerings into fragments.
At the center of this carnage stood Rokuro, the Lower Rank demon—naturally suffering the worst.
"Gah—!!!"
Though he tried desperately to evade, even leaping into the air several times, the mad dogs pursued him relentlessly, tearing at him without mercy.
His flesh rapidly disintegrated. If not for that Master's blood serving as his core energy, Rokuro would already have become a pile of rotten meat.
After prolonged screams and rending, Rokuro crashed heavily to the ground.
He rose grotesquely, not a single patch of intact flesh remaining on his body. Even half his head had been gnawed away.
Opposite him, Asuka leaned on Nugata, gasping heavily. Blood gushed from wounds all over his body, turning him into a figure soaked in red.
Seeing Rokuro's shattered features and terrified gaze, Asuka smiled for the first time.
It looked somewhat sinister.
"Continue... Lower Rank demon."
"Your blood... tastes quite good..."