Chapter 147: Thoroughly Enraged! Demon Slayer Mark Fully Opened
Drip.
Drip.
Warm blood struck the cold bluestone floor.
Inside the tomb-like silence of the Tomb of the Star Corridor, that faint sound seemed to grow louder with every drop. To Riko Amanai, hiding in the distance, each one felt like it was falling directly onto her heart.
Yami lowered his head slightly.
His gaze stopped for half a second on the wound across his left forearm.
The cut ran deep. Bright red blood poured from torn flesh, soaking through his sleeve in an instant.
But this was not just a physical wound.
The Split Soul Katana carried a property far more vicious than ordinary sharpness. The moment it cut through his skin, a cold pain pierced deeper than flesh and bone, like countless steel needles stabbing straight into his soul.
It felt as if something inside him had been torn open.
"You actually managed to bleed."
Not far away, Toji Fushiguro stood in the shadows with the Split Soul Katana held in a reverse grip.
A glaring streak of crimson remained on its edge.
He extended his tongue and, with almost perverse pleasure, licked the blood from the tip of the blade.
"So the so-called variable isn't indestructible after all."
Toji sneered.
His beastlike eyes shone with the joy of a hunter who had finally landed a proper wound.
"As long as you can bleed, as long as you can be hurt, then in front of this blade, you're just stronger prey."
Yami did not respond.
He stood there quietly, his dark hair falling over his eyes and hiding his expression.
But the air around him changed.
It became heavy.
Too heavy.
As if even light itself had been pressed down and sealed inside the chamber.
"Don't tell me that's it."
Toji laughed wildly.
"A wound like this won't satisfy what I've been looking forward to for days."
His figure vanished again.
His speed surpassed what the human eye could follow. Using the explosive power of his Heavenly Restriction, Toji flashed between the stone pillars like a beast let loose in the dark.
Every time his foot touched the ground, spiderweb cracks spread across the hard floor.
He intended to finish it here.
While Yami was injured.
While his mind was shaken.
Before this unease inside him could grow any stronger.
"Water Breathing, Eleventh Form."
Yami's voice sounded.
Cold.
Calm.
Carrying an authority that brooked no argument.
"Dead Calm."
An aura spread from Yami's body.
It was gentle, almost silent, yet suffocatingly deep.
The airflow in the Tomb of the Star Corridor seemed to stop.
Dust froze in place.
Falling rubble hung in the air.
Even the violent remnants of Cursed Energy stirred up by their battle seemed to sink into a bottomless sea.
Everything within ten meters of Yami lost its momentum.
Absolute stillness.
The ultimate defense of Water Breathing, capable of reducing all attacks to nothing.
"Oh?"
Toji's figure paused strangely in midair.
He could feel it clearly. A powerful resistance wrapped around his body, thick and heavy like a swamp, eroding his speed and force.
But the scarred face only revealed a disdainful sneer.
"You're trying to lock down my speed and drag me into your rhythm?"
His right hand shifted.
"In front of absolute violence, tricks like this are just toys for children."
The Split Soul Katana disappeared from his grip.
In its place came the ominous forked dagger.
The Inverted Spear of Heaven.
"And this thing…"
Toji laughed, low and cruel.
"Breaks through any active technique."
He thrust the Inverted Spear of Heaven into the stillness around him.
Crack.
A sound like shattering glass echoed through the chamber.
The silent field around Yami, that deep-sea stillness that had erased motion itself, collapsed the moment the cursed tool touched it.
Though Yami had no Cursed Energy, this technique-like interference with physical law could not escape the Inverted Spear of Heaven's nullification.
The stillness tore apart.
A black streak flashed.
The Split Soul Katana returned to Toji's hand and slashed viciously toward Yami's throat.
Toji's eyes sharpened.
This would end it.
The blade that had troubled him, the monster who had forced his instincts to scream, would lose his head here.
Then—
Thump!
A heavy heartbeat exploded in the depths of the Tomb of the Star Corridor like a thunderclap.
The sound rolled through the underground palace.
Even Riko, hiding far away, felt dizzy from it. Her eardrums ached, and her chest tightened.
Then the System's cold mechanical voice rang in Yami's mind.
[Ding! Host's emotional threshold has been reached.]
[System Prompt: Synchronization has broken through the 40% critical node.]
[Current synchronization: 40.8%.]
[Unlocked: Sun Breathing, Twelfth Form: Flame Dance.]
[The final residual toxins from transmigration have been completely cleared.]
[Tsugikuni Yoriichi template core combat amplification: Demon Slayer Mark fully unlocked.]
In less than a thousandth of a second, Yami's blood circulation surged violently.
His body temperature rose at an insane speed, breaking past thirty-nine degrees in the blink of an eye and continuing to climb.
His heart rate tore past two hundred and forty beats per minute.
His muscles tightened.
His nerves sharpened.
His vision cleared.
Every sound, every movement, every tremor in the air entered his perception with terrifying precision.
"This feeling…"
Yami slowly raised his head.
The eyes beneath his black hair erupted with a red glow, brilliant and searing, like the core of the sun.
"Finally being able to go all out."
On his left cheek, the dark red pattern that had only half-emerged before began to spread rapidly along his temple.
It burned like flame.
Twisted like lightning.
A mark both cursed and blessed.
The Demon Slayer Mark.
At that instant, the pressure radiating from Yami changed completely.
A dark red wave of air swept out from him, almost tangible, crushing the surrounding rubble into powder.
Toji, who had been charging forward, was forced to halt under that pure pressure.
"What?"
His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
The beastlike intuition that had saved his life countless times screamed in his skull.
Run.
Run now.
Get away from this monster.
You'll die.
You'll really die.
You'll absolutely die here.
The fear that only the strongest beings could awaken in him flooded his iron-like reason like a cold tide.
The thing standing in front of him was no longer merely a swordsman.
It was something wearing human skin, burning with the heat and fury of the sun.
"Toji Fushiguro."
Yami slowly raised Shiranui.
Because of the extreme body temperature brought by the fully awakened Demon Slayer Mark, the black blade had begun glowing an eerie dark red.
His voice was calm.
There was no trace of anger in it.
But the killing intent beneath that calm was so dense that the surface of the Tomb of the Star Corridor seemed to turn cold.
"This is your last chance."
Yami's eyelids lifted.
The Demon Slayer Mark shimmered against his face.
"From this second onward, every moment will be hell for you."
The cruel smile on Toji's face froze.
Then it collapsed completely.
He tightened his grip on the Split Soul Katana, but his hand trembled faintly from extreme tension.
This aura.
How had it risen so much in an instant?
This was not the strength of a normal human.
For the first time, the shadow of death reversed its direction.
It fell over Toji Fushiguro.
And the real battle had only just begun.
.....
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