Chapter 37 — Is This Your Full Strength?
Faced with Asuka's provocation, Mukago flew into a mixture of shock and fury, screaming hysterically.
"Blood Demon Art — Forest Dance!"
She drove the sharp claws of both hands into her own flesh, ripping open several deep wounds that exposed bone. Blood gushed out in torrents.
Her right arm was even torn open completely, merging directly with the vines on the ground.
The blood—thick with demonic energy—was poured into the soil without restraint.
All around them, the rustling of leaves in the forest began to sound like twisted, grotesque groans.
The vines and branches drank greedily from the demon blood, turning nearly black as they absorbed it. Jagged bone-like spikes erupted from their surfaces, making them stronger, more warped, more monstrous.
And that wasn't all.
Mukago herself became wrapped in a writhing armor of thorny vines, each one oozing deadly poison.
Her entire right arm transformed into a massive spiked hammer of thorns.
She had truly gone all out.
"Well?! Human!"
"If you're scared, then get lost right now! I might just spare your miserable life!"
Mukago roared with overwhelming pressure.
Her body had grown larger under the layer of thorn armor, looming over Asuka as she glared down at him.
But Asuka's expression didn't change at all.
He watched calmly as her power continued to surge, her body expanding into this monstrous form.
Then he spoke quietly.
"…Is this your full strength?"
"What?"
Asuka lowered his stance and tightened his grip on Bakudatsu's hilt.
"Is this the strongest attack a Lower Rank Four demon can muster?"
"Don't get carried away, you damn human!"
Mukago roared.
She swung the massive vine-hammer high overhead, bringing it crashing down together with the surrounding swarm of savage vines.
They tore through the air as one, rushing toward Asuka.
Asuka's eyes were cold as blades.
He showed no intention of retreating.
"If this is all you've got…"
He hadn't expected the difference between Lower Rank Four and Lower Rank Two to be this vast.
What Asuka didn't realize was that ever since he fully released Bakudatsu's Shikai: Plunder, some of the spiritual pressure he had long suppressed had also begun to flow freely.
Compared to when he fought Rokuro, he had already grown far stronger.
A Zanpakutō and its wielder were meant to grow together.
They sharpened one another.
Only when the user and the blade were truly in harmony—when nothing obstructed the heart—could their spiritual power reach its peak.
Feeling the rather unremarkable strength radiating from Mukago, Asuka no longer had any desire to test the waters.
"…Bakudatsu, chew."
SHRAAAK—!
For a brief moment, Mukago felt strangely lighter.
In the blink of an eye, the tough vines she had just unleashed were all severed by that abnormally massive Nichirin blade.
Even the thorn armor covering her body was casually sliced apart.
A massive tearing wound opened across her abdomen, her organs nearly spilling out.
"AAAH—!!"
Mukago's shrill, distorted scream echoed through the forest.
The power she had gained from her berserk transformation was instantly drowned by searing pain and a terrifying sense of loss.
BOOM!
Her body crashed heavily onto the ground.
Demonic organs scattered across the forest floor, a ghastly sight.
"It's a Hashira! I'm finished—it's a Hashira!!"
Before she could even push herself up or recover from the agony—
her right arm suddenly felt cold.
SPLURT!
The massive hammer-like limb—twisted together from vines and demon flesh—was cut clean off, spinning high into the air while dark purple-black blood gushed out like a fountain.
"It hurts! It hurts so much—!!"
She was a Lower Rank demon.
It had been decades since she had last been injured.
The pain of losing an arm cut straight to the bone.
The severed limb tumbled through the air and slammed into the ground. Thick demon blood continued pulsing from it, staining the dead leaves and mud with a foul stench.
If it were only injury, Mukago could have endured it.
But what happened next made her scream die abruptly in her throat.
Asuka stepped forward calmly and drove the serrated blade straight into the still-twitching demon arm.
"My teacher once said… even if a demon's body is cut apart, as long as the neck remains intact, it can regenerate."
SIZZLE—!
The sound was like a red-hot iron pressed into grease.
Mukago felt as though her soul itself were being scorched.
No—it wasn't imagination.
It was being scorched.
For some reason, her severed arm wasn't regenerating. The healing was unbelievably slow.
And when Asuka's blade pierced the severed limb—
the arm began to wither visibly.
Even from several meters away, Mukago could feel the ripping pain coming from it.
The once full muscles collapsed inward.
Purple-black blood—along with the immense demonic energy and life force within it—was forcefully drained away like rivers flowing to the sea.
Thin yet unmistakable streams of gray-black energy poured madly into the jagged blade of Bakudatsu.
In only two or three breaths, the severed arm completely lost its vitality.
It shriveled into a charred, dried husk, like rotten wood.
At the slightest touch, it crumbled into dust and scattered into the air.
At the same time, a strange numb itch spread across the wound on Asuka's arm—the one previously scratched by the poisoned thorn.
Crackle… crackle…
The stubborn poison stains around the wound rapidly faded.
Even the wound itself began to move.
Flesh slowly crawled together, healing at a speed far beyond human limits—almost like a demon.
It wasn't fast, but the tissue was steadily knitting itself back together.
"AAAH—!!! W-What are you?! A human or a demon?!"
"Help! Rui!! Save me!!"
Mukago clutched her bleeding shoulder stump and staggered backward.
All the savagery and madness on her face had been replaced with the terror of prey facing its natural predator.
"I'm your sister! Help me, Rui!!"
As if mocking her desperate cry, thunder rumbled across the sky above Mount Natagumo, drowning out her voice.
In her overwhelming panic, Mukago suddenly remembered a rumor she had dismissed earlier as nonsense.
Recently, there was said to be a Demon Slayer who ate demons.
A man who grew stronger by devouring demon flesh—ruthless in battle, terrifying in appearance.
Best to stay far away from him.
A demon-eating slayer?
Before today, Mukago would never have believed such a thing possible.
"How could a human eat demons?"
But now—
"Is it you?! The demon-eating Slayer?!"
"Did you come here to eat Mukago?!"
"Eat demons?"
Asuka frowned slightly, confused by the demon's hysteria.
Still, he glanced at the blade in his hand—Bakudatsu—and at the unnatural recovery of his own body.
Silently, he accepted the idea.
It was a useful power.
He had no reason to reject it.
As he stepped closer, Mukago's will to fight was completely crushed by fear.
She shrieked wildly.
Her remaining arm flailed desperately as scattered vines lashed toward Asuka, trying to block his sight.
Then she turned and fled blindly into the forest with all the strength she had left.
Her steps were unsteady.
Her body staggered.
Every movement full of openings.
Pathetic.
Wind gathered beneath Asuka's feet.
His figure vanished.
A flash of steel.
SHHK—!
Mukago's fleeing body suddenly froze.
The terror on her face locked in place forever as her vision spun wildly.
Her head fell to the ground.
What did she think about in her final moments?
Did she regret becoming a demon?
What kind of life had led her to this end?
Asuka didn't care.
He didn't even look at the body as it burned into ash.
Instead, he lifted his gaze toward the deeper slopes of the mountain.
From there—
an immensely powerful demonic aura was erupting.