The radiance poured into his body — not carving new channels, but flowing along paths already laid, finding the route that belonged to Shield-Bone Mutation.
Kōbe Hikaru could feel his bones vibrating.
The tremor started at his spine, spread to his limbs, then to every finger and every toe — as though something deep within the bone had finally woken up.
Growing. Shedding its old skin.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
His joints rang out in a continuous chorus. The sound was nothing like normal bone movement — it was more like the turning of machinery.
This was it. The re-fusion of shield and bone. The transformation of the Bone Soul.
He could freely control the hardness, shape, and growth direction of his own skeleton. Bones could grow and protrude from any point inside his body, and could be freely sculpted outside of it.
At the same time, bone hardness had tripled from its previous baseline.
From this point forward, his bones were the equivalent of demon-forged weapons.
Kōbe Hikaru opened his eyes.
And then —
"!"
He nearly leapt to his feet.
The first thing he saw was a pair of feet. Wooden geta sandals. White tabi socks without a speck of dirt. Above that, a red hakama. A white hem.
He looked higher.
A composed, cool face was looking down at him.
Kōbe Hikaru's heart skipped a beat.
Did this woman walk without making any sound?! Or had he just been so absorbed that he hadn't noticed when Kikyō arrived?
"You..."
Kōbe Hikaru had barely started to speak.
Kikyō spoke first.
"You've changed," she said.
Those dark, ink-black eyes were fixed on Kōbe Hikaru's elbow — the spot where a bone spike had just broken through moments ago.
"The demon-qi on you has changed." Her voice was even. "Heavier. Steadier. And more dangerous."
"Picked up a thing or two," Kōbe Hikaru said.
He stood and brushed the dirt off his clothes. No point hiding it: "Borrowed a little of that big fellow's strength."
He gestured at Hiraikotsu lying beside him.
Kikyō glanced at the enormous bone boomerang, then back at Kōbe Hikaru.
He couldn't help asking: "And — when did you get here?"
"A quarter of an hour ago," Kikyō replied, her tone perfectly calm. "I came to tell you to rest, and found you glowing all over."
"So I watched a little longer."
"Quite interesting, as it turns out."
Kōbe Hikaru: "..."
This woman. She did that on purpose, didn't she?
How had he never noticed before — Kikyō had a distinctly scheming streak.
"So then," Kikyō said, "what exactly changed in you?"
Her gaze dropped to his arm. Beneath the skin there, something still seemed to be moving.
Kōbe Hikaru looked down at his own hand and let his mind shift.
An instant later, a white bone spike pushed out from under the skin on the back of his hand. Not tearing through — it squeezed out through the pores, as naturally as a plant growing from soil.
The spike was roughly three cun long, its tip razor-sharp, gleaming cold in the moonlight.
Kikyō's expression changed.
"This is..."
Kōbe Hikaru let his mind shift again. The bone spike began to transform.
First it thickened — from chopstick-width to thumb-width. Then it curved, bending into a hook. Then it thinned, lengthened, straightened — into the shape of a fine needle.
The whole process took less than three breaths.
"Bone Soul Mutation," Kōbe Hikaru said, drawing the bone needle back into his body. The skin was left completely unbroken. "An ability I just fused."
Kikyō was quiet.
She studied him, her eyes carrying a complicated tangle of emotions.
"I have never seen a demon like you," she said. "One who can fuse powers from entirely different sources — and even continue evolving abilities you already possess..."
"What kind of existence are you, exactly?"
Kōbe Hikaru opened his mouth, thought better of it, closed it, then thought about speaking again.
But Kikyō suddenly shook her head, not waiting for an answer — it had only been a passing remark.
She knew that everyone had their own secrets. Yet her gaze continued to linger on him.
"What level are you at now?" she asked.
"By my own classification, still six mutations," Kōbe Hikaru answered honestly. "No qualitative breakthrough yet."
"But I'm stronger than before."
He clenched his fist.
He could feel the power inside him — far more abundant than it had been.
Kikyō gave a small nod.
Six mutations.
By now, she had pieced together — bit by bit, from things Kōbe Hikaru had let slip — his own framework for classifying demon ranks. It was far more detailed and far more precise than the broad human taxonomy of lesser demon, common demon, high-level demon, and great demon.
As a shrine maiden, Kikyō was quick to absorb new knowledge, and she had readily adopted this classification system.
She followed up at once: "Stronger by how much?"
"At least..." Kōbe Hikaru thought it over. "Forty or fifty percent, give or take."
That was no idle guess.
The boost from Bone Soul Mutation was across the board.
First, defense. Bone hardness had increased to several times its original value — his bones were now harder than ordinary steel.
Second, offense. He could grow bone spikes and bone blades from any point on his body. His means of attack were no longer limited to the blade in his hand. Every part of him could become a weapon.
As he stood now, in terms of raw power alone, he could absolutely hold his own against a high-level seven-mutation demon. Perhaps not defeat one outright — but more than enough to preserve himself.
Last, and most important of all —
Possibility.
"By my own sense of it, among demons, the sixth mutation is the ceiling of the physical form stage — what you'd call a common demon," Kōbe Hikaru explained. "But the contents of those six mutations can keep on growing richer."
"Like a room. The room's size is fixed — but what you can put inside it can keep increasing."
Kikyō considered this.
"You mean..."
"My foundation is more solid than an ordinary six-mutation demon's," Kōbe Hikaru said with a nod. "A normal demon at the sixth mutation might have six abilities."
"I can have more."
"When the time comes for the qualitative transformation..."
The young demon's eyes were bright.
"The 'attributes' I'll be able to carry will far outnumber those of an ordinary demon."
What was the essence of a qualitative transformation?
It could be mastery over mass, volume, and density. It could be the alteration of fundamental physical properties. Or it could be the capacity to contain and command elemental attributes.
And the richer his six mutations were, the more attributes he could wield when that transformation finally came.
Kikyō watched him in silence for a long moment.
"You truly are something special, Hikaru," she said.
"I'm just more careful than most."
Kōbe Hikaru picked up Hiraikotsu.
The enormous bone boomerang had lost its glow now. It looked no different from an ordinary weapon.
But Kōbe Hikaru knew the power was still there. It only needed time to recover — just like the Muramasa blade in his hand.
"Time to go rest, Kikyō," he said.
"Tomorrow, the duel begins."
Kikyō was confident she could defeat Tsubaki — but it would still pay to be wary of whatever tricks that woman might have up her sleeve.
Kikyō nodded, and did not let her confidence make her careless.
But in the next instant.
The shrine maiden in white and red suddenly raised her eyes. Her expression tightened.
Kōbe Hikaru froze mid-motion as well.
His nostrils flared. He turned his head, looking toward the back of the village — toward the rear mountain.
In that moment the night lay soft and still, and the entire demon-slaying village fell into an uncanny silence.
A gentle wind moved through the darkness.
It came from the direction he was looking.
And it carried a smell.
The smell of blood.
Heavy. Very heavy.
Kikyō's eyes changed.
So did Kōbe Hikaru's expression.
"Something's wrong."
He slung Hiraikotsu onto his back. The blade was already in his hand.
Kikyō's bow was already drawn.
They exchanged a single glance.
Then both of them sprinted toward the source of the blood.
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