Muramasa's awakening was set aside for now.
The crack along the blade had stopped spreading, yet that hairline mark, thin as a strand of hair, was a constant reminder to Kobe Hikaru that he needed better material—that he needed Totosai.
The tanuki spirit's information network had already spread wide, and word was on its way.
There was no rushing it.
So he would use this stretch of time to think clearly about something else.
The road ahead—how was he to walk it?
This was the question Kobe Hikaru had turned over in his mind ever since driving off Tsuchigumo.
As said before.
He had now completed the Nine Mutations.
This was the third tier of Qualitative Transformation. He had already walked a long way past the limit of the Six Mutations of Corporeal Transformation, yet from the ultimate twelve-mutation, from Kobe Hikaru's true goal—achieving perfect quality—there still remained three steps.
Ten Mutations, Eleven Mutations, Twelve Mutations.
He knew how to get there; he knew that all he had to do was keep stacking.
The mutations after Qualitative Transformation were, in essence, the same as those of Corporeal Transformation—stuffing things into a pocket that already existed.
At most the pocket itself changed too, growing larger, more elastic, able to hold far more in both quality and quantity than before.
The Transformation of the Spirit-Chasing Archer, the Thunder-Sinew Razor-Body, the Bone Soul Transformation—these three core mutations, each once pushed to overload, had gained fresh room to grow after the transmutation.
The Spear-Waist Mutation, the Sharp-Eye Mutation, and the Blood Mutation were rising too, if slowly.
By the same logic, so long as the six pockets kept taking more, reaching the Ten Mutations was not hard, and even the Eleven and Twelve Mutations were a path he could follow.
But knowing how to walk it and actually walking it were, in truth, two different things.
Each mutation's fill and boost had to have its own corresponding channel—like bone and soul, like thunder-sinew and razor-body, and above all, like the chasing of spirits and the archer.
For now Kobe Hikaru could not think of how he was to reach that step.
He also had a feeling that his next mutations could not stay confined to the outer body, but had to begin reaching inward.
The inner… the five organs and six viscera.
And even the soul itself.
Only by achieving every manner of mutation could he truly rise from death—not linger half-alive.
Still, if he could not think of it now, there was no hurry.
So long as the things he conquered were many enough and complete enough, he would always find the answer.
So long as there were more full-favourability artifacts, more mutations stacked, more accumulation of quantity, success was certain to come.
And what that required was, without a doubt…
"Artifacts."
If he could find more of them—objects of powerful ability—and fuse their powers into himself, continuing and accumulating without end, then to find such a way, even to achieve it, would not take long at all.
This too was a path with clear tracks to follow, one easily walked through.
This world was hardly short of famed weapons.
After all, in Kobe Hikaru's understanding this was a so-called blended world, with legendary weapons from every system scattered across this land.
Take, for instance, the relics of Toga, the greatest yokai of the Western Lands, first among the Western Provinces—the three yokai blades symbolizing heaven, man, and earth: Tenseiga, Tessaiga, and Sounga.
Or take Nurarihyon—Nura Nurarihyon, who would one day become master of the demons and spirits—and the blade he wielded, capable of slaying Hagoromo-Gitsune and inflicting wounds that could never be healed. In this blended world it was, beyond all doubt, an edge that could carve apart even phenomena themselves for good: Mimikirimaru, the anti-Devil blade forged by a great onmyoji.
And then there were all manner of yokai blades, evil swords, treasures, and divine artifacts.
As well as… weapons that seemed to be ordinary tools, yet were rather special.
Like the Sun Blade.
When that name came to him, Kobe Hikaru's train of thought turned.
He recalled the matter Tsuchigumo had mentioned before leaving.
That fellow it had spoken of.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
The progenitor of the Demons.
A being that could return even after Tsuchigumo had struck it dead seventeen times.
In the original settings of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, only two weapons could kill the Demons Muzan created—sunlight, and the Sun Blade.
But those two were, in truth, the same thing.
The Sun Blade was forged from Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand and Scarlet Crimson Ore, ores that lay exposed to sunlight all year round, drinking in vast amounts of the sun's power.
Swords made from such material could bind the properties of sunlight to their edge, and sever a Demon's immortality.
If he were to deal with Muzan one day—
the Sun Blade, or the material for the Sun Blade, was something he had to get his hands on.
Though Kaede Village had been peaceful of late, with no yokai and no evil Demons coming to attack, Kobe Hikaru had a feeling they would surely face Muzan again someday.
After all, as things stood, that fellow was not particularly strong—could never match an opponent of the great yokai class—but he excelled at lying low, and was even now lurking within the hundred demons of Kyoto, most likely with his own eye fixed on the Shikon Jewel as well.
And if Kobe Hikaru could fuse the Sun Blade's power into himself as well… perhaps he might even master a mutation tied to the sun.
One more mutation gained by that means.
It was along this line of thinking that Kobe Hikaru issued a new order to the twenty-three Demons under his command.
He directed them to investigate implements of every kind, and… the Demons and the Demon Slayer Corps.
As the organization that had always pursued Kibutsuji Muzan, bent on destroying him, the Demon Slayer Corps also held the raw material for the Sun Blade.
But the report that came hard on the heels of that order took Kobe Hikaru by surprise.
—The Demon Slayer Corps of this age, or rather the being who forged the Sun Blades for them, was very likely connected to Totosai.
Even that so-called Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand and Scarlet Crimson Ore very likely came from Totosai himself.
"Totosai again."
Kobe Hikaru suddenly felt that this world was vast, yet in some ways very small.
Every thread pointed in the same direction.
Find Totosai, and he could Recast Muramasa.
Find Totosai, and he could reach Tessaiga.
Find Totosai, and he could follow the vine to its melon and track down the Sun Blade.
The only problem was finding Totosai.
But put another way, he need only complete this one step to strike three birds with a single stone.
And so, here.
Once more the curtain of night fell.
Kobe Hikaru drew Muramasa in and, in the same motion, finished the day's routine conquest of Sakasagami no Yura and the Dokuko's reverse scale.
[Sakasagami no Yura: Favourability 56]
[Dokuko's reverse scale: Favourability 54]
Without Muramasa's aid, the progress had slowed again.
Still, it was rising in the end.
And there was more besides.
[Well: Favourability 100 (fusable ability—a surge of water from one gulp)]
[Boulder: Favourability 100 (fusable ability—Immovable, able to remain forever unmoving, just like a stone)]
[Pine Tree: Favourability 100 (fusable ability—Rooting, able to drive your legs into the ground, and then nothing after that)]
[…]
[Shikon Jewel: Favourability 84]
[Goshinboku: Favourability 7]
[Kanto Land: Favourability 2]
Sure enough, ordinary things gave almost no worthwhile gift even once conquered, and Kobe Hikaru would certainly not choose to fuse with these.
Still, useful or useless, he had run through them all.
After all, in day-to-day matters they could all lend him some strength.
It was then.
In that hour when the night was deep and all was still.
The world shuddered, all at once, for a single instant.
It was no earthquake—for this tremor came down from the heavens and sank into the earth.
This was yokai aura!
Kobe Hikaru's eyes snapped up—he had sensed it.
A vast, boundless yokai aura, bearing down from far beyond the village.
His blood-mist perception caught the anomaly in that very first moment.
His body moved faster than his mind—he sprang up from beneath the pine, the oni mask forming in his hand, his scarlet Demon pupils contracting sharply.
Again?
Another great yokai?
Tsuchigumo again?
But the next second, he dismissed his first reaction.
No.
This yokai aura was nothing like Tsuchigumo's.
When Tsuchigumo had descended from the sky, its yokai aura was like landslides and tidal waves, savage and brutal—it had thrown even the sky into chaos, roiling the murky clouds for a hundred li around.
But the yokai aura before him now was quiet.
Quiet to the utmost, pure to the extreme.
No pressure, no violence, not even the faintest spread of hostility.
It simply existed.
Like a mountain standing there—unmoving, unshaking, yet you knew it was taller than you, heavier than you, a hundred times more ancient than you.
For miles around the air did not grow heavier, and the color of the sky did not change.
Only every insect's chirp had ceased.
The birds fell silent.
Even the spirit-light along the edge of the barrier rippled with the faintest tremor… waves stirred by the very 'quality' of that yokai aura.
This was something innate.
Not at all the coalescing of turbid air built up after birth—more like a power carried in the bloodline itself, carved into the bones from the very moment of birth.
This was a so-called… great yokai by nature.
A being sprung from high lineage.
Kobe Hikaru's hand pressed against Muramasa's hilt.
He recognized this sensation.
Among all the information he had known before crossing over, the great yokai in this world, this age, who could give him this sense of "born this way" could be counted on his fingers.
And the one that best matched the aura before him now—
"Sesshomaru."
The name forced its way out of his throat, heavy with a gravity he could not suppress.
The dog-yokai clan of the Western Provinces, the eldest son of Toga.
A great yokai by birth.
Just then, the paper door of the main hall slid open.
Kikyo stepped out.
White robe and red hakama, her longbow already gripped in hand.
Her jet-black hair was unbound, spilling over her shoulders, and the loose strands at her brow she tucked behind her ear with her fingers, revealing that cool, delicate face.
Her pitch-black eyes looked straight toward the world beyond the village.
She felt it too.
"A great yokai."
Kikyo spoke three words.
Her voice was calm, but the fingers gripping the bow tightened a notch.
Their gazes met in midair.
Here it came again.
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