The integration did not succeed, at least not in the way Tsubaki had anticipated.
She had underestimated that demon.
She also made a fatal mistake: she thought Kibutsuji Muzan's demon blood could help her suppress the demon sealed under the Tahoto.
She thought this should be feasible.
During the month she spent researching that demon blood, she discovered that the terrifying regenerative power it brought could be utilized by her.
As long as she maintained her self-awareness while possessing it.
She was even still able to use spiritual power.
Using spiritual power, combined with this strength, should have been enough to suppress the demon under the Tahoto.
But facts proved she thought too much.
With demon blood surging in her body, maintaining her state was nearly impossible.
At least she couldn't do it.
And with only the power of a "human-demon" derived from Kibutsuji Muzan, which was not true Demonic Qi, she was nothing but livestock before the demon under the Tahoto.
That was a true demon.
A powerful demon sealed for hundreds, nearly a thousand years.
And so, here.
The moment Tsubaki tried to lock down the demon's consciousness, she was directly countered.
Boom!
A muffled sound exploded from the entangled light and darkness.
Tsubaki's body flew backward, crashing into a pile of rubble.
She coughed up blood.
Dark red, not the bright red of living blood, but the dark color stained by demon blood.
"Heh... hehe..."
Tsubaki struggled to prop herself up, her eyes, already turned dark red, filled with unwillingness.
But her attention was quickly stolen by something else.
In the ruins before her, black mist churned.
That demon — it hadn't been devoured by her.
Instead, it had stolen a portion of the demon blood's power from her body, combined with the power of its original form released after being unsealed, and was now re-condensing its form.
The black mist contracted and compacted.
A silhouette began to emerge.
Very tall.
Nine feet tall.
Humanoid, but not human.
Its skin was deep red, like lava.
Long limbs, six fingers on each hand, each twice as long as a normal person's, with claws at the tips gleaming with black light.
No hair on its head; on the bald skull, two deep eye sockets, with dark red light spilling out.
The mouth split from left ear to right ear, rows of teeth interlocking, no lips, only everted dark muscles.
It wore no clothes.
On its deep red body, a huge hole could be seen in the chest — a wound left from when it was sealed centuries ago, still unhealed.
Inside the hole, dark red flesh walls slowly squirmed, as if something was gestating inside.
This was the demon sealed under the Tahoto.
A demon that had devoured thousands of people in a whole town hundreds of years ago.
The crimson demon!
Kanbe Hikaru watched this scene, his expression beneath the demon mask not showing much surprise.
He even wanted to laugh.
Devouring the demon under the Tahoto.
In the stories Kanbe Hikaru had read before transmigrating, Tsubaki had indeed done something similar and succeeded, but back then, she had the Shikon Jewel in her hand.
The power of the Shikon Jewel was the key to truly suppressing the consciousness of any evil entity.
Without the Shikon Jewel, just relying on a priestess's spiritual power plus a few mouthfuls of demon blood, wanting to devour a centuries-old demon?
Dream on.
The "human-demon" created by Kibutsuji Muzan was not as powerful or useful as she thought!
Tsubaki used Muzan's "human-demon" blood to fuse with a "yokai-demon" — it was like using a cup of water to put out a forest fire, and the water smelled like gasoline.
Not only could she not suppress it, she only gave the opponent nourishment.
So at this moment, Kanbe Hikaru was not surprised at all.
So at this point.
He was truly not surprised.
While gloating, he only felt it was troublesome.
Because two powers had merged within this demon's body.
The Demonic Qi of the yokai-demon, plus the immortal regeneration of the human-demon.
It had become a strange, unclassifiable monster.
Neither fully demon, nor not a demon.
It stood in the center of the ruins, its grayish-white body looking particularly terrifying under the moonlight, and the hole in its chest seemed to have granulation tissue squirming.
Those two deep eye sockets turned slowly, sweeping across everyone present.
Then, it moved.
Not an attack.
It was — inhalation.
It opened that mouth split to its ears and took a deep breath.
The scent of demon blood remaining in the air — all of it was sucked into its body.
For it, this was truly pure nourishment!
Its body began to expand.
Under the crimson skin, muscles grew crazily.
The nine-foot height grew to one zhang in a few breaths, and the squirming speed of the hole in the chest cavity accelerated.
New tissue began to grow on the dark red flesh walls.
It was absorbing demon blood, absorbing all power related to "demon."
Turning it to its own use.
"This is..."
Momiji's voice trembled.
She had seen the notes where her master described this demon.
Now, although it had experienced centuries of sealing and its state seemed far from its peak, it was still terrifying.
Very terrifying and powerful.
"Cannot let it continue absorbing."
Kikyo's voice was cold as frost.
She had already drawn her bow.
Three arrows were held between her fingers, spiritual power condensing at the arrowheads — not the sealing and purification used against low-level demons before, but pure, maximum-output Sacred Arrows.
To deal with a yokai-demon of this level, ordinary techniques wouldn't work.
What was needed was absolute destructive power.
Shatter it before it continued to expand.
Then, before the fragments could reorganize, shatter it repeatedly until its power was exhausted.
The string rang.
Three arrows shot out together.
White light tore through the night sky, aiming straight for the demon's head, the chest cavity hole, and the knee joint — three locations, three vital points that had to be hit simultaneously to minimize its mobility.
It hit.
White light exploded.
The grayish-white body was pierced by all three arrows simultaneously; the skull shattered, the chest cavity hole was blasted into an even larger crater by spiritual power, and the left knee was blown off at the root.
The demon's upper body tilted backward, flesh fragments splashing.
But —
It didn't fall.
At the broken knee, new bone and muscle grew back in the blink of an eye.
The shattered skull completed reorganization before the flesh fragments hit the ground, and that mouth split to the ears grinned again.
The aftermath of spiritual power at the chest cavity hole was swallowed by the dark red flesh walls, not even finishing purification before being assimilated.
The purification effect of the spiritual power only acted halfway.
The Demonic Qi part was purified; those demon powers originating from the Turbid Qi of heaven and earth were indeed weakened, suppressed, and dispersed by the spiritual power of the Sacred Arrows.
But the regeneration didn't stop.
That twisted life force from Muzan's blood was completely unaffected by spiritual power, crazily filling the blank area after the Demonic Qi was purified, growing back the destroyed tissue.
Spiritual power shattered its Demonic Qi.
The human-demon's regeneration filled it back up.
Then the Demonic Qi re-condensed, covering the regenerated body.
Infinite loop.
"As expected." Kikyo's brows furrowed slightly.
She saw it.
Spiritual power was not completely ineffective — it was indeed consuming this demon's Demonic Qi, and every arrow could weaken its yokai part.
But that regenerative power would fill the body back up, and as long as the body was there, the Demonic Qi would re-condense.
To truly kill it, ordinary means were already impossible.
Whether it was purification by spiritual power, or anything else.
Because the human and demon aspects complemented each other, forming a cycle.
But now was not the time to think.
Because the demon had moved.
The one-zhang tall, towering crimson body took a step, and the ground cracked under its feet.
The six-fingered claws swept across.
Its speed wasn't fast, at least nowhere near Kidomaru's.
But its power was staggering; the sense of oppression it exuded was even close to that of Kidomaru, that Shinra demon who specialized in speed.
The air current kicked up by that claw blew away all the surrounding rubble, pressing forward like an invisible wall.
However, it was only for that instant.
Kanbe Hikaru had already blocked its path.
In a tacit cooperation that required no words, Muramasa was unsheathed, and a Bone Spike burst through the armor of his left arm as he performed a cross-block.
Clang!
The sound of metal clashing rang out as bone collided with claw.
Kanbe Hikaru's body slid back three steps, his feet plowing two furrows into the earth.
"Heavy."
He spat out a single word.
This demon's raw strength was not inferior to Kidomaru's. Although its speed was much slower, every strike felt like being hit by a small mountain.
But—
[Thunder Muscle] activated.
Purple electrical arcs erupted from Kanbe Hikaru's entire body, conducting along the Bone Spike and onto that grayish-white sharp claw.
Zzzzt—!
Thunder exploded on the demon's arm.
The crimson skin of the demon was scorched by the arcs, and its muscle fibers snapped.
It worked.
Thunder was physical destruction, not spiritual power.
Although regeneration was still ongoing, the speed was noticeably slower—the continuous burning of the thunder was interfering with the regeneration process.
"Kikyo!"
The bowstring hummed, and destruction followed.
The fourth arrow.
This arrow was not aimed at the demon's body.
Instead, it was shot toward the ground.
The moment the arrow hit the ground, spiritual power exploded, transforming into a Barrier with a radius of five zhang—a pale blue net of light immediately rose from the earth, entangling the demon's legs.
Spiritual power couldn't kill it, but it could hold it back.
Even if only for a few seconds.
Kanbe Hikaru seized those few seconds.
[Bone Soul Transformation] fully unleashed.
White Bone Spikes surged frantically from the ground beneath, piercing through the demon's calves, thighs, waist, and abdomen, pinning it to the spot.
The Bone Spikes were constantly being pushed out and snapped by its regenerative power, but new Bone Spikes immediately drilled out from deeper underground to replace them.
Kikyo's Barrier restraint combined with Kanbe Hikaru's Bone Spike fixation.
One locked its movements from the outside, while the other pinned its body from the inside.
Two completely different methods achieved a perfect cooperative effect at the same moment.
The demon let out a furious roar.
It struggled and tore, its mouth—which split all the way to its ears—spraying out a turbid black mist.
But it was pinned in place.
Temporarily.
"Physical damage is effective against it."
Kanbe Hikaru quickly analyzed during a gap in the battle: "Spiritual power can only weaken its Demonic Aura layer, but it can't suppress the regeneration."
"We need to find another way," Kikyo's voice came from behind him.
She notched another arrow but did not fire it immediately.
She simply watched the demon with those pitch-black eyes.
"Its regeneration doesn't come from demonic power."
Kikyo said, "It is as you said before; it originates from the blood of that so-called Progenitor of Demons."
Kanbe Hikaru gripped Muramasa tightly.
Having read the original work thoroughly, he was naturally well aware of Kibutsuji Muzan's curse.
And the only weakness of that curse—
He looked up toward the eastern horizon.
Darkness.
Thick layers of clouds obscured everything.
But at the edge of those clouds, there was a faint, almost invisible grayish-white tint.
That was—the first light before dawn.
In less than an hour...
...the sun would rise.
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