Akeno had thought about it at length. With chakra, Reibi, and his army of clones dressed like assassins, it was unthinkable that none of this information would eventually reach the great powers of this world.
Just during his confrontation with the demonic cultivators—when Kaede, Maiko, Chikara, and the others had been kidnapped—he knew that some of them must have survived and hurried back to report what had happened to their masters.
To conceal all of this, only one solution remained: create a façade.A figure lurking in the shadows. A masked man who would clearly separate the simple cultivating disciple… from the feared leader of a demonic army.
…
"Young Mistress, we should reach Hope City soon. We can rest there before continuing on to Glory City," said a member of the Liu clan in a voice heavy with exhaustion.
The surviving members of the Liu clan squad were all injured and utterly worn out. With Liu Mei at the head of the group, they were finally returning to human territory after more than four months of missions in beastman lands.
Half of their members had been killed, and the only thing they had retrieved was an unknown book. Their mental states were far from stable.
Suddenly, Liu Mei stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening in shock."Get ready! Weapons out!"
She couldn't see anything, but she felt a kind of Qi approaching—violently aggressive, utterly insane. Her entire body tensed to its limits.
It felt like standing before a feral beast, completely defenseless.
Drawing their swords and forming a tight circle, each of them assumed a combat stance. They didn't know what was approaching, but they could feel the repulsive energy radiating from it.
Then the energy stopped—about a hundred meters away.
"Young Mistress, we'll hold it back," whispered the man beside Liu Mei, his voice strained. "We're close to Hope City. If you reach the city, you'll be safe."
Clenching her sword in frustration, Liu Mei grit her teeth and refused."I won't abandon any more members of this squad!"
Her eyes were red with tension.
In the distance, a black-clad silhouette advanced step by step toward them, a mask concealing its entire face.
This was the end. None of them expected to survive an encounter with him.
"Why does fate torment us so relentlessly…?" Liu Mei murmured weakly.If only they weren't injured, they might have had a chance to survive this monster.
But just as the tension rose exponentially, the dark-clad man stopped fifty meters away—an absurdly short distance for cultivators like them.
With a sword in each hand, the man spoke in a deep, powerful voice."It seems you were followed."
Without waiting for a response, he continued walking calmly toward them.
"What—?" Liu Mei didn't understand what he meant until she heard the sound of wings beating behind her.
Turning around, she and her group saw around twenty winged beastmen landing on the tree branches. It was a full squad of crow-like humanoid beastmen, black feathers covering their bodies. Their ability to fly even before reaching the Rebirth stage made them ideal scouts and hunters.
"How…?" The Liu clan members were completely surrounded.
Tears welled in Liu Mei's eyes as she saw no path to survival."Why… why is this happening?"
Even the other Liu clan members began to lose the strength to lift their swords. Despair, their wounds, and the loss of their comrades weighed heavily on them, preventing them from drawing upon their last reserves of strength.
"This is the end…"
But as the dark man passed beside them, he didn't spare them a single glance. He stepped forward, positioning himself between them and the beastmen.
"Run," he said calmly, almost arrogantly."If you keep going straight, you'll reach Hope City. Once there, you should be safe."
His words struck them like the voice of an angel.
Snapped back to reality, Liu Mei didn't need to hear anything else. The group summoned their last strength and fled without looking back.
She didn't understand what was happening, who that man was, or why he was helping them—but nothing mattered more than survival.
"No one leaves here alive!" shouted a beastman as he lunged toward the fleeing Liu clan members.
Passing by the dark man, he relied on his natural speed and the strength of a sixth-level cultivator to catch up and slaughter them quickly.
But just as the crow reached the fleeing group, his body was cleanly split in two—cut at the waist by a flawless horizontal slash.
"I believe I made my position clear," the man said coldly."No one passes."
As Liu Mei's group fled the area as fast as they could, Akeno was left alone facing the remaining beastmen.
"Leave these lands. This is not your Empire."
He had come because he had sensed the malicious emotions emanating from the crows. He didn't want a battle near Hope City that could jeopardize his plans and ruin his peaceful life.
Focusing his mind on Reibi's seal, he entered his inner world and saw the tailless demon behind massive bars, gesturing on the ground.
"Still not cooperative?" Akeno asked without much conviction.For two months, he had desperately tried to build a friendly bond with Reibi in order to become a perfect Jinchūriki.
At first, the beast had violently attacked the barrier nonstop, but now a faint intelligence seemed to be awakening, its savage behavior gradually subsiding.
Receiving no response, Akeno shook his head and gave up, refocusing on the enemies before him.
Drawing as much dark chakra as possible, he compressed the energy into his legs and swords.
All of his enemies were at the sixth level—one level above his own—but with chakra, what was there to fear? He had already fought a master at the Rebirth stage and survived.
Pushing off the ground, he charged forward in a swift leap. His body made no sound, relying solely on chakra to fight.
The crows rushed in, using their legs as weapons and their wings to boost their speed.
Akeno plunged into the heart of the group, so fast that the crows only had time to sense his presence. Wings were severed, torsos pierced, and shrill screams rang out.
Shocked by their opponent's speed, the crows could only retreat."Fall back! Fall back!"
Each time they tried to escape by gaining altitude, a black blade pierced a wing. They fell. Akeno finished them off.
Dark chakra swirled around his body, crackling through his muscles, creating the illusion of a true demon.
Surrounded by ten crows, he easily blocked their strikes with the speed and strength granted by chakra.
"What terrifying power," Akeno thought.As long as he didn't use Reibi's chakra for too long, his mind remained perfectly stable. And even without using Qi—despite his body only reaching the Organ Fortification stage—the power he displayed far surpassed the Muscle Purification level.
Moreover, Reibi absorbed the enemies' emotions—anger, fear, pain, hatred—to restore part of the chakra spent.
Then, as one crow managed to gain enough momentum to launch a lightning-fast attack, Akeno simply raised his arm to block its Qi-coated talons.
A deep gash was carved into his arm.
Sensing hope at last, the crows realized the fight might not be so hopeless."Again!"
Disappearing once more into the trees, the crow tried to build momentum while the others kept Akeno occupied.
"You think that attack will work a second time?" Akeno said in a deep, mocking voice.
He displayed his arm to the others. They watched in horror as the flesh regenerated beneath the black energy.
"That's impossible!""How can he heal so fast?!"
Drawing back his arm, Akeno fixed his gaze on the enemy who had retreated and smiled.
With a confident, powerful motion, he threw his sword. The blade pierced through a tree trunk and lodged itself in the enemy's throat, killing him instantly.
Now holding only one sword, he charged the remaining crows, who were beginning to make mistakes under the weight of panic.
Throwing his final blade, he pinned a crow attempting to flee through the sky to a tree six meters above the ground.
"When it comes to throwing weapons… ninja training really is unmatched."
Akeno straightened up, his hands empty.
"No one leaves."
The atmosphere shifted. The chakra in his abdomen began to whirl violently.
Akeno raised his right hand, and a sphere began to form. Energy spun at a frenzied speed, producing a perfectly shaped sphere of pitch-black darkness.
His first true Rasengan.
His training over the past two months—made possible through the use of clones—had finally borne fruit.
The remaining crows were utterly terrified by the energy forming in his hand."What is that technique?!"
Akeno smiled behind his mask.
"Dark Rasengan."