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Chapter 154: A Rapid One-Versus-Four Sweep
"Hey, hey. Stop looking over there. Eyes on me."
Suyan clapped his hands loudly, instantly dragging the clones' attention away from Shizuka's casual display of violence. With a flick of his wrist, the chains binding the main body flared to life with Crimson Red fire once again.
"GAAAHHHH!!!"
The main body squirmed frantically, thrashing like an ant on a hot skillet. He desperately reached a scorched hand toward the clones. "Save… save me…"
"You bastard!" Sekido froze, his eyes widening in unadulterated fury.
Suyan's casual deflection of the lightning strike hadn't just shocked Tamayo; the four clones were equally stunned. The commotion Shizuka caused had momentarily distracted them, planting a devious idea in their minds: capture the blonde woman and use her as a hostage to force an exchange for their main body.
As demons, they had long since abandoned trivial human emotions, but they knew perfectly well that those exact emotions were humanity's greatest weakness. They hadn't expected Suyan to instantly see through their distraction and immediately resume torturing their core self, entirely shutting down their hostage plan.
Aizetsu stepped in front of the enraged Sekido, raising his Jumonji Yari to physically block his explosive counterpart from charging in blindly. The four clones—Urogi, Sekido, Aizetsu, and Karaku—exchanged rapid, calculating glances.
Though they were all splinters of Hantengu, they possessed distinct consciousnesses and desires. This was evident in the original timeline when Zohakuten failed to realize the main body had been killed until the exact moment he began to crumble.
Sekido's immediate instinct upon seeing his attack fail was to merge with the others to form the ultimate clone, Zohakuten. However, Urogi and Karaku felt differently. It was rare for them to be split and granted this brief taste of freedom; they weren't eager to merge back together so quickly.
Furthermore, they were intimately familiar with their main body's pathological cowardice. Despite being roasted by those terrifying flames, he was only screaming. He wasn't in any immediate mortal danger. They were used to his dramatic, cowardly displays.
Ultimately, it was the melancholic Aizetsu who bridged the gap. They would attack together. If their combined assault successfully rescued the main body, they could enjoy their freedom and play with their prey. If they failed to overwhelm him in a four-on-one assault, then they would have no choice but to merge into Zohakuten.
In a matter of seconds, the silent consensus was reached.
"Hehehe! Let's tear this place apart, then!" Urogi cackled. Beating his avian wings, he launched himself into the night sky.
Aizetsu leveled his cross-spear and charged straight at Suyan.
Karaku and Sekido exchanged a nod.
"Hmph!" Sekido slammed his Khakkhara into the ground with shattering force. Massive torrents of blue and red lightning erupted, tearing through the earth and surging toward Suyan like a pack of rabid serpents.
"Here it comes!" Karaku grinned, swinging his maple-leaf Uchiwa fan with immense strength.
A localized hurricane exploded outward. The gale-force winds intertwined perfectly with Sekido's lightning. Wind fed the lightning, and lightning supercharged the wind. The combined elemental storm transformed into a devastating, apocalyptic tidal wave of destruction, roaring directly at Suyan.
"Now you're putting in some effort," Suyan noted, his eyes narrowing slightly.
The raw destructive power of the combined wind and lightning was genuinely impressive. Defusing it was simple enough in theory—he could just hold up Hantengu's main body as a meat shield. However, his goal was absolute psychological domination. Dodging wasn't an option, either. If he backed down now, he would cede the initiative to the clones, and this elemental barrage wasn't a one-time use ability.
In a fraction of a second, an incredibly simple, highly efficient countermeasure flashed through his mind—a trick he remembered Gon using in the Heavens Arena against the top-wielding Nen user.
Focusing his aura into his leg, Suyan stomped the ground with earth-shattering force. The terrain instantly fractured and buckled. He jammed the toe of his shoe into the primary fault line and violently kicked upward.
A massive slab of earth, easily seven or eight square meters in size, was violently uprooted. With a powerful swing of his leg, he punted the colossal earthen shield directly into the path of the incoming storm.
"Eat dirt, both of you."
But Suyan wasn't done. The moment the dirt shield flew, he exploited the visual cover to launch his own counter-offensive.
"What?!"
Karaku watched the massive wall of earth flying toward him, his vision plunging into darkness. Is this guy really a breathing style swordsman?! he thought wildly. He had never imagined his attacks could be countered with such crude, overwhelming physical force.
He swung his fan frantically, sending blasts of wind to repel the incoming slab, but the sheer mass of the earth was too much to blow away entirely. Seeing the slab about to crush him, Karaku threw himself to the side, rolling desperately out of the way.
The earth slammed into the ground, exploding into a dense cloud of dust and debris.
Even as he picked himself up, Karaku still hadn't fully grasped the threat Suyan posed. He dusted himself off leisurely, waiting for the smoke to clear. When it finally settled, he found Suyan standing casually right in front of him.
And in Suyan's hand was the Khakkhara staff that belonged to Sekido.
"When did you—?"
Karaku's eyes darted frantically, taking in the battlefield in a split second. A short distance away, the headless bodies of Aizetsu and Sekido were slumped on the ground, still attempting to regenerate. Plunging out of the sky was Urogi, with Aizetsu's cross-spear shoved entirely through his skull.
I'm… the only one left? The overwhelming influx of information caused Karaku's brain to short-circuit for a fatal moment.
Instead of striking immediately, Suyan was busy inspecting the stolen Khakkhara. A sudden, whimsical idea had popped into his head. Among the four emotion clones, Urogi used his voice, but the other three channeled their Blood Demon Arts through unique, conjured weapons. Nezuko had once proven that these weapons could be turned against their owners when she stole Karaku's fan and blasted him away.
But would the weapons vanish if separated from the clones for too long? The original story hadn't made that clear.
"This is metal, right? Which means…" Suyan flicked the staff with his index finger. The crisp ring of metal echoed in the quiet clearing.
His curiosity peaked. He decisively channeled his Nen into the staff. Under the influence of his 'Metal Frenzy' ability, the staff began to warp and reshape, rapidly flattening and elongating into the sleek form of a longsword.
The next second, the air crackled. A blade wreathed in violent lightning flashed.
Karaku felt a sudden, searing heat across his neck. His vision spun wildly, and a familiar, headless body entered his field of view.
Is that… my body? So fast! The eyes on Karaku's airborne head widened to comical proportions, a final gasp of astonishment escaping his lips before he hit the dirt. The distinct smell of ozone and charred flesh drifted through the air.
"It actually works?"
Suyan didn't even spare a glance for the decapitated demon. His attention was entirely focused on his new toy. He swung the lightning-wreathed blade through the empty air a few times, sending arcs of electricity dancing off the steel. He was having the time of his life.
Sure, the anime community might scoff at an old monk's staff that shoots lightning. But reforge that exact same power into a crackling, lightning-infused katana?
Nobody could resist that level of cool.
Looking at the lightning blade in his hand, Suyan's anticipation for harvesting Hantengu's Blood Demon Arts reached a fever pitch.
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