Chapter 118: A Countered Priestess
The fusion failed—or at least, it had not succeeded in the way Tsubaki anticipated.
She had underestimated the demon.
And in doing so, she had made a fatal mistake. She had believed that the blood of Kibutsuji Muzan, the Progenitor of Demons, would grant her the power to suppress the ancient evil sealed beneath the pagoda.
It had seemed so feasible. During the month she'd spent researching that vile substance, she discovered that its terrifying regenerative properties were something she could potentially harness, provided she could maintain her own self-awareness.
Remarkably, she could even still channel her spiritual power while the demon blood coursed through her. With her sacred abilities augmented by this unholy strength, she should have been more than capable of subjugating the demon of the Tahoto.
But the facts proved she had been far too arrogant.
With the demonic blood surging through her veins, maintaining her state of equilibrium was a near-impossible task. At least, it was for her. And with only the power of a "human-demon"—a mere derivative of Muzan's lineage, lacking true Yao Qi—she was nothing more than livestock before the entity sealed beneath the pagoda.
That was a true demon. A great and powerful demon, sealed away for hundreds, nearly a thousand, years.
And so, it came to this.
The very instant Tsubaki attempted to lock down the demon's consciousness, she was violently countered.
A muffled explosion erupted from the chaotic entanglement of light and darkness. Tsubaki's body was flung backward like a broken doll, crashing hard into a pile of shattered rubble.
She coughed, a thick spray of blood splattering across the stones. It wasn't the bright crimson of the living, but a dark, corrupted red, stained by the demon blood she had so foolishly embraced.
"Heh… hehe…"
Tsubaki struggled to prop herself up, her eyes—now a smoldering dark red—burning with a furious, unwilling resentment. But her attention was swiftly stolen by a new development.
In the heart of the ruins before her, a black mist churned and roiled.
The demon—it hadn't been devoured by her at all. Instead, it had siphoned a portion of the demon blood's power from her own body, combining it with the original power it possessed now that its seal was broken. It was re-condensing its form.
The black mist contracted, growing denser and more compact until a silhouette began to emerge from within.
It was immense.
Easily nine feet tall, it was humanoid in shape, but utterly inhuman. Its skin was a deep, cracked crimson, like cooling magma. Its limbs were long and spindly, and its hands bore six fingers apiece, each twice the length of a normal man's and tipped with claws that gleamed with a malevolent black light.
Its head was completely bald, and from the two deep, empty sockets in its skull, a dark red light spilled forth like embers in a forge. Its mouth was a horrifying gash that split its face from ear to ear, revealing rows of interlocking fangs. It had no lips, only everted, dark muscle tissue.
It wore no clothes. A massive, gaping hole could be seen in its chest—a wound left from when it was sealed centuries ago, still unhealed. Within the cavity, dark red walls of flesh squirmed slowly, as if gestating something new within its core.
This was the demon sealed under the Tahoto. A monster that had devoured the people of an entire town hundreds of years ago.
The Crimson Demon.
Hikaru watched this scene unfold, his expression unreadable beneath the Oni mask. There was no surprise, no shock.
He almost wanted to laugh.
Devour the demon under the Tahoto? In the stories Hikaru had read before his transmigration, Tsubaki had indeed attempted something similar and succeeded. But in that version of events, she had possessed the Shikon Jewel. The sacred power of the jewel was the key to truly suppressing the consciousness of any evil entity.
Without the Shikon Jewel, relying on nothing but a priestess's spiritual power and a few mouthfuls of demon blood to devour a centuries-old demon?
She must have been dreaming.
The "human-demon" hybrid created by Kibutsuji Muzan's blood was not nearly as powerful or useful as she had imagined. For Tsubaki to use Muzan's blood to fuse with a true "yokai-demon" was like trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of water that reeked of gasoline.
Not only could she not suppress it, she had only provided her opponent with nourishment.
So, at this moment, Hikaru wasn't surprised in the slightest. He was only annoyed. This had just become far more troublesome.
Two distinct powers had now merged within this single monstrous body: the raw Yao Qi of a yokai, and the immortal regeneration of a human-demon. It had become a strange, unclassifiable creature—neither fully demon, nor not a demon.
It stood in the center of the ruins, its towering crimson body looking particularly terrifying under the moonlight. The hole in its chest seemed to be squirming with greater urgency now, as if new tissue was beginning to granulate.
Those two deep, burning eye sockets turned slowly, sweeping over everyone present.
Then, it moved.
It wasn't an attack. It was an inhalation.
It opened that ghastly mouth that split its face and took a deep, shuddering breath. The lingering scent of demon blood in the air—all of it was sucked into its body like a vortex.
For this creature, it was the purest form of sustenance.
Its body began to expand. Beneath the crimson skin, muscles grew at a crazed, visible rate. Its nine-foot frame swelled to over ten feet in a matter of breaths, and the squirming within its chest cavity accelerated. New tissue began to weave itself across the dark red walls of flesh.
It was absorbing the demon blood, absorbing all power related to the concept of "demon," and turning it to its own use.
"This is…" Momiji's voice trembled. She had seen the notes her master had left describing this very demon. Even after centuries of being sealed, its power was still terrifying.
Utterly, terrifyingly powerful.
"We cannot let it continue absorbing power," Kikyo's voice was as cold as frost.
She had already drawn her bow. Three arrows were nocked between her fingers, spiritual power condensing at their tips. This was not the gentle light of sealing and purification she used against lesser demons, but pure, maximum-output Sacred Arrows designed for annihilation.
To deal with a yokai of this level, ordinary techniques were useless. What was needed was absolute destructive power. They had to shatter it before it could continue to grow, then shatter the fragments again and again until its power was completely exhausted.
The bowstring sang.
Three arrows shot out as one. Three streaks of white light tore through the night sky, aimed straight for the demon's head, the gaping hole in its chest, and its knee joint—three vital points that had to be struck simultaneously to cripple its mobility.
White light exploded.
The crimson body was pierced by all three arrows at once. The skull shattered, the chest cavity was blasted into an even larger crater by the spiritual power, and the left knee was blown clean off at the joint. The demon's upper body tilted back, sending fragments of flesh splashing into the darkness.
But it didn't fall.
At the broken knee, new bone and muscle grew back in the blink of an eye. The shattered skull had already completed its reorganization before the first pieces of flesh hit the ground, and that horrifying, ear-to-ear mouth grinned once more. The spiritual aftershock still burning in its chest was simply swallowed by the dark red walls of flesh, assimilated before it could even finish its purification.
The purifying effect of Kikyo's spiritual power had only worked halfway.
The Yao Qi, the demonic power originating from the turbid energies of heaven and earth, was indeed weakened, suppressed, and dispersed by the Sacred Arrows.
But the regeneration didn't stop.
That twisted life force, born from Muzan's blood, was completely unaffected by spiritual power. It crazily flooded the void left after the Yao Qi was purified, growing back the destroyed tissue in an instant.
Spiritual power shattered its demonic essence. The human-demon's regeneration filled it back up. Then, the Yao Qi re-condensed, blanketing the newly regenerated body.
It was an infinite loop.
'As I expected,' Kikyo's brows furrowed slightly.
She saw it clearly. Her spiritual power wasn't completely ineffective—it was indeed consuming the demon's Yao Qi. Every arrow could weaken its yokai aspect. But that accursed regenerative power would simply restore its physical form, and as long as the body remained, the Yao Qi would re-condense.
To truly kill it, ordinary means were no longer an option. Not purification, not anything else. The human and demon aspects complemented each other perfectly, forming a self-sustaining cycle.
But now was not the time for contemplation.
The demon had moved.
The ten-foot-tall, towering crimson body took a single step, and the ground cracked under its immense weight. The six-fingered claws swept across in a brutal arc.
Its speed wasn't exceptional, nowhere near that of a specialist like Kidomaru. But its power was staggering. The sheer sense of oppressive force it exuded was almost on par with the Shinra demon. The air current kicked up by that single swipe blew away the surrounding rubble, pressing forward like an invisible wall.
However, it only advanced for an instant.
Hikaru had already blocked its path. In a display of tacit cooperation that required no words, Muramasa was unsheathed as a sharp Bone Spike burst through the armor of his left arm, allowing him to form a cross-block.
The shriek of metal on bone rang out as the spike intercepted the claw.
Hikaru's body slid back three steps, his feet plowing two deep furrows into the earth.
"Heavy," he spat out a single word.
This demon's raw strength was easily on par with Kidomaru's. Though its speed was much slower, every strike felt like being hit by a small mountain.
[Thunder Muscle] activated.
Purple arcs of electricity erupted from Hikaru's entire body, conducting along the Bone Spike and onto the demon's sharp claws.
Thunder exploded across the demon's arm. The crimson skin was scorched by the violent arcs, and its muscle fibers audibly snapped.
It worked.
Thunder was a form of physical destruction, not spiritual power. Though the regeneration was still ongoing, its speed was noticeably slower—the continuous burning of the lightning was interfering with the process.
"Kikyo!"
The bowstring hummed, and destruction followed.
The fourth arrow.
This arrow was not aimed at the demon's body. Instead, it shot straight toward the ground at its feet. The moment the arrow struck, spiritual power exploded, transforming into a Barrier with a fifteen-foot radius. 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.
Hikaru seized those precious few seconds.
[Bone Soul Transformation] was unleashed to its fullest extent.
White Bone Spikes surged frantically from the ground, piercing through the demon's calves, thighs, waist, and abdomen, pinning it to the spot. The spikes were constantly being pushed out and snapped by its regenerative power, but new ones immediately drilled out from deeper underground to take their place.
Kikyo's Barrier restrained it from the outside, while Hikaru's Bone Spikes pinned its body from the inside. Two completely different methods achieved a perfect cooperative effect at the exact same moment.
The demon let out a furious, guttural roar. It struggled and tore at its bonds, its lipless mouth spraying a turbid black mist, but it was pinned in place.
Temporarily.
"Physical damage is effective against it," Hikaru quickly analyzed during the brief lull. "Spiritual power can only weaken its demonic aura, but it can't suppress the regeneration."
"We need to find another way," Kikyo's voice came from behind him. She had notched another arrow but did not fire it. She simply watched the struggling demon with her pitch-black eyes.
"Its regeneration doesn't come from its demonic power," Kikyo stated, her voice low and certain. "It is as you said before; it originates from the blood of that so-called Progenitor of Demons."
Hikaru gripped Muramasa tightly. Having read the original work, he was all too 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 still obscured the sky. But at the very edge of those clouds, there was a faint, almost imperceptible grayish-white tint.
That was the first light before dawn.
In less than an hour…
…the sun would rise.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]