Chapter 301: Orochimaru Milks the Will of the Ninja World
And yet,
when he heard the words "fated to be," Muzan still couldn't help but protest: "Fate? That kind of thing can't possibly exist."
Orochimaru's tone was firm. "Fate has always existed."
"A thousand years, and not a single trace of a flower even common doctors would know."
"A mere medicine-induced transformation turned you into a demon—then why was your clan cursed? Why was the only way to break the curse seemingly embedded into everyone's minds, compelling them to kill you in order to lift it and form the Demon Slayer Corps?"
"And why did the Sun Breathing technique appear right after your transformation?"
"Even if Yoriichi had Sun Breathing, he was still just a human. If he died of old age, you would have been free to roam the world."
"But coincidentally, Yoriichi had the Transparent World, could see the lungs and blood vessels of others, had a resonating mark, and trained what should have been a weak Demon Slayer Corps into an organization strong enough to challenge demons for centuries?"
"I'm just an outsider listening to your simplified version, and even I can tell something's off. Are you saying you, who lived through it for a thousand years, never noticed?"
He hadn't believed in fate either—
Not until that godlike game merchant said it himself, and then showed them the evidence.
At that point, all arguments became meaningless.
"It's because… I, the Demon Slayer Corps…"
Muzan took a deep breath.
He had no explanation.
Even though he tried to deny the concept of fate, after Orochimaru calmly listed every event in Demon Slayer history,
He couldn't help but question it.
"Could it really all be coincidence?"
If Orochimaru was right, then Yoriichi Tsugikuni had been a product of fate—created to eliminate a flawed being like himself.
Muzan's eyes lost focus.
Even though he had escaped fate's pursuit by hiding in the shadows until Yoriichi died of old age,
That man still passed down the knowledge of how to kill him.
The weak Demon Slayer Corps—
Continuously producing demon hunters. By logic, even with the most basic search, centuries should have been enough to find their hideout.
Yet despite being the strongest being in the Demon Slayer world, with the Twelve Kizuki under his command, Muzan never found them.
So was it, as Orochimaru said—
that fate had always intended to see him destroyed?
A strange wave of frustration and rage surged in Muzan's chest.
His entire body began to convulse violently, flesh twisting and mutating like ocean waves.
"No… it shouldn't be like this!"
"If fate controls everything, then what's the point of my existence?!"
Muzan's raspy voice came from a grotesquely expanding mass of flesh.
His greatest fear had always been death.
But if even his purpose was nothing more than a scripted puppet show…
Then what difference was there between that and death?
Perhaps it was the memory of Yoriichi…
Or Orochimaru—stronger than him—speaking with absolute certainty of his inevitable doom…
Or maybe it was the endless new developments brought by the Reincarnation Game into the Demon Slayer world…
Whatever it was,
Muzan's emotions had become chaotic and unstable.
"There's no such thing as a life that must have meaning."
Orochimaru's calm voice reached Muzan's ears.
It was low and smooth, with a magnetic power that compelled belief.
"But as long as you keep living, there's always a chance to break fate."
"Just like when you accepted the game's invitation, and appeared in Grand Forest."
"Just like how I happened to encounter you."
Orochimaru waved his necromancer's staff.
Thick death energy poured into Muzan's mutating flesh, absorbing the surging dark power and stabilizing the body.
"Come. Become one of my subordinates."
"If you're unwilling to be the wind that merely turns someone else's windmill, then surpass the windmill and seize your own fate."
In his dazed state,
Muzan's physical form had nearly regressed into a fetus.
But Orochimaru reached into the mass of flesh and yanked out his true core self.
Muzan looked up,
Staring into those cold, golden serpent eyes—
listening to someone speak as if shattering fate was no big deal.
He was overwhelmed by defeat…
And envy.
Despite being the Demon King for a thousand years, he now felt inadequate—less than this man.
Watching from afar, Fang Yi showed a look of surprise and muttered:
"Orochimaru… is he trying to extend his reach into the Demon Slayer world? That's some frightening ambition."
Currently, the Fire Empire was locked down by an alliance of the Four Nations.
They couldn't expand any further—and were at risk of being destroyed.
The ninja world had run out of answers.
Fang Yi thought Orochimaru would abandon the Fire Empire like he once had the Sound Village,
and go into hiding to form another small-scale faction.
He hadn't expected Orochimaru to set his sights on another world.
First, he tried making contact with the Straw Hat Pirates from the One Piece world, but they proved incompatible.
Now he'd encountered Muzan Kibutsuji from the Demon Slayer world.
Ordinarily—
Orochimaru wouldn't waste words on a test subject like the Demon King.
But these words clearly reflected his true intent.
"And it makes sense. The Fire Empire's 'All-Citizen Ninja' program… once it's fully implemented, the Reward Point yield will be astronomical."
"Nothing like the discardable Sound Village."
The Orochimaru who ruled the ninja world through the Fire Empire—
Even after giving shares to new nobles like the Hyuga clan,
still retained enormous income in the form of Reward Points.
His value in the game had reached the absolute limit of Tier-1 players:
One million Reward Points.
Even in the pirate world, where wealth spanned oceans,
not even the Celestial Dragon Im and the Five Elders—who called themselves gods—had hit that threshold.
Yet Orochimaru did, by monopolizing one corner of the ninja world.
Fundamentally—
He was milking the will of the ninja world—a move bound to anger its consciousness and trigger fate to retaliate.
That was why the Fire Empire was constantly under siege.
The same as when Im and the Five Elders forcibly exchanged beyond the world's threshold and triggered natural disasters.
It was the world's awareness pushing back.
Just like how the ninja world's chakra techniques contained its core laws, and the pirate world let victors devour the essence of the defeated—
These were rules etched into each world's creation.
And in the Demon Slayer world—
Its awareness, through fate, had created Muzan Kibutsuji,
hoping he would evolve into a perfect being to uplift the world's potential.
But Muzan killed the doctor who helped him, failing that evolution.
Now, though the world's consciousness wanted to erase him as a flaw and reclaim the original essence,
it couldn't violate its own rules to do so directly.
Instead, it had to burn vast amounts of Reward Points to guide Yoriichi Tsugikuni's birth.
And yet Muzan still survived for a thousand years.
Of course—
Without external interference, a world's own will could only press slowly.
Eventually, it would win—like how Orochimaru, after killing nobles and founding the Fire Empire,
was now constantly attacked by wandering samurai, rogue ninjas, and agents from the Four Nations.
That was the cost of exploiting the ninja world's will.
Just like how Im and the Five Elders triggered punishment when they exchanged too many points too quickly.
All of it—
Was backlash from the world itself.
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