Facing Asuka's provocation, Mukago burst into furious hysteria, her voice breaking into a shrill roar.
"Blood Demon Art: Forest Dance!"
She drove the sharp claws of both hands deep into her own flesh, ripping open several wounds so deep that bone was visible. Blood gushed out in torrents. Her right hand was torn apart entirely, fusing directly with the vines crawling along the ground.
Her blood, thick with demonic energy, was poured into the earth without restraint. The entire forest rustled as if twisting in agony, its leaves hissing like warped, grotesque moans.
The vines and branches drank greedily of the demon blood, nearly turning black. Jagged bone-like spikes erupted from their surfaces, growing tougher, more twisted, more vicious.
And that was not all. A writhing layer of thorned armor coated Mukago's body, radiating poisonous miasma. Her entire right arm transformed into a massive, barbed hammer.
She had truly gone all out.
"How about it, human! If you're scared, get lost now! I might spare your life!"
Her berserk form radiated crushing pressure. Enlarged by the thorned armor, she loomed over Asuka, looking down at him from above.
Asuka's expression did not change. He watched coldly as her presence surged higher and her body swelled into its current monstrous shape.
Then he spoke calmly.
"Is this your full strength?"
"What?"
Asuka lowered his stance and gripped Nugata tightly.
"Is this the strongest attack Lower Rank Four can unleash?"
"Don't get carried away, you mere human!"
With a furious roar, she swung the enormous vine hammer high. The surrounding twisted vines lashed forward in unison, tearing through the air toward him.
Asuka's eyes were as cold as blades. He did not retreat.
"If this is all you've got..."
He had not expected such a vast difference between Lower Rank Four and Lower Rank Two.
What Asuka did not know was that ever since fully releasing Nugata's Shikai, the spiritual pressure he had long suppressed had begun to surface. He was already far stronger than when he faced Rokuro.
A Zanpakuto and its wielder were meant to grow together, to complete one another.
Only when their hearts were fully aligned, without obstruction, could spiritual power flow at its peak.
Sensing the rather unremarkable strength before him, Asuka abandoned any thought of testing her further.
"...Pack Howl."
Slash—
A streak of black light cut across.
Mukago suddenly felt lighter.
In an instant, the tough vines she had unleashed were all severed by that abnormal, oversized Nichirin blade. Even her thorned armor was effortlessly shattered. A massive gash tore open across her abdomen, her organs spilling out.
"Ah—!!"
Her scream tore through the forest, shrill and distorted. The power she had gained from frenzy was swallowed instantly by searing agony and overwhelming loss.
Bang!
She crashed heavily onto the ground. Demon-tainted organs splattered across the forest floor.
"It's a Hashira! I'm finished—it's a Hashira!"
Before she could even push herself up, before she could recover from the agony, her right side turned cold.
Spurt!
The grotesque vine-and-flesh hammer that had replaced her arm was severed cleanly, flung high into the air along with a fountain of dark purple blood and shredded vine fibers.
"It hurts! It hurts so much—!!"
She was a Lower Rank demon. It had been decades since she was injured.
The pain of losing an arm pierced straight into her bones.
The severed limb crashed down, still twitching, thick demon blood pumping out in sticky pulses that soaked the leaves and soil with a foul stench.
If it were only injury, she could have endured it.
But what she saw next choked her scream in her throat.
Asuka stepped forward and drove the serrated blade directly into the twitching demon hand.
"My teacher once said—even if a demon's body is cut apart, as long as the neck remains intact, it can regenerate..."
Sizzle—
The sound was like red-hot iron pressed into grease.
Mukago felt as if her soul itself were being scorched.
No—it was not an illusion.
Her severed arm did not regrow. The healing was excruciatingly slow.
When the blade pierced the demon limb, the massive arm began to shrivel visibly. Even from a distance, she could feel the tearing agony radiating from it.
Bulging muscles collapsed inward. The dark blood, along with the immense demonic power and life force within it, was forcibly drained away like rivers flowing into the sea.
Thin streams of gray-black energy surged madly into Nugata's serrated edge.
In only a few breaths, the arm lost all vitality and moisture, turning into a charred, withered remnant like rotten wood. At the slightest touch, it crumbled into drifting ash.
At the same time, Asuka's own poisoned wound began to itch strangely.
Crackle...
The stubborn dark blotches of venom faded rapidly. The wound itself twitched and knit together at a speed far beyond human limits—almost demonic.
Slow, but relentless.
The flesh truly moved toward healing.
"Ah—!!! Y-you… are you human or demon?!"
"Help me, Rui! Save me!"
Clutching her bleeding shoulder, Mukago staggered backward. All the madness drained from her face, replaced by the terror of prey facing its natural predator.
"I'm your sister! Help me, Rui!"
Thunder rolled across the sky above Spider Mountain, drowning out her screams.
In her overwhelming panic, she suddenly remembered a rumor she once dismissed as nonsense.
Recently, there was a demon slayer who was eating demons. He grew stronger by devouring their bodies. Fierce in appearance, brutal in battle—best to avoid him.
Eating demons? Impossible. No human could do that.
Before today, she would never have believed it.
"Is it you?! That demon-eating slayer?! Did you come specifically to eat Mukago?!"
"Eat demons?" Asuka frowned, not understanding what she was rambling about.
But as he glanced at Nugata in his hand—and at his abnormal recovery—he silently accepted her conclusion.
It was a useful power.
He did not reject it.
As he advanced step by step, her will to resist collapsed entirely under fear.
She let out a shriek devoid of reason.
Her remaining left arm flailed wildly. The last vines lashed chaotically toward him, trying to block his vision.
Then she turned and fled desperately into the depths of the forest.
Her steps were unsteady. Her body staggered.
Every movement full of openings.
Not a single one worth noting.
Wind gathered beneath Asuka's feet.
His figure vanished from where he stood.
A flash of steel.
Slash—
Mukago's fleeing body froze mid-stride.
The terror on her face locked in place. Her vision began to spin, flip, and overturn uncontrollably.
Her head hit the ground.
What had she been thinking before death? Did she regret becoming a demon? What kind of life had brought her here?
Asuka did not care.
He did not look at the corpse as it burned to ash.
Instead, his gaze shifted toward the deeper mountainside.
There—
An overwhelming demonic presence was erupting.