On the mountain path several kms away, Shinji had only just now finished sheathing his blade. Click. A crisp, clean sound.
The moment Onikiri slid home into its sheath, the invisible scar stretched across the distant night sky had yet to fade. The severed black clouds were slowly closing, but the moonlight still poured through the rift, illuminating half the mountain ridge.
He looked down at his palm. A blade swung from several kms away would naturally bear no blood. But he knew, that demon no longer existed.
This was the Sword Will he had comprehended. The exact opposite of Kamiizumi Nobutsuna's.
Fullness.
To take everything, and pour it all in. Every artifact cultivated to max Affection. Every transformation fused into his body. Every fragment scavenged from scrap heaps, fed bit by bit with his own feelings, all of it, stuffed into this blade. Stuffed into this body. Stuffed into the existence of this demon warrior who had crawled out from a pile of corpses.
Fill it until it overflowed. Fill it until this blade could no longer contain it, until he himself became the vessel that could hold everything. And then, let it bloom.
Extreme. Absolute. Ultimate Will.
This was his Sword Will. Not the simple, pure conviction of a human, but something far more direct. A yōkai's stance toward the world. A hunger to possess all things. And a hunger, even more, to sever all that stood in his way.
It had been proven: yōkai could truly possess Will. Though it was far more difficult than for humans. Though even Shinji had only achieved it through the System. It was real.
That slash just now, the first time he had ever cut with Sword Will, was already strong enough. The rift torn through the clouds. The demon obliterated into dust. All of it, ironclad proof. Proof that he could cut down a demon from several ri away.
This technique could be named—
Kyokui: Setsuun. Extreme Will: Cloud-Severing.
The Onikiri forged through this was the same in principle. It was a perfect demon blade, capable of bearing the full totality of Shinji's yōki. Not evolution, but a blade that, so long as it belonged to Shinji, could hold everything and reveal it to him.
In a sense, this was truly a peerless demon blade, no lesser than Tessaiga. No wonder so many daiyōkai kept human forms and yearned to forge a "demon blade" of their own.
A blade that used Will as its vessel could truly manifest the full bloom of one's yōki. The demon blade in Shinji's hand was this. Perhaps Tessaiga was this as well.
Ahead of him, Tsugikuni Yoriichi had also halted his desperate sprint. He turned and looked back at Shinji. There was rarely any change of expression on that crimson-haired young man's face.
But now, those deep crimson eyes were filled with shock. He could see it, of course. In his Transparent World, in that single instant just now, Shinji's Will had transcended the limits of the physical body.
It had crossed the barrier of space itself. This was a realm that even he had yet to fully step into. Though the tier of that Will was not particularly high, its depth of realm not particularly profound, in depth, it still fell short of a seasoned master like Kamiizumi Nobutsuna.
But in height, it was no less. And Shinji's "foundation" was extraordinarily high. The breadth it brought was correspondingly vast. As a yōkai, as a Ninth Transformation demon, what he commanded was never merely Sword Will.
It was the yōki and power of a Ninth Transformation demon. Only when Will and yōki and strength bloomed simultaneously—filled to overflowing—could it be called extreme. The extreme of limits.
"Sir…" Yoriichi began.
"That demon is dead," Shinji said, straightening his slightly disheveled sleeves. His expression was calm. His words were level. But inside, he was deeply satisfied.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi, the undisputed pinnacle of Demon Slayer. To be able to "manifest such divine power" before an existence like this, the gratification was immense. "Though your house is gone," he added, "your wife is unharmed."
Those final four words. The tension that had held Yoriichi's body taut as a wire instantly released, only to be replaced by an even greater urgency. "Let's go!"
Shinji said nothing more. Thunder detonated beneath his feet. The Lightning-Sinewed Body unleashed to its fullest. His entire form became a violet blur, even faster, by a hair, than Yoriichi, who had mastered the Breathing Techniques.
The two of them tore through the mountain forest. A journey that would have taken an ordinary person several hours was brutally compressed to less than half a minute.
By the time they reached that small mountain hollow, what they saw was, exactly as Shinji had said, a scene of utter devastation. The original wooden hut had become a ruin. The roof was nowhere to be seen.
Three of the four walls had collapsed. Only a few solitary pillars still stood stubbornly upright. The ground was scarred by a blackened, searing chasm that struck the eye and heart. The air was thick with the smell of burning.
"Uta!" Yoriichi plunged into the wreckage.
Beneath the only wall still standing, Uta was huddled there, wrapped in a dust-covered futon. Her hair was disheveled. Her face was pale. Her eyes were still wide with terror. But, she was alive. There was no blood on her. Barely even a scratch.
"Yoriichi…"
The moment she saw her husband, this woman, who had not broken down, who had not screamed or wailed even in the face of the demon, who could be called strong, finally crumbled. Tears spilled from her eyes.
Yoriichi rushed to her and pulled her tightly into his arms. His hands were trembling. That swordsman, who by day could see through all things, as calm as still water, in this moment, he was nothing more than an ordinary husband who had nearly lost everything.
Shinji stood at the edge of the ruins. He did not enter to disturb them. He gazed at that chasm. At the scar left behind by his single slash.
'Master… I did it…'
The thought reached his ears, but no longer through the System panel. It was transmitted by the blade's own soul. It could not yet speak aloud directly. But this alone proved that its sword-soul had fully formed.
Shinji stroked the hilt. This was his demon blade. Though it was still incapable of assuming a physical form, it now possessed a soul. A will of its own. And it could perfectly bear the full extent of his power.
This was his Sword Will. A value that defied reason. A range that defied reason. Even a logic that defied reason. This was, the Extreme Will of a yōkai.
The severed clouds in the sky finally knitted themselves back together in that moment. The moonlight vanished. But the night, which should have plunged into darkness, suddenly lit up once more.
Through the thin, nearly invisible layer of blood mist Shinji had spread, using blood as his eyes, he sensed the arrival of human figures.
In the next instant, the next second, hurried footsteps sounded from the surrounding forest. Chaotic. Fast. Not the footsteps of just one person. Shinji turned his head, his crimson demon eyes narrowing slightly.
They wore unified black uniforms. Lanterns, neither too large nor too small, hung at their waists. On their backs was emblazoned the white character Metsu—Destroy.
At their hips hung Nichirin Blades. Their bodies bore the dust and wear of a long, desperate journey. The Demon Slayer Corps. They had finally arrived. Chasing the trail of the demon… A step too late. But if not for Shinji, arriving late was still better than never arriving at all.
The figures emerged into view beneath the rustling forest leaves. The one leading them was a man wearing a crow-shaped mask. A deep black, close-fitting haori. A blade at his waist.
He moved with tremendous speed, the mountain forest offering no hindrance whatsoever. Behind him followed two other swordsmen in the same attire. One man. One woman. Neither looked very old, around twenty. Yet they stood ramrod straight, their footfalls landing without a sound.
The material of their blades was very peculiar. Shinji's crimson demon eyes swept over them from beneath his bamboo hat.
The color of those swords carried a strange, singular luster. Having spent days forging under Tōtōsai's tutelage, Shinji knew: that was not a color that could be produced by ordinary iron.
It was the unique sheen of ore that had been exposed to sunlight for years on end. Forged from scarlet ore. Bathed in sunlight all year round. The power of the sun tempered into the cutting edge.
This was the first time Shinji had laid eyes on such a thing in the real world. But he knew what it was. Nichirin Blades. The thing he had been searching for, had come to him.