The cacophony of clashing steel echoed violently through the cove of the Silver Veil Falls.
Yoriichi was pushed entirely onto the defensive. Without a single drop of Dou Qi remaining in his cyclone, he was fighting on pure, unadulterated fumes of physical stamina.
Every time his Sun-Steel Katana met the assassin's blood-red daggers, a sickening jolt of kinetic force traveled up his arms, threatening to dislocate his shoulders. The man, supercharged by the Pill, possessed the raw physical strength of a rampaging magical beast.
Clang! Swish! CLANG!
Yoriichi was forced backward, his boots skidding through the damp grass, stopping only when his back brushed against a massive, moss-covered tree trunk.
'My vessel is reaching its absolute limit,' Yoriichi analyzed, his chest heaving as he dodged a decapitating slash by a fraction of a millimeter. 'The oxygen deprivation is severe. Lactic acid is paralyzing the muscle fibers. If I do not generate more power, we both will die here tonight.'
A profound, ancient instinct awakened within the depths of his soul. In his previous life, to bridge the impossible gap between human frailty and demonic immortality, he had pushed the human body past the threshold of survival.
He needed to elevate his heart rate beyond two hundred beats per minute. He needed to push his core body temperature past thirty-nine degrees Celsius.
Yoriichi didn't retreat. He stood his ground, gripping his katana with both hands, and inhaled a breath so sharp and deep it sounded like tearing silk.
"Total Concentration Breathing: Absolute Limit."
His heart thumped. Not with a steady rhythm, but with a terrifying, violent crescendo.
Thump-thump-thump-thump!
It was so loud that even Xiao Yu, staggering a dozen paces away, could hear it over the roar of the waterfall.
Suddenly, an intense, searing burning sensation erupted on Yoriichi's forehead.
The assassin, preparing for a lethal downward plunge, hesitated. He watched in bewildered horror as the air around the boy literally began to warp from sheer body heat. A thick, hissing steam radiated from Yoriichi's skin, evaporating the sweat and blood.
Then, the mark appeared.
Starting from the left side of his forehead, a jagged, intricate pattern resembling a blazing crimson flame rapidly etched itself across his pale skin, creeping downward to brand the side of his neck. It glowed with a terrifying, unnatural luminescence in the dark cove.
The Demon Slayer Mark had awakened.
Instantly, the heavy, suffocating fatigue vanished. Yoriichi's muscles bulged, tearing through the sleeves of his dark training robes, flooded with an explosive, exponential surge of pure physical power. It felt as though literal flames were circulating through his veins instead of blood.
CLANG!
The assassin's daggers crashed down. But this time, Yoriichi's knees did not buckle. The ground beneath his boots shattered, but the katana held perfectly firm, completely halting the Da Dou Shi's blood-enraged strike.
"What kind of demonic art is this?!" the assassin roared, his bloodshot eyes widening in disbelief as he felt the boy's physical strength suddenly multiply.
Yoriichi didn't answer. He parried the daggers with terrifying force, stepping inside the man's guard and delivering a devastating knee strike to the assassin's ribcage. The man gasped, stumbling backward, genuinely shocked that he was being physically overpowered by a Dou Zhe.
"I will tear you apart!" the assassin shrieked, his pride completely shattered. Deciding to go all out, he abandoned his playful cruelty and unleashed his most lethal Dou Skill.
Despite the exponential boost of the Mark and his continuous Selfless State, Yoriichi knew he could not bridge the massive chasm between their realms indefinitely. The Mark consumed his lifeforce. And the assassin, though getting visibly tired as the pill's effects began to strain his own meridians, was still a Mid-Da Dou Shi wrapped in solidified armor.
A dozen paces away, Xiao Yu watched the brutal, desperate clash.
She gripped her azure whip, her knuckles white, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Every time she tried to flank the assassin, the man would casually throw a condensed blade of green Dou Qi at her, forcing her to dive and roll through the mud to avoid being bisected.
She felt completely, utterly useless.
She watched as a stray slash from the assassin's dagger bypassed Yoriichi's guard, carving a bloody gash across her brother's thigh. Yoriichi didn't make a sound, merely repositioning his stance to protect her from the fallout.
'He is bleeding for me,' Xiao Yu thought, a profound, suffocating despair gripping her heart. 'He is fighting a monster, and I am just standing here like a helpless burden!'
She gritted her teeth so hard she tasted blood. The veins on her forehead bulged in a mixture of unadulterated anger and sheer frustration. She hated this weakness. She hated this world that constantly threatened to take away the only family she had left.
"Don't you dare touch him!" Xiao Yu screamed, her voice tearing her throat.
Deep within the microscopic recesses of her marrow, the dormant, primordial violet-gold spark of blood starts glowing.
It was a reaction to the absolute extremity of her emotional state.
A terrifying, icy pressure exploded from Xiao Yu's body. Her eyes, usually a bright, lively blue, suddenly morphed. The irises dilated wildly, flooding with a brilliant, mesmerizing pink-red hue. The pupils narrowed into dangerous, vertical slits.
Then, her hair began to change. The dark, sweat-soaked strands rapidly lost their color, cascading down her back in a shimmering, ethereal silver that ended in soft, luminescent pink tips.
The ambient temperature of the cove, previously heated by Yoriichi's Mark, instantly plummeted well below freezing. The grass beneath her boots turned white with frost.
In the center of the clash, the assassin let out a manic, breathless laugh, trying to mask his own mounting fatigue. "Is that all you have, boy?! I will mount your heads on spikes! I will strip your sister bare and let the mercenaries of the Black-Corner Region feast on her before I—!"
Yoriichi's crimson eyes narrowed. The man was spouting degenerate nonsense to instill fear, attempting to create a psychological opening.
But for a swordsman possessing the Transparent World, talking was the ultimate distraction.
As the man opened his mouth to boast, his diaphragm expanded, and his solidified armor naturally stretched, thinning around his midsection.
Yoriichi seized the microsecond. He dropped his stance, positioning the katana perfectly horizontal. With a sudden, explosive burst of leg strength, he lunged forward, executing a flawless, piercing thrust aimed directly at the assassin's heart.