The flames swept out, instantly sealing off the beautiful woman whose hands were blistering from the sunlight under Li Ke's precise manipulation. While Li Ke had no idea how these demons managed to stay hidden under the Demon Slayer Corps' strict scrutiny, one thing was certain: the heads of these monsters would serve as their perfect ticket to join the Corps!
"Damn it!"
Countless fabric sashes suddenly erupted from the beautiful woman's body, tearing down loose wooden boards to shield herself from the light. Li Ke reacted instantly, leaping into the air as a shroud of Dragon Fire materialized around him, coiling violently toward the demon under the command of his fire manipulation.
"You must be that Daki chick, right?!"
The moment the question left his lips, his sword crashed down.
The beautiful woman's eyes went wide as she unleashed a barrage of sashes without a shred of hesitation, desperately trying to block his flames and massive blade. However, the fabric was instantly incinerated into ash by his Dragon Fire. Driven by his monstrous physical strength, his swing effortlessly tore and shredded through the remaining defenses!
Li Ke's greatsword slammed dead-center onto the beautiful woman's head!
Although the heavy blade lacked a razor edge, the searing plasma barrier generated by his fire acted as a flawless blade. In a single, fluid stroke, Li Ke split the ferocious demon completely in half from head to toe. The residual momentum of the heavy strike shattered the supporting beams of the second floor, causing the wooden building to collapse under its own weight and sending both him and Daki plunging down into the ground level.
Li Ke hadn't expected this demon to be so incredibly fragile. Yet, staring down at the charred corpse currently being scorched by his Dragon Fire, he couldn't help but marvel at the sight.
Even when subjected to the thousand-degree inferno of his Dragon Fire, the demon's body was actively trying to regenerate itself. The moment his flames began to dissipate, her cells aggressively reabsorbed the carbonized flesh, sprouting masses of raw, twitching muscle tissue in a desperate bid to piece her form back together.
Naturally, her clothing had been completely burned away, leaving the body of this suspected Daki fully exposed to Li Ke's gaze. He had to admit, her figure was absolutely flawless. While the visual of a severed head aggressively sprouting back onto a torso was deeply grotesque, there was no denying that her face was remarkably stunning.
She had a great body and a gorgeous face, but unfortunately, she was a man-eating beast whose core humanity had long since rotted away.
Li Ke had zero intention of engaging in anything intimate with a twisted, man-eating monster like her; after all, how would that be any different from bestiality?
He could easily accept centaurs or mermaids—even though their outward anatomy possessed animal traits, their cognitive functions and morality remained perfectly normal in many universes, unlike the creature before him.
Daki might have been born a human, but in Li Ke's eyes, she was indistinguishable from a feral beast.
He vaguely recalled from his fanfiction knowledge that this particular pair of siblings carried a tragic backstory. They had apparently relied entirely on each other since childhood; the younger sister worked as a courtesan while the older brother served as a brothel bouncer. When the sister was brutally tortured and burned alive by a samurai, the brother tried to avenge her, only to be beaten within an inch of his life before Muzan intervened and turned them into demons.
Regrettably, once they acquired their supernatural powers, they chose to project their misery by ruthlessly slaughtering and oppressing ordinary people. Their actions stripped away any lingering reason to sympathize with them.
A monster of this caliber fell entirely outside Li Ke's zone of tolerance.
Therefore, the Dragon Fire rapidly surged around his body, thoroughly enveloping Daki amidst the terrified shrieks of the surrounding courtesans and patrons. The flames licked at the floorboards, and in a country where most structures were built of wood, Li Ke's fire spread instantly, setting the entire ground floor ablaze.
It was at this moment that Mai Shiranui arrived at his side, tightly gripping a pair of fans. Li Ke shot a deeply exasperated look at her weapons, silently unbuckling Kashu from his waist and tossing it to her.
After all, when facing a supernatural creature like a demon, how could fans possibly be more effective than a sword?
Those props were fine for stealth assassinations and hand-to-hand combat, but using them in a literal life-or-death brawl was practically meaningless.
Then again, Li Ke felt that with him holding down the fort, these demons wouldn't be able to stir up much of a storm anyway.
Staring down at Daki's flesh as it wriggled and fused back together, Li Ke let out a cold smirk.
"You're pathetic, but I'll give you credit—your regenerative powers are pretty impressive. Still, that's your limit. It might be a hassle to burn you to ash with a regular flame, but unfortunately for you, mine is anything but ordinary."
The fire bestowed upon him by the Red Dragon Queen was truly formidable. Relying on this blaze gave Li Ke a massive tactical advantage; without it, he estimated his raw destructive output would plummet by at least three-quarters.
His own innate fire control was nowhere near the caliber of proper Dragon Fire.
Even though Dragon Fire demanded a heavy toll on his stamina, consuming three times the energy using ordinary flames still wouldn't allow him to match its extreme temperatures.
There was a fundamental, systemic difference between the two that Li Ke had yet to fully comprehend.
"Damn you! Are you with the Demon Slayer Corps?!"
Daki glared venomously at Li Ke. She didn't spot any wisteria flower patterns on his clothing, but his violent actions were undeniably aligned with the Corps' agenda.
Unfortunately for her, Li Ke was a total outsider.
"Not even close. I'm just looking for some answers, and besides, a demon's head happens to be worth a pretty penny right now."
Li Ke locked eyes with Daki, a malicious grin spreading across his face.
"Do me a favor, neighbor—lend me your head so I can claim some military credit!"
Laughing, he initiated his second assault. He didn't actually intend to completely vaporize Daki just yet; otherwise, how could he prove to the authorities that she was a demon?
If he couldn't provide physical proof of a demon kill, how was he supposed to collect his reward?
His joke about bounty hunting wasn't just a baseless tease either—the Demon Slayer Corps and the still-functional Japanese government were indeed placing massive bounties on both demons and the invading monsters.
Li Ke's figure moved as fast as a phantom, appearing beside Daki in an absolute blink of an eye. His massive greatsword swung directly down, but Daki was no easy target; cornered in this moment of extreme crisis, she screamed out for her brother without a shred of hesitation.
"Brother!!"
Her call was answered instantly. From her beautiful, flower-like body, a remarkably hideous monster suddenly crawled out. Wielding twin sickles, the creature aimed a brutal, unforgiving strike straight at Li Ke's head.
But Li Ke didn't even bother to dodge. Dragon Fire erupted from all around his body, morphing into a roaring torrent of flames. In a split second, the fire completely vaporized the monster and the weapons in its grip. The sickles instantly liquefied into molten iron, which was carried forward by the blazing shockwave and blasted right back into the younger sister's body. Simultaneously, Li Ke's greatsword sliced through the air, cleanly and effortlessly severing Daki's head from her shoulders!
No blood sprayed from her frame. In that same instant, the intense heat of the flames consumed what remained of her physical form, reducing it to fine gray ash.
Her head was thrown into the air by the force of the strike, but Li Ke caught it mid-flight. Even as a severed head, the demon stared back at him with pure, venomous hatred, her expression twisting in silent rage.
Small clusters of tissue began to sprout from the wound, attempting to regenerate a new body. However, Li Ke immediately suppressed the regrowth by surrounding her neck with a layer of Dragon Fire, halting her recovery entirely while her original body vanished into the wind as nothing but dust.
"You look as though you're screaming inside, asking why I'm killing you instead of the people who originally ruined your life," Li Ke muttered. His Observation Haki picked up a faint, chaotic echo of the woman's inner thoughts, leaving him momentarily annoyed.
"Look, I wasn't around when other people were doing evil things to you. If I had been there, I gladly would have dragged you out of that hellhole. Heck, if you had never eaten a single human soul, or if you had only fed on corpses that died of natural causes, I wouldn't have minded taking you to bed and spending a wild night together. But unfortunately for you, you've become a twisted freak, and you had the bad luck of doing it right in front of my face."
Li Ke offered the casual, blunt explanation because that was simply how he viewed reality. If he had encountered Daki before her fall, he absolutely would have bought out her contract from the brothel. If he felt like it, he might have even used his abilities to resurrect her. After all, he believed in living life entirely on his own terms to keep his conscience clear.
But the cruel truth was that he had crossed paths with Daki the monster.
Not Daki the courtesan.
He genuinely harbored no prejudice against women in the sex trade—excluding, of course, the incredibly vain ones who sold themselves purely out of laziness and a desire for luxury. For those types, Li Ke viewed the transaction as nothing more than hiring a professional, since it was their own conscious choice.
But for women who entered the trade out of absolute desperation just to put food on the table, Li Ke never held a single ounce of contempt. Their core morality remained completely intact. Survival was the ultimate, non-negotiable human instinct; demanding flawless virtue from someone who couldn't even afford their next meal was nothing short of absolute bullshit.
If any part of them could be considered "dirty," it was purely the physical aspect of inevitably contracting a disease.
It was a physical misfortune, not a moral stain.
After all, courtesans never had the privilege of choosing their clients. To Li Ke, that was the only definition of "dirty" that applied to them.
Daki's expression went utterly blank. Her consciousness was sharp enough to perceive that Li Ke wasn't lying; his raw emotions and fighting aura confirmed that every single word came from the bottom of his heart!
The sheer sincerity of his worldview left her completely stunned.
It was at this moment that Mai Shiranui walked over.
"So this is a demon?"
Watching the clusters of tissue desperately sprout from Daki's neck only to be instantly vaporized by the heat, Mai couldn't help but frown. She had watched the short exchange between them closely. Daki's speed wasn't much lower than her own, and she could easily tell how razor-sharp those sashes were. She just hadn't expected Li Ke's combat strength to have skyrocketed so dramatically. Having not seen him for a while, he was already light-years ahead of his former self.
"Yeah. A monster unique to this world. With her head, we'll easily secure our entry into the Demon Slayer Corps and start hunting the rest..."
Speaking of the Corps, a sudden train of thought hit Li Ke. He wasn't particularly familiar with the male slayers, but he vividly remembered a specific roster: Shinobu Kocho, Mitsuri Kanroji, Kanae Kocho, Kanao Tsuyuri, Aoi Kanzaki, Amane Ubuyashiki—the Master's elegant wife—her four nearly identical daughters, and Nezuko.
Yes. He was just that brutally honest with himself.
He had skimmed through so many Demon Slayer fanfictions in his past life, yet these were the only characters he actually remembered!
Hmm, it seems like Mitsuri Kanroji and Shinobu Kocho would be pretty easy to win over. Mitsuri is obsessed with food, and she only joined the Corps to find a strong husband who wouldn't judge her body. As for Shinobu... if I offer a trade where she yields her body to me in exchange for wiping out that Upper Moon Douma, or even resurrecting her older sister, she definitely won't refuse. After that, I can grant Shinobu her freedom, using the revival of Kanae to get the older sister into my bed instead. Then I can use the resurrection of their parents and a promise to secure Kanao's long-term survival to keep Kanae coming back for more...
A perfect, flawless loop!
Aside from burning through a bit of conceptual lifespan, the entire strategy was absolutely magnificent!
As expected of me!
Utterly ironclad!
Rubbing his chin with a highly satisfied grin, Li Ke prepared to lead Mai toward a quieter location to wait for the Demon Slayer Corps to track them down. With an explosion and a fire this massive, that guy who claimed to be a ninja—Uchiha Tangyuan, was it?
Right, it was probably something like Tengen Tangyuan. He would definitely show up.
"Are you plotting something incredibly indecent again? And are you absolutely sure we don't need to stay and pay for the damages?"
Mai watched the bizarre, scheming smile spreading across Li Ke's face and couldn't help but complain. She glanced over her shoulder at the brothel behind them, which was currently being consumed by roaring flames.
"Of course we don't have to pay. There's no way the madam of this brothel didn't know what Daki was up to. She kept operating anyway, and even if she was acting out of fear, she's still an accomplice."
Li Ke replied casually, completely brushing off her first question.
"Besides, I was thinking about serious business—specifically our entry into the Demon Slayer Corps. I wonder if that guy named Tengen Tangyuan is going to show up anytime soon."
Li Ke automatically muttered his complaint in Chinese. Mai shot him an exasperated look and fired back in fluent Chinese of her own.
"Tengen Tangyuan... His name is Tengen Uzui, alright? Are you an old man or something? Why is your memory this terrible?"
"Huh?"
Li Ke blinked at her in surprise.
"You actually speak Chinese?"
"Just a bit. There are tournaments held everywhere, so it's only natural to pick up a few languages."
Mai nodded. In the modern era, many martial arts manuals were publicly available, but they were always written in their respective native languages. If you wanted to study them, you had to learn the text.
Furthermore, Chinese martial arts heavily emphasized internal longevity and holistic health. This happened to be the perfect reference point for the Shiranui style as it attempted to transition away from pure assassination techniques, so learning the language had been a logical step.
"I see."
Li Ke dropped the subject. The very next second, his gaze snapped toward the end of the street.
To his utter astonishment, the person arriving wasn't Tengen Tangyuan. Instead, a petite girl wearing a striking haori pattern that resembled butterfly wings emerged from the smoke, flanked by a massive escort of heavily armed government soldiers.
They quickly closed the distance, surrounding the area. Standing securely beneath the shelter of a nearby roof overhang, Li Ke casually lifted the still-blinking, severed head, presenting it directly to the girl in the butterfly haori.
The moment her eyes locked onto the head, her figure blurred, appearing right in front of him in a flash. Staring intensely at the numbers etched into the demon's pupils, a wave of profound pleasant surprise washed over her face.
"This... this is Upper Rank Six!"
The character read 'Six,' meaning that the head currently resting in this stranger's palm belonged to the sixth strongest entity in Muzan's entire demonic hierarchy!
"Did you kill this?!"
She looked up at Li Ke, her eyes wide with newfound hope. No matter who had delivered the blow, the death of an Upper Moon was an unprecedented victory for humanity.
"That's right, we took it down," Li Ke replied smoothly. "So, does this mean we can join the Demon Slayer Corps?"
Li Ke looked down at the woman standing in front of him. The smile on her face felt completely manufactured, giving off an unsettling vibe. Judging by her distinctive attire, this had to be one of the Corps' Hashira—specifically, Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira.
He couldn't help but look her up and down, internally clicking his tongue in disbelief.
It wasn't because of anything threatening. It was simply because—
She was tiny!
The girl looked barely a meter and a half tall. Meanwhile, his own body had grown to nearly two meters after all his intense training in the One Piece universe.
Standing beside her made the height difference staggering; even including her hair, she barely reached his chest.
To him, she felt almost like a primary school girl!
However, her figure was actually quite excellent. Li Ke could tell with a single glance that she was hiding a remarkably bountiful chest beneath her uniform. But through his Observation Haki, he could feel that this woman's body could no longer even be described as merely riddled with holes.
Honestly, the fact that she hadn't been poisoned to death yet was an absolute miracle.
In Li Ke's Haki-driven perception, her kidneys and liver were basically ruined. Her stomach and intestines didn't look much better either. Her heart and lungs were covered in damage, and there wasn't a single spot in her muscles, blood vessels, or bones that didn't have issues. There were even massive amounts of foreign substances clogging up her entire body...
Under these conditions, let alone living to forty, this woman probably wouldn't even survive past thirty!
Furthermore, her body was severely overdrawn and entirely broken. She was no different from a tattered ragdoll.
Li Ke figured that if he ever did anything intimate with her, he would have to use his Dragon Fire to actively protect her body, or else she might literally drop dead from exhaustion.
While Mai Shiranui on his side was also quite short, Mai's body was infinitely healthier!
Shinobu, however, was completely unaware of what Li Ke was thinking. She looked up at him with what appeared to be genuine delight.
"You want to join the Demon Slayer Corps? That is wonderful news!"
The Corps had always operated on a voluntary basis. As long as a person possessed the resolve to hunt demons, the organization welcomed them. The more effective a slayer became, the more support and resources the Corps would provide to help them achieve their goals, or even fulfill their deepest wishes.
They didn't care about anything else. As long as you could kill demons, they would grant you status, wealth, and anything your heart desired.
One could only marvel at how terrifyingly driven humans became when fueled by pure hatred. Especially now, with the Demon Slayer Corps desperately starving for fresh recruits, powerful warriors were naturally more than welcome.
However, a lingering curiosity tugged at Li Ke. Including Shinobu Kocho, he had already cross paths with at least three Hashira-level figures in this general area. There had to be something deeply wrong with this place.
The Corps' Hashira weren't exactly a dime a dozen to be scattered around so casually, were they?
As Li Ke shifted his gaze away from Shinobu, the question weighed heavily on his mind.
"Then I'll leave her head in your hands. But tell me, does the Corps have some kind of grand operation underway? Why have I run into so many Hashira here over the past few days? Don't worry, we do have our own motives for joining—we're trying to figure out what's causing this global anomaly."
Li Ke handed Daki's severed head over to Shinobu. She didn't hesitate for a single second, tossing it straight out into the open under the blinding sunlight. Under the harsh rays, the demon's stunningly beautiful face finally began to dissolve. But just before it disintegrated completely, Li Ke and the others caught a glimpse of a hideous, contorted face tearing its way out from the back of her skull.
Yet, there was no room for a frantic struggle. Within moments, Daki's head vanished completely into the daylight, leaving nothing behind.
"I see..."
Shinobu's gaze turned deadly serious. She carefully appraised both Li Ke and Mai Shiranui, and for the first time, her smile carried a genuine trace of sincerity.
"This isn't a classified secret anyway, so there's no harm in letting you both know."
She paused briefly before speaking.
"We discovered that in this very region, demons have begun merging with those alien monsters! That is exactly why we've mobilized to investigate this anomaly."