"Boar head?"
Doma looked at the suddenly appearing Inosuke, then at the wild boar mask on his head, and his interest was immediately piqued.
"Does that mask have some special function?" Doma mused, studying him from a short distance. "Some kind of illusion technique, maybe?"
He stared for a long time and still couldn't find anything unusual.
"Interesting. It's well hidden. Or is it just decoration?"
That disgusting smile spread across his face again.
"Or maybe the face under the mask is so ugly you can't let anyone see it?"
"It's fine though. I don't usually like eating men, but if you join the Eternal Paradise Cult, I can make an exception and help you 'relieve your suffering,' alright?"
"Bastard, what are you even saying, you disgusting freak?!"
Just looking at Doma made something twist in Inosuke's gut. A sudden, irrational loathing.
"You're a demon, but you keep pretending you're human. It makes me sick!"
He raised both blades and bared his teeth.
"Let me, Inosuke, take you out!"
Inosuke slashed, his Nichirin Blade whipping through the air with brutal speed.
"What, is your brain broken?" Doma sneered. "You think you can hit me from that far away?"
But in the next instant, his vision flashed, and his sight cut out as if someone had ripped the world away.
"Inosuke!"
Shinobu Kocho saw the strike connect, yet she still shouted in alarm.
Inosuke's right arm was twisted into a grotesque shape, almost inhuman.
"Huh?" Doma blinked. "You actually hit me? Do you not have bones in that arm?"
Inosuke threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahahaha! Upper Rank, my ass! This is a brand-new move I invented!"
His right arm's muscles suddenly tensed. A violent crackle ran through his joints, and the dislocated bones snapped right back into place.
"Let's hurry up and kill this nauseating piece of trash!"
Shinobu's eyes turned icy. In the next heartbeat, she launched forward.
"If poison gets broken down too quickly… then I'll inject it straight into your neck."
Her steps became ghostlike as her body blurred.
Insect Breathing, Centipede Stomach!
Bang, bang, bang!
Shinobu vanished from where she stood. The floor beneath her feet shattered in rapid bursts as she moved, her body rolling to evade Doma's strikes while closing the distance at terrifying speed.
"So fast!"
Even Doma couldn't clearly see her attacks now. Shock flashed through his eyes.
To protect himself, he whipped both fans at once.
"Blood Demon Art: Scatter Lotus!"
The twin fans spun like turbines, dragging a glittering chain of ice crystals into the air.
In an instant, the ice formed into blade-like shapes, slicing the space around him.
The air itself froze, filling with nearly invisible frost.
Breathe in wrong and you were dead.
Shinobu immediately lifted her haori to cover her mouth and nose, her figure flickering again.
She dodged Scatter Lotus twice in a row. Doma's guard opened for a fraction of a second, and Shinobu's needle-thin blade pierced straight through his neck!
"I told you," Doma said lightly, still calm even with steel inside his throat, "killing demons means cutting off the head."
He sneered as he reached out with his right hand and clamped down on Shinobu's blade, locking it in place.
At the same time, his left fan slashed out.
"Bad!"
Shinobu didn't hesitate. She abandoned her Nichirin Blade on the spot.
She used a light, slender sword for a reason.
She was small, with nowhere near the muscle mass of the other Hashira. Strength simply wasn't her weapon.
Against ordinary demons, even Lower Ranks, she could barely manage a decapitation.
Upper Ranks?
Forget it.
Now Doma had her sword gripped in his hand. Shinobu wasn't about to stupidly wrestle him for it.
She retreated instantly.
She kicked off the floor, and the wooden boards exploded again under her feet.
Her body shot backward, dodging in a blink.
And as she moved, she caught sight of a familiar figure.
Vincent Fox.
He gave her a brief nod, then charged straight at Doma.
Yet in that moment, Shinobu couldn't feel Vincent's presence at all.
No pressure. No aura. Even the aggressive edge he usually carried was gone.
He felt… blended into the world itself.
If she hadn't seen him with her own eyes, she might not have noticed he was there.
And it wasn't just his presence.
His appearance had changed too.
Silver strands threaded through his hair, and his eyes were washed over in a cold, silver-gray sheen.
"Inosuke," Vincent said calmly, his tone impossibly even, as if he weren't moving at all. "Protect Kocho."
"Leave it to me!" Inosuke thumped his chest. "As long as the Mountain King Inosuke is here, nobody's touching Kocho!"
He leaned forward, grinning viciously.
"And hey! Save the finishing blow for me!"
While he shouted, Vincent was already in front of Doma.
"Oh?" Doma's eyes sharpened. "Another one?"
He was confused. He still couldn't sense Vincent properly. But his hands didn't slow.
The twin fans slashed hard.
Swish!
Two sheets of ice formed instantly, crossing like a cage in front of Vincent.
"With speed like that, are you going to crash right into it?"
Doma laughed, as if he'd already watched Vincent get chopped into pieces.
But Vincent's body shifted in midair.
He twisted, slipped through the narrow gap between the ice blades, and passed cleanly through.
In the next instant, his right hand latched onto the sword Shinobu had left embedded in Doma's neck.
He yanked.
Rip!
The sharpened edge burst out, drenched in blood, tearing free from within Doma's body.
Blood sprayed like a fountain.
Even the half of Doma's hand that tried to block it was sliced off and fell to the floor with a wet thud.
At the last moment before his neck was severed, Doma swung his iron fan with everything he had.
Clang!
A crisp crack rang out.
Shinobu's slender Nichirin Blade split under the impact.
If Vincent forced it further, the blade would shatter completely before Doma's neck gave way.
"Vincent!" Shinobu shouted. "Don't hesitate! Cut down harder!"
Vincent's hand tightened. He forced the blade deeper.
"What?"
Doma's face twisted in shock as he hurriedly tried to block again.
Clang!
The iron fan smashed into the Nichirin Blade a second time.
This time, the thin sword couldn't take it.
It shattered into fragments.
But that was exactly what Shinobu wanted.
With the blade destroyed, every drop of poison soaked into it flooded into Doma's wound, not a single bit wasted.
At the same time, those splinters, steeped in poison for who knew how long, pierced into him along with the liquid.
In an instant, Doma's vision blurred.
His body swayed.
Forced into defense, he snapped both fans into motion.
"Blood Demon Art: Deadly Garden Hanging Snow!"
"Blood Demon Art: Frozen Clouds!"
"Blood Demon Art: White Princess of Frigid Ice!"
Three techniques fired in rapid succession.
The air around Doma plunged to the freezing point. Ice crystals flooded the room, turning it into a white, choking haze, like a city drowned in winter fog.
His twin fans slashed again and again, firing wave after wave of ice blades, sealing off the space between him and Vincent completely.
Then, behind Doma, two lotus-shaped ice blooms formed out of nowhere.
The buds opened.
And from within, two girl-shaped ice statues emerged, their lips parting.
A breath of absolute cold spilled out, pouring toward Vincent like it cost nothing at all.
----------------------------------------------------
The deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels. Don't wait read ahead and witness Vincent's rise before the world catches up!
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