Appeal to their emotions, move them with profit.
Hashiba Hideyoshi's rhetoric was undeniably impressive. In fact, he was not wrong at all. At this pace, by the time the chicken in Journey to the West finished eating its rice, the pig finished licking its flour, and the lock burned through, Fujimaru Kyoya still would not be able to redeem this Demonic Blade.
But so what?
"The body is a bodhi tree; the mind a bright mirror stand. Wipe it diligently at all times; let no dust settle upon it."
Fujimaru Kyoya answered with Shenxiu's verse. This was also the secret of Northern Chan Buddhism's "Gradual Cultivation," which emphasized constant practice, accumulating little by little until one ultimately became Buddha.
Back then, the schools of Gradual Cultivation and Sudden Enlightenment divided north and south, each establishing its own Chan tradition. Shenxiu and Huìnéng both called themselves the Sixth Ancestor. Yet after the late Tang dynasty, Northern Chan Buddhism gradually declined. That did not mean Shenxiu's attainment had been inferior to Huìnéng's.
Gradual Cultivation was also a path to becoming Buddha. Even if it seemed endlessly distant, that was no reason to give up.
Without the slightest hesitation, Fujimaru Kyoya cleanly and decisively cut down every soldier who dared charge at him.
[You sensed that the demonic nature Murasame had suppressed over the past few days was beginning to recover. Everything you had done these days seemed like wasted effort. As Murasame harvested lives and gradually grew stronger, the effect of "Man-slayer" was enhanced.]
Wasted effort?
Such rhetoric no longer worked on Fujimaru Kyoya. As long as he was alive in this world, as long as he continued to affect it, how could everything he had done be called wasted effort?
To Fujimaru Kyoya, something like that was not even