The Pitch-Black Aura that had once only covered his palms had, without him realizing it, reached all the way to his elbows.
Within the web of hardened threads woven deep in the forest, Kurozawa smiled faintly. "My blade breaking is only the beginning for me."
Across from him, surprise rarely appeared on Rui's ever-placid face. "Are we the same kind? No, that's not right. You don't smell like a demon."
If they truly were the same kind, Rui would have recognized it the instant he saw him.
Kurozawa shook his head, with no intention of explaining.
He reached out and gripped the nearest thread blocking his path. His fingers did not even exert any force before the Pitch-Black Aura burned and softened it, stripping it of the sharpness that had so easily severed a Nichirin Blade before.
Rui's hardened threads were far stronger than the corrosive hair of the red-haired female demon Kurozawa had encountered on the train. The corrosive hair would turn to ash as soon as it touched the Pitch-Black Aura, but these hardened threads still held firm.
Snap! With a slight exertion of his fingertips, Kurozawa flicked the thread apart.
"Hmm?"
Rui sensed danger from the Pitch-Black Aura burning over Kurozawa's arms. The stronger someone was, the sharper their instincts became toward people or things that could threaten them. The faintly discernible sense of danger Kurozawa had given off from the start had already put Rui on guard, but the Pitch-Black Aura now made him directly wary.
Even from a distance, Rui seemed to see the struggling, wailing figures of demons like himself. That Pitch-Black Aura seemed to have been forged from the corpses of demons.
If Kurozawa knew what Rui was thinking, he would definitely give him a thumbs-up. Rui had guessed correctly—the Pitch-Black Aura was