The middle-aged man frowned and took a step back. When he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth seemed to become whiter and sharper for an instant before returning to normal the next second.
Seeing him like this, Kurozawa inwardly rejoiced.
He had stayed on the mountain all this time, doing nothing but train. That sort of life was truly dull.
Now that he had encountered a demon that kept yielding and refused to fight, Kurozawa could not help but feel something strange.
I was actually nervous just now.
Thinking back on his earlier thoughts, Kurozawa laughed soundlessly.
But considering that his opponent was a Man-Eating Demon that fed on humans and could neither die nor perish, Kurozawa chose to forgive himself for being nervous.
After all, this was his first time facing a demon. He needed a little time to adjust mentally. Now, after a few exchanges and realizing that the other party seemed even less willing to provoke him, he had already adjusted.
Lowering his head, Kurozawa's gaze gradually calmed as he looked at the middle-aged man before him.
"What's inside that snakeskin sack on your back?"
At his words, the middle-aged man shifted his feet slightly, using his body to block Kurozawa's view.
"Just a wild boar I caught in the mountains. It has nothing to do with you."
Beneath clothing that could not conceal it from the naked eye, faint blue-black patterns were already spreading across the middle-aged man's skin.
He was not afraid of Kurozawa, this Demon Hunter. He simply did not want unnecessary trouble.
Kurozawa's tall, powerful build was clearly far more imposing than that of an ordinary person.
Kurozawa reached out and placed his right hand on the man's shoulder, laughing loudly. "Perfect. I love pork, especially wild boar from the mountains. I haven't had dinner either, so sell me that boar and let me have a good meal. How much?"
What did he mean by "I"? The middle-aged man did not understand, but that did not stop him from grasping Kurozawa's meaning.
"I won't sell it at any price." The middle-aged man's tone gradually stiffened.
He watched Kurozawa move his right hand away from the hilt of his sword and place it on his shoulder, and the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward.
Idiot. A Demon Hunter Swordsman, yet this is all the vigilance you have? Without your Nichirin Blade, what are you? Killing intent instantly surged within the middle-aged man. As long as he caught Kurozawa off guard and launched a sneak attack without giving him a chance to dodge, this young man would certainly die.
At the same time, one of the middle-aged man's hands quietly moved behind his back. His nails lengthened, their tips becoming hard and sharp, their sides thin and razor-edged.
Kurozawa's eyes merely lit up as he smiled as though unaware. "Then if I don't pay, it isn't selling, right?"
What a pity. No one understands my joke. Kurozawa lowered his gaze.
Under the candlelight, the middle-aged man's expression instantly twisted into a grimace.
In an instant, black Demon Marks interwove across his face from his neck upward.
At the same time, veins bulged, thick blood vessels writhing slowly beneath his skin like earthworms. Within the gaping maw stretched to his ears, his protruding teeth resembled the serrated teeth of a shark.
The middle-aged man—no, the middle-aged demon—raked his claws viciously toward Kurozawa's left chest. The howling wind and cold glint flashing between his fingers proclaimed the danger of the attack.
His eyes were filled with savagery, along with the exhilaration of finally exploding after enduring humiliation.
"Demon Hunter, you've gone too far! Die!"
The more he endured, the angrier he became; the more he retreated, the more cheated he felt. As a demon, he had always been the one bullying others. When had he ever suffered such humiliation? Yet his triumphant cry abruptly stopped with a bang.
Bang! The large hand Kurozawa had placed on his shoulder had silently climbed to the middle-aged demon's head the very moment he launched his sneak attack.
Then, just as he let out his triumphant roar, Kurozawa slammed it down.
In an instant, an irresistible force struck him. The middle-aged man felt like a rag doll, spinning helplessly as he was casually hurled to the ground.
His entire head was brutally pressed into the gray stone floor by Kurozawa's single hand.
The middle-aged man's whole face sank into it, cracks exploding outward, leaving only the back of his head exposed.
This kind of strength... The middle-aged demon was horrified.
Kurozawa had not drawn his sword at all. The Nichirin Blade at his waist had merely been bait to lure him in! How could this be? How could a human possess such immense strength?
It was not as if the middle-aged demon had never seen other swordsmen. Although he had only watched from hiding and did not dare attack them directly, that did not prevent him from knowing that swordsmen were powerful because of the sword forms they used.
The sharpness of a Nichirin Blade was what swordsmen relied on to fight demons.
With flesh alone, demons could crush swordsmen.
Yet what was happening now completely overturned the middle-aged demon's worldview.
Though his worldview had been flawed to begin with due to his limited knowledge.
The swordsmen of the Demon Slayer Corps who had mastered the Constant Breathing Technique possessed bodies no weaker than most demons. Every one of them was a humanoid monster.
Kurozawa did not know what the middle-aged demon was thinking. Half-crouching on the ground, he pinned the demon down with one hand, then drew his Nichirin Blade with his left as he looked at the back of the demon's exposed head.
Even in the darkness, the edge of the Nichirin Blade remained incomparably cold, as though it could cut through anything.
His hand rose and fell, the Nichirin Blade slashing horizontally toward the middle-aged demon's neck.
Before it even touched him, goosebumps rose one after another across the skin at the back of the middle-aged demon's neck, and every hair stood on end.
Sensing the danger, the middle-aged demon was terrified and struggled desperately.
He planted his feet against the ground and exerted force, trying to break free from Kurozawa's restraint.
But beneath Kurozawa's absolute crushing strength, the middle-aged demon instantly understood that once Kurozawa had him by the neck, he could not escape with his own strength.
At the brink of life and death, the middle-aged demon wrapped both hands around his neck.
But not to use them to block the Nichirin Blade.
With the Nichirin Blade's sharpness, his hands could not stop it.
Thus, beneath Kurozawa's strange gaze, the fingertips of the middle-aged demon's hands frantically grew sharp, blade-like nails and stabbed into his own neck.
Then, veins bulged along his arms as he tore violently.
At the same time, the Nichirin Blade fell, its edge already touching his hands.
At the critical moment, a wet tearing sound rang out.
The flesh and blood of his neck was torn apart down the middle by his own hands! His pale spine also snapped, with strips of bloody tissue still clinging to it.
Scarlet blood sprayed out under immense pressure, dyeing Kurozawa's trouser leg crimson.
Crack! The Nichirin Blade came down, passing through the torn neck and striking the ground, carving a shallow slash into the stone.
Immediately afterward, ignoring the head still beneath Kurozawa's palm, the middle-aged demon's entire body scuttled rapidly on all fours, moving like a giant spider with a posture that violated the limits of normal human joints.
This sudden change allowed the middle-aged demon to escape Kurozawa's blade. Without even standing, he stuck close to the ground and scuttled away like a spider.
Kurozawa stood up, holding the still-bleeding demon head in one hand as he looked at the demon's limbs and torso crawling three meters away.
"So as long as you remove your own head, no one can cut it off?"
Who would have thought this demon's will to survive was so strong? That was quite the trick.
Is this the demon version of, if I choose to kill myself, then no one can kill me? Kurozawa was stunned. At the same time, looking at the demon head still dripping blood, he felt waves of nausea.
The middle-aged man's demon head remained in Kurozawa's hand, its face full of terror. Beneath it hung uneven strips of flesh torn apart by brute force, as well as half a spine mingled with pallid white and blood red.
"I, Kurozawa, have always been kind and innocent. When I was little, I even watched chickens being slaughtered through the gaps between my fingers. Are you trying to scare me to death on purpose? Hmm?"
Kurozawa wanted to know whether the Power of Despair was related to how desperate someone felt at the moment of death. So, acting out of character, he became much more talkative. He wanted to make this demon sink step by step into deeper despair.
Keeping a wary eye on the headless body from the corner of his eye, Kurozawa raised the demon head and stared directly into its eyes.
The previously pale eyes rolled about, and the middle-aged demon's corpse-like expression turned ingratiating.
Having severed his own head to survive, with his head still in someone else's hand, the middle-aged man had intended to use his headless body as a distraction and wait for Kurozawa to let go before escaping. He had not expected Kurozawa to know that his consciousness still resided in his head.
"P-please... spare me..."
Ahem, the author was shamelessly plugging things.
Before you continue