After dealing with the stubborn fool in front of him, Kibutsuji Muzan glanced at his subordinate demon, who was still searching for his body.
Bang!
The demon's head exploded in an instant, turning into a heap of mangled flesh.
Kibutsuji Muzan turned and left without a backward glance. To him, anyone who had failed once was useless and had no reason to exist.
An hour after the Demon King had left,
several humans appeared on the blood-soaked battlefield, their faces filled with sorrow.
"Lord Mingye..."
"We failed..."
Mingye was the Wind Breathing swordsman lying on the ground, killed by Kibutsuji Muzan.
The newcomers were scouts from the Ubuyashiki family, not full-fledged Breathing Style swordsmen.
"But the demon seems to be dead too."
One of them looked at the scattered flesh and the demon's body.
"Though its death looks strange..."
"Come and look!"
As one of them gathered Mingye's body, he noticed something unusual.
He pointed to the Nichirin Sword in Mingye's hand. A few peculiar bloodstains marked its surface.
To anyone else, they might have looked like accidental smears, but the Ubuyashiki scouts recognized them as a secret code used only by the Demon Slayer Corps.
Normally, demons devoured the bodies of Demon Slayer Corps members, leaving no traces behind.
Nichirin Swords were different. Demons detested the material they were made from and left them alone.
That was why the head of the Ubuyashiki family had decreed that anyone near death could leave a specific mark on their Nichirin Sword to pass on information.
"This mark means..."
The scouts exchanged glances, their eyes bright with both excitement and fear.
"It's the Demon King!"
"Wind Style: Gale Palm!"
Masahiro channeled his Chakra and thrust out his palm.
A fierce gust burst from it, sending the tall, fully masked figure flying several meters before he slammed into a nearby tree and snapped it in half.
But the towering figure acted as if nothing had happened. He sprang back up and charged at Masahiro again.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
Masahiro remained calm and continued forming Hand Seals.
Scorching flames poured from his mouth, forming a massive fireball that instantly surpassed the scale of anything achievable with Flame Breathing.
The intense heat burned away the tall figure's clothes in an instant, revealing Perfect 1's face.
Carbon-based life forms were helpless before such heat.
But Perfect 1 was clearly no ordinary carbon-based life form. The charred skin that had caught fire peeled away at astonishing speed, revealing the fair skin beneath, already fully regenerated.
"What a monster."
Masahiro's mouth twitched. This fellow, who had always accompanied Lord Sarutobi, had a life force and physical ability comparable to a demon's.
If he didn't fear the sun and had been eating human food the whole way here, Masahiro would have wondered whether he was some kind of super-mutant demon.
But Masahiro's Chakra was limited, and he couldn't keep using Ninjutsu. He could only draw his Nichirin Sword and try to keep Perfect 1 at bay.
Fortunately, with Chakra bolstering him, Masahiro's swordsmanship had not improved, but his superhuman reflexes and strength let him fight Perfect 1 on even terms.
"Masahiro's made good progress."
Sarutobi Hiruzen watched Masahiro's performance and nodded in approval.
Masahiro had trained hard throughout their journey these past few days, and it was beginning to pay off.
"And..."
"Lord Sarutobi..."
Tsugikuni Yoriichi watched Masahiro use Ninjutsu, lost in thought.
"This power called Chakra is stronger than Breathing Styles."
"If it could be made widespread, Breathing Styles would eventually be replaced."
Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled without committing himself. Tsugikuni Yoriichi's judgment was beyond question.
In this world, Breathing Styles might be as powerful as Chakra, but Chakra had a versatility that Breathing Styles could never match.
Most importantly, Chakra placed less strain on the body. Even without Awakening the Demon Slayer Mark, Breathing Style swordsmen rarely lived past fifty.
"Unfortunately..."
"This will make human warfare even more brutal."
Tsugikuni Yoriichi had also realized that compared with Breathing Styles, Ninjutsu was far more effective on the battlefield.
Sarutobi Hiruzen replied with a knowing look.
"Not necessarily."
"After all, the cause of humans slaughtering one another is humanity itself, not anything else."
Sarutobi Hiruzen chuckled to himself. Tsugikuni Yoriichi didn't know that in the future, humans would invent firearms, weapons that killed more efficiently than anything else.
Compared with the number of people eaten by demons, those killed by firearms would be but a drop in the bucket.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi fell silent. He felt compassion for humanity and for all life, but he also knew war was unavoidable, regardless of the methods or weapons involved.
Sarutobi Hiruzen turned his gaze to Perfect 1.
Using Puppetry and Genjutsu, he had given him some ability to fight independently.
But the downside is that he's still very clumsy...
Sarutobi Hiruzen thought to himself.
He can't adapt to more complex battles...
And Perfect Beings have their own drawbacks.
After all, Perfect Beings were transformed from demons and retained some of their traits.
Sarutobi Hiruzen had discovered that Perfect Beings could not improve their physical abilities through ordinary means, such as exercise or eating.
Of course, they could improve through special training like Breathing Styles—or by eating people.
That was right: just like demons, Perfect Beings had to eat people to continue evolving. Otherwise, they could only maintain their current physical state.
This might be the greatest drawback of Perfect Beings.
In that respect, they're inferior to the T-Virus...
The T-Virus can evolve into eight branches in a second.
Sarutobi Hiruzen wasn't surprised. In the original story, aside from overcoming sunlight, Perfect Beings had no other advantages over ordinary demons.
Perfect 1 was now somewhat stronger than an ordinary demon, but his physical abilities could only remain as they were.
Eating people would solve this problem.
Sarutobi Hiruzen shook his head.
But I still have some principles.
I can't bring myself to do something so completely inhuman...
Fortunately, I never planned to become a Perfect Being in the first place.
Otherwise, I could easily have been constrained by this so-called "perfection."
"Rustle, rustle."
Suddenly, a faint sound came from the bushes. Though it was barely audible, no one present was ordinary.
They all immediately turned their attention to the bushes nearby.
"Who's there?!"
"Come out!"
Masahiro held his Nichirin Sword in one hand and a Kunai in the other, utterly vigilant.
It was daytime, so no demon could appear now. But this was also an era of war, and humans could sometimes be even more dangerous than demons.
"Wait!"
"I mean no harm!"
Before long, the person in the bushes couldn't withstand the many gazes fixed on him as if they were tangible. He raised both hands and rolled out of the bushes.
Before you continue