Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting a deathly pale glow across Yaha's face.
That face, usually steeped in laziness and impatience, was now frighteningly still.
His blood-red eyes looked down from above.
His gaze swept across the ravaged clearing before settling on the Hand Demon's thick arm, which was about to stuff Sabito into his mouth.
"Another one coming to die." A wheezing, dry laugh squeezed out of the Hand Demon's throat.
He did not release the arm wrapped around Sabito. Instead, he maliciously pushed him another half inch toward his rows of crooked fangs.
He wanted this new brat to watch his companion's bones being chewed to pieces.
Yaha moved.
He walked slowly down from the branch, his combat boots landing on the rough bark with unhurried, muffled thuds.
He did not reach for the issued Nichirin Blade at his waist.
Nor did he take his right hand out of his trouser pocket.
He simply stepped through the night breeze, looking down at the Hand Demon.
His gaze was like someone inspecting a lump of rotten flesh that had accidentally stuck to the sole of his shoe.
The Hand Demon's laughter caught in his throat.
He had lived for fifty years, devoured countless swordsmen who drew their blades against him, and seen countless faces twisted with fear or rage.
But he had never faced a gaze like this.
No killing intent. No anger.
Only condescending indifference.
A shudder originating deep within his genes erupted through the demon blood flowing inside him.
The ends of his twenty-three arms began to twitch uncontrollably.
"You have a lot of hands."
Yaha stopped on a horizontal branch five meters above the ground.
He tilted his neck, and his vertebrae gave a sharp crack.
"But growing all that useless junk in front of me is a real eyesore."
At last, Yaha raised his right hand, slowly drawing it from his pocket.
He held his long index and middle fingers together and casually pointed them toward the Hand Demon.
A gentle swipe.
There was no roar of a blade's gleam cleaving the night.
No azure ripples of Water Breathing.
Not even the wind stirred.
The Hand Demon froze for a moment, then spread his fang-filled mouth wide and burst into crazed, mocking laughter.
"You little bastard, putting on a show! What can that worthless finger of yours cu-"
His voice cut off.
The three arms wrapped around Sabito slid off together at their roots.
The cuts were smooth as mirrors, without even a single torn muscle fiber.
Filthy black demon blood poured from the severed stumps like a fountain that had lost its pressure, drenching Sabito's head and face.
The Hand Demon lowered his head blankly.
His brain had not even had time to process the pain signals.
The five arms wrapped around Makomo separated from his torso in that same second.
A series of dull thuds sounded as they hit the ground.
Eight of his twenty-three arms had been sliced off in an instant.
Off balance, the Hand Demon's enormous body pitched forward. His remaining dozen or so arms clawed frantically at the dirt, barely keeping him from falling flat.
"Wha..."
He stared in horror at the severed limbs still twitching on the ground.
The flesh around the stumps began to writhe. His demonic regenerative instincts drove buds of flesh outward, trying to heal the wounds.
The newly formed flesh had barely emerged.
Sssss-
Accompanied by a teeth-grating sound of corrosion, the freshly grown cells rapidly blackened and died.
The Hand Demon screamed.
He felt as though a piece of his soul had been forcibly gouged out. The agony, like a rusty saw cutting back and forth through his bone marrow, sent violent spasms through his enormous body.
"You... what did you do?!"
The Hand Demon's voice had changed completely, its hoarseness laced with undisguisable terror.
He staggered backward, frantically crossing his remaining fifteen arms in front of himself, instinctively building a wall of flesh.
Yaha jumped down from the branch.
He landed without a sound.
Standing amid severed arms and filthy blood, he slipped his right hand back into his pocket and tilted his head as he examined the trembling mountain of flesh.
"Did you just say you wanted to eat my senior?"
His voice was still soft.
The Hand Demon's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
"What the hell are you?"
Yaha took a step forward.
"You think you're worthy of touching prey I've set my sights on?"
The Hand Demon's knees gave out completely.
In all his years, he had never seen a monster who could halt a demon's regeneration with a flick of his fingers, without even drawing a blade.
"Who are you..." He trembled as he shrank back.
Yaha did not answer.
He drew his hand out again, holding his index and middle fingers together.
This time, the Hand Demon could not even make out the tiny movement of his fingertips.
Only an exceedingly faint hum sounded in the air.
The last severed arm wrapped around Sabito's waist, along with the three arms guarding the Hand Demon's left side, instantly split and slid away.
Perfect geometric cross sections.
Sabito fell heavily into the mud, gasping for breath.
Makomo tumbled down beside him, clutching her bruised neck and coughing violently. She had even forgotten to retrieve the Nichirin Blade lying some distance away, her eyes filled with terror as she stared at the smoothly sliced chunks of flesh strewn across the ground.
Foul-smelling blood blurred Sabito's vision.
He desperately raised his head, fixing his gaze on the figure standing in the moonlight with his back to him.
This was the Yaha he had known for two years.
The lazy fellow who slept in trees every day and found even swinging a sword too tiring.
Now, black curse markings writhed like living things across his half-turned face.
An inhuman cruelty showed in his blood-red eyes.
"Ya..."
Sabito's throat worked, but no sound came out.
A shudder deeper than anything he had felt facing the Hand Demon crawled up his spine.
Yaha did not turn around.
His gaze remained locked on the Hand Demon's enormous, sweat-drenched head.
The Hand Demon had retreated into a dead end, his back striking a thick cedar tree.
He drew all his remaining arms tight around himself, curling into a pathetic ball of flesh.
"Stay away... don't kill me..."
Yaha took another step closer.
"I was wrong... I didn't know they were yours..." The Hand Demon sobbed and begged for mercy, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Yaha stopped three paces away.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled into an utterly vicious smile.
"I'll give you a chance now."
He lowered his eyes, his tone gentle enough to make one's skin crawl.
"Tell me the names of those eleven children you ate, one by one. For every name you get right, I'll let you live one second longer."
The sobbing inside the ball of flesh stopped abruptly.
A few seconds later, that bloodshot head poked out through a gap between his arms.
"The first... was a boy..." He desperately scoured his mind.
But he remembered nothing.
He remembered only the sound of those children's bones breaking, only their desperate cries.
How could he possibly remember the names of ants?
"Can't remember?"
Yaha's tone was utterly calm.
"Then don't bother."
His index finger twitched.
[Cleave].
Invisible threads wove through the air into an impenetrable net.
The Hand Demon's body froze instantly.
His gaping mouth could no longer make a sound.
The enormous mountain of flesh collapsed.
Countless uniform cubes scattered across the ground, every cut surface gleaming like a mirror in the moonlight.
Bones and organs alike had been completely dismantled.
Only a relatively intact head remained, rolling to a stop in front of Yaha's combat boots.
The Hand Demon's remaining eyeball darted wildly, filled with utter despair and incomprehensible terror.
Yaha raised his foot.
"Shut up, trash."
Splat.
Like a rotten watermelon bursting underfoot, the Hand Demon's head exploded instantly, splattering red and white matter across the ground.
Yaha drew back his foot.
Inside his mind, the cold mechanical voice arrived right on cue.
[Ding! Host detected displaying absolute contempt for the weak in battle.] [Roleplay level +7%. Current roleplay level: 25%.] [Reverse Cursed Technique (beginner) unlocked.]
Yaha let out a long, stale breath.
Beneath the moonlight, the black curse markings on his face rapidly receded like an ebbing tide.
Those chilling blood-red eyes returned to pure black.
He turned around and looked at Sabito and Makomo on the ground.
A trace of exhaustion showed in his eyes, impossible to conceal.
"Still alive?"
Sabito struggled to sit up, every bone in his body screaming with pain.
He ignored his wounds and simply stared straight at Yaha's face, which had already returned to normal.
Makomo huddled behind Sabito, her hands digging tightly into the dirt, not even daring to take a full breath.
Sabito looked as though he wanted to see through that skin to the monster hidden beneath.
"You... what the hell are you?" Sabito's voice was horribly hoarse.
Yaha was silent for two seconds.
He yawned, walked over, and crouched down, irritably slapping Sabito's blood-soaked head.
"Your buddy. Quit the crap, get up, and let's move."
Before you continue