"Then come on!"
Mingye's voice was neither loud nor soft, but it carried the confidence to take on any demon.
Even the dust at his feet drifted upward, as though it had come alive, stirred by the confidence in his words.
"Impressive, boy!"
All three heads of the Three-Headed Demon Wolf spoke together, releasing a long howl that shook the valley. Admiration flashed in its three pairs of crimson eyes.
Then the Three-Headed Demon Wolf's aura changed completely. Before Mingye's eyes, it was no longer a lone demon wolf.
For a moment, he seemed to see hundreds upon thousands of ancestral demon wolves in their true forms, pairs of crimson eyes raised as they howled at the sky!
The next instant, the entire burial ground underwent a terrifying change. The earth cracked, and the mountains shook as though a massive earthquake had struck!
The ground trembled all around Mingye, even beneath his feet. The entire burial ground seemed to heave like a dragon turning underground. The mountains seemed to come alive, then flow like a mighty river!
Mingye's heart jolted. This transformation went far beyond what had happened when Kōga obtained the Five Thunder Finger in the original story!
This burial ground had truly come alive!
"Awooo!"
Terrifying, savage howls filled the valley burial ground, leaving Mingye nowhere to stand.
Every patch of ground he stepped on became a wolf's maw. Like the fiercest starving wolves, hungry for untold ages, they caught the scent of a fresh, living being like Mingye and erupted with a ravenous urge to devour him!
A hundred wolves tearing at him? A thousand wolves roaring!?
Mingye couldn't help feeling his scalp prickle. He wondered whether he'd watched a fake version of Inuyasha. This made no sense at all!
To think this burial ground could undergo such a transformation!
But...
"Now this is interesting!"
In the midst of this crisis, the corners of Mingye's mouth lifted slightly. His long black hair whipped wildly through the convulsing burial ground!
Mingye lightly tapped his foot, instantly shattering the snapping wolf's maw beneath him. Without pausing, he moved like a black shadow splitting into countless others!
A series of thunderous crashes rang out. In an instant, every demon wolf body formed from the ground and the surrounding mountains shattered.
Above the Three-Headed Demon Wolf, Mingye's eyes blazed with fierce fighting spirit. With a twist of his body, he drew in all the air within ten feet of him.
White air billowed into his right foot, which burned with crimson vital energy. He stamped down like a colossal elephant raising its foot high before slamming it into the earth, unleashing a terrifying torrent of savage force!
His foot descended upon the enormous Three-Headed Demon Wolf. Even before that force fully struck, it sent a shudder through the wolf's soul!
"That speed!"
And when his foot finally landed, making contact with its head, the Three-Headed Demon Wolf let out an earth-shaking roar:
"That strength...!?"
Boom!
A terrifying crash burst forth like thunder from level ground, like a gigantic bomb exploding. White-hot currents of air surged upward in an instant, filling the valley!
As the force erupted in full, the earth split apart in a spiderweb of cracks. A violent shock wave swept in every direction, sending billowing air skyward!
"It's Master!"
Mountain Ogre stood guard outside the valley. The terrifying tremors reached him, affecting even the valley entrance.
That enormous explosive crash, in particular, made Mountain Ogre's heart quiver. What unlucky fool had provoked his master this time?
As a mountain ogre, he had a mountain-like body and tremendous strength. Yet he knew that his master's tiny body contained power that could strike fear into every demon!
It was simply unbelievable!
They had been traveling for only a little over a month, yet Mountain Ogre's view changed every day. Compared with Mingye, what right did he have to call himself a monster?
Mingye shook his arm, whipping up a fierce gust. Had a powerful fighter been watching, they would have seen the blood and vital energy in his body circulating rapidly like flowing streams!
As that blood and vital energy circulated, the Demon Power contained within it gradually merged with them, and blood, vital energy, and Demon Power erupted together.
And when he struck, he drew in the surrounding air, using extremely swift techniques to combine it with the power inside his body. This was force!
Blood and vital energy, Demon Power, and force united as one. Wielding all three at once had increased Mingye's strength enormously!
This was the combat method he had perfected on this journey, and the source of his confidence when faced with that sudden transformation!
Before such power, any danger would be shattered!
The ground for dozens of feet around him had sunk more than ten feet. Even the surrounding mountains had fractured, and many ancestral bones had shattered!
That single stomp had truly been like a colossal elephant striking from the sky, shaking the mountains and crushing the earth!
Before the treasured mirror that held the Five Thunder Finger, the Three-Headed Demon Wolf's body formed again. This time, however, its eyes were filled with astonishment!
"This boy..."
"What terrifying strength..."
"His speed is frightening, too..."
The Three-Headed Demon Wolf swallowed, still shaken. If the ancestors hadn't already died and merged with this burial ground, becoming nearly impossible to destroy...
In life, probably no generation of the Demon Wolf Tribe, not even their earliest ancestors, had possessed such terrifying strength at this age.
"Want to keep going?"
Mingye took a step forward, walking out of the sunken crater, and looked at the Three-Headed Demon Wolf with a smile in his eyes.
Under his gaze, the Three-Headed Demon Wolf seemed to see a rising sun, dazzling and searing!
"What technique did you use, boy?!"
The Three-Headed Demon Wolf couldn't help asking. This simply wasn't strength someone of his age should possess.
Nor was it a combat technique belonging to their Demon Wolf Tribe!
"The path of blood and vital energy."
Mingye spoke unhurriedly. Demons in this world cultivated Demon Power. As long as their Demon Power increased, their strength would increase as well.
One could say that the strength of their Demon Power determined their overall strength.
But Mingye possessed the martial arts methods of his previous life. How could he be so foolish? Demons' blood contained Demon Power, making their blood and vital energy far stronger than a human's.
If he used his previous life's methods of circulating blood and vital energy to strengthen them further, his physical strength would increase!
Combining that with Demon Power would strengthen him again. Then, with the force he could unleash through his martial arts mastery from his previous life, the resulting power would be utterly terrifying.
It had taken Mingye quite some time to achieve this. This was his first time fully unleashing the combined power of all three.
On the road, he had also been researching how to release these three powers without letting them cancel one another out.
Now he had finally mastered it!
"The path of blood and vital energy?"
The Three-Headed Demon Wolf was formed from the souls of countless Demon Wolf Tribe ancestors, yet they had never heard of such a path among demons.
"There's more to the power within blood and vital energy than that trace of spiritual essence."
Mingye spoke calmly. The spiritual essence within a demon's blood was Demon Power, while that within human blood took forms such as spiritual power and magical power.
Although the names differed, their actual levels weren't far apart. Differences in blood and vital energy simply caused the power to manifest differently.
In his previous life, Mingye had studied martial arts. But on Earth, human blood and vital energy lacked this spiritual essence. The path of blood and vital energy alone could never sustain one for long.
Thus, people needed to consume spiritual medicines of heaven and earth to nourish their blood and vital energy, tempering themselves to strengthen their constitutions and extend their lives.
Demons in this world, however, were naturally long-lived, both rich in blood and vital energy and brimming with spiritual essence.
Their flaw was obvious, though: their intelligence developed slowly, lagging behind that of humans.
Still, given their longevity, slow intellectual development hardly counted as a flaw.
These were the conclusions he had reached through fifty years of thought, experimentation, and experience.
Before you continue