Xia Xi selectively ignored Shinjuro's correction.
"That doesn't matter. I'm asking you how many demons the Rengoku family has killed over the past thousand years."
He put the question more directly.
"How many demons have the swordsmen trained by the Rengoku family, who used 'Flame Breathing,' killed?"
Lady Ruka felt her husband, who was leaning against her, stiffen slightly.
How many demons had Flame Breathing swordsmen actually killed?
Naturally, they were beyond counting.
Hundreds of years ago, before the Rengoku family had even mastered a Breathing Style, they had already begun fighting demons.
Who could count all the demons slain in that time?
But even without knowing the exact number, Shinjuro knew that the accumulated total must far exceed the number of demons the Sun Breathing swordsman had slain in his lifetime.
"A lot, right?" Xia Xi's voice rang clearly through the mist.
"Even if each generation's Flame Hashira only killed ten demons in their lifetime, with so many generations adding up..."
He paused and offered a conservative estimate.
"That would still be several hundred."
"Then what about the Water Breathing swordsmen? The Thunder Breathing swordsmen?"
Xia Xi continued to press him, his tone calm but relentless.
"If you added up all the demons slain over hundreds of years by these swordsmen you consider 'degraded versions' of Sun Breathing."
"How many times would that be compared to that [chosen one]?"
"Ten times? A hundred times? Or even more?"
Shinjuro instinctively retorted, "That's different. A thousand ordinary small-fry demons put together still couldn't compare to a single Upper Rank..."
Xia Xi shifted into a more comfortable position in the hot spring.
His words, however, grew more serious.
"Different? Shinjuro, what exactly do you slay demons for?"
The big owl blurted out almost immediately, "To fulfill the Rengoku family's duty and mission,