The village came under attack!

"How are they doing?"

Kagome asked from aboard the long, loaf-shaped flying craft Aba had transformed into.

"From what I can tell, this young woman's injuries are serious but not fatal. With proper rest and care, she should be mostly recovered in a month or so. As for the other three, one's neck was pierced, and another's heart was punctured. Only this older man still has a chance of being saved..."

Miroku reached that conclusion after examining all four of them.

Li Xia, who was helping beside him, nodded in agreement. "Two can be saved. The other two are beyond help!"

Sango's severe injuries had come from Kohaku's sneak attack.

However, her armor had been made from valuable demon materials with exceptional defensive properties, making it comparable to a bulletproof vest. Even if a sharp "spear" pierced a sturdy "shield," much of its force would be lost afterward. That was the main reason the weapon had not gone straight through Sango's chest, allowing her to survive.

The other person they could save, a middle-aged Demon Slayer, had been sliced open by a blade and nearly cut in half at the waist, but his spine and major organs remained intact.

They just needed to stuff everything back inside, stitch the wound closed, and treat it with hemostatic medicine, healing medicine, antibiotics, and the like. Once the wound was bandaged, the final step would be to embed a Shikon Shard in him.

At a time like this, a Shikon Shard was as good as an extra life.

Not only could a Shikon Shard keep someone alive, it could also accelerate their recovery.

The original timeline had confirmed this too.

Sango had not only been gravely wounded when Kohaku stabbed her in the back, but had also been targeted by a barrage of arrows from the castle guards, worsening her injuries. Yet when Naraku embedded a Shikon Shard in her back, it relieved her pain and accelerated her recovery. That was why, even after the shard was removed, she had needed only ten days to recover from near-fatal injuries that would otherwise have taken over a month to mostly heal.

It was all thanks to those two or three days with the Shikon Shard embedded in her.

Those two or three days had been equivalent to more than twenty days of recuperation.

This also demonstrated another point.

Before a dying person's soul had truly died, before their [living soul] became a [dead soul], a Shikon Shard could be used in time to stabilize their soul and accelerate their body's recovery until their physical injuries would no longer directly cause their living soul to die! At that point, even if the Shikon Shard keeping them alive was removed from their body, they would not drop dead along with its removal!

Sango's case matched this exactly.

Kohaku's case was different:

Kohaku had been brought back from the dead.

That eleven-year-old boy had been dead for so long that his soul had already changed from a living soul into a dead soul.

Dead souls preferred vessels like Kikyo's clay body, rather than living bodies. Thus, even if Kohaku's physical body was revived, his dead soul would still leave it and quickly dissipate once the Shikon Shard was removed.

At the end of the original story, Kikyo had worked a miracle with "her own light," reviving the dead soul inside Kohaku into a living soul.

That was also why Kohaku had survived even after Moryomaru took the Shikon Shard that had been keeping him alive.

A powerful Miko truly could create miracles like that.

"If only I'd been more capable... if only we'd arrived sooner..."

Kagome murmured.

The girl had actually placed the blame on herself.

Hearing this, Li Xia rubbed the little fox demon Shippo's head.

"Higurashi, we've already done more than enough!

"We ran into some seriously troublesome enemies on the way. If Miroku hadn't stepped up, these people from the Demon Slayer Village wouldn't have been the only ones in trouble. Besides, all of these Demon Slayers would have died, but we've saved two of them. We've more than done right by them..."

Li Xia said earnestly:

"Speaking of which, those venomous hornets-the Saimyosho-we encountered on the way were most likely a contingency set up by the demon secretly plotting against the Demon Slayer Village! Their purpose was to attack anyone else heading toward the castle who might get in the way, or at least delay them if the attack failed!

"And that fellow should have been inside the Castle at the time, carrying more than twenty Shikon Shards. You sensed that clearly yourself, Higurashi!

"The fact that he collected more than twenty Shikon Shards in such a short time shows just how powerful he is!

"It also tells us that he has an extremely efficient intelligence network and exceptional mobility!

"Yet even so, he chose to stay carefully hidden behind the scenes, avoiding a direct confrontation with us while he knew nothing about our capabilities!"

At this point, Li Xia sighed softly.

"An opponent who can play it safe to this degree is no ordinary enemy!

"He's probably a ruthless sort who only strikes like lightning once he knows both himself and his enemy.

"From here on, we should prepare as much as we can to deal with his probes..."

These remarks rated Naraku highly and even conveyed a certain respect for their opponent.

Everyone in the group grew solemn.

"Mr. Xia, am I really that useless? Other than sensing where the Shikon Shards are, I can't help with anything!"

The girl still felt guilty.

This time, Li Xia did not disagree. Instead, he nodded firmly.

"Higurashi, you really do need to improve! You have tremendous spiritual power, but you don't know how to use it actively. You can only trigger it passively, and that's not good!

"Next, I'll arrange some special archery training for you!

"These two Demon Slayers will need some time to recuperate after they wake up anyway. We can use that time to train you and let everyone else improve a little too. That would be a sensible use of our precious time! If you keep training consistently and make some progress with your archery, I'm sure you'll be a tremendous help sooner or later!"

In the original story, Sango had taken three days plus another ten to recover.

This time, even with a Shikon Shard helping her heal, seven or eight days would hardly be unreasonable, right?

"Wait until they recover? Won't that hold up our search for the Shikon Shards?"

Standing nearby with his arms folded across his chest, Inuyasha frowned as he asked.

Li Xia considered it, then offered the arrogant plan Two-Dog had proposed a day earlier:

"It's fine. Let those demons run around a little longer. Let the person behind this collect a few more shards, and we'll just take all of them from him when the time comes!"

Seeing Inuyasha's mouth twitch, Li Xia pointed at Miroku.

"We can't leave Miroku, who's been badly poisoned, in the care of those Demon Slayers back at the Demon Slayer Village, can we? They couldn't even spot a simple diversion to lure them away from their base. Would you feel comfortable entrusting Miroku to them?"

Naturally, Inuyasha would never leave a companion in someone else's care.

The group hurried toward the Demon Slayer Village.

But by the time its outline began to come into view, it was already shrouded in smoke.

Flames and rising black smoke were everywhere.

"What's going on?"

"This is bad. It really was a diversion to draw their defenders away! With no experts left to guard the village, demons probably took advantage of the opening and attacked!"

Li Xia's expression turned grave.

His guess was correct.

When Naraku summoned Sango, her father, and two other experts from the village to the castle, he had also sent word to the nearby demons who had been targeted by the Demon Slayer Village for years. He had given those demons in the wilderness information that was "part true and part false": the Demon Slayer Village had Shikon Shards, and there were no experts left to guard it.

And so, retribution came.

With a deadly feud between them, both sides fought a vicious battle to the death.

The Demon Slayers resisted with all their might, while the demons exploited their weakness to finish them off.

Once the Demon Slayers of the Demon Slayer Village and the demon horde had fought until one side completely wiped out the other, Naraku's incarnation would emerge to clean up.

Following the course of events in the original timeline, he would obtain at least five Shikon Shards this time, while also devouring a good number of surviving demons.

And the demons that survived were far from weak individually.

Most were mid-level demons with two-star Demon Power.

Even the weakest were on par with the Spiderhead Leader.

Devouring this batch of demons would not make him immensely stronger in one go, but it would at least give him a modest meal.

Yet for Naraku, this two-pronged scheme was merely a little diversion in this super half-demon's long life.

Just a small hobby to relieve the boredom of his demonic existence.

"We're too late again!"

Corpses littered the surroundings.

Some belonged to the village's many Demon Slayers, while others belonged to all sorts of demons.