I'm Going to Fight You One-on-One!!!!

Just as Inosuke's green eyes froze and his brain stalled at Kirishima Bupai's logic-defying instant kill...

Something suddenly changed!

The enormous Spider Demon, which should have been completely immobilized, lying limbless and wailing in a muddy pool of blood, abruptly raised its head.

The fear and pain in its eyes were instantly replaced by an even more violent obsession.

"ROOOAAAR!!! Don't you dare hurt my family!!!"

A roar filled with boundless madness and the will to protect tore through the night sky.

That roar seemed to ignite every last trace of the demon blood within it.

Amid the cracking of bones and tearing of muscles, flesh writhed madly, as though boiling, at the stumps of its severed limbs.

Squelch! Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!

Four thick arms covered in jet-black armor instantly burst from the sides of its massive torso and behind its shoulder blades.

At the same time, its already enormous body swelled another size, as though being inflated.

Its remaining head let out an inhuman howl, and its eight arms whipped up a destructive, blood-reeking wind as they recklessly slammed toward Kirishima Bupai, who stood within arm's reach.

"Hey! Watch out! That thing's doing it ag-!"

Inosuke's pupils contracted sharply. Ignoring his own injuries, he shouted a hoarse warning.

He had seen this demon's strength after it regenerated. A punch like this had just broken his blades.

But he only got halfway through his warning.

Kirishima Bupai did not even turn around.

He merely raised his sword-bearing right hand casually.

The instant the demon lunged before him with all eight arms attacking at once, its momentum terrifying-

Hummm!

Without warning, the oddly shaped Nichirin Blade in Kirishima Bupai's hand erupted with a dazzling, almost blinding scarlet light.

That light was not fire. It was as though hundreds of millions of miniature suns had ignited inside the blade at once.

His powerful grip clamped down on the hilt like an iron vise, instantly turning the entire sword into a heart-stopping Bright Red Blade.

A searing heat powerful enough to distort the air burst outward from Kirishima Bupai.

A faint, bone-chilling smile lingered at the corner of Kirishima Bupai's mouth.

He turned his head slightly, the lenses of his sunglasses reflecting the demon's figure, made even more hideous by its frenzy.

"Swish!"

He raised his hand and swung.

The motion was as casual as ever, like brushing a fallen leaf from his shoulder.

An intensely condensed scarlet arc flashed through the dim forest and vanished...

"..."

Time froze again for half a second.

The enormous Spider Demon, which had just completed its frenzied transformation and lunged forward ferociously with eight arms raised skyward, instantly went rigid.

Its eight enormous arms, raised high and poised to strike, along with its only recently regenerated legs, after the scarlet arc swept past...

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud...

Like felled trees, they all separated from its torso amid sprays of scalding black blood and crashed heavily onto the muddy ground.

The cuts were charred black, as though instantly carbonized by the fiercest flames. Not even a trace of blood seeped out.

"What a shame. I was going to keep you as a plow ox, but if you're going to be this disobedient, you can just die..."

The demon blood capable of sustaining the regeneration of its massive body was completely incinerated by the Bright Red Blade's slash, which held heat like the core of the sun.

"Ugh... ah..."

Deprived of all support, the demon's body crashed to the ground, leaving only its bare torso and head.

This time, no green blood flowed from its wounds. There were only blackened, carbonized marks.

The agony, like being burned directly by the sun, rendered even its wails hoarse and feeble. It could only twitch futilely in the mud like a fish out of water.

"Wh... wh-wh-what is that?!"

Inosuke's face became a living reaction meme. His mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg, and his green eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

His gaze locked on the Nichirin Blade in Kirishima Bupai's hand, which shone with an eerie red light and steamed with scalding white vapor, and his whole body shuddered.

"A red... blade?! That's... that's ridiculous... this... this heat?!"

He was not particularly close, yet he could still feel the wave of heat washing over his face, as though he were standing beside a furnace.

Kirishima Bupai casually flicked the Bright Red Blade. The scarlet light receded like the tide, the blade returned to its original color, and the heat dissipated with it.

He rolled his neck with a faint crack, as though he had just done something utterly insignificant.

Glancing at Inosuke, who was still sprawled on the ground with shock all over his face, he held back a laugh and said, "All right, boar boy! There's nothing more for you lot to do here..."

With that, he casually pointed the tip of his sword at the severed limbs on the ground and the demon's body, which could do nothing but twitch.

"The Kakushi Squad will come clean up the battlefield, clear away the poison, and carry you wounded lot back for treatment while they're at it. Stay put and don't cause trouble."

"Huh?!" At those words, Inosuke snapped out of his shock like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

Although the movement aggravated his injuries and made him grimace in pain, he still raised the lone broken sword hilt in his hand and roared furiously at Kirishima Bupai, "Hey! What's that supposed to mean, you white-haired bastard in glasses?!"

"Don't look down on me! I only made a little mistake back there... that's why this eight-legged-no, four-legged guy... uh... how many legs did he have again..."

He instinctively lowered his head to count the severed limbs on the ground, only for the charred sight to leave him dizzy.

"Hmph..." Kirishima Bupai gave an ambiguous little snort, cutting off his excuses.

The gaze behind his sunglasses held undisguised concern. "Apart from your brain not working too well, your muscles being a bit overdeveloped, and you being full of reckless energy, anything else... hmm... I haven't noticed yet."

"Hey! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Inosuke was so furious his hair nearly stood on end.

As Kirishima Bupai turned away after speaking, and his white-and-gold cloak bearing the character for "slay" was about to disappear into the darker depths of the forest...

The fury of being utterly belittled, mixed with a wild refusal to lose, instantly overwhelmed Inosuke's reason.

"Hold it right there! Damn it!!!"

Inosuke roared with all his strength and tried to charge forward, dragging his battered body along. "I'm going to fight you one-on-one!!!"

At those words, Kirishima Bupai stopped and turned slightly, revealing only a small portion of his sharply defined profile.

A single syllable drifted over, laden with confusion and the sense of "Did that demon knock your brains out?": "Huh?"

"You took down that member of the Twelve Kizuki!" After saying that, Inosuke panted heavily and thrust out his chest, trying to make himself look more imposing.

He even struck several strange poses, contorting his body to show off his flexibility. "Now I'm going to take you down! To prove I'm the strongest!"

"The strongest! Get it?! Gahahaha!"

His movements were so exaggerated that they pulled at his injured ribs, instantly bringing cold sweat to his forehead, but he kept forcing himself to hold on.

Watching the bizarre poses this boar boy was striking to intimidate him, which would clearly worsen his injuries, Kirishima Bupai knitted his brows even tighter.

The next second, his figure vanished from the spot like a phantom!