As his body fell, something dropped from inside his clothes. It was a wooden flute I had cleaved in two with a single stroke. The flute he had roughly fashioned as a child to give to me. He had actually carried it with him for over sixty years.
Looking at that broken flute, my tears suddenly began to flow uncontrollably.
Yes, I abandoned everything, even my humanity, just to become the strongest. If I am beheaded here and die, what will my entire life have amounted to?
How can I lose here! I absolutely cannot die! I must survive. Even if I become a monster, I will prove that I am the strongest!
The real world came crashing back at that moment.
Blood gushed like a fountain from Kokushibo's severed neck. Gyomei Himejima and Sanemi Shinazugawa gasped for breath, their stamina exhausted to its absolute limit, blood still seeping from their wounds. Yet their eyes shone with wild joy. They had finally beheaded this arrogant Upper Rank One.
But then, something suddenly changed.
Kokushibo's headless body, which should have gradually turned to ash, did not fall. An extremely violent, twisted surge of bloody energy erupted from his severed neck. Within that nauseating energy, buds of flesh writhed and intertwined wildly. In just a few breaths, an entirely new head forcibly grew out.
What a hideous, terrifying demon head it was! Asymmetrically placed eyes covered his face like a spider's compound eyes, his fangs crisscrossed, and sharp demonic horns sprouted from his forehead. He had completely departed from anything human. He was a pure monster, born for slaughter.
"How is this possible!" Sanemi Shinazugawa's eyes stretched wide with fury as he gripped his Nichirin Blade tightly.
Gyomei Himejima was equally shocked. He could sense that Kokushibo's aura had not weakened at