Shura

Sabito and Giyu both sucked in a breath. A three-hundred-jin blade? How was anyone supposed to use a Breathing Style with that? This simply wasn't a weapon a human could wield!

Rokuya ignored Haganezuka's barking. His eyes lit up as though he had spotted a peerless treasure.

He walked over to the wooden case, crouched down, undid the clasp with a click, and lifted the lid.

In the sunlight, an enormous weapon lay quietly inside, exceedingly crude and devoid of beauty, yet exuding an aesthetic of violence taken to its utmost extreme.

Its blade was as broad as a palm, its spine as thick and heavy as an iron plate, and its body an unpolished, primal blackish gray.

"Not bad. Big enough, hard enough."

Rokuya was very satisfied.

Haganezuka Hotaru sneered. "What good does looking at it do? Can you even draw it? Don't throw your back out..."

Before he could finish, Haganezuka's voice cut off abruptly.

Rokuya reached out with his right hand. He didn't even use both hands, merely taking hold of the thick hilt with one.

"Up."

Rokuya uttered the word calmly, the muscles in his right arm instantly tightening.

"Hummm!"

Without the slightest resistance or even a hint of strain, Rokuya casually lifted the enormous, three-hundred-jin cleaver with one hand, holding it level in midair and pointing it toward the woods ahead.

The edge sliced through the air with a low hum.

Beneath his mask, Haganezuka Hotaru's jaw nearly hit the ground. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the scene before him in disbelief. A fourteen-year-old boy was holding a three-hundred-jin lump of iron with one hand, without so much as a tremor in his wrist?

"Th-this is impossible..." Haganezuka stammered.

"Not only can I lift it, but it feels surprisingly good." Rokuya swung it twice, and the enormous wind pressure instantly shredded the fallen leaves around him.

"Don't get cocky!" Haganezuka abruptly snapped out of it. As a sword-forging fanatic, he immediately shifted his attention to the blade itself. "Nichirin Blades are also called color-changing blades. They change color according to their owner's Breathing Style affinity! Water Breathing is blue, and Flame Breathing is red! Hurry up and channel your breath into it. Let me see what hideous color this blade you've ruined turns!"

"Change color?"

Rokuya looked at the gray-black blade in his hand. He had mastered two Breathing Styles.

But he had something else.

"Then let me open your eyes to what true power is."

Rokuya's gaze sharpened, and a savage, icy aura that seemed to come from an otherworldly abyss suddenly erupted from his body.

It wasn't the airflow of a Breathing Style, but pure arcana power.

Silver-blue arcane flames instantly enveloped Rokuya's entire body, and an enthralling, eerie light flickered in his eyes. That power coursed along his arm, pouring furiously into the enormous Nichirin Blade in his hand.

"Crack... crack, crack, crack..."

The originally gray-black blade began to tremble violently, as though undergoing a baptism of energy beyond its limits.

Then a miracle happened.

Starting at the hilt, an exceedingly deep, pure, spectral blue began to spread. This wasn't the gentle, rippling blue of Water Breathing, but a dark blue carrying an aura of destruction, like the heart of a thunderstorm or the deepest abyss of the sea.

Even more astonishingly, once that dark blue covered the entire blade, streaks of silver-blue light actually began to appear across its surface!

Those streaks of light traveled and flickered along the blade as though breathing, as if clothing the enormous weapon in a miniature layer of Arcana Armor-mysterious and magnificent, yet radiating a hair-raising, deadly threat.

The Arcana Armor's flowing light-enchantment complete.

All of Mount Sagiri fell utterly silent. Sabito and the others stared, transfixed, while a shocked gasp came from beneath Urokodaki's mask.

Haganezuka Hotaru stared blankly at the enormous blue blade shimmering with flowing light, his body beginning to shake violently.

Not with anger, but with extreme fervor.

"A miracle... this is a miracle!!!"

Haganezuka abruptly dropped to his knees with a thud, raising both hands high and prostrating himself before the blade in Rokuya's hand like a fanatic.

"Blue flowing light! A living blade! I, Haganezuka Hotaru, have forged swords my entire life, and I've never seen such a beautiful color! This isn't merely tamahagane saturated with sunlight. This is a divine blade bearing divine power!!!"

Drooling, he tried to reach out and touch the flickering light. "Let me touch it... please, let me touch it just once..."

"Get lost!" Rokuya sent Haganezuka flying three meters with a kick.

With one hand, he hoisted the enormous cleaver radiating arcane light onto his shoulder. Feeling the savage power within him resonate perfectly with the blade, he finally broke into a satisfied, wild grin.

"From today onward, you won't be called a Nichirin Blade anymore."

"I'll call you [Shura]."

On the system interface, the [Shadow Battle Axe] progress bar was only three hundred points short of completion.

In the early morning, Mount Sagiri was shrouded in the dense, milky-white fog that lingered year-round. A bone-piercing damp chill permeated the air, but the fragrance of steaming rice filled the space before the wooden house halfway up the mountain.

"Senior Rokuya! Slow down! Nobody's going to steal your food!" Dressed in a cherry-blossom-pink kimono, Makomo stood with her hands on her hips, glaring indignantly at the silver-haired boy seated on the porch.

Takanashi Rokuno wore a well-tailored black uniform specially made by the Demon Slayer Corps, with his familiar dark-blue haori draped over it. In his hands, he held an enormous rice ball a size larger than an ordinary person's head, stuffing it into his mouth at an exceedingly ferocious pace.

"Mmph... whew... Makomo, you didn't put enough plum in this rice ball." Mumbling indistinctly, Rokuya swallowed the enormous rice ball, enough to feed an ordinary person for an entire day, in just a few bites. He then grabbed the bamboo tube of clear spring water beside him and gulped down half of it.

Activating the Arcana Armor consumed an enormous amount of stamina. Over the past half month, he had nearly emptied Mount Sagiri's rice jar all by himself.

"Stop being so picky! Do you know that's polished rice Master had to walk down the mountain and go to great trouble to buy in town?" Sabito walked over irritably and lightly punched Rokuya's shoulder, though his eyes were full of gratification and reluctance to part.

After the battle at Mount Fujikasane, Rokuya had not only single-handedly wiped out every demon on the mountain, but also brought back those thirteen bloodstained fox masks, completely resolving the anguish Sakonji Urokodaki had carried for years.

"I know, I know. Once I get paid for this mission, I'll buy ten pigs and fill Master's ice cellar." Rokuya waved casually and wiped the grains of rice from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

Standing nearby, Giyu Tomioka wore his usual expressionless look, but silently pushed his own untouched serving of grilled fish in front of Rokuya without saying a word.

Rokuya glanced at Giyu, the corners of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly. "Thanks, you taciturn fellow." With that, he unceremoniously crunched through the grilled fish, bones and flesh alike, and swallowed it.