Thud!
The stick struck a bandit's shoulder socket with a crisp crack of bone.
The man screamed as he collapsed.
Whack!
Sweeping like a scythe through wheat, the green-glowing stick shattered another bandit's kneecap.
Shrieks echoed through the valley.
Thrust!
The stick pierced through a bandit's palm like lightning, pinning it brutally to the ground.
In just a few seconds, eight fierce bandits were already sprawled on the ground, writhing in pain and howling.
Only the scar-faced bandit leader with a severed hand and two others, too terrified to move, remained standing.
They stared in horror at Shinichi, who stood there like a god of war.
Against these ordinary bandits with mediocre physical abilities, Shinichi hadn't even needed to raise his other hand.
Holding a bloodstained wooden stick in one hand, he advanced step by step toward the bandits.
Instantly, whether they were on the ground or still standing, all the bandits were seized with terror, desperately scrambling away from him.
Shinichi's killing intent enveloped the bandits.
Thud!!
With a soft sound, the scar-faced leader collapsed to the ground in fear.
It was as if this had been a signal—without bothering to get up or even care about his broken wrist, the scar-faced man rolled over and began kowtowing frantically, begging for mercy.
"Sir! Sir! Spare us, spare us! We'll never dare to commit crime again! Please, let us go! We—we'll turn ourselves in to the police!"
Clatter!!
As soon as the scar-faced man spoke, the other bandits immediately followed suit, weeping and wailing as they knelt and begged.
Shinichi's grip on the wooden stick tightened unconsciously.
The bandits' terrified expressions reminded him of the police officers he had torn apart, of the brutality and despair he had succumbed to in his final moments of losing control.
The stick rose slightly, its tip pointing at the scar-faced man's throat.
Kill them? Or spare them?
These bandits were clearly vicious and deserved death.
Killing them would rid the world of scum—clean and simple.
But… once the killing began, could it really be stopped so easily?
Would the demon blood that had finally calmed within him be awakened anew by fresh bloodshed?
Would the fragile peace he had regained—his humanity—be shattered once more?
Just as Shinichi wrestled with these thoughts, his fingers whitening from the force of his grip, the tip of the staff trembling faintly—
An utterly frigid, deeply ominous presence erupted without warning, like an arctic blast!
At the same time, Abe Nobumasa's aged, sorrowful voice rang out.
"Tsukiyomi, no!"
The sudden disturbance made Shinichi turn in shock.
Then, his pupils constricted violently.
"What… is this presence?!"
The source of that chilling aura was none other than the girl behind him—the pure, Abe Tsukiyomi.
"Bad people… shouldn't… exist… AAARRGHHH—!!!"
A scream, utterly devoid of humanity, brimming with savagery and ancient malice, tore from the girl's throat.
The sight before him sent a jolt of horror through Shinichi.
Abe Tsukiyomi beautiful face was completely distorted.
Her clear eyes had been swallowed by an abyssal blackness, her pupils contracting unnaturally into two crimson slits.
Beneath her pale skin, dark blue veins—like ancient curse markings—surged and bulged violently.
Her delicate cherry lips split apart, revealing sharp, bone-white fangs.
Crimson claws extended from her fingertips, and her long black hair whipped wildly as if caught in an unseen wind, strands of it glowing with an eerie, moonlit pallor.
Even more terrifying was the aura emanating from Abe Tsukiyomi body!
It was a presence Shinichi was all too familiar with—the same aura as those demons he had slain, the same as during his own Demon Transformation—an unmistakably demonic presence!
"How could this be? Tsukiyomi-san... is actually a demon?!"
Perhaps due to muscle memory, the moment Shinichi saw Abe Tsukiyomi transformation, he instinctively raised his wooden stick as Forest Breathing automatically activated.
Yet when his gaze fell upon Tsukiyomi face, Shinichi's breath hitched momentarily.
He couldn't comprehend the situation—why would Abe Tsukiyomi undergo Demon Transformation without warning?
Was it because of him? Or perhaps...
A bone-chilling, deathly stillness permeated the air, carrying a soul-freezing coldness as if from the depths of the underworld.
Thick, visible black demonic energy surged violently like boiling ink from Abe Tsukiyomi petite frame, instantly engulfing the entire courtyard!
The horrific transformation terrified the bandits lying on the ground, especially the scar-faced man who had wet himself in fear.
Watching the beautiful girl transform into a monstrous nightmare in the blink of an eye, he now bitterly regretted not turning himself in to the police earlier.
Among those present, one person reacted with profound sorrow.
"Tsukiyomi! Don't do this!" The elderly Abe Nobumasa cried out in anguish, attempting to rush forward only to be violently repelled by the terrifying demonic energy and sent crashing to the ground.
As for Abe Tsukiyomi—or rather, the terrifying entity now possessing her body—those crimson vertical pupils locked onto the screaming bandits and the petrified scar-faced man.
Her lips twisted into an inhuman, utterly cruel smile.
"Evildoers...go to hell!"
In the next moment, she moved!
Fast!
Like a pale demonic specter tearing through space itself!
Thud!
Crack!
"Arghhh!"
"Monster!"
"No! Stay away!"
No fancy techniques—just primal, brutal slaughter.
Pale, slender demon claws effortlessly pierced through a bandit's chest, crushing his still-beating heart.
Another bandit's head was wrenched clean off and discarded like trash!
The scar-faced man, who had struggled to his feet, finally managed to stand and attempted to flee in terror—only to be overtaken by a pale mist.
The freezing energy instantly turned him into an ice sculpture before a demonic claw shattered him into a bloody mist of ice crystals.
Massacre!
A one-sided, spine-chilling bloodbath!
The entire ordeal lasted mere seconds.
By the time Shinichi managed to shake off his shock, the courtyard was littered with mutilated corpses and frozen blood, the air thick with the stench of blood and bone-piercing demonic energy.
Standing amidst the carnage, Abe Tsukiyomi—now drenched in blood and wreathed in pale, sinister energy—slowly turned her emotionless crimson vertical pupils toward the only two remaining standing figures: the horrified Shinichi and the grief-stricken Abe Nobumasa.
"Tsukiyomi... so we couldn't escape this fate after all," Abe Nobumasa closed his eyes in sorrowful resignation, two trails of bloody tears streaming down his cheeks.
Then came what terrified Shinichi most—the gentle, kind-hearted old man Abe Nobumasa suddenly erupted with an overwhelmingly powerful demonic aura of his own.
BOOOM!!!
A shockwave erupted from the center where Abe Nobumasa stood, sweeping outward.
Hum!
A pair of purple vertical pupils abruptly opened amidst the swirling dust.
Abe Tsukiyomi—her claws dripping with blood—let out a piercing shriek before launching herself like a cannonball toward the demon-transformed Abe Nobumasa.
Shinichi's grip on the wooden stick tightened, his palms slightly damp with sweat.
The two terrifying auras of demonic energy, no weaker than that of a typical Lower Rank Demon Moon—what in the world was happening?
His shock was beyond words.
"Demons..... Tsukiyomi, and even old man Nobumasa... they're actually demons!"
Who were they? And this power... the cold, lifeless demonic energy was entirely different from what Shinichi was familiar with—the demons of Muzan Kibutsuji's lineage.
By Shinichi's intuition, the demonic aura emanating from Tsukiyomi and Nobumasa was older!
Purer!
Closer to... some kind of origin.
....
The gentle morning sunlight streamed into the valley, illuminating the wreckage of the thatched cottage's front yard.
By now, the scattered remains of the bandit corpses had long been mixed with countless fragments of earth.
The once-flat ground looked as though it had been plowed over countless times.
Shinichi silently surveyed the devastated land before finally walking over and sitting down beside the elderly figure.
"You must have many questions, don't you?" Abe Nobumasa asked calmly as he packed tobacco into his pipe.
Shinichi glanced at Abe Tsukiyomi, who was curled up beside Nobumasa like a kitten.
Her face, now free of the ferocious Demon Transformation, looked as peaceful and sweet as an angel's.
"Old man... are you both demons?" Shinichi finally voiced the question that had been weighing on him.
Nobumasa held his pipe in one hand, his gaze profound as he looked into the distance.
"That's a very old story. The existence of demons, the root of it all... heh, it all traces back to a family that failed in its duty."