"This male one... I'll take care of him..."
Tanjiro, Tamayo, and the others looked up. Standing on a large tree was a man with a severed arm, his shoulder-length hair tied back, his eyes glowing with an eerie red light. In Uchiha Nagi's hand, he held a head—it was Kagome's. Her eyes were wide open, a brilliant smile still gracing her face even in death...
What unsettled Tanjiro was the scent emanating from the man. It was incredibly sinister, carrying a chill like the dead of winter, yet he wasn't a demon.
"You... you're human?!" Tanjiro asked, bewildered.
"That's Mr. Uchiha, Lady Tamayo's patient from a couple of days ago," Yushiro called out from the house behind them.
Human?
Uchiha Nagi leaped down from the tree. After gently placing Kagome's head down, he wiped the bloodstains from her face. This girl he had known for merely a few days...
Then, he stood up, his expression impassive, and slowly walked towards the male demon, Yahaba. "You shouldn't have hurt her. She was innocent~"
As he spoke these words, Uchiha Nagi's icy eyes were as cold as a winter's night, yet a towering inferno of rage was hidden in their depths.
Looking at the red-eyed man before him, the male demon Yahaba, far from being afraid, was overjoyed. "Rare blood! And the absolute finest quality of rare blood! Haha, you're mine!"
"Hey, hey, Yahaba, don't even think about hogging him all to yourself! We split him fifty-fifty," the female demon, Susamaru, immediately interjected from the side.
"I know, I know~" Yahaba hadn't even finished speaking when Uchiha Nagi before him launched his attack.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Seven or eight fireballs, each two meters wide, flew towards Yahaba. The demon was shocked. Didn't the Demon Slayers only use Breathing Styles and sword techniques? Since when could they use skills similar to Blood Demon Arts?
Yahaba agilely dodged several fireballs and used his Blood Demon Art to dispel a few others. However, when he leaped onto a tree, he found several shuriken already flying towards him. Seeing the shuriken missing him, he sneered disdainfully, "Hmph, can't even hit a person, and still..."
Yet, before he could finish his sentence, in the next second, the shuriken, along with nearly invisible wires, entangled him and the tree together. "This is... black steel wire?" Yahaba was aghast.
Using the darkness as cover, the shuriken had exploited his visual blind spot, colliding with each other to bind him securely. But if it was just this...
"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!"
A long stream of flame, following the steel wires of the shuriken, rapidly extended and struck Yahaba before he could break free. The massive blaze illuminated the night sky, its intense heat capable of melting even steel.
Killed just like that? Tanjiro watched blankly. No, he suddenly realized and shouted towards Uchiha Nagi. "Watch out! He's not dead yet! Demons can't be killed unless their necks are cut by a Nichirin Blade! Be careful!"
Instantly, a figure burst out from the flames. With a wave of both hands towards Uchiha Nagi, an invisible telekinetic force shot towards him.
"Damn it!" Tanjiro swung his Nichirin Blade, intending to rush over and sever the unseen red arrows, but the female demon, Susamaru, blocked his path. "Haha, you should worry about yourself first, little boy!" Susamaru then threw several incredibly powerful temari balls at Tanjiro. "Damn it! Be careful!" Tanjiro had to break off his rescue attempt and engage Susamaru directly.
Unexpectedly, just as the unseen red telekinetic force was about to hit Uchiha Nagi, he easily dodged it. "What? He can see it?" "How is that possible? How can a mere human see it and dodge it?" Yahaba roared in disbelief.
However, in Uchiha Nagi's eyes, the opponent's telekinetic-like ability was clearly visible to his Sharingan. Although it wasn't chakra, its energy-based composition was perfectly clear to him. Not only that, due to Kagome's death, a cold and sinister chakra had begun to mutate and surge into his right eye. Uchiha Nagi now also knew the ability of his right Mangekyo.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu~" Uchiha Nagi performed a one-handed seal, and five identical clones appeared, immediately rushing towards Yahaba. "What is this? A Blood Demon Art? How are there five of him?" Yahaba was once again dumbfounded. He knew there was an Upper Rank demon who could make clones, but he'd never heard of a human who couldn't use Blood Demon Arts being able to do so.
Yahaba waved his hands rapidly. Two of the clones were caught by his Kokushibo-like arrows, swiftly lifted into the sky, and then slammed violently downwards. Poof!Poof! The two clones vanished in puffs of smoke. Yahaba then looked at the remaining three, who were rapidly closing in on him. However, he wasn't flustered. A human without a Nichirin Blade couldn't kill a demon. "Hahaha, without a Nichirin Blade, you think you can burn me to death? Demons can't be burned to death! Only you fragile humans can!"
Uchiha Nagi, expressionless, raised a hand to the side of his head. "You're too confident. Solar Flare!"
An intensely blinding light erupted in the darkness, as bright as day, momentarily blinding even Tanjiro and Susamaru, who were fighting nearby, forcing them to pause their battle. "Besides, who said fire can't burn you to death? Amaterasu~"
Uchiha Nagi opened his right eye, blood trickling from its corner. A jet-black flame instantly struck Yahaba. "Argh, my eyes! Fire again?! I told you, fire can't kill me! Wait, what is this flame~" "Aaaah~ What's happening?!"
Yahaba's recovery ability was clearly superior to a human's. Where a human would need ten seconds to recover their vision, he recovered in three or four. But upon regaining his sight, Yahaba found himself covered in black flames. Even more terrifying, these flames couldn't be extinguished; no matter how he tried to put them out, they kept burning.
Uchiha Nagi watched impassively. "I'm very curious if your regeneration truly has no energy limit. Enjoy it."
"Damn you~ Aaaaargh..." Yahaba spread his hands, but the intense burning of the black flames, along with a strange energy within them, interfered with his Blood Demon Art. Skin, flesh, bones—every moment, they were being burned to ash by the black flames, yet the demon's constitution forced him to regenerate rapidly. This agony was like being sliced by a thousand cuts, a pain worse than death. Being an immortal demon didn't mean he couldn't feel pain...
"Amaterasu will not extinguish until its target is reduced to ashes, unless its master wills it so." "You're next." Uchiha Nagi's appearance was terrifying. The three tomoe in his eyes had merged, forming the plum blossom Mangekyo pattern, and his right eye was still bleeding.
"Damn it~ To defeat a demon without even using a Nichirin Blade! Are you even human?!" Susamaru was stunned by him, even forgetting to attack Tanjiro.
Amaterasu was Itachi's technique, yet Uchiha Nagi had just used it. This was because the Mangekyo ability of Uchiha Nagi's right eye was "Copy." At that moment of Kagome's death, his intense desire for power had given birth to this ability. To be precise, the ability was [See Through and Analyze the Operational Principles of All Things].
Any ninjutsu, as long as he saw it once, he could analyze and see through it. Whether he could copy it depended on a combination of factors. For example, kekkei genkai techniques like Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku or the First Hokage's Wood Release, he could copy their principles, but he couldn't use them unless he possessed the same genetic makeup. And this demon before him—his Blood Demon Art, that invisible telekinetic force—Uchiha Nagi had also seen through and copied its workings. But without a demon's genetic makeup, he couldn't use it either, unless he could modify it into a technique that didn't require demonic genes.
However, this was enough— In the Naruto world, how many powerful jutsu were there? Rasengan, Chidori, Flying Thunder God, Edo Tensei. There was also the Raikage's Lightning Release Armor and the Tsuchikage's Dust Release. And here, there were Breathing Styles of various attributes, passed down for millennia—