"Sigh..."
A sudden sigh came through...
Inside the Evil Ghost, alarm bells rang frantically, and he turned back instinctively... That young man with the pair of Sun Earrings had, at some point, mysteriously appeared behind him.
Sitting casually on his back.
"Friend, could you please let him go?"
"My little brother, though a bit dim-witted, has a pretty good heart. If you strangle him to death, wouldn't he become stale to eat?"
'! How did he get there? Why didn't I notice anything?' Doihara was shocked.
In his previous life, he was a chef, lingering in kitchens for a long time, making his sense of smell sharper than ordinary people. After being transformed into a ghost in the second year of Taisho, he underwent another round of enhancement.
Not only could he locate prey through the scent of their body, but he could also accurately grasp a human's escape route through the aura they released.
But tonight, his nose malfunctioned!
"You don't have any scent at all—are you even human?!" Doihara swiftly reached towards Roy with a claw.
The strong wind brushed past, and the nauseating stench of blood could even be smelled from the ghost's claw.
Roy sidestepped, gliding down Doihara's arm to his underarm, reached out to grab Tanjiro by the collar, and scooped him up from the ground.
"Cough... cough... cough..." Saved at last, Tanjiro held his neck, gasping for air.
The child's face was pale, ashamed to look at Roy.
Constantly filled with regret in his heart...
'Too useless, in the end, I still rely on Nii-san to save me...'
'Tanjiro, when will you grow stronger?'
Roy flicked his toes, picked up the axe Tanjiro had dropped, pretended not to see his despondent look, and handed the axe back to him, saying, "Continue."
Tanjiro: "Huh?"
Still in a daze, he received another kick to the backside, charging once more towards Doihara.
"Finish the battle you requested yourself..."
Roy's words echoed in the silent shrine, following Tanjiro's retreating figure...
Yet it grated harshly on Doihara's ears!
He wasn't a fool; to have "cultivated" in this mountain next to Sagiri yama for so many years relied on two words—cunning!
Through his probing, Doihara concluded that the naïve lad with the axe wasn't the threat—the one standing behind him was!
He immediately focused ninety percent of his attention on Roy, flashed past Tanjiro, leaping over his head, and went directly for Roy!
"Whoosh—"
Roy sidestepped smoothly, evading Doihara's strike.
Seeing he missed, Doihara adjusted his strategy mid-air and turned for a side kick, his sixty-yard ghost foot seemingly about to imprint on the opponent's face.
Instead, Roy bent backward easily, ducking under it.
'Damn it! I can't track his evasion route!'
"Why...?"
"Why don't you have a scent?"
Doihara was baffled!
Two failed strikes... he quickly sidestepped, evading another fierce chop from Tanjiro coming from behind, jumped back several times, and distanced himself from the Kamado Brothers.
[Zetsu]: Tighten and isolate all Sense and scent from the body, greatly reducing one's presence.
Roy, through notes recorded by Jager, imagined sealing off all Acupoints in his body, naturally blocking off the channels for Sense and scent to the outside.
It's perfectly normal for Doihara not to notice.
"Yeah... Nii-san, I can't smell your scent either..."
Tanjiro observed Doihara's anomaly, noting Iron Head's two most famous skills... One, a hard head, matching a ghost's skull in hardness; Two, a keen sense of smell, capable of not only detecting human and ghost scents but also the faint aura left on objects.
He tightened his grip on his axe, quietly backed up to Roy, and sniffed carefully, quickly noticing something unusual.
'This isn't right... Nii-san still has a scent, it's just much fainter...'
Indeed worthy of being dog-nosed…
Tanjiro was correct—Roy hadn't truly mastered [Zetsu], unlike Gon who naturally understood how to restrain his aura from a young age, mingling in nature. After opening Nen, receiving guidance from Wing, and pressure from Sisko, he quickly grasped the technique of [Zetsu] and truly achieved—"Isolated from nature, forming one individual unit."
However—
Inspired by the technique of "Walking on Water", Roy had a sudden inspiration to thin out the Nen attached to the soles of his feet into a film, temporarily wrapping his Acupoints, blocking the aura escaping towards the body surface, although with an obvious drawback—
The film adhered to the skin, exposed outside, naturally radiates a faint aura.
This aura is easily overshadowed by the scent of blood, undetectable without an exceptionally keen sense of smell.
"Is this a time to daydream?"
"Watch your right..."
Roy's pupils ignited with two "Nen" flames, utilizing [Gyo], capturing Doihara's renewed assault!
He reached out to pull Tanjiro....
Tanjiro leaned his body slightly, using the moment to wind up with his axe, fiercely swinging to the right!
The axe light sliced through the night sky, creating a chilling arc, cleaving the wind and snow, and aimed directly at Doihara's abdomen...
"Screeee—" Blood spurted out, intestines fell...
Doihara screamed, jumped back once again, fixing his fierce gaze on Roy, expression twisted!
'Damn it, if I don't take down this guy, I'll never have the chance! Must I abandon this "Dojo"?'
Becoming a god... becoming an ancestor; if gods can have a Divine Palace, why can't ghosts have a Ghost Hall?
Doihara had heard that the supreme being had a very luxurious Dojo, reportedly capable of freely manipulating space... Within it, whether to walk, lie, stand, or crawl, was entirely dependent on that great being's whim... thus "Infinity Castle"!
So, unless necessary, Doihara would never give up this shrine, it's his cafeteria, his very survival, he dislikes moving house, even less traveling far away...
Next, 'Only battle remains'!
Doihara restored his body, took a deep breath, and grimaced with a sinister smile...
"Humans are such filthy creatures," he sneered.
"When facing danger, they always push the weak to the front."
"You know, I was once a diligent man too, until my boss made a mistake and pushed me under the bus, I had no choice but to devour him!"
"And you—" Doihara pointed at Roy, unabashedly mocking, "a coward hiding behind your younger brother, dare you face me one-on-one?"
Uh... 'Was Nii-san just ridiculed?'
By... a ghost's ridicule?
Tanjiro sneakily glanced at Roy with mixed feelings.
The young man's face remained expressionless, unmoved, without any notification from the panel—
The battle would not increase "Combat Technique" experience...
He felt no need to intervene.
Moreover—
Roy calmly regarded Doihara, speaking earnestly, "Friend, never judge a book by its cover."
"My brother may appear dim, but... in my eyes, he's quite strong...."
"Nii-san!" Tanjiro suddenly raised his axe, exhaling two dragons of air from his nostrils!