Chapter 150: Interrogating the Demon King
Whose samurai was this?
The demon was momentarily uncertain whether he should engage such a formidable
enemy. At this critical juncture, on the verge of claiming a seat among the
Twelve Kizuki, variables were the absolute last thing he needed.
His relationship with the Zaizen clan was strictly transactional. It didn't mean
he was going to throw his life away for a fat merchant.
"I don't care if you're a hired sword or a Demon Slayer from the Corps,"
Minonenmaru hissed, hastily ramping up his Blood Demon Art while trying to
posture. "If you know what's good for you, back off now. I'm in a good mood, so
I'll let it slide."
"But if you can't read the room..."
"Hmph. Don't expect to walk out of here alive."
Natsuya casually tossed the pale, whimpering Zaizen patriarch aside like a piece
of garbage, shifting his focus fully to the demon.
"I visited the other noble houses in Akita first."
"I thought I was just overthinking things, chasing a dead lead."
His voice was calm, cutting effortlessly through the patter of the rainy night.
He casually pointed behind himself—toward the concealed basement entrance where
the demon's torture chamber lay.
"Until I reached this final estate."
"The stench of rotting corpses and demonic musk was practically leaking through
the stone walls."
He checked the other houses? So he really is from the Demon Slayer Corps.
Minonenmaru's brow twitched, the murderous intent in his eyes boiling over.
"So, little swordsman... you've set your mind on fighting me, a future member of
the Twelve Kizuki?"
Natsuya: "Twelve Kizuki? Where are your kanji?"
Even in the gloom of the rainy night, Natsuya could see clearly that the demon's
eyeballs were entirely blank—not a single rank-character engraved on them.
What? Is this some kind of cheap knock-off model?
Minonenmaru roared, "I'll carve those words into your corpse after I slaughter
you!"
He unleashed his Blood Demon Art instantly.
The falling raindrops froze in mid-air. The bonfire in the courtyard sputtered
and died. An invisible shockwave of kinetic pressure—crushing enough to shatter
houses and plow open the earth—converged on Natsuya from all directions.
It was pure, unadulterated psychokinesis.
Invisible, scentless, imperceptible to the eye and ear, capable of ending a life
without a single warning. It was Minonenmaru's signature Blood Demon Art. In the
past, even advanced Kinoe or Kinoto Slayers had struggled to survive this
invisible trap.
Now, boosted by the nutrition of a fresh Marechi, the psychokinetic force was
heavy enough to twist a human body into a pretzel.
"Huh? Is that it?"
In the demon's field of vision, Natsuya's hands under his haori flicked with
dismissive casualness.
Did I hallucinate?
Before the demon could fully process the moment, the wall of invisible force
bearing down like a mountain suddenly warped, twisted on itself, and popped like
an over-inflated soap bubble.
The backlash slammed into Minonenmaru. A stream of dark demon blood sprayed from
its nose and ears, but it barely registered the pain over its sheer,
unadulterated shock.
"W-What?! What did you just do?!"
Natsuya cracked his knuckles, a look of profound disappointment crossing his
face.
"Are you serious? You couldn't even make my tracking UI flicker?"
"With stats that low, and a Blood Demon Art as generic as basic telekinesis...
you're comparing yourself to the Twelve Kizuki?"
The stat-sheet on this mob barely scraped 270. Its Blood Demon Art was a
textbook example of a generic psi-blast.
And this guy thought he was getting promoted to the Kizuki? Bro, you're not even
a passable mid-game Elite.
Of course, detecting the psychokinesis hadn't been hard. The System's [Insight]
skill highlighted the shockwave vectors in glowing wireframe lines, and
Natsuya's acoustic sensitivity let him hear the air pressure shift a split
second before impact.
Natsuya drew his Nichirin Sword. It was Uni-Maru—the blade with the slightly
chipped edge.
"Alright, choose your preferred style of execution."
Minonenmaru couldn't process the words anymore. Humiliation, stoked by the
frantic, manic energy of the Marechi in its gut, shattered its sanity.
A masked freak playing psychic games!
Even if he broke my psi-blast, I'm exponentially stronger than I was a week ago!
"Humiliate me all you want! You'll pay for that arrogance with your life!"
"Blood Demon Art: Phase Two!"
Instead of dispersing the kinetic pressure evenly, Minonenmaru condensed every
ounce of its psychic energy into a hyper-dense armor around its skin. The
pressure was so intense that the ambient moonlight and rain warped around its
silhouette, projecting the illusory shadow of a heavily armored samurai general.
"Thousand-Cut Iron Armor!" the demon shrieked, preparing to charge. "My defense
can even deflect Western firearms!"
Natsuya blinked.
The System panel clearly labeled it [Telekinetic Armor]. Why do these mobs
always insist on giving their generic abilities chuuni chuuni names?
Thinking that, Natsuya casually assumed the starting stance for the first form
of his primary style.
However, before Natsuya could close the distance, the demon stopped dead in its
tracks.
The fierce, bloodthirsty aura vanished. Its jaw dropped, and its eyes bulged as
it stared directly at Natsuya's right hand—specifically, at the kanji character
freshly branded onto the back of the boy's wrist.
It wasn't a standard Corps rank. It was a single, blazing character that carried
the terrifying weight of an apex predator.
That symbol... That's not a normal swordsman!
"N-NINJA?! NO—A HASHIRA?!"
The terror pierced through the "Marechi High," instantly sobering the demon's
brain.
I tried to mug a Pillar?! I thought he was just another arrogant rookie playing
detective!
"Not fighting? Then I'm going in."
Without any grand declaration, Natsuya vanished.
The speed of his movement was light-years ahead of the demon's tracking
capability. A single flash of steel, and Minonenmaru's armored form was cleanly
bisected from shoulder to hip.
Demon blood erupted like a geyser, painting the Zaizen courtyard in a vibrant,
crimson wash.
Thud. Thud.
The two halves of the demon hit the muddy stone, sliding apart.
"H-How...?"
Minonenmaru's upper half thrashed uselessly in the mud, its face twisted in pure
incomprehension. "I was... I was supposed to be a Kizuki..."
Natsuya walked over, looking down at the twitching torso with the cold, bored
eyes of a player looking at a loot drop.
"Since you've got so much free time before your HP bar hits zero..."
Natsuya knelt, pressing his hand onto the demon's shoulder.
"Let's talk about the other demons in the area. Start talking."
Ten minutes later.
The Zaizen courtyard looked like an experimental butchery.
Thanks to the demon's persistent regenerative abilities, Natsuya had plenty of
"test material" to work with. He had harvested several pieces of redundant
tissue, testing the limits of the monster's biology.
The patriarch of the Zaizen family had woken up halfway through the
interrogation.
He had taken one look at the bloody, dismembered demon parts scattered across
the rain-slicked stones, watched Natsuya casually pluck a regenerating eyeball
out of the air, and promptly decided that fainting again was the optimal
survival strategy. He rolled his eyes back and went limp.
"So, that's all of them?" Natsuya asked, wiping a smudge of black blood off his
gauntlet. "Just three other strays hiding in the warehouses?"
"Y-Yes... please... just let me die..." Minonenmaru wheezed, its voice hollow.
The physical torture had been bad, but the psychological horror of having your
limbs unscrewed and reassembled just to be asked the same questions over and
over had completely broken the monster's spirit.
"Alright. Good talk."
Natsuya drew his sword for the final time.
[Luminary Breathing] [First Form: Solar Sunday — Lone Plume of Desert Smoke]
A clean, vertical slash severed the demon's neck.
The head rolled into the mud, its eyes fixed on the rainy sky as the final
remnants of its life faded away.
Natsuya stood up, exhaling a long, satisfied breath.
Another clean sweep. Now, to clear out those three remaining safe-houses, and I
can finally turn in this side-quest.
☆☆☆
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