It had been nearly a month since Retsu left the Village where he was resurrected. During this time, he had basically confirmed that he had transmigrated once again.
He had already become accustomed to situations like the sudden demon attack he just encountered.
It wasn't just demons; there were also bandits, chaotic armies, and all sorts of messy things. Even the samurai sword in his hand was "picked up" from a wandering samurai who had tried to test his blade on him.
He discovered that ordinary people in this world could only huddle in human settlements, relying on the protection of supernatural beings like priestesses, Shinto priests, and monks to survive.
Moreover, those demons did not have Chakra in their bodies; they directly absorbed the Natural Energy of heaven and earth and converted it into Demonic Power.
To this end, he even tried to convert the Natural Energy absorbed into his body into Demonic Power based on the routes he observed the Natural Energy taking within demons using his Sharingan. Regardless, he currently had an Edo Tensei body, so he couldn't die no matter how much he tinkered with it.
The good news was that after continuous attempts, he did indeed succeed in converting Natural Energy into Demonic Power. The bad news was that Demonic Power was not suitable for humans; after experimenting on bandits, he found it would turn a person into a lunatic.
---
"A Castle Town up ahead? Perfect, I'll sell the bear carcass for some money."
When the dawn light pierced through the forest mist, Retsu saw a fairly large Castle Town in the distance.
He stopped his pace, thought for a moment, and decided to go in and take a look.
He took out a sealing scroll from the Kamui Dimension, released the giant bear's carcass, and then formed hand signs: "Transformation Jutsu."
As the smoke dissipated, his figure transformed into the appearance of a monk he had seen in a Village earlier—wearing a grey cloth monk's robe and possessing an ordinary face, just right for blending into a crowd.
Retsu shouldered the bear carcass and walked along the small path toward the Castle Town.
Over the past month, Retsu hadn't had any specific destination, going wherever the path took him. When he encountered human Villages, he would use the Transformation Jutsu to go in and wander around; the rest of the time, he mostly stayed in remote, uninhabited mountains.
This was because he discovered that the more remote the deep mountains were, the more numerous and powerful the demons were.
Although there were some demons near human Villages that coveted human flesh, or demons born from humans for various reasons, they were generally quite weak and easily eliminated by nearby priestesses or monks. They simply weren't enough for him to collect life force.
Since he needed to collect the life force of demons to resurrect himself, he could only seek out and kill powerful demons.
After selling the bear carcass in the Castle Town, Retsu began to wander around the town. He ate some local specialty snacks and bought some daily necessities, even though he couldn't use most of them now—his Edo Tensei body's clothes were even made of dust.
It wasn't until dusk approached that he left the Castle Town. Once he was far away, he released the Transformation Jutsu, returning to his original appearance.
Unless necessary, he didn't like using the Transformation Jutsu to change his appearance. Moreover, most demons in this world had a keen sense of smell. The Transformation Jutsu was only a low-level Ninjutsu that merely used Chakra to change one's appearance; besides being able to fool ordinary people, it wasn't very useful in front of demons.
Just as he was about to turn and plunge into the mountain forest, Retsu suddenly looked up at the sky.
A brilliant, dazzling point of white light suddenly lit up on the horizon. Just as he was feeling puzzled, that dazzling point of light suddenly exploded like a firework into a sky full of fine, fragmented flowing lights, shooting out in all directions like a rain of stars.
"This scene... plus the world full of demons, the setting of ancient Japan... Inuyasha?"
Looking at those familiar "fireworks," Retsu finally realized which world he was in.
"Then these flowing lights are the shattered shards of the shikon jewel?"
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a streak of light suddenly flew toward his direction, trailing a faint halo as it swept over his head.
Chakra erupted from Retsu's feet. He leaped up suddenly and reached out, accurately snatching that streak of light.
Landing lightly on a treetop from the air, Retsu opened his palm. A pink, transparent fragment lay quietly in his hand. It looked like an ordinary piece of glass, but he could sense the strange energy fluctuations radiating from it.
"A shard of the shikon jewel?" Looking at the shard of the shikon jewel in his hand, a flash of realization crossed Retsu's eyes. "Now I can be certain, this is the world of Inuyasha."
"Being in the world of Inuyasha isn't bad either. The combat power isn't too high, and I can even see the 2D 'White Moonlight'—the priestess Kikyo.
Compared to the Naruto World, which was turned upside down by the Ōtsutsuki family's 'family ethics battlefield,' this world is much better."
Thinking of this, Retsu placed the shard of the shikon jewel into his ninja tool pouch and felt a sense of relief in his heart. Although in the Fourth Shinobi World War, he was only a combat power gatekeeper.
But Inuyasha was a romance series. Compared to the hot-blooded battle series of the Naruto World, the top-tier combat power wasn't ridiculously high. Even a famous great demon like Sesshomaru in the later stages only had destructive power equivalent to a Tailed Beast level. With his Mangekyo Sharingan, he was enough to rank among the top combat powers in this world.
"Right, the shikon jewel attracts demons." A smile appeared at the corner of Retsu's mouth. "With this thing, I finally don't have to wander aimlessly through deep mountains and old forests anymore. Waiting for demons to come to my door is much less trouble than searching everywhere myself."
As for whether collecting shards of the shikon jewel would conflict with Inuyasha's group's goals? Retsu didn't care.
In the original story, the shards of the shikon jewel that Inuyasha and the others worked so hard to collect ended up being delivered to Naraku anyway. It would be better to let him use them first.
Having made up his mind, Retsu turned and walked in the direction where the shikon jewel had shattered. Not only was the probability of shards appearing higher there, but there was also a chance of running into Inuyasha's group. Since he had come to this world, he planned to go see the main cast.
---
"The shikon jewel, give it to me!"
A piercing roar suddenly rang out as a demon with a human head and a snake's body lunged from the bushes. In its open mouth, fangs glinted with a cold light as it attacked Retsu. Before it could get close, Chakra had already condensed in Retsu's hand: "Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
A condensed blade of wind shot out through the air, instantly piercing through the demon's body. Accompanied by a shrill scream, the demon was sliced in half from head to tail. Its corpse crashed heavily onto the ground, still twitching slightly.
"This kind of trash dares to join the fray?" Retsu glanced at the still-twitching demon corpse, his eyes full of disdain.
Since carrying the shard of the shikon jewel, the progress of collecting life force had indeed sped up significantly, but trouble followed as well. There were always these weak, trashy demons coming to his door, annoying him to no end.
The three-tomoe in his eyes spun slowly, scanning the still-writhing demon corpse. Suddenly, a familiar faint pink light caught his attention. Hidden within the demon's broken corpse was actually another shard of the shikon jewel.
"Oh? Quite an unexpected harvest." He raised an eyebrow, his tone carrying a hint of perfunctoriness. "Then I suppose I blamed you wrongly. My apologies."
While offering a half-hearted apology, he walked forward, took the shard out of the demon's corpse, and placed it into a bamboo tube specifically for storage inside his ninja tool pouch. Over the past few days, he had already collected four shards of the shikon jewel; the efficiency was very high.
As the shard was removed, the demon's body quickly lost its luster and turned into a pile of ash, which vanished without a trace as soon as the wind blew.
"These brainless trash."
Retsu wasn't surprised by this at all. These weak demons simply couldn't withstand the power of the shikon jewel. Their bodies had long been eroded by its power, and once the shard of the shikon jewel was taken away, they would immediately turn to ash.