Demon Capital Slayer

Chapter 7 Drawing the Sword to Slay the Demon
The moment Baihexiang spoke, Yujian seemed to hear a more magnificent voice, a response from the depths of the Netherworld.

The black mist that concealed the evil spirit's form was torn into wisps and dissipated as if blown by a gale, revealing a thin, hunched, short figure.

The person was wearing a school uniform, but the white collar and cuffs of their shirt were stained with bright red blood, and they were carrying a similarly bloodstained hammer. The most bizarre thing was their eyes; the whites and pupils were completely black, revealing a terrifying appearance that no normal person should have.

"Hmph." Yu Jian narrowed his eyes, finally seeing the full appearance of this evil spirit.

According to the notes, the exorcism ritual imitates the myth of the great god separating the mortal world from the underworld, and is a typical mythological reenactment ritual. After it is successfully performed, the living and the spirits will be separated by a shimenawa (sacred rope), and the spirits will be rebuked back to the realm of the dead by their real names.

In retrospect, the exorcism ritual was effective, but not significantly. It failed to completely dispel the evil spirit Togo Shinichiro, but it did allow it to reveal its true form.

For Yujian, that's enough.

Then, hand it over to the sword in your hand!

Holding the wooden stick in both hands, which was just an ordinary short stick taken from a broom, it now seemed like a famous sword with a cold gleam, attracting everyone's attention.

Suddenly, the sword-wielding figure shifted from stillness to movement, leaping several meters as if by teleportation, and striking the evil spirit on the head with a single blow. There was no exaggerated roar, no strange special effects; he simply swung the wooden stick down from above, and the evil spirit's head was completely smashed apart!

Shinichiro Togo's spirit gradually turned into black mist.

Yu Jian was puzzled and looked at the object in his hand with surprise. It should just be an ordinary wooden stick, right? How could it turn the evil spirit to ashes with a single blow? Could this actually be the normal way for a spirit to dissipate?
Although swordsmanship is indeed such an inconvenient thing, there is still a difference between a wooden stick and a precious sword. I have not yet reached the transcendent state where everything can be used as a weapon. I need to have an epiphany at least once before I can break through the barriers and see the heavens.

Therefore, there is only one answer...

"Watch out." Lily's voice came from behind, but Miken acted even earlier.

Without even looking, the boy took a half-step back to the right, narrowly avoiding the whistling hammer. Suddenly, Togo Shinichiro appeared behind him, yelling and brandishing his weapon. But Mitsurugi easily deflected the attack with mere footwork.

It couldn't help but roar and slam the hammer down again.

Yu Jian suddenly stopped in place, allowing the attack to hit his left shoulder.

To everyone's surprise, the seemingly heavy and powerful iron hammer passed right through like a phantom, causing no damage whatsoever.

"So this is your true ability." With that, he thrust his sword into the empty space to his left.

Immediately afterwards, a painful groan came from there, and Shinichiro Togo's figure appeared out of thin air, clutching his chest and staggering back six or seven steps before falling to the ground.

This guy was only 1.5 meters tall and his limbs were quite thin. Apart from his strange, completely black eyes, he looked no different from a normal person, or at least he didn't look that different.

"I'm very curious." Yu Jian walked towards the evil spirit with a calm expression.

He was genuinely curious. When you can't see or touch something, a spirit is indeed a troublesome thing, especially since the other party can use illusions to interfere with normal people's senses.

But after being forcibly revealed by the exorcism ritual, how could a short guy who was not good at martial arts and had little strength dare to take the initiative to attack someone like me who was over 1.8 meters tall at the age of sixteen and had been through many battles and was proficient in swordsmanship?

Even if the five senses are disturbed, a swordsman's sensitivity to killing intent will still tell him where the enemy is.

Perhaps the evil spirit still has some trump cards up its sleeve.

“I’m very curious,” the boy repeated.

"If a human cannot withstand an attack, how many times can an evil spirit endure it?"

"Once? Twice? Three times? Four times?"

One step, two steps, three steps, four steps—the deliberately amplified footsteps echoed in the corridor. Language, expression, actions—all these elements converged, making Yu Jianming at this moment more ferocious and malevolent than any evil spirit!
Ow—

Shinichiro Togo roared and suddenly looked up, dark red blood flowing from his face, his completely black eyes meeting everyone's gaze.

In an instant, his vision distorted and changed. Mitsurugi heard Nogizaka and Sayaka scream in terror behind him, as if they were witnessing the thing they feared most in their lives. But what he saw... was a bamboo forest.

"It looks familiar." Yu Jian nodded with a sense of nostalgia.

This is a place I know all too well from my dreams.

Every night, the three-nothing golden finger would throw him into this bamboo forest. Countless ronin swordsmen, resembling mummies, lay in ambush there, ready to attack any living person they saw.

For the first time, he tasted the bitterness of death and was stained with the blood of slaughter. Here, Yujian learned swordsmanship and transformed from prey to hunter. He went from being simply hunted to hunting all the monsters within his sight, and in the process, he honed his skills to an unimaginable level.

But deep down, I may still be afraid of this bamboo forest.

So……

Let's cut off fear itself!
The thought suddenly arose in my mind and immediately spread like wildfire.

Yes, what am I afraid of? What am I dreading? The wildest fantasies and pursuits of my youth are now firmly in my grasp. Supernatural forces truly exist in this world, so what is there to hesitate or waver about!

Transcend tribulations to become an immortal! Immortal and ageless!
Everything is full of unpredictable possibilities!
Time did not stop, and the boy in the dream raised his hands to reach for what he longed for.

A second later, the evil spirit Shinichiro Togo got up from the ground. It had to take down the most threatening guy first.

Two seconds passed, and the evil spirit Togo Shinichiro staggered, more thick blood flowing from its face. It had never realized that maintaining a hallucination was so difficult, but as long as it got to that place...

Three seconds later, the evil spirit Togo Shinichiro finally arrived in front of Mitsurugi, raising the bloodstained iron hammer high.

In his dream, the boy suddenly swung a sword of madness forged from his will, his imagination, and his life's desires!

In reality, Yu Jian suddenly opened his eyes, gripped the wooden stick with both hands at the same time, and cracks burst open at the point of contact, as an unbearable force penetrated through it, while an unshakable will surpassed it.

That was his yearning and quest for something ethereal and intangible.

This is the first sword strike in the pursuit of the Dao!
cut! ! !
An invisible yet tangible force burst forth, and a whistling wind swept through the corridor to the farthest reaches of the sword path.

The evil spirit Togo Shinichiro froze instantly. In the brief interval of less than a breath, a line of blood suddenly appeared on its pale, corpse-like skin, spreading rapidly downwards from its forehead until it neatly split its body in two.

It's dead.

Can a dead person die again?

Yu Jian exhaled, looking at the monster lying dead on the ground, and a strange thought arose in his mind.

Suddenly, the remains of the evil spirit began to spontaneously combust without fire, as if burned by invisible flames, turning into wisps of gray mist that rose up.

The familiar scene greatly surprised Yujian, because in his dream, monsters would also dissipate in the same way after their defeat, eventually becoming some kind of power that he could absorb.

After a few breaths, the mist seeped into Yujian's body in a way that was imperceptible to others, and a familiar warmth spread throughout his body.

He also knew everything about the life of the evil spirit Togo Shinichiro.

(End of this chapter)