Inazuma swordsmith named Senko Muramasa

The wind from his fists and the shadow of his legs, with the ferocity honed over the past few days, instantly enveloped the place where Muramasa was standing.

Before the crowd could even utter a cry of surprise, the situation on the scene forced them to muffle their voices.

Muramasa neither retreated nor blocked, but in that split second he precisely turned sideways, lowered his shoulders, and spun around, slipping through the gaps between several attacks like a fish.

Without any unnecessary movements, Muramasa simply touched their waists, knees, shoulders or armpits lightly at the moment he passed by them, as swift as a dragonfly skimming the water.

It looked like an extremely precise movement, seemingly inconsistent with Muramasa's usual bold and sweeping moves.

However, in reality, the level of that group of temporary volunteers was too unbearable to look at.

The level of their imitated "moves" was not as intimidating as street boxing, but it allowed Muramasa to better grasp their body movements.

"Ugh!"

"Sea Bull—!"

"Ouch!"

Several short cries of pain mixed with the dull sounds of falling to the ground rang out one after another.

Everyone looked towards the field, and only Muramasa was still standing there.

Several people were lying on the ground, some of them were holding their sides and curled up to breathe, some were hugging their knees with a look of surprise, and some were lying on the ground, not realizing how they fell for a long time.

"Is anyone else coming?"

Muramasa looked around at the silent crowd, his eyes swept over the challengers who were still struggling or dazed on the ground, and finally fell on more soldiers who had heard the news and rushed over in the distance, squeezing behind the crowd and peeking their heads around.

Finally, the focus fell on the person holding the pendant.

This time, no one jumped out to shout in a frenzy of excitement, and the "ring" formed even expanded a bit.

Deterrence... This should be considered completed, right?

He frowned slightly, looked towards the direction of his heart sea, and sighed inwardly, hoping that the witch... would be satisfied with this result.

……

"See...see clearly?"

"No... I felt stunned for a moment, and then they all lay down..."

"Oshima and the others usually train really hard, so why do they look like paper?"

"Too strong... Ridiculously strong! No wonder he dared to say 'let's go together'..."

There was a buzz of discussion. These "tough" islanders had never seen such a scene even on the battlefield.

It’s not that those guys who follow the Heavenly Territory’s orders don’t have strong men, but even Kujo Sara has never displayed such strange methods.

At the edge of the noisy crowd, the young man holding the purple pendant stood there quietly, thinking about something.

"Hey, Lan, what are you thinking about?"

The person next to him patted his shoulder, interrupting his confused little thoughts.

"nothing."

He forced a smile and looked in the direction Muramasa left.

"I get it, I get it. Alas, the sudden appearance of a 'defending champion' like this is going to be tough on everyone."

His words touched upon the reluctance in Lan's heart, but also added a touch of determination to the latter's eyes.

"Hey you……"

Seeing the sudden change in Lan's expression, the man quickly hooked his arm around his neck, moved closer, and lowered his voice, saying:

"You don't want to use 'that', do you? There's no need. Xinhai can't know about this. If it's exposed..."

"It won't be exposed."

Lan slapped his hand away and interrupted him: "If I don't try, I won't be willing to give up..."

He knew what being exposed meant. This pendant was possessed by only a few people among the resistance forces on Haige Island. When they obtained it, they were warned—

Your military advisor is a very gentle person and she will not allow you to use these things.

Don't you want to be a hero in the hearts of the people of Haigi Island?

These two sentences, one persuasion and one inducement, hit the hearts of these passionate young people, making them think whether this was their only chance in their lifetime.

"Besides, it's okay to use it in front of other companions, right?"

As he said that, he rushed out, ignoring the shouts of his companions behind him.

……

No one came forward to challenge him again, and Muramasa did not plan to stay in this noisy place for long. Instead, he turned into a secluded path far away from the military camp and found a quiet place to sit down and rest.

“Even if there’s nothing wrong with your body, you’ll still feel mentally tired.”

Just as he relaxed his mind a little and focused on feeling the coolness of the sea breeze and the rocks, a figure rushed out from around the corner.

Muramasa did not open his eyes immediately, and even his breathing rhythm did not change at all, confirming that breath.

It's that guy, and...

If he was not sure before, he was now completely clear that the pendant the other party was carrying was exactly the one used by the "Ghost Shark" when he first arrived in Inazuma.

"Drink!"

A roar filled with suppressed pain and madness tore through the silence, and a figure suddenly jumped out from the shadows behind the reef with a speed and momentum far more fierce and strange than all the previous challengers!

He had no intention of killing Muramasa. All his energy was concentrated on improving his physical fitness. Even his appearance could not be seen to be abnormal.

At the moment when the suppressed roar tore through the air, Muramasa grabbed the white cape from his shoulders and casually swung it towards the oncoming figure, obscuring his entire field of vision.

His vision was instantly obscured, and Lan's momentum of sprinting couldn't help but stagnate. The sudden feeling of suffocation and disorientation overwhelmed his intention to attack.

He instinctively wanted to tear off the troublesome fabric, but the fabric felt slippery wherever his fingertips touched, leaving him with nowhere to put his foot down.

"This guy... needs to stop that thing first."

At the moment when Lan was briefly trapped by the cloak, he faced the figure wrapped in white cloth, took a step forward with his left foot, lowered his waist and hips, and his center of gravity suddenly sank.

His right arm passed straight through the gap in the fluttering cloak and accurately embraced the opponent's waist and abdomen. At the same time, his left hand grabbed Lan's right shoulder blade like lightning.

"Varied…?!"

Lan felt a tightening around his waist, and a huge force instantly clamped around his core, and then his shoulders and back were also locked tightly.

Muramasa lowered his waist, and his arms controlled Lan's body firmly like a gate, smashing Lan to the ground!

Peng!

After landing, Lan felt that his consciousness was disconnected for a few seconds, and then his limbs lost control one after another. His body fell into a dormant state and the pendant also dimmed.

Muramasa slowly stood up straight, his breathing still steady, as if he had just casually brushed off the dust on his shoulders.

He looked down at the young man who was knocked unconscious and temporarily unable to move by the fall he had made. Without any emotion, he simply peeled open the collar of his shirt and took off the pendant.

After confirming it, he slowly spoke:

"Knew it."

The Swordsmith from Another World: Chapter 85 Without the Evil Eye, Vadasi!

When Lan woke up again, it was already dark.

He looked up at the dim sky, his mind still confused by three classic philosophical questions.

Who am I, where am I...

"woke up?"

A deep, magnetic voice echoed from the side, like the sound of cold metal striking silent rocks. Lan's head whipped around, his pupils struggling to focus in the darkness. Like a rock, Muramasa sat on a prominent black reef not far away, his hard, cold outline sparingly outlined by the moonlight.

Almost instinctively, his hand suddenly pressed against his chest—

empty!

He suddenly jumped up from the ground, his body still feeling the dull pain from the fall, but he didn't care at all at the moment. Before Muramasa could say anything, he shouted impatiently:

"give me back!"

"That's impossible, you know that, right?"

Muramasa had anticipated his reaction. His expression was cold and he asked without questioning:

"Where did this thing come from?"

He was silent for a long moment, biting his lower lip tightly, and stubbornly turned his pale face away, refusing to answer Muramasa's next question:

"……do not know."

"Really?" Muramasa didn't ask further questions, but simply stated the result calmly, as if he had already expected it. He stood up, patted the dust off his trouser legs, and said quickly and decisively, "Well, thank you for your hard work."

"Wait! Where are you taking it—"

Lan asked in panic, this thing cannot be known to other people.

"To your shrine maiden." Muramasa replied without turning his head.

"no!"

This thing must not be exposed, especially not by... He almost crawled forward, slamming his knees heavily on the sand, desperately stretched out his body, and tightly grasped Muramasa's thick arms:

"No! Please! I can't give it to her... without it! I, I can't do anything--!"

"...Are you some little girl?"

Feeling the restraint on his hand, Muramasa was silent for a moment. After shaking off his hand, he looked down at him condescendingly:

"Answer my question first."

"Where did this thing come from, when did you get it, and how many people have it?"

After a brief moment of loss of composure, Lan slowly got up from the ground, calming his breathing while trying to recall:

"The war hadn't started yet, it was still in the preparation stage... Our team encountered it while on patrol."

"It didn't look like they were from Narukami Island, so we had a brief exchange with them and got it from them."

Muramasa thought of the factory he had destroyed before, and combined with the testimony of a detective, he was afraid that these things were related to it.

After several seconds, he raised his gravel-covered face and looked into the distance with empty eyes.

"As for how many people there are... I don't know. I only know those in our team."

"But, but...really, you really can't let Xinhai know?"

His tone became urgent again.

"You know the side effects of this thing, right?"

Muramasa interrupted him, looking up and down at the man in front of him. He had no objection to the other person using this thing, he was just assessing his physical condition.

"I know..." He nodded.

"Then you know that you are almost at your limit, right?" He could see the lingering grayness deep in the other's eyes, which was a sign of excessive overdraft of vitality.

"..." Muramasa was answered with silence.

Judging by his expression, Muramasa understood. Thinking of Ghost Shark's final, utterly decrepit and aged appearance, and then looking at the young man before him, though disheveled, his body still intact, perhaps... there was still room for recovery.

Just looking at that cowardly look, Muramasa was furious:

"Tell me why you use this thing."

Lan was shaken by the question and stammered subconsciously, "To, to protect my companions... to save the day and become... to become a hero of Umijima..."

"Isn't that right?" Muramasa took a step forward, his gaze threatening to evade him. He demanded, "So if you defeat me, you'll become the hero of Umijima."

"Otherwise, why are you here?"

Every word he heard hammered at his heart, leaving him speechless for a long time. Until Muramasa added:

"Or is it because of that sir—because of Xin Hai?"

Muramasa, who originally wanted to refer to him as "that sir", changed the address to his given name in the end.

"Being a hero is just a means to an end. You think you need to be a hero to stand beside this 'human-goddess'." He turned his words into a sharp knife, piercing the boy's carefully constructed psychological defenses. "That's why you're so frightened by my appearance, so frightened that you think defeating me will prove your 'qualifications'."

"I...I..." Lan's mouth trembled as if he had a stroke. An abnormal flush rose on his pale face, and then faded away along with the blood color. "I just...I just want to become stronger! Strong enough to protect her! Strong...strong enough to..."