Night Raid (2)

--- Chapter 40 ---

Ebisu Town. 

This location serves as the hideout for the Three Desires Demons and is a lair for their wicked endeavors. Their notoriety was 'greatly' concealed in this desolate town for several months.

However, on this very night, the Three Desire Demons were ambushed!

A crowd of low-level demons are having a bloody party, feasting on their latest conquest. They ate mangled flesh that one should have guessed where they came from.

Suddenly, a strong breeze appeared and covered the area in a cloud of suffocating dust.

"Dagger Breathing, 4th Form." 

"Slicing Airwave." 

A sharp dagger flew toward the nearest low-level demon, separating its head from its body. A trail of blood was drawn as a head with a stunned look rolled in the air, landing on the ground with a soft noise.

Thud!

Unfortunately, the cloud of dust prevented the other low-level demons from realizing this. Soon, the sharp dagger moved even faster and killed almost all the demons in the group.

The cloud of dust cleared, leaving three standing low-level demons and a bunch of headless demons.

"AH! What is this!" shouted a low-level demon in shock. 

"There! She must be the one doing it!" Another low-level demon pointed his finger at a black-haired human girl dressed in a blue yukata and black-furred coat. Her piercing brown eyes gazed at them amusingly. 

"R-RUN!" The last low-level demon's survival instinct screamed.

"Hehe, want to run? Too late!" The girl is none other than Eri. 

Watching the demons run, Eri grinned as she kicked the ground and disappeared into the darkness.

"COME ON, LET'S PLAY!" 

After that, Eri gave low-level demons some PTSD.

Looking down at the three demons in the puddle of their own blood, Eri pouted because low-level demons aren't very durable. One slash, and they are dead.

How come they are weaker than Tenma Nii-chan? And he's a human.

Aren't you demons supposed to be monsters?

Since Eri has never been allowed to fight demons, she doesn't know the limit of Tenma's power. Her naive thought is simple: "Wow, Nii-Chan can kill high-level and commander-level demons, so cool!" The rest is history.

Eri, who has grasped the Advanced Dagger Breathing, is not something low-level demons could resist. After all, Dagger Breathing is a breathing style Tenma created specifically for her.

Decisive, deadly, dangerous, deep, and quick.

Tenma called it the D4C Dagger Concepts.

Even though she was disappointed, Eri cheered herself up and thought the mid-level demons must be more durable. Hehe, right?

With a newfound joy, the young girl leaped and disappeared into the darkness again, carrying a sharp dagger in each hand.

HAHAHA, I WANNA PLAY!

Meanwhile, on the other side of Ebisu Town, silence happens as countless mangled demon corpses are lying on the bloodied ground. A beautiful girl in a pink yukata and a draped fur coat calmly stood on the red battlefield, holding two sharp katanas with bluish-pink edges.

After being adopted into the Butterfly Mansion, Kanao initially mimicked Kanae, who she thought was the perfect person, and learned Flower Breathing from Kanae.

However, meeting Tenma four years ago changed everything. 

Kanao trained hard under Tenma's strict teaching. She learned not only the essence of culinary arts but also the killing aspect of it, allowing her to apply the flexible and quick nature of culinary knife skills.

Tenma wanted to help Kanao make a new Breathing Style, but she refused!

Kanao felt burdening Tenma enough. It took one year for Kanao to develop her own Breathing Style.

ONE PAINSTAKING YEAR!

She bled, wounded, and almost crippled herself.

But she did it!

She did something that she could be proud of in front of Tenma.

Kanao's body becomes much more powerful and flexible, especially her limbs. She also becomes ambidextrous after countless hardships.

"Damned human! How dare you kill my fellow demons!" shouted a mid-level demon carrying a large machete.

Kanao glanced at him emotionlessly, "You demons can feel kinship..." 

"No, it's not kinship." 

"It's arrogance! Stemmed from your transformation."

"You wanted to deny that you have become a monster and believe you still have a 'heart' in your chest." 

"Ah, how disgusting. I felt bitter after saying that." A faint smile formed on Kanao's beautiful face.

"Y-You! DIE!!!" The mid-level demon charged at Kanao, destroying the ground under his foot and swinging his large machete angrily.

Kanao stared at the incoming machete and sighed. "Too slow..." 

"Demons really are... Slow." 

"Act of Bloom, 1st Petal: Dicing Roots." 

The mid-level demon's eyes widened. When charging at Kanao, all he could see was only bluish-pink petals!

A demon's reaction time is much faster than a human.

Yet the mid-level demon couldn't even realize his death before getting diced into ten equal pieces.

BAM!

Kanao flicked her katanas to clean the blood off and sheathed one back, humming as she walked into a cave entrance. All demons in this area have perished. She might as well go to the cave and watch Tenma bully some high-level demons.

"Hmm, I wonder if those high-level demons are still alive." 

On the west of Ebisu Town, Shinobu entered the forest with her hand on her weapon's hilt. She has finished every low-level and mid-level demon on her way.

However, Tenma's comments about the possibility of a commander-level demon appearing made her alert go high. At first, Shinobu enters the enemy camp with Eri, but after realizing only small fries are in the area, she leaves and goes to this area alone.

Her instinct told her something was wrong in this forest.

And her instinct is very sharp due to a 'certain' activity with Tenma in private.

Even Tenma told Shinobu she might develop a sixth sense, which she did one year ago. She called it Danger Sense, and this forest gave her a sense of dread.

"Huh?" Shinobu stopped her trick.

"This is..." Her eyes widened slightly.

"What the fuck is this?" 

Surrounded by tall trees is a giant red cocoon. It was as big as a two-story house!

Of course, Shinobu's shock wasn't due to the cocoon's size but the beating, heartbeat-like pulse inside it. She didn't have to guess.

There is a demon inside the cocoon!

"Demonic Red Cocoon..." Shinobu was solemn. She has become a demon slayer for years now.

She recognized the demon's evolution very well. 

This cocoon is the entry stage after the commander level!

"A General-level Demon!" Shinobu squeezed those words out with a solemn expression.

She was confident no commander-level demons could survive her poison, but general-level demons are different. Their biology has become too advanced for her current stage of poison mastery.

Not to mention, there aren't many general-level demons Shinobu could observe and test her poison on.

'Damn it. I can't break the Demonic Red Cocoon with my strength. Even my Tao might not penetrate the first layer of it.' Shinobu cursed in her mind.

'I need Tenma-sama to help me with this...'

...

...

Underground, Tenma is being stared at by two high-level demons. They were shocked and fearful. 

Before they knew it, their comrade had gotten killed and pinned onto the wall like a decoration piece.

"S-Spear?" The female high-level demon was frightened by the white spear.

"Y-You're the Masked Demon Slayer!" 

"Oh, you know me?" Tenma smiled behind his mask. 

"But that won't change anything." 

"Today, I will judge you to hell..." 

The male high-level demon was also scared of Tenma but quickly calmed down as he activated his Blood Demon Art. 

"Blood Demon Art - Blood Illusion Mystery!"

The cave suddenly illuminated with blood-colored light, and the high-level demons vanished as if they never existed. 

Countless cold weapons made of blood manifested, flying toward Tenma at high speed.

Tenma stared at the blood weapons and casually walked past them. He lifted his hand and struck something.

BANG!

Tenma grabbed a male high-level demon's neck and slammed him onto the wall.

"M-My illusion... How?" The demon was shocked. His illusion could fool all five senses, which he used to kill even high-ranking demon slayers and fool many humans for years.

Yet it was ineffective against this masked monster.

Tenma chuckled coldly, "Heh, using illusion on someone with Sharingan." 

"I don't really want to say this cringe one-liner, but..."

"You're Courting Death!"