Chapter 61: Hakuji

When the silver gray slash moved towards Akaza, dispersed more quietly, but Akaza was already holding onto the bleeding ear, releasing a shout of pain, as if the immediately regenerated eardrum did not allow him to hear anything.

"What is this? What is this!"

Feeling the slow regeneration of his "hearing", Akaza was truly frightened by this kind of strange attack which he had never seen before.

Although Akaza noticed that his "hearing" could recover. He also knew, just now, the slash did not truly hit him, if he received a clean hit from that slash…

However, Maple would not allow him to have a moment of rest.

Frightened? That's how it was supposed to be, that was exactly the point, just continue to "scare him to death"!

[The death of immortals has arrived, the eye of gods would dry naturally, no longer able to sustain their ability to see the myriad changes]

"Soul breathing 4th chapter – blink of an eye."

The chant to pursue demons who escaped death once again rang, the cold as a void soul blade once again cut out a line of gray slash in the air.

"Get away! Get away!! Get away!!!"

This was the answer given by Akaza's rational mind, but the hidden spiritual pull made him subconsciously raise his head and look at the slash that struck his head.

"!"

[Light, eye piercing light, the infinite light]

This was the scene Akaza "saw" in the end, and in the next second, he briefly "lost consciousness" due to the terrifying "light", and saw endless darkness.

"Run! Must run! But…to where?"

Darkness surrounded Akaza, which made him feel that he had arrived on an island floating in a sea of death.

Unable to "hear", unable to "see", unable to "feel", it was as though he had been locked inside a dark small box, only knowing that death was following closely "behind".

It was at this moment, Maple had changed to another move, releasing a last slash towards Akaza who was standing dazedly on the spot.

[But the death of the immortal has arrived, there is no safety, no happiness, naturally disgusted to dwell on the high seats above.]

"Soul breathing 7th chapter – seat of unhappiness"

The soul blade, emitting a slight intent of true death, drew half an arc in the air, and slashed out a deep gray bladelight, the blade light was illusory, like an increasingly hazy aurora.

Along with the release of "7th chapter", almost every creature nearby seemed to feel a warning sign of impending disaster and immediately disappeared, which made the wilderness to suddenly fall into strange silence.

"In the eye" of Akaza, this slash that moved towards his neck seemed like something indescribable from within the darkness.

At the moment he was "seen", Akaza's twisted spirituality spontaneously struggled violently, as it was something absolutely must not "be seen" directly.

But unfortunately, Akaza who did not have the slightest experience towards "mystery", let his "gaze" directly meet with "it".

The moment the two "gazes" met, since Maple had immediately released a slash, and this brief period, was sufficient.

"Ha…aa…."

Akaza's demon eye became slightly white, and murmured something inaudible, that startling glance towards [death], immediately affected the deepest core of his spirit, and awakened the memory of "him" "before his death".

"Koyuki…master…I, what have I done…"

The waves of memories completely destroyed the "demon's" "dam". At this moment, the young man called "Hakuji" finally emerged from within Akaza.

Violent collision between "Human" "rationality" and "Demon" "twistedness", which was something that should not be possible, happened under Maple's ministration.

Just when the spiritual body was about to collapse on itself, the ritual had been previously prepared to the last stage was triggered.

"Huu…"

In the train, above the ritual altar, that blood thread symbolizing blood contract seemed to be touched by some mysterious spirit. The slowly burning blood flames suddenly surged violently, and completely burned Enmu's contract blood into a small chunk of flickering flames.

"Waste...!"

The moment the contract blood was burned up, a sound of angry shout that came from far away came along with the spirit, and echoed above the ritual.

However, regardless of the demon king's hatred, the higher-leveled spirituality had completely blocked his "sight".

The result of having the contract blood "sacrificed" also directly affected the body of Enmu who had combined with more than half of the train.

"Cough! Pfft!"

Along with the sound of a painful cough that was heard from the head of the train, before Zenitsu and Inosuke could react, the exposed demon spine in front of them started to become pus and blood at a speed visible to naked eyes.

"No! What happened, lord Muzan, have you given up on me…?"

The shrill and desperate wailing sound made the people in the compartment close their ears in pain, but Enmu's question was destined to not receive Muzan's reply.

"Truly, a nightmare…"

The huge flesh continuously collapsed, as Enmu murmured its last words in this world and welcomed its own death.

"This, this, Inosuke, is it dead?"

Seeing the gradually bubbling away contaminated blood, no longer showing any sign of regeneration, Zenitsu finally fully relaxed his mind that had been fully stretched, and before Inosuke could reply, he immediately lost consciousness.

"It should be dead…wait a minute, Chuitsu! Chuitsu! What happened to you?!"

Ignoring how Inosuke "explosively" turned towards Zenitsu, above the ritual altar, the two demon eyes that had been taken out from Enmu did not dissipate like its owner.

"Using Enmu's blood contract as a base,

Bringing Akaza under the demon king,

Bringing Hakuji under me."

Following the direction of Maple's ritual's guidance, the flames that had swallowed Enmu's contract blood, climbed towards the blood thread formed by Akaza's contract blood and burned it into two parts.

The blood thread did not collapse even though it was cut in half, instead it was attracted towards the pair of eyes on the table that had not dissipated, and floated separately on top of each eye. Subsequently turning into an almost invisible blood vessel like pattern on the demon's eyes.

Following the integration of the blood thread, the two demon eyes also shook severely, undergoing some strange transformation under the induction of the ritual magic…

The eye with the symbol "lower-ranked", those two words changed into "upper-ranked"; while the eye with the symbol "one", the "one" also changed into "Hakuji".

The two demon eyes whose symbol had changed, had successfully separated the occult relationship between "Akaza" and "Hakuji", and under Maple's hands, became a world-changing beyonder item.

[Upper-ranked demon eye], silently became "Akaza" in the eyes of Muzan, as long as Maple added some "operation", it could become a weapon to kill Muzan.

As for [Hakuji demon eye], it became the chain that Maple used to bind Hakuji's soul, preventing him from losing control of himself again. After all, Hakuji's spirit was merely awakened, and not turning back from demon to human.

"Hua…hua…"

Along with the formation of the two demon eyes, a long illusory river flowed from the carving of [infinite river of death], and rolled the two "sealed items", to be brought back to the essence.

It was at the moment the ritual made these changes, Hakuji also realized that his own "soul body" was no longer collapsing, the "sense of restrain" originating from the demon king was also gradually transferred into the hands of the young man in front of him.

"I…"

Hakuji opened his mouth, but did not say any complete words.

He looked down, looking towards his own body that had changed into a demon, those golden blue tattoos were like proof of his deed of killing and eating humans.

Those terrifying memories of himself as a demon, although had been separated under Maple's ritual, and became similar to watching a movie, not only did not let Hakuji collapse on himself, but also act as a reminder for Hakuji, what kind of sin that he had done.

"You, can you kill me?"

Hakuji stood dazedly for quite a while, before he raised his head once again and looked at Maple who held his life and death, and stated his simple request.

In the demon's eyes, that "upper-ranked 3rd" symbol had long disappeared, and could not hide its will to die.

"Not possible, at least not right now."

Maple shook his head, and replied decisively.

This strange reply made Hakuji look confused, but soon, Maple told Hakuji of his plan.

"I need your help to kill Muzan."

"?!"

Maple's plan was like a streak of thunder exploding in Hakuji's mind, he never thought that this "pillar" in front of him actually had such a crazy thought…

No, considering his ability, it seemed possible? But this was not how things were calculated, right?

"Kill lor…Pui! Kill Muzan, is it?"

Hakuji could hardly control his emotion, even his voice trembled.

"In my opinion, your capability…wait, I still do not know your name, you can just call me Hakuji."

"Feng, single word, no surname."

"Eh, ok, Mr. Feng, in my opinion, according to my previous experience of Muzan, you do have the chance to kill Muzan."

Speaking up to here, Hakuji paused, seemingly recalling the scene of Maple's attack, the surprise could hardly be hidden.

"After all, your 'battle intent' had reached a high level, one that I only saw on the upper-ranked 1st demon, Kokushibo. In addition to your, er…strange technique. Speaking frankly, if Muzan meets you for the first time and you manage to severely injure him, then you can definitely kill him! But…"

While speaking to this, Hakuji also shook his head in pity.

"I'm afraid within the demon slayer corps, you are the only one with this kind of battle power, according to my numerous battles, you could be considered an 'anomaly'."

"That is to say, I will fight alone, that is what you want to say, right?"

"Correct."

Hearing Maple's pointed words, Hakuji chose to "speak frankly".

"Your energy has a limit, unless you are a 'demon', this problem can never be solved."

"That's why, I controlled you."

Maple's unconnected words confused Hakuji.

"…What do you mean?"

"You said it yourself, I will have to fight alone, however, as long as I can let the rest of the 'pillar' become stronger, strong enough that they can help me eliminate those upper-ranked fishes, isn't it enough?"

"You…do you think other people have the same level of talent as you?"

Hakuji helplessly held his forehead, feeling a little weak in his heart.

"All upper-ranked demons can be this strong due to their long training, if it was 'human', although the short lives of humans allowed them to have greater potential, it was not so overboard that they could reach the level of upper-ranked demons in a short time…"

"Really?"

Maple's question slightly stunned Hakuji.

"Isn't it…?"

Just when Hakuji wanted to speak, his gaze followed Maple's gaze towards the train in the distance.

At this moment, Hakuji suddenly recalled the flame pillar whose body was like a raging flame, the words that he was about to speak were swallowed back.

"Hakuji, I won't speak about the rest, but think about it, if the current 'flame pillar' Rengoku Kyojuro mastered the one you called [transparent world], can he hold back the previous you?"

"[Transparent world] …is this the name you gave to that realm? However, …if you put it that way, hiss…it seems to be possible."

Hakuji thought for a while, a trace of surprise was seen on those demon eyes, realizing that it was indeed possible.

After all, according to Maple's judgment, "pillars" who had mastered [transparent world], [bright red sword] and [mark of demon slayer], already had the combat power at the peak of [sequence 7] and battle power at the peak of sequence 7 was already comparable to the explosive-state of upper-ranked 3rd demon.

It was because upper-ranked demons had terrifying physical enhancement, otherwise there would not be a need for the battle power of multiple "pillars" to deal with the first three upper-ranked demons.

But now, according to Kyojuro's talent, even if he only mastered one of the techniques, although not enough to overpower the first three upper-ranked demons, at least there would not be a problem to hold them back.

"But, Mr. Feng, [transparent world] is also not that easy to master."

However, Hakuji still noticed some flaws in Maple's words, it was as he said, [transparent world] was indeed very strong, but it was because it was strong, that it was difficult to learn.

But just as Hakuji finished speaking, he saw Maple looking at him with a gaze that seemed to have seen an idiot.

"Hakuji, did you become an idiot after recovering your memory?"

"Ha?! You, what do you mean by that?"

Hearing Maple's eloquent words, Hakuji's face became red, and showed his demon fang unhappily.

"Could it be that you 'rob' me from Muzan for this thing? I did not have the experie…"

While speaking, Hakuji's words became smaller and smaller, but his eyes slowly became bigger and bigger, until finally, he finally guessed Maple's true objective and immediately twisted his head to look at the unassuming young man, wanting to curse.

"You (slangs from who knows how many years ago)! Use my [compass needle] to help the other 'pillars' awaken [transparent world]? What kind of crazy ideas do you have? You even want to exploit demons?!"