6
When Kuraia launched her first strike, it was blocked by a beastkin girl, which took her by surprise.
In her right eye was the shock of being blocked, and in her left eye, the question of how it had been blocked.
Cloaked in Od, Kuraia had leapt over the wall, closing in on the two from behind and swinging her sword in a horizontal arc.
A strike aimed at cleanly severing the oni girl’s head in a single blow. Sparing her the pain of suffering was Kuraia’s form of mercy.
While the attack wasn’t at full power, there shouldn’t have been any room for a typical adventurer to intervene.
In fact, up until the last moment, Seal hadn’t even noticed Kuraia’s approach, let alone her attack.
But suddenly, with no warning, Seal threw herself in front of Suzume to shield her from the blade. It was a wild, animalistic instinct.
Kuraia had pulled her sword back at the last moment, but it was too late; the blade had already sliced deep into Seal’s back, drawing a pained scream.
Damn it, Kuraia cursed to herself. She hadn’t intended to harm anyone but the oni.
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Seal stumbled a few steps but didn’t fall. She quickly repositioned herself to face Kuraia. Despite the intense pain she must have been feeling, there was no weakness in her glare. Only anger, determination, and a strong will to protect her friend.
Seeing that fierce gaze, Kuraia instinctively chose to step back.
She took precisely two steps back before Suzume, finally grasping the situation, let out a short scream.
“Eek! Seal-san, you’re hurt!”
“Suzume-chan, get inside… quickly…”
Seal’s voice was low and raspy, likely due to the pain. Even so, she didn’t stop shielding Suzume with her body. At some point, a small hatchet had appeared in her hand.
With Kuraia’s attack momentarily halted, Suzume could have fled into the mansion if she wanted to.
But she didn’t move. She couldn’t move. Suzume wasn’t strong enough to abandon Seal, who was bleeding in front of her.
Watching their interaction, Kuraia furrowed her brows slightly. The beastkin girl who was glaring at her and the oni girl behind her, who looked like she was about to cry but remained in place.
Kuraia could read their thoughts as if they were laid out before her.
She could see the nobility in Seal’s determination to protect her friend, even at the risk of her life. And she could see the struggle in Suzume, who couldn’t bring herself to run away and leave her friend behind. If Kuraia were a third party observing this scene, she would have gladly intervened to help.
But now, the one cornering the two of them as an enemy was none other than Kuraia herself. That bitter truth gnawed at her.
──Even so, there was no way he could retreat now.
The scene she once saw in her homeland floated to the surface of Kuraia’s mind.
A red sky reminiscent of the color of blood, ashen clouds constantly streaked with lightning, and a barren land where not even a single blade of grass grew.
There was no trace of life or natural bounty—this was the landscape inside the Demon’s Gate.
The power of the sealed Demon God was immense, and the demonic aura leaking from the Demon’s Gate had even corrupted the ecosystem of Onigashima. It was obvious that this power would be even stronger within the Demon’s Gate itself.
What Kuraia had seen was a world twisted and ruined by the Demon God.
If the Demon God were ever released, both Onigashima and the continent would be reduced to that lifeless wasteland. Grass would wither, water would rot, and insects and animals would transform into monsters, tainted by the demonic aura.
In a world where countless monsters roamed freely, humans would fight each other over the remaining food and safe lands.
That world would be nothing short of hell.
The Seirin Flag Bearers fight to prevent this world from becoming hell. And it was for this reason that the Seirin Flag Bearers regarded the Oni Tribe as their sworn enemy.
──The Oni are a race that shares the same origin as the Demon God.
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Kuraia, Klimt, and even Goz—all the Seirin Flag Bearers who had passed through the Demon’s Gate had been told this by the head of the Mitsurugi family.
But that wasn’t all they were told.
The Gen-so-Ittoryu, the illusory one strike sword style which demonstrates overwhelming power by controlling beings of the same origin, was a technique created by the first Sword Saint, who had learned it from the Oni Tribe. This too was a secret known only to those who had passed through the Demon’s Gate.
The horns that are the source of the Oni’s power are fundamentally connected to the Demon God and continually emit a demonic aura. In other words, the Demon God constantly influences the world through the horns of the Oni.
Personal qualities or temperament don’t matter. Even if there were Oni who didn’t worship the Demon God, it wouldn’t change a thing. The Oni Tribe, by simply existing, distorts the world.
And that’s not all.
The Demon God sealed within the Demon’s Gate is always scheming to manifest in this world. And the vessels necessary for the Demon God to do so are none other than the Oni, connected to the Demon God by their horns.
There’s no need to break the Demon’s Gate. As long as the Oni exist, the Demon God can manifest in this world—no, it will manifest.
This was the truth that three hundred years ago made the conflict between humans and Oni irreversible.
“Stand down. If you continue to interfere, I won’t show mercy. I’ll consider you just another Oni.”
Seal, with the tip of a sword pointed at her, glared back at Kuraia with piercing eyes.
She had no intention of retreating, especially since she knew the target was Suzume.
Even though she knew she had no chance of winning, oddly enough, she didn’t feel afraid. She simply didn’t have the time to worry about such things.
Seal’s keen hearing picked up on the fact that the hesitation had vanished from Kuraia’s words. The threat of “no mercy next time” was literal. She could no longer count on the mercy that had stopped Kuraia’s blade from delivering a fatal blow.
With every hair on her body standing on end, Seal watched Kuraia’s movements intently.
──The blade trembled slightly in her vision.
The moment she judged that an attack was coming and tried to leap away, pain surged through the wound on her back.
It was only a brief pause, but for Kuraia, that opening was easier to exploit than taking candy from a baby.
Her scarlet hakama fluttered like wings as he leapt, delivering a spear-like mid-kick into Seal’s solar plexus.
“Gah!” Seal gasped as the air was forced from her lungs. Her body flew through the air like a ball and crashed to the ground. But the momentum didn’t stop, and she rolled across the ground, bouncing as she went.
…Even after she stopped rolling, Seal couldn’t stand. She struggled to get up, but her body wouldn’t obey. The pain was so intense she could barely breathe, and she writhed in agony.
Suzume tried to rush to Seal’s side, but her movement was blocked by a blade gleaming with a dull sheen.
In that instant, Suzume’s pale pink eyes blazed with fury.
“You…!”
A small flame flickered to life in Suzume’s outstretched hand, rapidly growing to the size of a child’s head.
It was a simple conversion of magic power, requiring no incantation—one of the magic exercises taught by Lunamaria and Miroslav.
Suzume intended to unleash it on Kuraia at point-blank range. If it had hit, Kuraia would have taken significant damage. And the shockwave from the explosion would have surely inflicted serious injuries on Suzume as well.
That’s how much power was packed into Suzume’s magic, fueled by her loss of composure.
But, of course, Kuraia anticipated it perfectly. Moving with blinding speed, he sidestepped and raised his sword.
──The Oni are indeed formidable. To wield such magic at her age…
Gripping the hilt of his sword, Kuraia prepared to deliver a clean strike, ensuring that it would be a quick, painless death.
However, his attack was once again interrupted by someone else.
“Soar, invisible bird of prey!──Toryo!”
Suddenly, a gust of wind magic erupted from within the mansion. The speed and precision of the incantation were leagues above Suzume’s crude manipulation of magic power.
“Tch! There was another ally?”
Muttering, Kuraia quickly kicked off the ground and leapt back. The timing would have been impossible for an ordinary person to dodge, but for Kuraia, who had enhanced his abilities with Od, it was an easy evasion.
In Kuraia’s field of vision appeared a red-haired mage emerging from the mansion.
The mage, seizing the moment when Kuraia had distanced himself from Suzume, unleashed a rapid barrage of spells. Despite the lack of incantation, each spell was as powerful as a fully incanted one.
“…Magic stones, I see.”
Kuraia instantly saw through the trick, frowning as she pondered.
She couldn’t cut down someone who wasn’t an Oni. Yet, she couldn’t afford to waste time until the opponent’s magic power or stones ran out. Meanwhile, the Oni, guided by the mage, was helping the beast-girl retreat into the mansion.
At this rate, the Oni would escape. And the noise from the barrage of spells spreading alarm was equally undesirable.
She decided it was time to force her way through the storm of magic with technique and subdue the mage in one swift strike.
──But it was at that moment, as the next spell activated, that he realized this was the mage’s true intention.
The red-haired mage, who had lured Kuraia into close range, smiled slightly.
“Magic Release.”
With just those two words, the spell activated.
In the next instant, Kuraia’s entire field of vision was consumed by white.
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