Cold sweat streamed down Aro's forehead as he stood beside Enmu, but his trembling quickly stopped. He clenched Xiaolian's hand tightly, and the fear in his eyes gradually gave way to resolve.
"Xiaolian, you have to live."
He spoke to his lover through the party channel. Then he raised a hand and touched Enmu, using his Blood Demon Art to write words across Enmu's back and relay a message.
"Aro, what are you doing?"
Xiaolian's face was filled with terror. Since meeting Aro, this was the first time she had encountered such a desperate situation. She had thought he would use his wits to lead her out of danger—but had they truly reached the end?
"I'm making you a way out."
Aro's reply in the party channel was brief. Then he said nothing more. Drawing a deep breath, he stared intently at Luke and Gyokko, who were clashing in the field.
Gyokko was clearly no match for Luke. If not for his life-saving Blood Demon Art that let him transfer locations, and his constant summons of giant octopuses to block Luke's attacks, he would have been carved into dozens of pieces long ago.
Aro knew he could not drag this out any longer. Explorers had to find life in the face of death. And for a weak man like him to protect someone he cared about, he had to be prepared to die before he could gamble against someone stronger.
At that moment, Luke cleaved Gyokko in half at the waist. As his second slash was about to reach Gyokko's neck, Gyokko transferred away once more.
Just as Luke prepared to pursue him, a figure rushed out from the flank. It was a black-haired young man. Terror filled his eyes, but his steps did not hesitate in the slightest as he raised a combat knife and slashed at Luke.
Luke constantly sensed the positions of every enemy on the battlefield. After confirming that Enmu was still above and to one side, he swung his sword.
The gap in speed meant Aro's blade had not even touched Luke before his head was sent flying. Yet in his final moment, a smile appeared on his face.
Because his timed position-swap item had activated, and the timing was precisely as he had calculated.
Before his consciousness faded, he looked into Luke's cold, murderous eyes. He felt both regret and relief.
He was relieved that he had used his own life as bait to outmaneuver such a powerful Explorer, timing it perfectly to open a path of survival for Xiaolian.
He regretted that the last thing he saw before dying was this god of slaughter's eyes, rather than Xiaolian's gentle face.
From Luke's perspective, Prison Demon swept horizontally. It first touched Aro's neck, then sliced through it effortlessly.
But just as Prison Demon's edge passed through Aro's neck and continued outward on its remaining momentum, the severed neck before Luke's eyes instantly rejoined!
No—this was not Aro's neck reattaching. The person in front of Luke had been swapped!
The head on that neck did not belong to Aro at all. It was Enmu's face!
The veins around those emerald eyes, marked with Lower Rank One, bulged fiercely. He was straining with everything he had.
Blood Demon Art: Forced Unconscious Sleep, Eye!
This was his strongest Blood Demon Art. Its sleep-inducing effect far surpassed the Blood Demon Art he released through sounds from his hands: Forced Unconscious Hypnosis, Whispering.
He had tried Whispering earlier, but Luke's resistance to sleep was too high, and it had failed. So he had wagered everything on this one attack.
He did not know how that weak Demon had managed to swap their positions, but after a brief tactical exchange, he understood this was their only chance. So he agreed.
At such close range, even if he could only restrain Luke for an instant, Gyokko would kill Luke—and Luke would kill him in return. But as long as he could eliminate a threat to Lord Muzan, he would feel supreme happiness.
The instant Luke met Enmu's eyes, the scene before him blurred by instinct, and he arrived in an old warehouse.
He was secretly reading a comic book when a woman's voice came from outside the warehouse. "A-Li, sneaking comics again?"
The moment Luke heard that voice, his nose stung. He instinctively wanted to turn around and call out those two words.
But his reason told him that this was a dream world. He had to get out immediately. Even taking the time to turn around for one glance would cost him his life.
So he resonated with Prison Demon. Borrowing the soul-shaking force of his Zanpakuto, combined with the Giant's Heart's control-reduction effect, he instantly shattered the world before his eyes.
When his vision cleared again, however, contrary to his expectations, Gyokko's Blood Demon Art had not severely wounded him.
[Side Quest: Demon Hunter progress updated. A purple treasure chest has dropped.]
Endspace's clear notification sounded beside his ear. This was the reward notice it gave whenever he killed a Demon.
Within the burning mountain forest, the heavy stench of charred matter mixed with choking smoke. No sound of an enemy attack cutting through the air came from around him. At his feet lay Gyokko's corpse and the head that had rolled aside.
Directly ahead of him, Enmu, severed at the waist, struggled to crawl along the ground.
"M-Monster..."
Xiaolian, who was still standing on a tree, spoke in a trembling voice. Her body went limp, and she fell from the branch. The horror in her eyes was ten thousand times greater than before, as though she had witnessed some indescribable demon god.
Luke frowned at Gyokko's corpse. "So my master wasn't joking with me..."
He recalled something from his childhood. His master had once said that Luke had sleepwalked into the training yard and fought the wooden dummies. When his master tried to wake him, he discovered that Luke possessed battle instincts even in his sleep. After a bout of fighting, his master had nearly failed to overpower him.
Since Luke had never sleepwalked before, he had assumed his master was teasing him. After all, he had not felt tired when he woke the next morning, and there were no bruises on his body from his master's blows.
Later, though, he never got the chance to verify whether it was true. Not long after that sleepwalking incident, the Company's hounds and those people came to his door. He became a homeless orphan, and from then on, he had never slept peacefully again. No matter where he was, he remained intensely vigilant and had never entered deep sleep.
Just now, Enmu's ability had put him to sleep. It might not even have been a full second, but it had been deep sleep. So had he sleepwalked for one second?
Or had he carved martial instincts into his body, allowing him to fight even while asleep?
Luke shook his head. This was not the time to think about such things. He stepped toward Enmu, ready to end the battle.
"M-Monster... What the hell are you!?"
Enmu sensed Luke approaching from behind and twisted himself around. More than half of his lower body had only just painfully regenerated. He could only kick against the ground with half a leg and scrape himself backward. Terror twisted his expression, as if he had seen something unimaginably horrifying.
Now Luke was genuinely puzzled. He knew Enmu was the sort of mentally unhinged freak who was one of Muzan's prized employees. A guy like that was not supposed to be afraid. What had he seen just now?
I couldn't have been stronger asleep than awake, right? It's not like I'm Zenitsu.
Luke had confidence in his own battle-hardened skill. He did not believe that relying purely on combat instincts while asleep would make him stronger than his conscious self.
Enmu watched the man approach him. Ignoring even the burning flames on the ground, he kept retreating. Like a helpless child, he even grabbed burning fallen leaves and threw them at Luke.
After that weak Demon had sacrificed himself to exchange positions with Enmu, Enmu had immediately activated his Blood Demon Art. The instant it succeeded, he had believed the battle was already theirs.
Even if Luke sensed Gyokko's killing intent and woke up, killing Enmu in a final counterattack, Gyokko could still remove Luke. That would eliminate Lord Muzan's greatest hidden danger.
But at the instant his Blood Demon Art succeeded, he saw the true... demon god.
Dense purple mist wrapped around Luke's entire body, while black smoke-like matter rose beneath that violet haze. His presence was cold, violent, and bloodthirsty, carrying killing intent so overwhelming that even the flames seemed to bow before it.
Gyokko, who had reached Luke's side, did not even have time to make a move. No one saw exactly what happened before Gyokko's head was severed by a pitch-black flash of blade light.
Before Enmu could understand the situation, Luke's blade reversed course and cut him cleanly in half.
Luke woke in less than a second. Yet during that brief instant, the suffocating aura surrounding him had nearly blanketed the entire mountain range!
"That's just rude... No matter how you look at it, I'm human, aren't I?"
Luke planted his foot on Enmu's chest. He was no longer afraid that Enmu would use his Blood Demon Art again. With Gyokko gone, neither Enmu nor that trash Explorer could break his defense. He would even be willing to reminisce in a dream for a while.
But Enmu seemed to have been frightened into a mental breakdown. He did not even use his Blood Demon Art anymore, only struggling desperately while babbling words like monster and devil.
As Luke spoke, he brought down his blade and ended Enmu's life. To his surprise, although Enmu was only a Lower Rank, he also dropped a purple treasure chest—though its quality was probably mediocre.
After killing the last Demon with any real ability, Luke fixed his gaze on the female Explorer.
Xiaolian had been scared so thoroughly that she could no longer move. Her long, fair legs beneath her short skirt were folded under her as she knelt there. When she saw Luke walking toward her, she let out a shrill scream.
But when Luke came closer, she stopped screaming and cried out through tears, "Please, spare me! I absolutely won't oppose you in this world anymore!"
"You two were a couple?"
Luke turned to look at Aro's corpse on the ground.
Xiaolian nodded at first, then shook her head wildly. "No, I don't know him! He's the one who tried to set you up, boss. It has nothing to do with me. I was only following them to watch. I never intended to oppose you."
Fear twisted her once fairly pretty face into something hideous. "Please spare me. I don't want to die. I'll do anything you want..."
As she spoke, she began tearing at her own clothes, exposing her fair skin. "I'm very skilled. I promise I'll satisfy—"
Before she could finish, Prison Demon came down, sending her grotesquely twisted head flying.
Luke glanced at Aro's corpse and sighed. "What a waste..."
Aro had undoubtedly been a weak Explorer, but he had brains. He knew how to consolidate strength, arranging Upper Rank Five and Lower Rank One at Mount Natagumo. It had undoubtedly been a highly threatening trap for the Demon Slayer Corps.
Luke had seen similar position-swap items on the trading market. Limited by their quality, they could generally only bind to and switch with living targets, and their range was limited—most likely less than a kilometer.
But even five or six hundred meters was not a short distance. With Aro's mind and personality, there was no way he had failed to prepare an escape route before going up the mountain. The item might have been bound beforehand to other living targets on the mountain. If he had truly wanted to flee, he would have had a chance of escaping alone amid the chaos by using that item.
But Aro had chosen to use his own life to set the trap, betting that he could restrain Luke long enough for the woman he loved to survive.
Regardless of sides, Luke acknowledged the man's intelligence, resolve, and courage. His taste in women, though, was terrible.
"You gave your heart to the wrong woman, brother."
With that, Luke moved. The fire was growing ever fiercer, and he had to clear the battlefield quickly.
Half a minute later, Luke held two purple treasure chests in his hands while carefully reviewing Endspace's notification log, lost in thought.
He had killed nine Explorers in this battle, but apparently... not a single Dead Man's Chest had dropped.
That shouldn't be right. Isn't my luck pretty good?
Yeah. It had to be a coincidence.
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