Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Demonic Blade Emerges, Resentment Soars

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With Anbei the Little Dog’s blood ritual invocation, the skies over Kyoto changed, wind and clouds roiling in tumult. A force even more sinister and pure in its intent to kill than the Demon Lord Xuansha erupted from the deepest depths beneath Kyoto, as if a volcano had lain dormant for a thousand years and now burst forth without warning.

So potent was this malice that even the heavens above were stained an eerie, blood-red hue. Within the city, countless ordinary people were swept up by this current; their eyes turned scarlet in an instant, all reason lost as they began to attack everything and everyone around them in a frenzy. The entire metropolis was transformed, in the blink of an eye, into a living hell.

“Father, this power…” Yi Yi’s face was etched with solemnity.

“It is the resentment of countless warriors slain in battle, twisted and fused with the so-called ‘Bushido’ spirit of the invaders, forming a monstrous amalgamation,” I replied, my gaze piercing the earth itself to trace the source of this power.

A thousand meters beneath Kyoto, at the heart of a colossal array wrought from countless bones and runes, there stood a single blade.

It was a tachi, long and narrow, its ominous, dark red blade seeming as if it had been forged from congealed blood. Black miasma of visible malice coiled along its length, taking the shape of countless tortured, howling faces.

This was the Demon Blade Muramasa.

Or more precisely, it was the aggregate of every evil spirit and resentment carried by every blade ever named “Muramasa” through the ages. It was the vessel for the fifth spirit stone.

A resonant hum rang out.

Sensing the summons of Abe no Seimei, and my own formidable, foreign presence, the demon blade vibrated with exhilaration in the depths. It yearned for battle, for slaughter, for the taste of a mighty opponent’s flesh and soul.

With a flash, the blade burst through the layers of earth, streaking skyward in a blood-red arc, and came to hover before me above the Onmyo Bureau.

Even before it arrived, a tsunami of murderous intent, so fierce it threatened to rend the mind asunder, washed over us.

All within the Onmyo Bureau fell to their knees under its pressure, shivering uncontrollably, yet their eyes blazed with fanatical worship. This was their ultimate trump card, the final, twisted manifestation of their national spirit.

“Hahaha! Do you see? This is the strength of the Yamato people!” Anbei the Little Dog howled with madness. “Before Lord Muramasa, you will be torn to shreds!”

The demon blade seemed to comprehend his words. It vibrated violently, emitting a shrill, piercing scream—at once expressing its irritation at being disturbed by this insect, Abe no Seimei, and its challenge to me, the powerful “prey” it had awaited.

I gazed at the wicked blade before me, my eyes calm as a still lake.

“An amalgam of boundless hatred and bloodlust, its power just barely equivalent to the earliest form of a Nascent Soul. But what a pity…”

I shook my head, a trace of pity coloring my tone.

“In the end, you’re nothing but a masterless spirit, a vessel’s soul: all strength and no true path.”

“Yi Yi, step back.”

At my command, she withdrew. Then, I took a single step forward.

With that step, I unleashed nothing earth-shattering, yet the entire world seemed to pause, falling into utter silence.

I raised my right hand, bringing my index and middle fingers together in a sword gesture.

“You long for battle, do you?”

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“You wish to be wielded by the strong?”

“You hunger to devour my soul?”

I addressed the demon blade calmly, as though conversing with a living being.

“Come.”

I crooked my finger, beckoning it toward me.

“Let me see just how sharp a blade forged from centuries of sin can truly be.”

My provocation ignited the full fury of Muramasa.

With a metallic shriek sharp enough to rend eardrums, the blade became a blood-colored bolt of lightning, descending upon me with the momentum to sunder heaven and earth.

This strike was the very embodiment of speed and ferocity. Wherever the blade passed, the very fabric of space was laced with hairline cracks of darkness.

Below, Abe no Seimei and the others wore twisted, frenzied grins, as if they could already see me split in two by the blade.

Yet, facing this world-ending strike, I only slowly raised my sword-formed fingers.

With my bare hand, I would meet this legendary demon blade head-on.

“Fool!” Anbei the Little Dog howled inwardly.

A tone rang out—clear and pure as struck jade, echoing to the heavens.

The expected scene of flesh and blood being spattered did not occur. Instead, my two fingers held Muramasa’s edge between them, motionless and unyielding.

The dreadful force that could cleave mountains stopped dead at my fingertips, unable to advance the slightest fraction.

Time itself seemed to freeze.

Anbei the Little Dog’s triumphant grin froze on his face.

The fanaticism of the entire Onmyo Bureau shifted into abject terror.

How…could this be?

To catch the full force of the demon blade Muramasa with one’s bare flesh—this was no longer within the realm of humanity. This was the work of a god, or a devil.

“Too slow. Too weak.”

Clamping the blade between my fingers, I watched as its body writhed and trembled, shrieking ceaselessly. I shook my head in disappointment.

“Your resentment is insufficient.”

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“Your killing intent is lacking.”

“But your sins… those are more than enough.”

With each word, the strength at my fingertips increased.

A faint cracking sound was heard—then, under the horrified eyes of all present, a hairline fracture appeared upon the once-indestructible Muramasa.

“No! Impossible! Lord Muramasa is invincible!” Anbei the Little Dog wailed in despair.

“Invincible?” I sneered. “Before me, you dare invoke such a word?”

“Today, I will show you what true… power really means.”

The instant my words faded, I released my grip.

At the same time, my entire body erupted into a myriad of dazzling golden rays.

“Let my body be transformed into the Sword of Heaven!”

In that moment, I ceased to be a man; I became a sword—one imbued with the supreme Dao, bearing the weight of millennia of Chinese history, and manifesting the judgment of heaven against the invaders’ monstrous crimes—a sword of divine retribution.

My figure vanished, replaced by a colossal golden sword spanning the sky and earth, beyond all description.

Upon the giant blade, dragons and phoenixes coiled; sun, moon, and stars circled its form, its aura so overwhelming that the entire planet trembled.

Before this sword of judgment, the demon blade Muramasa was as a firefly before the full moon, pitifully insignificant. It sensed the most primal terror of existence, shrieked in despair, and turned to flee.

“Now you wish to flee? Too late!”

A mighty voice reverberated through the cosmos.

The golden sword of divine retribution descended toward the fleeing demon blade and the entire Onmyo Bureau below.

There was no thunderous spectacle, only a silence so pure it cleansed all things.

The blood-drenched demon blade, upon touching the golden light, dissolved inch by inch. All its malice and murderous intent were utterly purified. Only a single, diamond-shaped crystal, glowing with an unearthly crimson light, remained. It was wrapped in golden radiance and flew into my hand.

The fifth spirit stone was mine at last.

As for the Onmyo Bureau below, along with Abe no Seimei and all his onmyoji, together with their every crime and vaunted honor, they were reduced to their most elementary particles within the silent radiance of the sword, and erased from this world.

With a single stroke, the demon blade was shattered, the Onmyo Bureau annihilated.

I stowed the spirit stone, resumed my human form, and, holding the hand of the dazzled Yi Yi, floated above the city of Kyoto.

Gazing down at the chaos below, unleashed by Muramasa’s emergence, my eyes were cold as ice.