Anime Crossover: Oni Samurai Artifact System — Chapter 204

Chapter 204: Yomikiri Naraku

Meanwhile.

Kyoto, Honno-ji Temple.

This Nichiren sect temple, situated in the bustling heart of Kyoto city, thrived on heavy incense smoke and the endless devotion of its followers. The low, rhythmic drone of chanting monks continued day and night, vibrating through the wooden floorboards. The collective will and spiritual power of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ascetics formed an invisible dome of pure vow-power, shrouding the entire temple grounds. Any demonic aura, ghostly presence, or Turbid Qi that dared to approach would be naturally purified and burned away into nothingness.

It was an absolute forbidden zone for yokai.

It was a guaranteed death trap for demons.

And because of that very nature, it was a hiding place no one would ever suspect.

The final, desperate fragment of Kibutsuji Muzan was hidden right here.

Buried deep within the suffocating darkness of the stone cracks beneath the main hall’s grand Buddha statue, a fist-sized lump of purple-black flesh sat motionless. It emitted no aura, produced no fluctuations, and remained as entirely dormant as an insect egg sealed within ancient amber.

The Demon Slayer Corps could not track it. The Earth Barrier could not seep through the holy ground. Yokai would never dare set foot within a mile of the chanting.

This was Muzan’s absolute, deepest contingency plan. He had hidden the last surviving piece of himself within the most solemn Buddhist pure land of the era, concealing lethal poison within divine medicine, masking absolute filth beneath blinding purity. As long as this grotesque lump of flesh did not actively awaken, no being in the world could discover it.

But tonight was different.

At the exact moment his main body was utterly obliterated by the catastrophic strike of Sun and Moon unity, a reaction occurred.

Within the suffocating stone cracks beneath the Buddha’s lotus base, the purple-black lump of flesh twitched.

It was an extremely faint writhing, so minuscule that even the elderly monk meditating just inches away on the other side of the stone did not notice a single thing. Cellular regeneration initiated. It was agonizingly slow and difficult, like a withered seed frozen in permafrost for five hundred years finally attempting to crack its shell.

Muzan’s consciousness violently surfaced from the dark chaos. His mind was fragmented and scattered, resembling shattered mirror shards desperately trying to piece themselves back together.

His first coherent thought was to survive.

His second thought was to escape.

But his third thought was brutally interrupted before it could even fully form in his fractured mind.

“You’re awake.”

The voice drifted out from the pitch-black darkness of the crevice. It was clear, gentle, and carried a sickening hint of pleasure that would make a mortal’s blood run cold.

Muzan’s cellular regeneration violently stalled.

Impossible.

This is Honno-ji Temple. He was buried deep within a barrier forged by the unyielding will of hundreds of monks. No one could have possibly deduced that his final fragment was hidden here. Even if they did, the voice belonged to a demon he had personally created.

“Lord Muzan, you’re currently thinking, ‘It is impossible for a demon to be here,’ aren’t you?”

The voice carried a distinct, mocking smile.

From the absolute darkness, right within the heavy shadow cast by the golden Buddha statue’s halo, a pale female face slowly emerged. She wore an elegant, plain-colored kimono. Her long black hair draped loosely over her shoulders, framing heroic, sharp features that carried a faint, aristocratic smile. She looked like a handsome young nobleman.

She also looked exactly like a venomous spider crawling across its web, unblinking as it stared down its paralyzed prey.

“Onigumo.”

Muzan’s voice squeezed out from the not-yet-fully-regenerated lump of flesh. It was hoarse, wet, pathetic, and filled with extreme disbelief.

“How could you be here? When did you find out about this place?”

His wet, raspy voice shifted from demanding to icy, carrying a distinct, humiliating undertone of genuine fear. He had never told a single demon about his contingency plan at Honno-ji Temple. This was the one secret he guarded above all else.

How had it been discovered?

Onigumo’s aristocratic smile deepened, her eyes curving into crescent moons.

“Have you forgotten, Lord Muzan?” She crouched down gracefully, bringing her pale face agonizingly close to the pulsating purple-black lump of flesh. “You can read the memories of all demons. But this ability is actually bidirectional, you know.”

Muzan’s consciousness practically exploded.

Bidirectional.

He had never once considered this absurd possibility. As the Progenitor of Demons, when he bestowed his blood upon his kin, he simultaneously implanted an absolute curse of obedience. This blood curse ensured that all demons were physically incapable of defying his will, betraying him, or hiding a single thought. He could read the memories of any demon at his leisure and could obliterate their entire existence with a single stray thought.

This was his absolute, unquestionable authority.

But what if a demon’s will was monstrously strong enough, their obsession deep enough, and their cunning sharp enough to peer directly back into the Progenitor’s own memories while their mind was being read?

Theoretically, it was impossible.

However, what if, every single time Muzan casually flipped through Onigumo’s thoughts, Onigumo was quietly staring right back into his? Seeing a tiny fraction each time. Stealing his secrets bit by agonizing bit. Stealing for an entire month. Stealing until she finally saw the golden statues of Honno-ji Temple.

Such a terrifying level of willpower was not entirely impossible in this world. At the very least, Muzan had seen the source of it from afar. Before he ever met this dying female bandit named Onigumo, he had gazed out at the vast plains of Musashi Province. It was the very target of his doomed journey.

The Shikon Jewel.

“Have you figured it out?” Onigumo narrowed her eyes. Deep within her pupils, a faint, sickening purple luster—exactly like that of a cursed jewel—swirled to life.

That was the jewel she had once seen in her feverish dreams. It was the sole origin of her twisted obsession with a certain silver-haired figure. Now, standing here in the dark, she understood perfectly what that corrupted energy, which had once dragged her back from the brink of death, actually was.

The Shikon Jewel. Or rather, a microscopic fragment of its influence. A slight emanation of Magatsuhi.

As a mere human bandit, Onigumo naturally lacked the terrifying willpower required to resist the Demon King. Only this jewel, a condensed singularity of infinite yokai resentment, could grant her a mind sharp enough to cut back.

“But in the end, it is mostly because your mind is not an impenetrable fortress, Lord Muzan.” Onigumo sighed, her tone dripping with mock pity. “Especially when you think about your ultimate last resort for survival. That is when your psychological defenses are always at their absolute weakest.”

“Because you feel safe, after all.”

“Once you feel safe, you unconsciously reminisce about that perfect hiding spot in your mind. Honno-ji Temple. The main hall. The base of the Buddha statue. Inside the stone cracks.”

“Every single pathetic detail you thought of, I saw.”

Muzan fell dead silent. The purple-black lump of flesh stopped its wet writhing, as if his very cellular regeneration had been frozen solid by sheer anger and mounting terror.

But he still had one final card to play. The Progenitor’s absolute authority. Destruction.

As long as he drew breath, he could instantly obliterate any demon carrying his blood. He ruthlessly mobilized that authority. His murderous will spiked, traveling through the invisible blood connection, aiming directly at the core of Onigumo’s existence to crush her into ash.

Nothing happened.

The connection was dead. That absolute line of blood that tethered the Progenitor to his kin felt as though it had been cleanly snipped in the middle by a pair of shears. The two severed ends had sprung apart, utterly unreachable.

“If you are trying to destroy me, then I am afraid you are out of luck.”

Onigumo stood up smoothly. From the heavy shadows behind her, a second figure stepped forward.

Another woman. She possessed long black hair and a dignified, mature aura, wearing a plain-colored kimono. She appeared to be around thirty years old, but the heavy vitality swirling within her dark purple slit pupils far exceeded her apparent age.

The moment he registered this woman’s face, Muzan’s fractured will trembled violently.

Of course he recognized her. She was a demon selected by Onigumo, one who possessed the raw qualifications to serve as a member of the Twelve Kizuki. But unlike the brute-force abilities of other demons, Tamayo’s Blood Demon Art was ‘Erosion’. She could erode, decompose, and entirely reconstruct the complex information hidden within blood, fundamentally altering its scent and nature.

Muzan had valued her highly. While not as heavily favored as Onigumo, he had still permitted Tamayo to reside within his personal stronghold. In his desperate eyes, her unique ability held the potential to finally help him locate the Blue Spider Lily.

Now, the bitter truth was glaringly obvious.

She was the one who had helped Onigumo sever the absolute blood curse.

“Lady Tamayo was a tremendous help.” Onigumo laughed, her shoulders swaying with genuine amusement. “Severing the blood connection of the Progenitor is impossible for one person. But with two people working from the inside out, it becomes quite manageable.”

Muzan forced his flesh to rapidly regenerate a single, bloodshot eye just to glare at Tamayo.

Tamayo did not flinch or avoid his hateful gaze. Her beautiful face was set in a mask of absolute calmness, a determination so deep it bordered on cruelty.

“You… since when did you two start working together?” Muzan rasped.

“From the third day after I was turned.” Onigumo answered without a second of hesitation. “You had no idea, did you? When I first approached her for an alliance, she fully intended to kill me on the spot. But I only had to say one single sentence to her, and she instantly changed her mind.”

The lump of flesh trembled. “What did you say?”

“I said—” Onigumo crouched back down, reaching out her pale, slender hand to cover the pulsating purple-black mass. Her fingers sank deeply into the wet flesh, her touch as sickeningly gentle as a lover caressing a cheek. “‘Let’s eat Kibutsuji Muzan together.'”

Muzan’s consciousness turned entirely to ice.

He finally understood. From the very beginning, from the exact moment he had looked down at that dying female bandit on the dirt road and decided she would make excellent experimental material, he had already lost.

He had not lost to the relentless Demon Slayer Corps. He had not lost to that monstrous Sun Breathing swordsman, Tsugikuni Yoriichi. He had not even lost to Kobe Hikaru.

He had lost to the very monster he had created with his own hands. The one he arrogantly believed he had under absolute control.

“That is exactly why I brought you the false intelligence regarding the Blue Spider Lily. It is why I advised you to stop investigating the flower itself, and instead focus on the person behind it. My ‘loyalty’ was so incredibly evident, surely you must see it now… Muzan.”

Onigumo’s voice dropped to a terrifyingly soft whisper. “Thank you for your blood. Thank you for your power.”

“Thank you… for creating me.”

Her jaw unhinged. Her mouth split open all the way to her ears, revealing two rows of interlocking, jagged fangs that glinted with a cold, eerie light against the Buddha statue’s golden backlight.

“But from now on, the Progenitor of Demons will be me.”

She lunged forward and bit down hard.

Muzan wailed.

It was a sound of absolute, soul-tearing agony, but it was completely suffocated within the stone crevices. The overwhelming Barrier of Vow-Power generated by the hundreds of chanting monks above trapped every single decibel.

Outside in the main hall, the elderly monk peacefully turned a page of his sutra, completely unaware of the slaughter occurring inches beneath his knees.

The consumption was absolute. It was not merely the physical tearing of flesh. Muzan’s remaining consciousness, his centuries of memories, and all the genetic information carried within his ancient bloodline were violently chewed, swallowed, and digested by her, bite by bloody bite.

The five-hundred-year-old Progenitor of Demons. Tonight, he was eaten alive by his own creation.

Tamayo stood silently to the side. Her face remained an emotionless mask, but the pale fingers tightly clutching her kimono sleeve were trembling uncontrollably.

The grotesque feast lasted for the time it took an incense stick to burn down to ash. Finally, all wet, tearing sounds vanished without a trace.

Onigumo stood up slowly.

Her body was already mutating. Although her face retained that pale, heroic countenance, and her figure remained slender and agile, her fundamental scent had completely transformed. The sheer density of the power violently surging from within her core was no longer at a level any ordinary demon could ever hope to possess.

It was the aura of the Progenitor.

Although she had only consumed the very last wisp of his blood and the final scrap of his flesh, its quality and essence were undeniably absolute. It was a tiny amount, but it was incredibly dense. Incredibly pure.

She had inherited the throne.

Onigumo closed her eyes, tilting her head back as she savored the intoxicating rush of newborn power flooding her veins.

When she opened her eyes again, they had changed. They were a scarlet so deep and vibrant they resembled liquid gemstones. Her new pupils reflected the compassionate golden face of the Buddha statue, the flickering candlelight bleeding through the cracks, and an infinite, twisted obsession for a certain silver-haired man.

Tamayo instinctively took a step back.

The suffocating aura of the Progenitor of Demons bled from Onigumo’s pores, rapidly filling every single inch of oxygen within the cramped stone crevices. The sheer physical oppression radiating from her far exceeded the terror Muzan had ever projected.

Muzan’s aura had been cold, suppressive, and arrogantly condescending.

Onigumo’s aura was blisteringly hot. It was scalding. It clung to the air like invisible spider silk, sticky and entangling, pressing heavily against Tamayo’s skin, her blood vessels, and the deepest, most vulnerable parts of her soul.

It was utterly suffocating.

But Onigumo completely ignored Tamayo. She simply stood in the suffocating darkness, eyes closed, basking in the euphoria of her ascension.

Then, her body violently stiffened. Her scarlet pupils blew wide open in sudden shock.

Deep inside her newly formed core, buried at the very bottom of the Muzan flesh she had just swallowed and digested, there was something else. It was not blood. It was not flesh. It was not a fragmented soul.

It was an anchor.

An extremely thin, flawlessly concealed, delicate thread of soul energy.

Onigumo began to tremble uncontrollably as her newly acquired memories instantly recognized exactly what it was.

It was the soul anchor of the Transformation of the Spirit-Tracking Archer.

Kobe Hikaru had already discovered this final, pathetic split body hiding beneath Honno-ji Temple the exact moment he had locked onto Muzan’s soul. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact geographical location, nor could his physical strikes penetrate the massive Barrier of Vow-Power generated by the monks.

But he didn’t need to penetrate it.

He only needed to tie a microscopic thread to the entirety of Muzan’s soul. No matter where that soul eventually flowed, whether it was destroyed, devoured, or transferred to a new vessel, that thread would follow it to the ends of the earth.

It was exactly like fishing. But the fish was never Kibutsuji Muzan. Muzan was merely the bleeding bait on the hook.

The true fish was whatever arrogant existence dared to swim up and swallow Muzan whole.

And Onigumo had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker.

At this exact moment, the other end of the taut soul anchor was connected directly to Kobe Hikaru. This was his true goal all along. The absolute, root-and-stem eradication of evil. It was a flawless trap he had formulated the second he first heard whispers of Onigumo’s existence.

A voice of sudden realization exploded directly into Onigumo’s ears.

“So that’s how it is.”

Separated by thousands of miles, standing alone on a desolate, wind-swept wilderness, Kobe Hikaru had witnessed the entire grotesque process through the soul link. He finally understood exactly where this ‘Onigumo’ had come from.

She was indeed the Onigumo from the original timeline, a ruthless human bandit. But more, she was a mutated anomaly born entirely from the corrupting influence of Magatsuhi. It had all started on that chaotic night shortly after Hikaru had sought out Kikyo. In the extremely brief window that Magatsuhi had managed to leak its influence into the world, it had triggered a massive butterfly effect. Onigumo’s rebirth, her transformation, and her twisted emotions all stemmed directly from the Shikon Jewel’s darkest malice.

Caught completely off guard, Onigumo froze in the darkness of the temple.

Her scarlet pupils seemed to reflect a distant scene projected straight into her mind. A desolate wilderness. A pale, waning moon. A youth with long silver hair standing amidst scorched grass, his Crimson Demon Eyes staring right back at her through the eyeholes of his Oni mask.

He looked at her with the deadpan, pragmatic gaze of a man watching a venomous bug crawl onto his web.

Only, it wasn’t her web. It was his.

Before Onigumo could even twitch a muscle to react, Hikaru simply and calmly delivered a single sentence across the void.

“You have eaten humans.”

Separated by thousands of miles, his Crimson Demon Eyes had seen the absolute truth. He saw the suffocating mountains of human resentment tightly coiled around this new ‘Onigumo’, and he saw the pure, unadulterated ‘evil’ radiating from her core.

He refused to be bound by the rigid knowledge of the original timeline, foolishly assuming that this Onigumo, who had not yet fully evolved into Naraku, might somehow be innocent before they officially crossed paths. He had seen the rotting corpses in her aura with his own eyes. There was absolutely no need for even a fraction of a second of hesitation.

Eradicate evil completely. Eliminate all future threats before they can even sprout.

That was his pragmatic philosophy. It was just that simple.

As his cold words faded into the wind, his voice echoed three times through the soul link.

This time, Onigumo finally reacted. She felt it. The terrifying, suffocating color of the Yellow Springs, dark to the absolute extreme, violently bursting out from deep within her own chest, traveling down that soul connection thinner than a spider’s silk.

Yomikiri.

Undying Slash.

A lethal sword strike delivered from ten thousand miles away.

A split second later, Onigumo’s body cleanly split directly down the middle.

The Transformation of the Spirit-Tracking Archer, even when separated by thousands of miles, was never a question of whether the blade could physically reach the target. It was only a question of what the devastating effect would be upon impact.

Hikaru had not previously used this remote slash on Muzan’s thousands of fleeing flesh clones simply because there were far too many targets., the distance heavily diluted the kinetic impact. No matter how monstrously strong Hikaru was, he could not physically execute thousands of full-power slashes simultaneously through a single lock-on. It was far more pragmatic to use the Demon Slayer Corps to clean up the trash.

Now, however, the variables had changed.

There was only one single ‘Onigumo’ left on the hook. And because she had only just absorbed a tiny wisp of the remaining Demon King’s blood, her defenses were practically nonexistent. He could slash her. And more, he could instantly kill her.

When all was said and done, there was a heavy price to pay for ambition. Although Onigumo had successfully absorbed Muzan’s final flesh and blood, devouring the Demon King with a mere newly-turned demon’s body caused massive internal damage. She was already incredibly weak from the digestion process.

But even as she looked down and watched the fatal, glowing crack rapidly spreading up her chest, even as she watched the dark, corrosive light of the Yellow Springs violently overflowing from her own bisected torso, the Onigumo who had just realized she was being executed showed not a single shred of fear or anger.

She was still smiling.

Smiling a genuinely euphoric, twisted smile.

“It seems I am going to die too…” she whispered, her voice bubbling with blood. “You are truly resolute. Truly… calculating every single move…”

Her bisected body began to crumble into ash. “However… to be able to die by your hands… it is also… very happy!”

Just what kind of twisted garbage did Magatsuhi pump into her brain?

Standing in the distant wilderness, Hikaru’s brows furrowed tightly beneath his mask in genuine bewilderment.

The brand-new Demon King, born in the suffocating depths beneath Honno-ji Temple, had lasted less than three minutes from her glorious ascension to her absolute demise.

Tamayo, pressed hard against the stone wall beside the crumbling ash, had already been scared completely out of her wits, her mind blanking from the sheer speed of the execution.

In the end, only pitch-black darkness remained in the crevice, along with a single, perfectly round bead-like drop of ‘blood’ resting atop the ashes.

[Detected capturable item: Remnant of the Elixir of Immortality]

[Quality: Artifact (Incomplete)]

[Introduction: A legendary elixir created by an ancient existence who traveled from the continent to Japan in pursuit of immortality and the ability to freely transform their body shape, gathering Yin and Yang in one body, the Sun and Moon as one, to achieve the pinnacle of humanity—the form of an ancient Celestial. Although it is flawed due to the lack of a certain object, it can still grant a twisted immortality to mortals. Currently, only the residue remains, and it is heavily stained with a portion of the last user’s ‘obsession.’It cannot be consumed again… but if its power can be activated, it might be used to split and nurture a’clone’ of the last user.]

[Note: Its quantity is rare, but it is not unique; it originates from an influx from overseas.]

Under the absolute lock of the soul anchor, the final, fleeting system prompt materialized in Hikaru’s vision.