Chương 71: Hunter [71]: Battle in Progress (Part 1)
"I will kill you!"
Kibutsuji Muzan's anger instantly flared up, and he charged towards Lin Jiu.
"Proceed according to plan!"
Lin Jiu said as he rushed towards Kibutsuji Muzan. The five Hashira moved around Lin Jiu, forming a semi-encirclement.
Several whip-like tentacles extended from Kibutsuji Muzan's body, attacking them. Lin Jiu nimbly dodged between them. The five Hashira attacked simultaneously, ensuring the whips couldn't form a dense pattern.
Lin Jiu had long realized that cutting these whips wouldn't cause soul damage. Because they were no longer part of Kibutsuji Muzan's main body, they were more like weapon tools, with no soul power in them.
"Wind Breathing, First Form: Dust Whirlwind Cutter!"
Although Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Hashira, wanted to rush to Kibutsuji Muzan's front and fight a big battle, the battle plan had been arranged in advance. He naturally wouldn't act rashly as it might jeopardize his teammates.
But he still approached Kibutsuji Muzan at high speed for an assault, leaving behind rotating wind blades that could easily cut through the ground. These rotating wind blades blocked the incoming whips, opening a direct path for Lin Jiu to reach Kibutsuji Muzan.
After achieving this, Sanemi Shinazugawa didn't engage with Kibutsuji Muzan, choosing to keep his distance. The other four Hashira did the same, maintaining a certain distance like Sanemi Shinazugawa.
Their tactics were simple: the Hashira with mid-range attack capabilities would limit Kibutsuji Muzan's large-scale, dense attacks. This would force Kibutsuji Muzan to face Lin Jiu, who could cut his soul with every slash, while also having to pay attention to the Hashira's attacks.
Whether it was the Wind Hashira or the Water Hashira, their sword techniques could be considered top-notch in this world, with sword mastery levels much higher than Lin Jiu's current level. However, Lin Jiu's basic attributes, passive stacking of perception and reaction speed all surpassed the Hashira. Add to that his ability to permanently damage Kibutsuji Muzan, and he was undoubtedly the main force.
Kibutsuji Muzan's arms also transformed into whip-like tentacles, along with those extending from his back, attacking Lin Jiu and the others in this area like a raging storm.
"Wind Breathing, Ninth Form: Idaten Typhoon!"
Sanemi Shinazugawa unleashed a large number of wind blades to counter these whips.
"Flame Breathing, Fourth Form: Blooming Flame Undulation!"
Naturally, Sanemi Shinazugawa alone couldn't withstand Kibutsuji Muzan. Kyojuro Rengoku, coordinating with the Wind Hashira, deployed his sword technique. The gale whipped up the flames, and for a moment, the temperature in this area rose.
'Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux...'
Giyu Tomioka, without a word, spun through the fire tornado, cutting those whips. Although they knew they would grow back immediately, all they needed to do was prevent these whips from affecting Lin Jiu.
A figure broke through to a closer distance - it was the Mist Hashira, Muichiro Tokito.
'Mist Breathing, Fifth Form: Sea of Clouds and Haze!'
As Muichiro Tokito deployed his Breathing technique, a thin layer of white mist spread throughout this area. At this moment, the mid-range area of the battlefield was covered by a fire tornado, while the interior was filled with white mist.
Kibutsuji Muzan couldn't ignore the joint attack of several Hashira. He diverted more than half of his whips to counter the Hashira's sword techniques, allowing Lin Jiu to easily rush to his front.
Kibutsuji Muzan knew that this person in front of him had consecutively killed his Twelve Kizuki, so he was constantly on guard against him slashing towards his head. But to his surprise, the opponent fiercely slashed towards his chest, with full momentum.
This confused Kibutsuji Muzan. As everyone knows, decapitation is most effective when fighting demons. When fighting slightly stronger demons, decapitation is the only way to resolve the battle.
"Your momentum is strong, but You Should Have Gone For The Head!" Kibutsuji Muzan, the Demon King, spoke out while preparing his whips. He planned to wait for Lin Jiu's sword to cut into his body, then use his flesh to fix it in place and kill him in one move.
'Soul Breathing, First Form: Soul Slash!'
With the thought of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," Lin Jiu saw Kibutsuji Muzan's core wide open, looking as if he didn't fear attacks to his body, and silently recited in his heart.
Lin Jiu's strength had reached 20 points, with 18 points in agility. He already felt some pain in his lungs; after all, it was just a temporary improvised method to mobilize soul energy, with significant defects. In this battle, he only had twenty minutes.
"Ugh! How is this possible? How can a human...!"
Kibutsuji Muzan was struck by Lin Jiu's sword, and the intense pain he had never experienced before shocked his brain, making him forget his original plan.
What Kibutsuji Muzan found even harder to understand was that he felt he had received some kind of permanent damage that he couldn't recover from. In other words, even if this guy in front of him didn't decapitate him, his attacks could still kill him.
Just as Kibutsuji Muzan felt the intense pain, Lin Jiu suddenly took out a dagger-sized Nichirin blade from his bosom. Its design was identical to Shinobu Kocho's Nichirin blade.
Shinobu Kocho's Nichirin blade was specially designed to inject wisteria poison into demons at the moment of penetration. Lin Jiu had specifically requested the swordsmiths of the Swordsmith Village to forge a dagger-sized one for him based on this structure.
Lin Jiu filled this dagger with the potion he had obtained from Tamayo. In just this one stab, Tamayo's potion had been completely injected into Kibutsuji Muzan's body.
The original humanization potion consisted of four parts: the human transformation drug, the aging drug, the cell division inhibitor, and the cell destruction drug.
This experimental version only contained two components: the cell division inhibitor and the cell destruction drug. Tamayo hadn't been able to complete the integration of the remaining two.
"I will kill you all!"
Kibutsuji Muzan felt fear from Lin Jiu's sword different from that brought by Yoriichi Tsugikuni. And that substance injected into him was like a deadly poison to him.
Kibutsuji Muzan himself was also proficient in medicine and realized that this potion was not yet fully developed. The fact that it had such an inhibitory effect on him in this state meant that if it were fully developed, combined with Lin Jiu, wouldn't his death be imminent? Now he had to wipe out the Demon Slayer Corps here.
Lin Jiu became more interested in the potion that had turned Kibutsuji Muzan into this a thousand years ago. Although it couldn't give the soul the same recovery ability as flesh, it had made him much stronger than ordinary people, otherwise he couldn't have lived for over a thousand years.
Unfortunately, he had spent half of his time in this derivative world on the road, plus missions, and had no time to research. What Lin Jiu didn't know was that the blue spider lily photo quest item from Old Wood was the key to triggering a series of side quests related to this potion.
And because of the difficulty of the main quest, unable to complete this side quest, this photo item led to the current decisive battle.
"Ten sword strikes! It will probably take ten strikes to kill Kibutsuji Muzan, now there are nine left. However, he's already on guard, it won't be so easy to hit him!"
Lin Jiu detected that Kibutsuji Muzan's life value had dropped to 98% (92%), the latter being the damage caused to his soul. Without potions for recovering this kind of soul injury, it would be very difficult to recover. Unless one could absorb the opponent's soul power through battle like Lin Jiu, or directly devour soul crystals like Su Xiao to recover.
That previous sword strike had consumed 15 points of Lin Jiu's soul energy. It caused 22.5 points of soul damage, and Lin Jiu only had 120 points of soul energy, which means he could only strike about nine or ten times.
And these are just numerical manifestations. All living beings have both soul and flesh. There's no need to cause 100% soul damage; just weakening the soul to a certain extent naturally means it can no longer support a powerful physical body.
"The offensive weakened?"
The Hashira suddenly found that fewer whips were fighting against them. There was only one reason for this: Kibutsuji Muzan felt threatened by Red's offensive.
As the fire tornado dissipated, they could see Kibutsuji Muzan constantly attacking Lin Jiu with whips from his back, preventing him from getting close. Kibutsuji Muzan had stopped using the two more powerful arm whips because they had allowed Lin Jiu to land his second strike earlier.
"We will create an opportunity for Red!"
The Stone Hashira, wielding his flail, took the lead and charged forward, smashing several whips that were trying to attack Lin Jiu from behind.
"Then let's try the method Red mentioned!"
Kyojuro Rengoku said, then suddenly swung his sword towards Giyu Tomioka beside him.
Giyu Tomioka didn't find it strange and also swung his sword with all his might to meet Kyojuro Rengoku's. The two Nichirin blades clashed, rubbed against each other, and gradually turned red.
All the Hashira stimulated the sun energy in their Nichirin blades through collision and friction, transforming them into the red-blade state.
During the preparation for battle, Lin Jiu taught the nine Hashira how to enter this red-blade state using this method. However, according to his guess, this activation method was actually like wringing a towel, releasing all the sun energy in the Nichirin blade at once. After this red-blade state, the Nichirin blade would lose its ability to harm demons.
It was perfect for use here because all they needed to do was assist Lin Jiu in causing damage to Kibutsuji Muzan.
"Wind Breathing, Ninth Form: Idaten Typhoon!"
Sanemi Shinazugawa quickly circled Kibutsuji Muzan, performing multiple consecutive spinning attacks, unleashing a large number of wind blades that cut the flying whips into segments.
"Stone Breathing, Fifth Form: Arcs of Justice!"
At the same time, Gyomei Himejima leaped into the air, throwing his hand axe at Kibutsuji Muzan, then throwing his flail, holding onto the chain in between.
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