"Boom!"
The explosive initial speed stirred up a fierce, raging gale. Ibaraki Dōji moved fast as lightning, leaving a trail of afterimages in mid-air. She leaped high, her figure blocking the sunlight, and brought her massive Bone Blade down overhead as if to split Sū Zǐtiān and the very mountain beneath him into two!
Facing this earth-shattering blow, Sū Zǐtiān squinted slightly.
His left hand, as if performing a magic trick, suddenly held a solid iron ball engraved with peculiar patterns.
"Whoosh!"
Muscles bulging in his arm, Sū Zǐtiān violently slung the iron ball at Ibaraki in mid-air. The moment it left his hand, the ball began to spin at an ultra-high speed that defied physical logic. Accompanied by a shrill whistle that tore through the air, it headed straight for Ibaraki's face.
"Trifling tricks!"
Ibaraki Dōji snorted coldly. As she plummeted, she merely tilted her head slightly to the side.
The high-speed spinning iron ball grazed her cheek. The terrifying rotating airflow sliced a thin red line into her fair skin, sending several beads of crimson blood flying.
The iron ball missed, but Sū Zǐtiān had achieved his purpose—he had secured an opening of half a second to strike.
His right hand exerted force, and the Saw Cleaver, still stained with the filth of common soldiers, drew a scarlet arc as he struck back from bottom to top!
"Clang—Boom!!!"
The Saw Cleaver and the giant Bone Blade collided violently in mid-air!
A visible shockwave exploded from the point of impact! The hard rocky ground beneath the human and the demon shattered like tofu, instantly collapsing into a massive crater, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading wildly in all directions.
Ibaraki Dōji’s green pupils contracted sharply, and a storm surged in her heart.
She was an Oni King of Mount Ōe! She was born with the freakish strength to pull mountains and lift tripods! This mid-air strike, aided by gravitational potential energy, would have cleaved even human warriors weighing two meters and clad in heavy armor, horse and all, into two. Furthermore, she had the advantage of the dazzling sunlight blinding her opponent. She had expected that even if he managed to hold off the blow, the bones in his arms would have been pulverized to dust.
Who could have known...
This seemingly frail human boy was actually a humanoid Tyrannosaurus rex in human skin?!
As the blades locked, Ibaraki not only failed to push Sū Zǐtiān down, but she actually felt her demonic hand holding the blade tremble as a counter-shock no weaker than her own force numbed it.
Could this human’s raw physical strength actually match her own without even using Yokai Energy?!
"It seems I underestimated you!"
Ibaraki Dōji cast aside her contempt, a trace of fanatical battle intent curling at the corners of her mouth. "That was just a warm-up! Next, I’ll let you see the power of a true Great Yokai!"
More terrifying, viscous golden Yokai Energy began to surge from within her, wrapping along her arm and onto the Bone Blade.
However, the moment she prepared to exert her strength.
"Hum—"
Ibaraki Dōji felt a sudden chill down her back. Something, it seemed, was sliding rapidly along her spine from top to bottom at an extremely bizarre frequency.
"Hm?"
Before she could comprehend what had just happened, a powerful, electric-like numbing sensation swept through her entire body in the next second!
Her proud, crimson demonic hand momentarily lost all feeling, barely able to hold the heavy Bone Blade. Her legs went weak, and she stumbled, nearly dropping to one knee!
When masters duel, life and death depend on a split second.
How could Sū Zǐtiān let such an opening pass? With a flick of his wrist, his Saw Cleaver slipped past the suppression of the Bone Blade, and with a ruthless backhanded slash, he aimed straight for Ibaraki’s unsuspecting neck!
"Get away!"
Feeling the threat of death, Ibaraki Dōji roared. She desperately squeezed the Yokai Energy from within her body to forcibly stimulate her paralyzed muscles. Accompanied by the mournful crunching sound of her bones, she managed, through sheer force, to twist her torso and avoid the near-lethal decapitation strike! The sharp saw-teeth merely shorn off a lock of her long golden hair.
Having finally regained control of her body, Ibaraki Dōji retreated several steps to widen the gap, still shaken, and cursed at Sū Zǐtiān:
"Bastard! You shameless human, what kind of underhanded trick did you use on me just now?!"
"Tsk, you actually managed to force your way out of the paralysis with Yokai Energy? The Oni clan's nervous system really is different from humans—my mistake." Sū Zǐtiān shook a few strands of golden hair off his blade, his tone carrying a hint of regret.
Only then did Ibaraki Dōji notice a small, round object rolling at her feet—it was the very same iron ball that had grazed her cheek!
She slashed at it without hesitation, splitting the iron ball in two, and glared at Sū Zǐtiān. "What kind of sorcery did you pull just now?!"
"Basic anatomy, that’s all. That ball just now compressed your spinal nerves." Sū Zǐtiān said indifferently, then stopped speaking, too lazy to explain modern medicine to this ancient yokel.
Of course, Ibaraki didn't understand what "spinal nerves" meant. She only knew that she, a dignified Oni King, had been undone by a mortal using an impossible hidden weapon!
[Narrator’s Explanation: The first iron ball Sū Zǐtiān threw appeared to be an attack on her face, but in reality, after grazing her cheek, it utilized aerodynamic principles of rotation to perform a bizarre 'U-shaped turn' in mid-air. Upon falling, the iron ball, carrying high-frequency vibrational rotational energy, slid precisely along the spine of Ibaraki’s back. At that moment, the power of the rotation acted like high-voltage electricity, cutting off the bio-electric conduction of her spinal nerves and causing a temporary total-body paralysis!]
[If not for the Oni clan's physique being different from ordinary people, and the ability to use Yokai Energy to forcibly stimulate muscles, any human warrior—even Minamoto no Yorimitsu—would have been pinned in place by this 'acupoint-striking' technique and decapitated by Sū Zǐtiān in one stroke!]
[The enemy boss has activated her second-stage Yokai Energy aura! Zǐ, for the endurance battle to follow, please keep your Determination!]
"Nagging. I’m a professional at fighting these unreasonable, freakishly strong bosses."
After muttering this retort to the Narrator internally, Sū Zǐtiān’s left hand once again conjured a brand-new iron ball as if by magic.
Seeing this movement, Ibaraki Dōji, who had just suffered a major setback, felt her pupils contract. She instinctively retreated half a step, and her surrounding Yokai Energy surged as she adopted a full defensive stance.
However.
Sū Zǐtiān did not throw the iron ball at Ibaraki.
With a backhanded toss, he slammed the iron ball, imbued with a bizarre rotation, toward his own feet!
'Golden Cavalry Rotation'—this was an ultimate combat technique existing in a certain marvelous universe. Its principle is this: the rider and the galloping steed together form a perfect 'Golden Ratio (rectangle)' matrix while in motion. When both maintain the Golden Ratio during movement, the rotation conducted through the stirrups to the rider's hand can break the laws of conservation of energy, producing an ultimate rotational force that is inexhaustible and stretches into infinity!
Put simply, this was a miraculous technique that combined 'one's own Golden Ratio' with the 'Golden Ratio of an external carrier' to produce a qualitative change.
But there was no horse here—so what to do?
As an Old Hunter who had merged physics and metaphysics to the extreme, Sū Zǐtiān had devised his own 'horse-free version' of the Golden Rotation!
Since it required two rotations to overlap, one only needed to make the upper and lower body trace a Golden Ratio trajectory simultaneously, merging waist and limb—wouldn't that be an equivalent Golden Rotation?! And if that wasn't enough, he would use an external force to apply an initial Golden Rotation potential energy to himself!
"It sure took a long way around to execute this finishing move!"
The iron ball smashed at his feet instantly released a violent, swirling airflow. This airflow surged upward along Sū Zǐtiān’s legs. Borrowing this rotational force, Sū Zǐtiān kicked off, performing a tumbling move in mid-air that defied the mechanics of the human body while being filled with a kind of sacred mathematical aesthetic!
As he flipped, the power of the rotation resonated through his entire body.
At this very moment, Sū Zǐtiān’s posture perfectly replicated the Golden Ratio matrix of a galloping stallion! The most perfect 'Cavalry Rotation' shaped instantly, with no need for a carrier!
"Hum—!"
Propelled by this infinitely extending rotational force, Sū Zǐtiān hovered in mid-air and raised his right hand.
His index and middle fingers were pressed together, and a brilliant golden glow, capable of tearing space, dimly shone from his fingertips. His nails, soaked in the Blood of the Old Gods, were transformed into indestructible 'Nail Bullets' under the strengthening influence of the rotational force!
His fingertips had locked firmly onto Ibaraki Dōji below.
"The era is calling; eat this dimensional strike that transcends planes! Golden Energy! Infinite Rotation!"
"Swish—!"
A golden spiral beam of light, like a laser piercing the darkness, roared forth with a destructive aura that tore through all physical laws!
The moment she was locked on by this golden light.
Every hair on Ibaraki Dōji's body stood on end. The beastly intuition of the Oni clan screamed the highest-level death alert to her brain!
Danger!
I will die!
If hit by this strike, my body and soul would be annihilated! Not even a drop of blood would remain!
Ibaraki instinctively wanted to dodge. But she realized with despair that the spiraling Nail Bullet emitting that golden light seemed to have locked onto her spatial coordinates! No matter what direction she dodged, the beam of light would pursue her like a heat-seeking missile, sealing off all her paths of retreat!
She couldn't dodge it! This was a lock-on involving the laws of causality; there was simply no possibility of escaping!
"Don't look down on me! I am the Oni King of Mount Ōe!!"
Driven to the brink of despair, Ibaraki Dōji fell into a frenzy. She drained every last drop of Yokai Energy in her body. The thick, golden-red energy erupted like a volcanic explosion, soaring into the sky and framing her petite figure as if a Demon God had descended.
"Since I can't dodge, I will shatter it head-on!"
Ibaraki Dōji gripped the massive, Yokai-wrapped Bone Blade—now the size of a door panel—with both hands. She let out a roar that shook the mountains and, facing the Golden Rotation descending from the sky, delivered the most violent and powerful strike of her life in Chapter 21: The Never-ending Golden Rotation.
"Boom—!!"
The golden-red Yokai Energy and the dazzling golden beam of light collided violently in mid-air!
The giant Bone Blade in Ibaraki Dōji’s hand, which had accompanied her in killing countless Great Yokai, disintegrated into a sky full of fragments like fragile porcelain the moment it touched that unreasonable rotational force. But the 'Nail Bullet', containing infinite rotational energy, was also forced off course and split in two by the violent collision!
However, it was all worth it!
At least in Ibaraki Dōji’s view, her desperate strike, fueled by the last of her energy, had successfully averted the end of annihilation! Although she had lost a reliable life-bound weapon, good weapons could be looted later. As long as she survived—that was her victory as an Oni King!
"I won!"
Watching the golden light disperse into the air, Ibaraki couldn't help but roar with excitement at surviving a disaster.
However, facts proved that she had rejoiced too soon.
Although the Nail Bullet had been forcibly split, the golden rotational energy had not vanished into thin air. At the same time, in Ibaraki Dōji’s pupils, which were dilated with ecstasy, a huge, purple, muscular phantom appeared face-to-face before her without any warning!
This purple, translucent phantom had a cold, square head and two thick, muscular arms. Its torso presented a powerful inverted triangle, with several cloths resembling an ancient Roman battle skirt hanging from its lower body, vaguely revealing two long, powerful legs.
This was the 'Stand' materialized by the Old Hunter Sū Zǐtiān after merging the laws of a different world!
Almost out of fighting instinct, Ibaraki Dōji frantically squeezed the remaining Yokai Energy from her body, instantly condensing it into a jet-black protective barrier on her skin.
The dense Yokai Energy was so heavy it made one gasp for air. This was a defensive instinct all high-ranking Yaomo possessed, and as the Oni King of Mount Ōe, Ibaraki’s energy barrier could be described as an Absolute Domain. Looking across the world, apart from warriors wielding national treasure-level divine artifacts, no existence could break it with their bare hands!
However, what happened in the next second completely shattered her pride.
"Chūmiii—!!!"
The purple muscular phantom, exuding an invincible aura, let out a soft, cute sound similar to that of a small animal, entirely at odds with its wild image.
Following that, it extended fists larger than sandpits and pressed them casually against Ibaraki’s barrier.
"Crack, crack, crack..."
A tooth-aching sound of fracturing erupted. The ten fingers of the purple phantom, like dinner knives cutting through hot butter, pierced that so-called unbreakable layer of heavy Yokai Energy without effort. It gripped both sides of the crack and pulled outward with ease.
"Rip—"
That barrier capable of withstanding heavy siege crossbows was torn to shreds on the spot like a piece of waste paper!
Ibaraki Dōji’s heart stopped at this moment.
Imagine preparing to fight for your life, only for the opponent’s Stand to wear an invincible face and shout "Chūmiii" at you. What a bizarre and horrifying experience!
"Chūmiii—!!"
"Ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora!!!!!!"
At the same moment the purple phantom tore away the barrier, Sū Zǐtiān’s main body rushed in!
He didn't waste a word, leading with a ruthless finishing move. Both fists struck, and a dense flurry of punches, like a gale or a giant wave, erupted before Ibaraki’s eyes!
Countless fists sealed off every direction. With her defense shattered and her Yokai Energy depleting, Ibaraki had no capacity to resist. Her body felt like a ragdoll tossed into a meat grinder, suspended in mid-air and mercilessly ravaged by the storm of iron fists.
In just a few seconds, it was unknown how many heavy blows she had taken. Ibaraki’s delicate, loli face turned from red to purple, then to a ghastly bruised black.
"Boom—!"
Following a final, heavy-laden punch, Ibaraki Dōji was sent flying backward like a cannonball, smashing fiercely into the hard rock stratum. The earth let out a pained groan and instantly collapsed, creating a bottomless crater.
Dust rose as debris flew.
Sū Zǐtiān knelt on one knee, gasping for breath.
"Whew... getting into close-quarters combat with a full-tank Oni King like her really is physically demanding."
He rubbed his slightly swollen arms. Even though the golden-haired loli looked delicate, the counter-shock force produced by her muscles while she bore his punches mid-air was still shockingly high.
"Although I’ve temporarily dealt with the main tank, the magic-type damage dealer watching from the sidelines is likely the real headache."
Sū Zǐtiān looked up, his gaze locked onto the edge of the crater.
At this moment, the scantily clad purple-haired girl—Shuten Dōji—was lying at the edge of the pit, peering down. Looking at her dear friend at the bottom of the crater, in a miserable state and barely able to move, far from being enraged, she laughed heartlessly.
"Oh my, Ibaraki-chan, you look truly unsightly right now. How did you get beaten into such a state by a human?"
"Shu... Shuten... stop cracking jokes... pull me up."
Knowing her dear friend had no malicious intent and simply possessed a wicked personality that enjoyed watching others lose, Ibaraki, feeling like her bones had been scattered, weakly extended her only still-functional demonic hand out of the pit.
"Hmph, hmph. I really can't do anything with you; hold onto my hand."
Shuten Dōji chuckled and reached out a fair arm to take Ibaraki’s.
However, the moment Shuten pulled Ibaraki from the bottom of the pit, she suddenly felt her right arm sink heavily, as if she weren't holding a petite loli, but a mountain that was collapsing!
At the same time, Ibaraki, who had just poked her head out, suddenly heard a bizarre, crisp sound from her own ankle.
"Crack..."
Ibaraki looked down, her eyes widening in fear. She stared in astonishment to find her right foot had completely defied human (demon) anatomical laws and was twisting backward in a morbid manner! A normal foot should point forward, but her right foot was now rotated 180 degrees, pointing firmly straight behind her!
But this was only the beginning.
The mutation spread rapidly like a plague. Not just the right foot, but her left foot, left hand, torso, and even her facial muscles began to curl inward along a strange axis, like a pancake being rolled up!
"Boom—!"
In the next second, Shuten, caught off guard, felt a powerful, irresistible force of violent pulling come from Ibaraki’s hand. The power was so great that even a Great Yokai couldn't resist it. Ibaraki tilted backward uncontrollably, dragging Shuten with her, and the two fell heavily back into the massive, deep crater!
As they fell, Ibaraki’s body pulled like a piece of taffy being stretched, segmented into fine, thin strips from head to toe. Her entire torso was like a rubber band twisted to its limit, the sounds of bones and muscles snapping sounding like firecrackers, "Pop, pop, pop."
"W-what is happening?! Waaaahhh!"
Ibaraki, falling to the bottom of the pit, erupted in shrill screams. The rotational force clinging to her not only didn't stop, but spun faster! This invisible force carried her body like a high-speed drill, boring the three-meter-deep pit down to five, then eight meters...
If this continued, she didn't doubt that she would be dragged toward the earth’s core by this terrifying rotational force like a drill. Of course, before that happened, her flesh would surely be ground into paste.
No matter how Ibaraki struggled, every time she tried to stabilize her form, a part of her body would immediately begin an infinite Golden Rotation. She was like a wet towel being constantly wrung tighter, every cell undergoing a relentless spiral, enduring the slow, agonizing pain of being torn apart and reformed.
"What kind of demon power is this?!"
Ibaraki roared frantically.