Chapter 149: Forging a Soul for Muramasa
Kaede Village.
Within the protective embrace of the village's barrier, the chirping of autumn insects rose and fell in a steady rhythm. In the main shrine hall, moonlight streamed through the gaps in the lattice windows, casting long, silver-white bars across the floorboards.
Hikaru sat cross-legged in the center of the hall.
The ghost mask rested on the floor before his knees, and in the pale moonlight, his features seemed more peaceful than they had in a long time. Since the last qualitative change, his body had begun to develop a metabolism akin to that of a living person. This slow process was subtly altering his appearance; though his skin remained unnaturally pale, it no longer carried the grayish, decaying undertone of a corpse.
He now looked more like a living man who had simply not seen the sun in years. He was, in a strange way, "coming to life." He had died and been reborn, first as a ghost, and now as a demon.
At this moment, a rough bamboo container sat on the floor before him. It was filled with clear water, its surface reflecting not only the moonlight but also twenty-three distorted, shifting faces.
These were not mere reflections. They were projections of "Fear" gathered from across Suruga Province—the Twenty-three Demons.
The round head of a Tanuki Spirit bobbed in the center of the water's surface. Its small, mung-bean-sized eyes were wide as its voice emerged from the water with a buzzing echo.
"Master, everything is normal in Suruga. The Imagawa Clan built a tiny little shrine for the Kappa at Shimizu Port. It's only half a man's height, but the Kappa is so happy he's been living inside for three days straight and refuses to come out."
"The Hitotsume-kozō scared two children in a village outside the provincial capital. The children ran home and told their parents there was a ghost at the village entrance. The next day, their parents went to the local shrine to burn incense. We collected their fear—it was very little, but we collected it!"
"And there's more, there's more—" The Tanuki Spirit's voice bubbled with an irrepressible excitement.
"That's enough," Hikaru said, raising a hand to cut off the creature's endless report. "What about the Hojo lands?"
Another small yokai leaned forward on the water's surface—a palm-sized, ink-colored imp with bat wings. Its voice was a grating, noisy buzz.
"The shrine in Musashi Province is still being built. The Hojo Clan craftsmen said it would take another ten days to finish! But there are already three in Sagami, and people have come to worship! The main thing is—" The imp paused, its voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The main thing is, the villagers there were already afraid of yokai. The Hojo Clan told them that if they built a shrine and worshipped, they would be safe, so they did. The fear is definitely increasing."
Hikaru nodded, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. The influence of the Twenty-three Demons was spreading at the exact speed he had anticipated.
Suruga was the Imagawa Clan's territory, where his worship was officially sanctioned. Musashi and Sagami had only just been brought into his sphere of influence, and their shrines were still under construction. They were called shrines, but in reality, they were little more than the small roadside temples one could find anywhere. But for his purposes, that was enough.
Across the lands of three provinces, scattered in three different directions, twenty-three weak but intelligent yokai were taking root like seeds sown in the cracks of human society.
And the "Fear" harvested by these seeds—the terror born from human hearts, from strange tales whispered in the dark, from the trembling of those who dared not venture out at night—was flowing into his body through the core of their collective force field.
Hikaru closed his eyes, sensing the power. Fear.
Now that he was experiencing it firsthand, his understanding of the concept had deepened. It was not simple terror. It was not just being afraid.
Fear was the rumors and gossip that spread through the neighborhoods. Fear was the strange tales and bizarre taboos passed down by the elderly. Fear was the sinking of the human heart, the polar opposite of the uplifting power of faith. It was the instinctual psychological defense mechanism humans developed when facing the unknown, the darkness, and the beyond understanding.
Prayer produced faith; dread produced Fear. The former was born of a desire for beauty and salvation, while the latter sought only self-preservation. Faith allowed gods to survive and even be born. Fear allowed yokai to briefly strengthen their existence. They were two sides of the same coin, born from the very same source.
And he was on the verge of obtaining both. Once the document Hojo Ujiyasu had sent to the capital in Kyoto was approved, he would no longer be a mere yokai collecting fear, but a legitimate god receiving faith.
To wield fear and faith simultaneously... He could not yet estimate how great that power would be, but he could already foresee it, and he looked forward to it with a cold, clear anticipation.
But that was a matter for the future. For now, he had more practical things to attend to.
Hikaru opened his eyes and guided the fear gathered within him outward. He did not absorb it himself. Instead, he pushed the vast majority of it back along the force field's core, distributing it among the twenty-three small yokai.
This was a course of action he had decided upon long ago. Monopolizing the fear would be the height of foolishness. Besides, for a being like Hikaru, who had already achieved the body of the Nine Transformations, this trickle of fear provided little reinforcement.
So, rather than hoarding it, it was better to distribute it. The Twenty-three Demons were his eyes and ears, his tentacles, his sensory nodes spread across the land of three provinces. The stronger they became, the denser and more resilient his web would be.
Fear was the fertilizer, and the yokai were the trees. Piling all the fertilizer at the roots of the main trunk was far less effective than distributing it to every branch. Only when those branches were strong and healthy could they be made to nourish the roots in return.
What he truly needed was not human fear. It was the "respect" and "awe" in the hearts of other yokai. That was the power a Lord of Yokai should command, and this was how he would command it.
The twenty-three faces on the water's surface let out a collective sigh of satisfaction. The infusion of fear caused their Yao Qi to grow, a visible thickening of their demonic energy. Though the increase for each was minimal, yokai were long-lived creatures; over time, the cumulative effect would be astonishing. As long as they did not lose this source of fear, they could continue to grow stronger until they became truly powerful demons in their own right.
A cacophony of gratitude erupted from the container.
The buzzing of twenty-three distinct voices mixed together, sounding like a hive of angry bees had been stuffed into a bamboo tube.
"Everyone, shut up," Hikaru said, his voice cutting through the noise.
Silence fell instantly.
"Return to your respective posts and behave yourselves. If anyone causes trouble—" As he spoke, Hikaru felt a bit like some kind of gang boss, but he pressed on, "—I will have Kikyo deal with you."
The twenty-three faces on the water's surface turned pale in unison. The shrine maiden's Sacred Arrow—an attack that could directly purify Yao Qi—was more terrifying to small yokai than a bolt of heavenly lightning. To be threatened with one from a great shrine maiden of Kikyo's caliber was a fate worse than death.
The projections dissipated with unmatched speed. The last to vanish was the Tanuki Spirit, who couldn't resist adding one last comment before it faded. "Master! I've drawn a new war flag! This time the skull is drawn straight. The next Night Parade of One Hundred Demons will be even more majestic!"
Hikaru was momentarily speechless. He held no hope for that.
With the reports concluded, he still had a third task to accomplish.
The surface of the water returned to its placid state, the moonlight once again shimmering on the surface of the bamboo container. But before he could begin, he raised his eyes and saw the shrine maiden herself standing opposite him. Kikyo was watching him, her dark eyes calm and deep. Her figure, wrapped tightly in her white and red robes, was a landscape of winding shadows and undulating curves under the moonlight—full, drooping, and tightening, outlining a silhouette that caused his breath to catch, her hip line subtly parted.
Hikaru fell silent. Oh no, he thought. She heard me using her name to scare my subordinates.
"Am I so scary?" Kikyo asked, her lips twitching into a slight smile. She didn't seem angry at all; if anything, she looked amused.
Hikaru coughed lightly, about to offer an explanation. But the shrine maiden opposite him simply reached out, grabbed the collar of his gray robe... and pulled him over.
The events that followed were a matter of course.
Later, in the second half of the night, Hikaru walked out of the room feeling deeply satisfied and returned to the main hall. Although his undead body remained a hindrance—even with Blood Transformation allowing his fluids to flow and Busoshoku Haki providing the necessary hardening—he ultimately could not leave anything of himself behind. Therefore, they both exercised restraint and did not take the final step. But for the shrine maiden and the demon, the intimacy alone was more than enough.
Now, he finally had the opportunity to complete his task.
He lowered his head and drew the blade from his waist, letting it lie flat in his palm. Muramasa. The demon blade.
After their full favorability fusion, the original power of Muramasa had been completely absorbed by him, but the blade itself remained. It was not a mere shell or an empty vessel. The inherent sharpness of Muramasa, which had been nurtured for centuries by demonic blood, was still intact. In fact, due to the infiltration of his own Yao Qi during the fusion process, the blade was now tougher than ever before.
But it was not yet a "yokai." It was a demonic weapon, a sharp blade stained by demonic energy, but it did not possess self-awareness like Yura of the Hair, nor could it act independently as a "yokai formed from an object"—a Tsukumogami.
However, Hikaru could feel it. Muramasa was missing only the final breath of power needed to become a true yokai. It lacked the key that would turn a blade from an "object" into a "being."
And the Fear he had collected might just be the catalyst for its final completion. If he could succeed, then the next time he faced a powerful foe, he might be able to use this blade to sever their limbs on his own, without having to rely entirely on Kikyo to inflict a true wound.
This was the third thing Hikaru had set out to do.
He drew out the remaining portion of Fear that he had not distributed—the share he had kept for himself—and poured it from his body into the blade resting in his palm.
Fear was different from Yao Qi. Yao Qi was a product of the condensation of turbid energy, originating from heaven and earth. Fear was a product of the accumulation of human dread, originating from the hearts of all living beings. It could not be directly transformed into raw power, but when the two were mixed, they produced a unique, changing reaction.
The power to make a dead object into a demon.
The power to make a blade 'come alive'.
A panel popped up in his vision.
[Demon Blade [Muramasa]: Favorability 100 (Fused)]
[Current Status: Demonic Tool → Demonic Tool (Awakening)]
[Abnormal Demonic Power injection detected—The Power of Fear is altering the fundamental structure of the object.]
[System: You are doing something few demons would ever do—using your own collected Fear to feed an object. Most demons would choose to swallow the Power of Fear for themselves to grow stronger, but you chose to inject it into a blade... Therefore, Muramasa is responding to you. Its blade soul is awakening from its slumber. Just a little more, a little denser—and it will wake up.]
Hikaru did not stop. The flow of Fear continued.
Under the moonlight, the blade of Muramasa began to emit a faint glow. It was not the purple light of Yao Qi, nor the white light of spiritual power. It was a dark red, almost blood-colored shimmer that seeped out from the hamon patterns on the blade and flowed slowly along its cutting edge.
That was the color of Fear. The color formed when terror and rumor condensed into a physical manifestation.
The blade shuddered in his hand. A slight tremor, as if something deep inside had just rolled over in its sleep.
And then—it went quiet.
The light withdrew, pulling back into the steel. On the surface, Muramasa had returned to its original appearance, but Hikaru knew it was different now.
A final line of text appeared on the panel.
[Demon Blade [Muramasa]: Awakening Progress—12%]
[It has begun to dream.]
Dreaming.
A blade was dreaming.
Hikaru slowly sheathed Muramasa and settled it back at his waist. The touch of the scabbard against his side felt a fraction warmer than before, as if it now possessed its own body temperature.
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