Chapter 540: Fearless
A sudden wind swept across the mountaintop. The peach trees on Peach Blossom Mountain rustled in it, and peach blossoms mixed with snow came drifting down onto the white ground.
On the mountain, one demon and one man faced each other for several dozen seconds. Then, all at once, they charged!
When the nine-metre Giant Yōkai ran, it was as if heaven and earth were collapsing. Every footfall shook the ground like a war drum!
The black-armoured samurai used a very strange stance. He gripped his sword in his right hand alone and rested it on his shoulder, moving quickly and leaving a clear line of footprints in the snow as he ran straight at the Giant Yōkai!
When the Giant Yōkai reached him, it raised its foot to crush him.
The black-armoured samurai didn't slow his charge at all. It was as if he had no fear of being stamped flat by that huge foot. He kept rushing forward.
Just as the Giant Yōkai's huge foot came down to crush him, the black-armoured samurai swung the sword off his shoulder and drove it upward, and his charge suddenly surged forward faster!
With a tremendous boom, the Giant Yōkai's huge foot slammed into the ground, blasting a crater in the snow.
The black-armoured samurai came out from under the stomp, ran on several dozen paces, and only then stopped and turned around.
The Giant Yōkai whipped its head around and glared at him, sneering:
"Heh heh. Don't waste your effort. You can't hurt me. That sword of yours could never cut skin as hard as steel!"
"Oh, really?"
The black-armoured samurai raised his sword and showed it to the Giant Yōkai.
"Then where did the blood on this sword come from?"
The Giant Yōkai looked closer and suddenly saw that there really was a trace of blood on the blade!
It hurriedly lowered its head and lifted its foot. There was blood in the crater it had stamped in the snow too!
The Giant Yōkai's bestial pupils shrank, and a flicker of unease began to grow in its heart!
Just now, the samurai had run under its foot and drawn his blade across the sole. And that one light cut had actually split its skin!
The sole of its foot wasn't protected by thick hide, but this was its Asura body now, swollen with the fear of so many living things. It was no ordinary flesh anymore. How could an ordinary mortal blade wound it?
"ROOOOAAAR!!!"
The unease grew stronger and stronger. The Giant Yōkai let out a sudden bellow, trying to crush that unease with action, and charged at the black-armoured samurai!
This time the black-armoured samurai changed his stance. He gripped the hilt in both hands and set himself in a solid, rooted horse stance.
The Giant Yōkai came on like thunder. In two strides it was on top of the black-armoured samurai, bending low and driving its huge, powerful claws at him like a battering ram!
In a flash, the black-armoured samurai exploded into motion too!
He moved so fast it was like a video skipping frames. He stepped back, avoiding the claws.
Then, while the claws were still right in front of him and hadn't pulled back yet, he raised the Steel-Cleaver high and brought it down hard on the Giant Yōkai's wrist!
There was a sharp whoosh, and the surrounding peach trees shed a shower of blossoms as if they'd been shaken.
The two figures passed each other and came to a stop, back to back, motionless.
The Giant Yōkai twisted its wrist in confusion and stared, wide-eyed in disbelief, at the deep, bleeding wound on the back of its hand.
"How is this possible!! I offered up so many sacrifices! Why can my body still be cut? A mortal can't cut my body!!
"ROOOOAAAAR!!!"
The Giant Yōkai roared in fury, turned, and charged at the black-armoured samurai, all fangs and claws!
As it closed in, it launched a flying kick!
The black-armoured samurai's eyes were perfectly calm as he watched the Giant Yōkai's line of movement. When the kick came, he sidestepped exactly two paces to dodge it, then swung his blade hard to the side!
After that one cut, the black-armoured samurai quickly stepped back out of range. He didn't get greedy!
The Giant Yōkai let out a howl of pain. When it brought its leg back down and stood on it, it staggered a few steps and nearly lost its balance!
It looked down and found that the black-armoured samurai's cut had landed on the back of its heel!
From how deep the cut went, it had clearly hit the tendon, and its movements were slower now.
The Giant Yōkai still couldn't believe that its indestructible vajra-body could be cut so easily!
It staggered a few steps to the ruined peach-blossom pavilion in the middle of Peach Blossom Mountain and picked up a huge boulder!
It ripped the boulder out of the earth, lifted it overhead, and hurled it at the black-armoured samurai!
The boulder whistled through the air as it hurtled toward him!
The black-armoured samurai simply took two calm steps forward, and the boulder grazed his helmet and crashed into the snow behind him with a tremendous BOOM!
The whole summit of Peach Blossom Mountain shook. The peach blossoms rained down from the trees, and the bright petals scattered across the snow had a strange beauty to them.
Having calmly dodged a blow that would have turned him into paste, the black-armoured samurai picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at the Giant Yōkai with all his strength!
The stone, about the size of a man's fist, struck the Giant Yōkai precisely in the left eye.
The Giant Yōkai howled, clapped its left hand over its left eye, its face twisted in pain.
Blood ran out between the fingers covering its eye. A stone the black-armoured samurai had tossed almost carelessly had actually blinded one of its eyes!
Even a stone could wound it. Could it be that this man... this man... didn't have the faintest trace of fear in his heart?
Not even the instinctive fear any ordinary creature feels when facing something far bigger and stronger than itself?!!
"Heh!"
Just as the Giant Yōkai was at a loss, a laugh came from the black-armoured samurai.
Man and demon locked eyes. The mocking look in the black-armoured samurai's eyes made the Giant Yōkai's heart tremble.
The black-armoured samurai said, "I smell fear!"
Then, holding his sword in one hand with its tip touching the snow, he began to circle the Giant Yōkai, slowly, round and round, like a hunter sizing up his prey.
"You demon who toys with the bonds of human decency and feeds on fear. Can it be that even you are afraid?"
"I'm not afraid!! I'll crush you!! I'll kill you!! I'll grind your body to dust!!"
The black-armoured samurai's words seemed to have touched the Giant Yōkai's sorest spot. It roared madly at him, but it didn't dare step forward and attack.
It could only stand where it was, shuffling its feet bit by bit, its one remaining huge eye fixed on the circling samurai.
"Lying won't help you. You demon who feeds on fear, you couldn't control fear, and now it's turned on you!
"That Asura body of yours looks so mighty, but it's nothing but a paper tiger. One poke and it tears!
"With this sword in my hand, I'll cut through your paper skin and your feeble muscle, rip that false body of yours to shreds, and pull out what you really are, to see just how ugly a demon you truly are!!!"
The black-armoured samurai let out a sudden shout. He had just finished one full circle around the Giant Yōkai, and his sword had drawn a circle in the snow!
Circling the Giant Yōkai had pushed its terror to its peak. Now was the perfect moment to strike!
The black-armoured samurai went on the attack. The Giant Yōkai bent down and spread its arms wide, like someone about to swat a mosquito.
Two hands as big as city gates came swinging at the black-armoured samurai, trailing a cold, rank wind!
If that blow landed, it would crush the black-armoured samurai into paste!
With a tremendous BANG, the two huge hands slammed together with a sound like an artillery shell exploding!
The one-eyed Giant Yōkai's remaining eye went wide. It slowly opened its hands, hoping to see a smear of mangled flesh between them!
But when its hands were fully open, there was nothing between its palms.
A wave of terror washed over it. It jerked its head up and saw that, at some point, the black-armoured samurai had leapt high into the air and was already coming down!
As the black-armoured samurai's hands came down, the sword raised high above his head came down with them, squarely across the Giant Yōkai's neck and chest!
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