Chapter 167: Can a Person Become a Ghost, But a Blade Cannot Become a Person?

As Lin Yu recalled the plot of Demon Slayer, Tanjiro was still struggling in battle.

The reason it was called a struggle was not because the enemy was particularly strong, but because his current opponent was a member of the Demon Slayer Corps who had come with him to hunt demons.

“Clang!”

The sharp clash of blades echoed with sparks.

Tanjiro forcefully parried the incoming Nichirin Blade and leapt backward to create distance.

Following his gaze, a black-haired girl dressed in Demon Slayer Corps uniform could be seen.

Her entire body was wrapped in silk threads, her joints twisted at unnatural angles, like a puppet controlled by strings, weeping uncontrollably as she launched attacks far beyond her body’s limits.

“What do I do?”

“What do I do?!”

Tanjiro clenched his teeth, blocking the girl’s attacks while desperately thinking of a way to save his comrade.

But unfortunately, he had already tried many methods—cutting the threads, tangling them together—all failed to stop the demon from controlling these Demon Slayer Corps members.

“Whoo—”

A sudden gust of wind roared from behind.

Tanjiro’s heart leapt; he yanked himself back just in time to avoid the ambush aimed at his skull.

When he steadied himself, two more Demon Slayer Corps members, controlled by silk, charged forward.

…Should I strike?

Looking at the two Demon Slayer Corps members whose movements were riddled with openings, Tanjiro hesitated for an instant.

At that moment, a burly boy wearing a boar’s head mask suddenly burst from the dense forest, wielding two serrated nodachi with blazing speed to intercept the two attackers.

“What are you staring at?!”

The boar-headed boy roared, snapping Tanjiro out of his daze.

He grimaced, about to speak, when a weak voice suddenly came from ahead.

“Kill… me…”

What?!

Tanjiro’s pupils contracted; he couldn’t help but turn toward the speaker.

The man’s lips bled as he swung his Nichirin Blade with twisted joints, gritting his teeth: “My… bones have pierced my organs… it’s… too painful…”

“No matter what… I’m going to die anyway… please… give me the final blow!”

The boar-headed boy gritted his teeth, charged forward with both blades, and shouted: “Fine, I understand!”

Tanjiro snapped back to reality and cried out: “Wait!”

The boar-headed boy stumbled, barely dodging the returning blade, then turned and roared: “What are you waiting for?!”

“He asked to be killed! Don’t you have a better idea?!”

Tanjiro said bitterly: “I…”

“Watch out!”

Before he could finish, the girl’s tearful warning rang out from ahead.

Tanjiro spun around, raising his Nichirin Blade upward—huh?

His palm felt empty; he blinked in confusion and looked down.

The black Nichirin Blade had slipped from his hands—now hovering midair, tracing a strange arc before piercing through the girl’s arms and striking the hilt.

“Pthsshh—”

With a soft sound, the blood-smeared blade flew free and embedded itself in a nearby tree trunk.

Seeing this, both Tanjiro and the girl stared in shock.

But before they could react, the black Nichirin Blade rose again, landing in the hand of a corpse hanging from silk threads above.

The next instant, the black Nichirin Blade glowed with silver light.

The corpse, long dead, suddenly opened its eyes, gripped the long blade tightly, tore the silk from its arm, and spun in a slash that defied all understanding.

“Clang—”

In an instant, brilliant blade light blazed forth from the dark forest.

All silk threads snapped; the black-haired boy crashed to the ground, right hand still gripping the Nichirin Blade, left hand twisting slightly to snap his dislocated joints back into place.

Seeing this, everyone—including Tanjiro—stared in stunned disbelief.

The black-haired boy paid no mind to their stares; after realigning all his joints, he swung the blade once, then frowned and muttered in a language none could understand:

“So this is a human body… it’s far too weak!”

After speaking, he looked up and smiled lightly at Tanjiro, whose face was filled with shock: "Even though it's not very comfortable being held by you, we've spent several minutes together—do we really need to be so distant?"

“Huh?”

Tanjiro’s eyes widened in shock: “You’re… my blade?”

The black-haired boy—or Lin Yu—nodded with a smile: “You could say that.”

Tanjiro gasped: “But… how is that possible?!”

“Why not?”

Lin Yu said seriously: “People can become demons—why can’t a blade become a person?”

Tanjiro: “…”

Is that even the same thing?

Pure-hearted Tanjiro stared blankly, still struggling to process this bizarre logic, when the disarmed girl, tears streaming down her face, charged at Lin Yu and smashed her fist into his skull.

“Zheng—”

With a soft chime of the blade, a crescent-shaped light bloomed in Tanjiro’s pupils.

It was the exceptional sword technique from member Lin Lie—Moonlight Slash!

In an instant, all silk threads within a ten-meter radius were severed.

The girl, stripped of silk control, collapsed to the ground, then struggled to rise as new silk spread from her limbs, attempting to reconnect with the airborne threads.

Seeing this, Tanjiro’s pupils contracted and cried out: “Watch out—”

“Bang!”

Before he could finish, Lin Yu stomped down on the girl’s spine, calmly staring at the collar at the back of her neck.

There, over a dozen white spiders, no larger than rice grains, were rapidly weaving silk, trying to retake control of the body.

“So these little things are behind it?”

“No wonder cutting the silk did nothing…”

Lin Yu’s expression cleared; he flipped his blade and drove it down with force.

“Pthsshh!”

The black Nichirin Blade plunged into the ground.

Thin blue-white arcs of electricity leapt from the blade’s edge, spreading rapidly outward from its center.

In an instant, the entire fifty-meter forest was engulfed in lightning; blue-white arcs wove together into a dense electric net, covering everyone—including Tanjiro.

“Crackle-pops!”

As the arcs exploded, Tanjiro and the boar-headed boy screamed and flailed wildly, electrocuted.

The once-sturdy silk burned and snapped under the righteous thunder; hundreds of tiny spiders leapt from the controlled Demon Slayer Corps members—only to fall into the denser grid below.

The blue-white lightning surged like sharks scenting blood.

The adorable spiders danced frantically in the arcs, then collapsed, charred and still.

Seeing this, Lin Yu finally smiled in satisfaction and pulled the blade free.

The electric current, though not intense, was painfully gone; the boar-headed boy exhaled deeply and glared at Lin Yu:

“Hey! That’s Tanjiro’s blade! Don’t hurt your own people!”

“Relax, I’ve got control.”

Lin Yu brushed him off, then glanced at Tanjiro beside him.

Unlike the boar-headed boy, Itachi, Tanjiro didn’t care about his own accidental injury.

As soon as the net vanished, he rushed to the girl’s side, knelt down, and checked her wounds.

“No need to look.”

Lin Yu said to the kneeling boy: “This little one isn’t badly hurt—just paralyzed limbs. Compared to her, the other two are truly dying.”

“Their organs are pierced by bones—they won’t last more than a few minutes…”

Are they going to die?

Tanjiro quickly glanced at the two, then turned back to Lin Yu, eyes filled with hope:

“You must have a way, right?”

“…Not yet.”

Lin Yu shook his head, then glanced at his right palm and smiled: “But I will soon.”

Following his gaze, a mysterious eye pattern was clearly carved into his palm.

This symbol represented his inner universe—a mystical sigil known as the Chaos Eye or the Hidden Iris.

Since he had merged with the Nichirin Blade, the hilt had borne this Hidden Iris; after taking possession of the corpse, the same pattern appeared on its palm.

Through the link between the Hidden Iris and his original universe, he could continuously draw power from his true body.

But since the two worlds were too distant and this body too fragile to withstand much power, Lin Yu had to restrict the flow, slowly augmenting this vessel.

During this process, he experimented with many different power systems.

But unfortunately, most power systems cannot be used—either lacking external conditions like spiritual roots, qi, or magic, or being forbidden by the world’s rules.

After careful consideration, Lin Yu ultimately chose the path of cultivating qi from Under One Person.

Primordial qi represents the essence of human lifespan, thus existing universally across all realms, though cultivation difficulty varies due to differing world rules.

For instance, in this world, attaining qi sensation in Demon Slayer is extraordinarily difficult.

Lin Yu could easily enter the path because the person he possessed had already died and become a blank slate.

Under these circumstances, he merely needed to convert the borrowed power into qi and forcibly transmit it to initiate his cultivation of qi.

As the heavenly cycle turned, the qi within Lin Yu’s body continuously increased, growing ever more vast.

His body also grew stronger with each passing moment, nourished by the qi.

Every muscle fiber, every inch of skin, was saturated with extraordinarily dense qi.

This was the simplest and most fundamental hardening technique in Under One Person.

As long as a cultivator possessed sufficient quantity and dense quality of qi, they could elevate their physical strength to an astonishing level.

After about half a minute, Lin Yu raised his right hand; golden light bloomed in his palm, then gradually turned blue, and finally, under the glow of crimson, transformed entirely into a semi-transparent red hand.

“Enough!”

Lin Yu smiled faintly, then crouched down and pressed his hand against the girl’s spine, as Tanjiro watched anxiously.

(End of Chapter)