Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Code [2-03]
Although he put it that way, Maple did not see much resistance from Hakuji.
However, what was said was also correct. Maple felt that the opportunity to kill Muzan was right before their eyes and Hakuji also wanted to bring his "previous boss" down before going to hell together.
After all, it was Muzan who forcefully transformed himself into a demon, a drop of "gratitude", which had to be paid with a spring!
It had to be said, it was a touching friendship between superior-subordinate.
Maple was deeply "touched", and was determined to fulfill this epic bond, he was sure that Muzan would also agree.
What? Against? Sorry, I did not need your opinion, I just needed my own opinion.
"Alright, since you already know the plan, then please follow me back to demon-slayer corps headquarters."
Seeing that Hakuji had realized his own "position", Maple nodded and then turned his head towards the train, prepared to go back and meet up with Kyojuro to clean up the mess.
But before Maple could take a few steps, he stopped again, turned his head to look at the sincere Hakuji, who was standing stiff on the spot, unmoving.
"What's wrong Hakuji? Come with me."
Hearing Maple's urging, Hakuji's relaxed face that was used as cover-up finally changed to a bitter smile.
"Mr. Feng…I am already a demon, a demon who had dirtied his hand with blood. Ignoring what the demon-slayer corps' wants, even if Mr. Feng acts as a guarantee, I myself also do not want to go there."
"You…"
Hakuji's soliloquy made Maple's gaze change slightly. He suddenly realized that he had taken things for granted.
Actually, Maple had communicated this with Kyojuro once, he originally thought that as long as the life and movement of the demon was completely under his control, most of the "pillars" would accept this training.
This was also how Kyojuro reacted, although he was extremely against the existence of demons, even asked Maple to eliminate the demon after the training was completed, but he did not reject the training plan to become stronger.
This is because this could increase the demon-slayer corps' chance to kill the demon king, and completed the long-cherished wish of generations of demon slayer corps.
But, Hakuji, whose spirit had turned back into "human", gave Maple another wake-up call…
The fight between demons and demon slayer had gone for too, too long. That depth of the hatred could not even be described with a sea of blood, although, even though he could guarantee his own life, it would not be enough to suppress the dissatisfaction within the demon-slayer corps.
If he continued by himself, it was possible that before he could even meet the demon king, the demon-slayer corps might have destroyed itself from within.
"Hiss…this is troublesome."
Thinking of this, Maple rubbed his clean chin, thinking of ways to rescue the situation.
"Let "pillars" undergo secret training? Not possible, beneath the heaven, there is no wall that is impervious to wind. If the situation was leaked, the result would be even worse than if the training was done openly…"
"Mr. Feng, please hear me out."
Seemingly having seen Maple's trouble, Hakuji suddenly showed a natural smile, and broke Maple's line of thought, "Let me die."
This was the second time Hakuji solemnly pleaded, seeing the confusion flashed in Maple's eyes, Hakuji's heart was suddenly slightly happy.
It seemed that even a monster like you had a blind spot in your thinking.
As this thought flashed through his mind, Hakuji slowly explained his thoughts.
"What Mr. Feng can truly control is the corpse of this demon, right?"
"Your idea?!"
Just as Hakuji spoke, Maple, who was proficient in occult, immediately realized his plan.
"Hai! I really can't hide anything from you, Mr. Feng."
Smacking his lips in boredom, Hakuji seemed to have let down some kind of burden, in Maple's senses, the spiritual body within the demon corpse also started to collapse on itself.
This was not a collapse due to contradiction, but because Hakuji had completely let go of his desire to live.
At the same time, he had paid the price to completely transfer the control of this demon body to Maple. This corpse that became a tool with strong battle power, in Maple's hand, directly became a "beyonder item".
"Mr. Feng, do you know, actually I'm already exhausted, very exhausted…please receive these remains, the matter of killing Muzan, I will still depend on Mr. Feng. Please forgive my irresponsibility."
Innumerable fragments of spirituality dispersed from Hakuji's spiritual body which made him seem to be wearing a bright haori.
"However, I'm truly grateful to Mr. Feng. It is thanks to you that I can regain my lost memory."
On the body of the demon, Hakuji's smile gradually disappeared. But Maple could clearly see the smile of his spiritual body.
He was obviously faced with death, but he looked like he had just reunited with his love.
"Death without despair…"
This thought once again flashed through his mind, seeing Hakuji's spiritual body that had completely disappeared, this time, Maple finally said the question in his heart.
"Hakuji, you…are not in despair?"
"Despair, why would I be in despair?"
Hakuji, who seemed to have heard Maple's confusion, turned around and laughed at this monster-like youth.
"Because, you will die."
"So?"
Hakuji's lower spiritual body had dissipated into bright light, it was at this moment, that he realized the abnormality in the depth of "Mr. Feng's" soul.
However, his time was almost up, thousands of explanations were, in the end, shortened into a simple sentence.
"Ara, Mr. Feng, death and despair, from the very beginning was not an equal."
Hakuji's relaxed words still echoed, but his spirit had completely disappeared.
"Death…despair…death is not equal to despair?"
Silently looking at the place Hakuji had disappeared from, Maple's rationality had started to turn frenziedly, at this moment, that "matter-of-fact" ignorance, was finally completely broken down by the sentence.
"Yes…yes! Death is general, despair is subjective, although I obtained [despair] from [death], but how can death be equivalent to despair?"
At this moment, the collapse of "ignorance" allowed [rationality] and [emotion] to birth a totally new [cognition]…
"Rather than saying that I do not want to see the death of certain people, it is more accurate to say that I do not want to see the despair brought about by their death."
At this thought, the "persona" within Maple's heart seemed to shake slightly, the immature emotion, due to this "clarity", became slightly more solid.
Along with the change in cognition, the digestion of [murderer] potion also improved again.
"Maybe, this is what was called 'epiphany'?"
This thought flashed through Maple's mind.
Although this epiphany did not produce an "auspicious light" scene, it also did not let Maple immediately "float on the spot", but he himself knew, this kind of breakthrough in cognition was already the most valuable treasure.
"You actually leave behind these remains for me…then let me try."
Casually waved his hand to make a "spiritual wall" to cover himself and Hakuji's remains, Maple lightly closed his eyes, his spiritual body once again traversed between the essence and material world.
When Maple had once again opened his eyes, [Hakuji demon eye], which was kept in [infinite river of death], had unknowingly appeared in his hands.
"Let this eye be the witness to the contract,
You who are willing to sacrifice your body,
I take this oath to kill the demon king,
The moment of demon king's death,
Would be the day this oath is lifted."
As words containing mysterious ancient spiritual language were chanted by Maple, the demon eye floated from Maple's hand, and slowly drifted towards the eye socket of the remains, and gradually combined the remaining right eye.
Suddenly, Maple's spirituality was touched, so to personally participate and create these 2nd level sealed items, Maple instinctively knew its detailed information…
[2-03 Hakuji's contracted remains]
[Hakuji, who had turned into a demon, contributed its remains under his own initiative, and signed a contract with ….. , in order to drag the demon king into hell together. Other than the contractor, if anyone else tries to use him, would be mercilessly devoured and become the food to maintain its activity. Perhaps, the contractor had a method to destroy it?]
[Beyonder ability: had the ability before its birth, including the blood demon arts, its terrifying regenerative ability, and inexhaustible energy let it become a strong killing golem, unfortunately it also possessed demon's weaknesses, could be killed by nichirin blade and sunlight. The price of activation, each time it was used, required the flesh and blood of three adults. Additionally, if the user was the contractor, the cost could be substituted with spiritual power of a sequence 8].
Unlike the previous two demon eyes that only "grazed", the remains in front of him had completely transformed into a true "sealed dangerous item", the creation of such an abnormal item, also made the world intangibly warned Maple spiritually.
"Can only create three items, can you?"
Softly massaging his forehead, Maple slowly reduced the effect of "world's voice" on himself, while interpreting the "warning" given to him.
"In the end, it is because this world is still too fragile, it cannot sustain too much abnormality, it seemed that his manufacturing plan would need to be filtered."
While considering who would be operated next, Maple also swallowed the [upper-ranked demons] "remains" into his belly.
This way, other than being blind spiritually due to the [demon eye], combined with its material location, Muzan would not be able to sense "Akaza's" strangeness.
"Just like driving a demon puppet."
Maple controlled the remains to perform various actions, trying to find its limit.
"Other than the user being me, there is no difference between it and Akaza."
The remains allowed Maple to finally feel completely relieved, he had a thought that just appeared in his mind.
After controlling "Hakuji", Maple no longer considered using it to perform "undercover", just the misdirection by [demon eye] was sufficient.
After all, Hakuji also did not have any related experience as a spy. If it was found by Muzan, it would be a bleeding loss.
…
But right now, Maple did not have such concern, before he let the remains help everyone's training, he wanted to try to increase the profit.
After all, the risk had become smaller, "greedy" for a bit more, would also help future endeavors.
After confirming the focus, Maple did not control the remains to move alongside him. Instead controlled it using the demon eye in his belly, to go towards "infinity castle" where Muzan hid.
"Mr. Feng! Have you succeeded?"
Just as Maple arrived at the train by himself, Kyojuro, who was organizing the reinforcement to help the civilians, rushed towards Maple and asked.
"It's done, but the final result deviated slightly from the plan, Hakuji, after he awakened, committed suicide, I could only turn his remains into a demon puppet."
"Is it…suicide…so that Akaza was originally called 'Hakuji'?"
Hearing the "result" from Maple, Kyojuro was a bit silent. After all, this was also the first time he had met a situation where a demon awakened "its previous life's memory". So, he did not know what to feel.
"May he atone his sin in hell."
This was Kyojuro's sigh, that was all he could say, because no matter how miserable the demon's "previous life" experience was, it could not cover up the bloodshed that it had caused.
"Mr. Feng, that…"
"Don't worry, senior Rengoku, the demon puppet remains is now fully under my control, it also still has the required blood demon art. It's just that, if everyone wants to use it for training, you will still need to wait for a few days."
"Did something unexpected happen?"
Kyojuro asked in confusion, but what Maple said next, once again surprised him.
"Not unexpected, I just planned to let it go to Muzan's old nest to have a look, to see whether it is possible to completely bury a nail."
"This?!"
Kyojuro's eyes suddenly widened to the max, he was completely "shocked" by Maple's clear but strange thoughts.
"I…you…Hai! Nevermind, Mr. Feng, I'll just ask you a question, are you sure?"
"Well, 50 – 50."
Maple's "heartless" reply almost suffocated Kyojuro, luckily, Maple did not intentionally pause and continued to explain.
"But for the demon puppet to return, there is about 70 to 80%."
"Hu…then, that's fine."
The last half of Maple's sentence finally let Kyojuro release a long sigh of relief, with a slightly helpless tone, but most of them were due to being dumbfounded.
"Mr. Feng, I have to say, I slightly regretted letting you do your 'whimsical' experiment, this is really frustrating!"
"But it was worth it, right?"
Maple laughed non committedly, and looked at this "big brother", who did not fall at dawn, with an eye full of deep meaning, and walked back to the busy train together…
He still needed to tidy up that ritual, preventing some curious people from being contaminated by the "occult".
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