Black Clover: The Son of Fire Dragon Igneel

Chapter 553: SFDI - 553

As winter turned to spring, and with the warming climate, the chirping of insects could be heard after nightfall.

Tonight was also a full moon, and the moonlight made the entire earth seem to be covered with a thin layer of frost.

But in such a tranquil and peaceful environment, there were things that disrupted the harmony.

This was a teahouse located beside a road in the fields, originally a place to provide rest for passersby.

Of course, such places wouldn’t be luxurious, but at least they weren’t dilapidated buildings.

But in the silence of the night, a strange sound came from the teahouse.

The sound of flesh tearing and chewing constantly came out, as if some beast was eating in the house.

Approaching the entrance of the teahouse, you could see bloodstains spreading out from under the wooden door, and smell a nauseating bloody smell.

Since who knows when, this place had become a hunting ground for a demon, and who knows how many passersby had been eaten by the demon who nested in the teahouse.

There were no lights on in the teahouse, but the moonlight was bright enough.

A disheveled demon leaned against a table with a broken leg, tearing at a human arm.

Few demons could withstand the erosion of the demon king’s blood when receiving Muzan’s blood, so in general, demons would lose their memories and sanity from their human period, and would be driven by the nature of the demon blood to start eating people.

This demon was of course the same. He had completely forgotten his memories and name from his human period.

Now he was just Shiro, a man-eating demon who wanted to become one of the Twelve Kizuki.

To achieve this goal, he had to eat more people to become stronger, so that he could gain the favor of that person.

Just as Shiro was working hard to absorb the nutrients he had just eaten, he suddenly heard a rapid knock on the door.

"Open the door, the Demon Slayer Corps is here to bring warmth!"

"Um, Mr. Drake, we don’t seem to have officially joined the Demon Slayer Corps?"

"Don’t worry about those details. What we’re doing is the same, isn’t it!"

.....

Shiro’s pupils dilated slightly. After being a demon for so long, he of course knew what the Demon Slayer Corps was.

However, for him, the swordsmen of the Demon Slayer Corps were enemies, but also food with better meat quality.

But this time was different. The person outside the house gave him a feeling that his skin was tingling.

In fact, Shiro himself didn’t know that because he only ate travelers on the road, the Demon Slayer Corps had been unable to confirm his location.

So the ones he had encountered before were all low-level swordsmen of the Demon Slayer Corps, but this time was different.

Just as he was considering whether to run away, the people outside seemed to be unable to wait and directly opened the door.

Shiro, who thought that demons were higher creatures, ultimately didn’t run away, but instead used his Blood Demon Art on the person who came in.

As soon as Drake opened the door, he saw a mass of seaweed-like dense strands of things wrapping around.

Looking closely, it was clearly a bunch of hair. The hair was black and shiny, and the hair quality was quite good, but a mass of hair that could fill half a house would only make people feel particularly terrifying and disgusting.

This was the Blood Demon Art of the demon Shiro, being able to control his hair to grow rapidly and manipulate it.

Moreover, his hair not only grew at an amazing speed, but also had good toughness. The Demon Slayer Corps swordsmen he had encountered before couldn’t even cut open his hair.

Just as he wanted to use his hair to entangle the person who came in, a light of fire lit up. Shiro saw that the young man carrying the box had drawn the black katana in his hand, and a slash brought up a ball of flames, cutting open the hair that was wrapping around.

This was really bringing warmth, but the flames that brought warmth would only turn him to ashes.

Drake said on the side, "He’s a demon who can use Blood Demon Art. Tanjiro, are you okay?"

Tanjiro gripped his sword with both hands, and said with confidence in his tone, "Of course!"

It had been a month since Drake and Tanjiro had trained with Sakonji Urokodaki. In this month, the two had received orthodox breathing technique training.

Of course, most of the time was spent on training Tanjiro.

After absorbing Sakonji Urokodaki’s experience, Drake quickly completely improved his own breathing technique, mastered Full Concentration.

And then he was able to achieve Constant, maintaining Full Concentration Breathing twenty-four hours a day.

However, it was a pity that Drake hadn’t been able to find the path to the Transparent World of the marks and the supreme realm.

According to Drake’s speculation, after entering the mark state, the constitution of swordsmen who absorbed excessive natural magic power would change. The life energy they emitted would allow the people around them to absorb natural magic power more easily.

This was the reason why the so-called marks had contagious properties.

Drake also didn’t have any clues on how to awaken the marks. He was afraid that he would have to wait for the appearance of the first swordsman with marks to awaken the marks himself and solve the erosion of lifespan by the marks.

Then Drake and Sakonji Urokodaki jointly formulated a new training plan for Tanjiro.

Sakonji Urokodaki was already the most strict cultivator in the Demon Slayer Corps, but after seeing Drake’s arrangements, he realized that he was too gentle.

"A young man like Tanjiro can’t be ruined no matter how he’s trained!" Drake said to Sakonji Urokodaki.

Of course, Drake was confident in saying this because he had taken out all kinds of potions. Otherwise, this training plan would kill people in less than three days.

Even so, Tanjiro felt like he had traveled around in hell.

Of course, what he got in return was Tanjiro’s rapid growth. Now he could not only skillfully use Sun Breathing, but also enter the Full Concentration state.

Even the ability to smell the line of openings had been developed in advance and could be skillfully controlled in battle.

And Tanjiro had also completely matured in combat, as if the katana had completed its sharpening.

However, Constant of Sun Breathing was far more difficult than ordinary breathing techniques, and Tanjiro’s physique hadn’t been strengthened to the point where he could bear it.

In that month, the Demon Slayer Corps sent at least the high-quality "Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand" and "Scarlet Crimson Ore" that Drake wanted. The Nichirin Blade in Tanjiro’s hand was forged by Drake.

The blacksmith Hotaru Haganezuka who forged Tanjiro’s Nichirin Blade in the original plot was the person in charge.

He was originally unconvinced that someone would propose to use raw materials instead of having the blacksmiths of the Swordsmith Village forge the swords.

As a result, after seeing Drake’s process of making swords, he directly prostrated himself, crying and wanting to worship Drake as his master.

Rather than being moved by his sincerity, Drake was scared by his obsession with forging swords, so he gave him some of his forging notes.

As in the original plot, the blade became obsidian black after Tanjiro held the finished sword.

Drake of course didn’t need a Nichirin Blade. He already had his own weapon.

The Nichirin Blade was a special blade that fused natural magic power, and Drake’s Noble Phantasm was a pure magic power condensate, and its nature was equivalent to a Crimson Blade in the active state of natural magic power.

Drake really wanted Muzan to evaluate which one hurt more when his Martial Saint and Yoriichi Tsugikuni’s Crimson Blade cut him!

So after the group completed all their goals on Sagiri Mountain, they continued their journey.

The Demon Slayer Corps also sent a kasugai crow, which was the chatterbox that followed Tanjiro in the original plot, to contact each other.

So with the intelligence support of the Demon Slayer Corps, the group continued to train while killing the demons they encountered on the road.

In the journey of more than ten days, the group encountered a total of five demons, and Shiro was the first demon to master a Blood Demon Art.

In fact, demons weren’t rampant, after all, the only ones who could transform humans into demons were Muzan himself and a few of the top-ranked Upper Ranks.

In addition, the Demon Slayer Corps worked hard to fight, keeping the number of demons at a low level.

And according to the degree of danger, demons were roughly divided into three types. The lowest level was of course demons with only a trace amount of demon king’s blood in their bodies.

Just like the demon Tanjiro encountered on Sagiri Mountain in the original plot, their strength was stronger than humans, but limited, and their regeneration speed was also very slow.

And the next level was the Aberrant Demons. Their bodies had been distorted into inhuman forms, growing limbs or organs that humans didn’t have.

A typical example was the Hand Demon that Tanjiro encountered in the final training, possessing a huge body and dozens of arms, completely unrecognizable as a human.

The demon with spider-like legs that he encountered later also belonged to this type.

Although these demons didn’t have Blood Demon Arts, they were still quite threatening with their special body structures and physical qualities that far exceeded humans.

The next type was of course the demons who had mastered Blood Demon Arts. All kinds of Blood Demon Arts were obtained by eating a large number of people.

Of course, there was a large gap in strength between this type of demon, so they couldn’t be generalized.

And although Shiro, who was in front of the two, had also mastered a Blood Demon Art, to be honest, it couldn’t be considered strong.

Drake had no intention of taking action against this kind of opponent at all. It wasn’t even as strong as the small tests for Tanjiro.

Tanjiro inhaled the white air with a trace of firelight into his body, and then charged towards Shiro.

Shiro stretched out his palm towards Tanjiro, and the hair that extended out grew wildly together.

His ability was similar to Rui, the Lower Rank Five, but Rui’s Murderous Eye Baskets possessed the sharpness and strength to cut Nichirin Blades, while Shiro’s hair wasn’t even that strong in power.

But his hair was better in that there was enough of it, and it could wrap people up and strangle them to death, or extend into the human body through the mouth and nose to cause damage.

Faced with the large amount of hair that was surging like a tide, Tanjiro’s arm moved.

"Hinokami Kagura: Setting Sun Transformation!"

The blade with flames slashed out two symmetrical red marks in mid-air, and the hair that extended over was cut off together.

And Tanjiro took a step forward, and the fire-entwined blade slashed out next.

Shiro only saw those hairs break instantly, turning into ashes in the firelight. And Tanjiro had also arrived before him.

"Hinokami Kagura: Dance!"

A ring of flames spread out, and then Shiro felt his vision begin to spin.

Vaguely, he seemed to see someone sitting in front of him, and he was holding a comb, combing the hair of the person in front of him.

The sunlight shone in front of his eyes, making him unable to see the face in the mirror clearly.

Tanjiro sheathed his sword, looking at Shiro’s head that was gradually turning to ashes, and fell silent.

Demons were indeed empty and pathetic creatures! Tanjiro had the same feeling every time he killed a demon. So he was even more determined to kill Muzan Kibutsuji.

Drake said, "It seems that you can easily deal with this level now. Next, we should go find an opponent of the Twelve Kizuki level!"

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