Chapter 214 Death is not a pity!
Asa leaped into the air and appeared behind Mifune.
"Blood Demon Art!"
He swung out his right leg violently, which was stretched and lengthened rapidly, leaving behind an afterimage.
He said in a cold voice: "Blood Scythe Kick: Sky Split!"
Scarlet blood spurted out from the legs, and the blood blade like a bloody sickle cut through the rain and fog, and the fishy wind it brought instantly cut off all the bricks, stones and trees passing by.
The next moment, Mifune's fist slammed into Yoshitaka's chest, and the bloody blade hit his back without any hindrance.
Puff! !
The scarlet aura swept across, and the blood blade slashed into his body rapidly.
Breaking armor, cutting flesh, breaking bones!
Mifune, wearing a set of hard armor, turned into a blood-red shadow and flew out.
He smashed several walls and tree trunks in succession and crashed into a ruin, raising a cloud of dust.
"Ahem!"
Yoshitaka was also half-kneeling on the ground, covering his chest which had a terrible dent, with blood constantly flowing from the corner of his mouth. Asuto, who had rushed over, quickly helped him up and waved his hand, saying, "Don't worry, he's not going to die yet."
Even so, his breathing was still suppressed amid the sound of constant dripping blood.
Even before being hit in the chest by Mifune, Yoshitaka tried his best to gather his muscles to protect his chest, but he could still feel that several of his hard ribs were still shattered, and some of them were even bent 90 degrees.
It even scratched the heart and lungs and almost pierced into them.
In addition, his liver and lungs were injured to varying degrees. If Yoshitaka had not used breathing techniques to control his muscles to squeeze and block the wounds, he would have died from excessive blood loss even if he had not been killed by the fist.
But...
"That Mifune guy's situation isn't much better than mine, right?"
Trying to find the best way to cheer himself up, Yoshitaka looked towards the place where Mifune had crashed.
Just as he had guessed, in the midst of the wreckage, Mifune was lying on the ground in a very miserable state. The wound on his back almost pierced through him, and his internal organs could be seen still beating.
"Puff!"
Mifune struggled to get up with his hands on the ground, but the wounds on his body were pulled and he felt severe pain. He could only tremble and fall to the ground. It was obvious that he had completely lost the ability to move.
Looking at the broken glass scattered on the ground, and seeing himself in such a miserable state for the first time in more than ten years, he couldn't help but cough up blood.
"Why…why? Why!"
Why could ordinary iron hurt a famous sword?
Why could someone whom he used to look down upon fight with him to such an extent?
Why was he, the world's strongest swordsman, injured so badly by a half-witted one?!
A series of questions and an increasingly heavy body made Mifune confused and terrified.
The noisy sound of rain in his ears gradually faded away, and the black rain mist retreated.
The fight between the warriors and the demons was over, and the chilling smell of blood almost filled the surroundings.
The bodies of the warriors could be seen lying all over the ground. Some of the demons who had fought with their own healing abilities had their heads chopped off by the enemy, but most of them simply fell to the ground due to exhaustion.
"Are you upset about losing to us?"
With the support of Asuto, Yoshitaka covered the wound on his body and staggered towards Mifune. Blood flowed from the wound, but there was a smile on his slightly pale face.
"...No, you don't deserve it."
Mifune, who was a little dazed, came back to his senses and used his last bit of strength to turn himself over. He lay on his back in a pool of blood and said unwillingly: "What I regret is that I didn't lose to a respectable opponent, but to a despicable villain."
Hearing this, Asuto's face, which had turned pale with fear, suddenly showed a hint of anger, and he whispered, "That's not the case."
"The reason you have the opportunity to be 'noble' is because you have not yet faced a difficult choice. People with a wide range of options always appear to be 'noble'."
"But if you don't have a way out, you will only become more despicable!"
After saying that, he hesitated for a moment, then took a step forward with the hammer tightly in his hand, intending to completely kill Mifune.
Yoshitaka shook his head, stretched out his hand to stop Asuto, looked at Mifune and said, "Musashi taught me a truth."
"Victory is victory. There is no distinction between good and evil in victory. Meanness can be a passport for mean people, and nobility can be an epitaph for noble people."
Mifune's mouth twitched slightly and then curled up, as if mocking his meanness and shamelessness: "No matter how you try to argue, you can't hide the fact that this is your betrayal of your former master. You have surrendered to the enemy who killed your master."
Yoshitaka nodded calmly: "If you think this is a betrayal, yes, I admit it, this is a betrayal."
"No matter how you try to cover it up, you have violated the loyalty of a swordsman," Mifune continued to rebuke.
"Yes, I admit that I blasphemed loyalty." Yoshitaka said indifferently.
"Cough!" Mifune coughed up a mouthful of blood and said unwillingly, "There is no honor in a battle like this!"
"… I cannot agree with this one." Yoshitaka paused, then smiled and squinted his eyes, "Although it is not what I want to do, I have to admit that what we are doing now is the most glorious and incredible thing."
"So, it's still for 'justice'?" Mifune didn't understand and panted, "This is only temporary. As long as the war is over, justice will come sooner or later..."
"temporary?" The smile on Yoshitaka's face faded a lot. He looked at Ryuu standing in the distance and said calmly: "Do you remember what that boy said?"
"Where was justice when he needed it? Where was justice when his whole family was waiting to die?"
"War is not what they want. They have never betrayed anyone, but they are constantly let down and hurt. They lose their lives and everything..."
"Even if the war is over, so what? What is lost cannot be recovered."
Yoshitaka slowly squatted down, his eyes fixed on Mifune: "Now, he no longer needs your charity of justice. Those who have lost everything and are forced to pick up the weapon will no longer wait to die honestly."
After saying that, he finally raised the broken short sword, as if to give Mifune the final blow.
Mifune slowly closed his eyes with a complicated expression on his face, and the oath he had made when he first became a samurai flashed through his mind.
——We must bring prosperity to the Land of Iron, lead the samurai to open up the future, and let the people feel peace.
But whose prosperity was it that he wanted to bring?
The sharp and invincible sword in his hand is the future and peace he wants to open up. But whose future and peace is it?
Is it the future and peace of the nobles, or the samurai, or… All citizens?
Mifune didn't want to think about it anymore, and uttered a whisper as thin as a mosquito's murmur, "The samurai code is to be loyal to the lord."
"The warrior code of benevolence, tolerance and mercy?"
Hearing this, Yoshitaka smiled mockingly and said calmly: "For the living."
As soon as he finished speaking, the broken short sword in his hand fell.
Puff! !
Amid the noise of rain, the bloody smell became even stronger.
Yoshitaka stood up shakily, and the pain from the wound made the corner of his eye twitch. He subconsciously took a breath of cold air, but the smell was really not good.
Yoshitaka looked up and saw the sky was blood red.
It was not until the blood flowed down his eye sockets and fell on the corners of his mouth, tasting bitter, that he realized belatedly that it was not the sky that had turned blood red, but his own blood that had dyed his eyes red.
"It hurts so much…"
Yoshitaka laughed helplessly, sat down on the ground somewhat weakly, waved his hand to refuse Asuto's support, and sat there quietly.
After a while, the demons lying on the ground like "corpses" began to move. Their chests rose and fell, their bodies moved slightly, and then they sat up one after another like Yoshitaka.
The woman who was temporarily assigned to assassinate Mifune had a bloody face and her facial features were not clearly visible. She looked at the corpses scattered around in a daze and said in a hoarse voice: "We, won?"
After finishing off all the remaining warriors, Asa walked up to them, nodded, and said with a smile, "We won."
"The untouchables they called, the untouchables they looked down upon, won."
As she finished speaking, the woman's already scarlet pupils turned even redder, as if they could be squeezed to produce blood if rubbed gently.
It's not that they are not afraid of death, it's just that they have already experienced fears greater than death.
Everyone here carries hatred, hatred for the nobles and hatred for the daimyo.
"Hahaha..."
Suppressed laughter mixed with low cries were heard, and the old man who had been hiding for several years also survived.
He was a taciturn person who would rather grit his teeth than say a word. Over the years, the only time he cried was when his entire family died.
At this moment, he looked up at the cloudy sky, his voice was suppressed, weak, hoarse and hissing, like a sleeve being torn apart intermittently, but his tears did not stop, dividing into several streams, flowing down and streaming down his face.
On the ruins of the daimyo's mansion, which symbolizes the supreme power of the Land to Rain, the other demons who participated in the assassination all covered their faces, and suppressed and low voices seeped out from between their fingers.
"Ha…hahaha! Hahaha!!"
Yoshitaka couldn't tell whether it was laughter or crying, he could only hear the unbridled defiance.
He sat there, watching the scene in front of him, with an unusually complicated smile on his face.
He never thought that one day he would be able to do this for a group of strangers and risk his life for them.
"..."
The young man named Ryuu walked up to Yoshitaka, dragging Isibi, who was tied up with ropes, and bowed his head and said, "Can we kill this guy?"
Hearing this, Yoshitaka turned around and looked over. The daimyo of the Land of Rain looked like a frightened dog at this moment.
The face covered in dust and blood was extremely pale. Looking at the corpses of Mifune and the samurai in the distance, his body kept shaking, shaking his head wildly, and kept muttering "Impossible".
Mifune died, and so did the samurai.
The generals and warriors of the Land of Iron died at the hands of these untouchables.
"Don't worry." Yoshitaka retracted his gaze and said calmly, "When we took action, Asa's people had already gone to clean up the remaining samurai and ninjas in the city. He is no longer a threat at all."
As he spoke, he stretched out his hand to Asuto, who was lying on the side in a daze. Asuto, whose mind was in a mess, was stunned for a moment, but quickly came to his senses and helped him up.
"Wasn't your sister taken away by these nobles?" Yoshitaka stood up shakily and looked at the slightly dazed Ryuu and asked, "I just happened to be going to count the supplies. Do you want me to take you to look for her?"
Hearing this, Ryuu's pupils trembled and a glimmer of hope rose in his eyes.
——————————
Crack! Bang!
The dark underground secret room opened, raising a cloud of dust, and the ground was covered with cobwebs and moss.
Yoshitaka, with his upper body naked and his injuries already healed, walked in front, with only two little kids, Asuto and Ryuu, following behind him, dragging Isibi who seemed to have gone mad.
"This is the only place I haven't searched."
Yoshitaka fanned the dust in front of him, glanced at the increasingly silent Ryuu beside him, and sighed: "But, I hope you... are mentally prepared..."
Having said that, he shook his head and stopped talking, not knowing how to start again.
Even if they really found this kind of ghost place, Ryuu's sister might already be...
Ryuu also realized this, his breathing became slightly rapid, he lowered his head and whispered: "I, will."
The three of them walked to the end of the secret room. Yoshitaka pushed open the iron door in front of him. With a creaking sound, the scene behind the door appeared before their eyes.
What caught their eye was the torture instrument placed in the center and several cages around it.
These cages seemed to be iron cages used to hold wild animals.
But at this moment, the people locked in the cage were not beasts, but people.
There were naked women with dull expressions, scars all over their bodies, and skinny bodies. There were even numbers written on the collars around their necks.
Bang!!
Suddenly, he ran to a cage like crazy and grabbed the rough pillars of the iron cage, completely ignoring the scratches on his flesh.
"Elder Sister!"
Looking at the woman covered in bruises in the iron cage, Ryuu knelt on the ground and burst into tears, but the woman's eyes were still lifeless.
"Domesticating people... like livestock?"
Even though he had seen even bloodier scenes, at this moment, Yoshitaka was still shocked by the scene before him.
These people seem to be still alive, but in fact they have already died.
Emotions, dignity, humanity and everything else have disappeared, leaving only empty shells that have lost their self and soul.
Asuto looked at everything in front of him, he stood there in a daze, and his hand holding the hammer began to tremble.
All of a sudden, all kinds of emotions flooded into his heart, making him feel confused.
Pity, intolerance, anger, hatred...
Asuto didn't know.
He only knew that those nobles deserved to die! They deserved to die a thousand times!
No, just killing them would be too easy for them.
A hint of ferocity appeared on Asuto's young and honest face. He suddenly turned his head to look at Isibi who was tied up with ropes behind him, and the hammer in his hand made a teeth-grinding sound.
The breathing method that had not made any progress for a long time, at this moment, under the anger and hatred, was actually flowing out of the body after a long time.
As if sensing his gaze, Isibi looked up with a stupid expression, only to see a hammer as big as a bowl.
Bang! Puff!
Inadvertently, Asuto's control over his strength reached a terrifying extreme.
The hammer hit Isibi's eyes, and the soft eyeballs instantly caved in and shattered. Blood overflowed from the eye sockets, splattering the walls with scarlet blood.
"Ah!!"
Instantly, extremely shrill screams echoed in the sealed secret room. Isibi rolled on the ground with his eyes covered. A large amount of blood flowed out and gathered into a filthy pool of blood on the gray and dirty ground.
"You kid..."
Yoshitaka glared at Asuto but said nothing. Instead, he crossed his arms and stepped back to avoid the blood splattering on himself.
He thinks it's dirty.
(End of this chapter)