Chapter 97: Backstory Chapter 3: The First Experiment (Entity POV) The sake was cheap and burned all the way down, but it was the best thing I had ever tasted. The fish, too, was glorious—flaky, smoky, and gone in three bites. My body of flesh and blood, hummed with a primitive satisfaction. The adrenaline from the earlier fight had faded, leaving a deep, bone-weary tiredness, but also a strange, vibrating energy. I sat by the dying fire, staring into the embers. I could still feel the sensation of the sword cutting through the bearded man’s stomach. I still taste their blood in the air. Those three men were untrained, overconfident. I had absorbed generations of swordsmanship, from the flowing grace of Ittō-ryū to the brutal efficiency of Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū. Kurō’s body had its own muscle memory, a solid foundation of twenty years of training. But what happened when I combined the two? What were the true limits of this vessel? The body was a tool, but how deep did the well go? I needed to test my body. My gaze drifted toward the main Hosokawa camp. Hundreds of campfires dotted the valley. They were celebrating, and drunk. It’s perfect. I left the small fire and the three bodies behind, walking directly toward the largest concentration of light and noise. I didn’t sneak. I wanted to see what they would do when a monster walked into them. The first sentries saw me when I was still fifty paces away. They were two young soldiers, leaning on their spears, sharing a joke. Their laughter died when they saw me—alone, blood-soaked figure walking out of the darkness towards them. "Halt! Who goes there?" one called out, his voice cracking. I didn’t answer. I just kept walking closer to them. "State your purpose!" the other shouted, a bit more forcefully. I was twenty paces away now. They could see my red eyes. The casual way I held my sword, and the blood splattered across my chest. "Sound the alarm!" one of them yelled, his voice finally finding some urgency. The other grabbed a small brass horn and raised it to his lips. He never got to blow it. I was still ten paces away when I moved as the world seemed to slow, the space between us instantly compressed. I simply... appeared in front of him. I draw my sword and tapped him on the forehead with the pommel. His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed like a sack of rice. His partner stared, his mouth agape, his hand frozen on the horn. I looked at him, then at the horn. "Go ahead," I said, my voice a low murmur. "Make some noise." He dropped the horn and ran. The alarm was raised anyway. Shouts erupted from the camp. A group of twenty soldiers, alerted by the running sentry, formed a hasty line in front of me. They were better equipped than the patrol, their armor complete set and their stance are disciplined. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖 "Demon!" one of them screamed, the fear in his voice is clear. "An overused nickname," I observed, stopping a few feet from their line of spears. "But I suppose it’s accurate enough." This is the real test. They didn’t wait for me to make the first move. Their sergeant, a veteran with a scarred face and a grim expression, yelled, "Advance!" and the line of spears moved as one, a wall of sharp points closing in. This was where Kurō would have been forced to retreat or be overwhelmed. But im not a normal man. II flowed into the gaps. I stepped inside the reach of the first spear, my body twisting in a way no human spine should. The steel point whistled past my ear as my blade flicked out. The flat of my sword struck the sergeant’s wrist, and there was an audible *snap* as the bones broke. He screamed, dropping his spear. I was already past him, moving into the center of their formation. A spear thrust toward my back; I pivoted, my sword scything around to intercept the shaft. I redirected it, using its own momentum to guide the point into the thigh of the man standing next to him. Chaos erupted. They were trained to fight an opponent who stood still, who blocked and parried. They had no idea what to do with someone who was inside their guard, moving like a liquid that defied physics. I released a little more power. My blade became a blur. I used a spinning kick from a Korean master I had once watched, dislocating a man’s knee with a sickening pop. I used a two-sword technique from Musashi, picking up a fallen samurai’s katana and moving through their ranks in a whirlwind of steel. I was dissecting their attack, breaking it down piece by piece. I cut the straps on their armor, leaving them vulnerable. I sliced the tendons in their arms, rendering them useless. I moved through them like smoke, leaving a trail of broken men and shattered weapons. It was fascinating. The body could handle it. It was faster, stronger, and more resilient than I had imagined. The combination of Kurō’s peak physical conditioning and my own ancient consciousness was perfect. Within a minute, twenty men were on the ground, groaning, bleeding, or unconscious. Not one was dead. I hadn’t needed to kill them yet. It would have been too... boring. More were coming now. The entire camp was awake. A hundred men, two hundred, forming up, their faces a mixture of terror and grim. This was more like it. "Form a circle! Shields up!" a captain yelled, and they obeyed, creating a massive, overlapping wall of wood and iron. I walked toward them, a slow, deliberate pace. I let them see me. Let them see the red eyes, the blood-soaked clothes, the unnerving calm. I stopped ten feet from their shield wall. "This is better," I said, my voice carrying in the sudden silence. "This is a proper challenge to my self." I took a deep breath, centering myself. It was time to stop playing. I exploded forward. The distance vanished instantly, I simply *arrived* at the shield wall in a blink of an eye. My sword didn’t try to pierce their shields. It cut them in half. The hardened wood, designed to stop arrows and deflect swords, split like kindling under my blade. I broke through their line and was inside. And that’s when the real slaughter began. I moved through them like a force of nature. My movements were so fast and violent. Every cut was perfect, every movement was precise. I severed hamstrings, opened bellies, split skulls. One man lost both arms before I finished him with a thrust through the heart. Another took a sword through the mouth, the point emerging from the back of his neck. They fought back, but it was like children trying to fight a tidal wave. Their swords felt like sticks, their attaks are in slowmo. The last one to fall was the captain. He was a brave man, and he lasted almost five seconds. He charged me with a desperate roar, and I simply sidestepped, my blade lashing out and taking his head off at the shoulders. It bounced once on the trampled ground and rolled. The camp fell silent. The only sounds were the crackle of burning tents, the moans of the dying, and the steady *drip-drip-drip* of blood from my blade. I stood in the center of the carnage, my body humming with a strange, electric energy. I was covered in blood and mud, my lungs burned, and my muscles screamed in protest. And I felt... disappointed. It had been a good test. The body was a remarkable vessel. But it had limits. I hadn’t found them yet. These men, for all their numbers and courage, had been no real challenge. I finally understood why humans found violence so addictive. From the inside, every death was unique—the resistance of bone, the spray patterns of blood, the specific sound a man made when he realized he was dead. It was a chaotic, bloody, beautiful song.