The instant the colorless orb left the dog's jaws, every sound within the abdominal space of Tōga's corpse vanished.
Vacuum.
A physical vacuum.
That fist-sized mass of condensed purity and impurity, the moment it shot forth, it utterly squeezed the air dry within a radius of several meters.
Sesshōmaru's half-beast body was caught mid-charge, his dog-claws raised high, venom stretching into emerald threads between his fingers. His power-gathering stance had reached its apex. There was no time to pull back.
His reaction had already been fast enough, his golden slit-pupils had detected the danger the instant the orb left the dog's jaws. His hind legs, covered in short silver-white fur, kicked off the ground violently, shifting him sideways.
His speed was immense. So immense that ordinary demons could not even perceive an afterimage.
But Furukami was faster.
To be precise, it had no speed at all.
It required no flight. No arrival.
The detonation of the pure-impure collision was a spherical shockwave expanding outward from the point of convergence. The dog's jaws were merely the release point. The true coverage was a full omnidirectional annihilation, centered upon Sesshōmaru's position, with a radius exceeding 150 meters.
Sesshōmaru had just shifted sideways.
The edge of the shockwave had already caught him.
The colorless expansion erupted outward from the orb's position. No flames. No roar. Only a sense of distortion, as though space itself had been flattened.
Sesshōmaru raised his right arm to block.
And then his arm broke.
Even though the short silver-white fur stood on end the instant the shockwave touched it, and even though the demonic energy beneath his skin instinctively condensed into armor, the defensive power of a daiyōkai's body was drawn to its absolute limit in that moment.
Yet still, it was not enough.
The shockwave tore through the surface of the silver-white fur. Then came his chest. Then nearly the entire right half of his body.
The remnants of his silver armor, those shattered plates still clinging to his form from the half-beast transformation, were all pulverized into dust. Blood sprayed through the air like rain, dispersing into chaotic, roiling demonic energy.
Sesshōmaru's body tumbled once within the shockwave. His feet plowed two trenches 30 cm deep into the bone floor before he barely managed to stabilize himself.
He dropped to one knee.
His silver-white hair spilled loose, veiling half his face. The crimson within his golden slit-pupils had receded by more than half, restoring a portion of the clarity of his full humanoid form.
But what was written within that clarity was more terrifying than fury.
Shock.
Even… fear.
A natural-born daiyōkai.
The eldest son of the dog-demon clan. The heir of the Western Lands.
He had been gravely wounded by a demon warrior who should have been nothing more than a lesser yōkai.
Though the other had borrowed his father's residual demonic energy. Borrowed Tessaiga's assistance. Borrowed the blessing of a demon-artifact domain.
The result still stood before him.
He was critically wounded. So severely that he could not continue fighting in the short term.
Sesshōmaru's remaining left hand braced against the ground. Venom dripped from between his fingers, searing small, hissing craters into the bone surface.
He tried to stand.
His left hand pushed against the floor. The claws of his dog-fingers carved five furrows into the bone. His knee lifted an inch, then fell back.
The right half of his body had lost its balance and support, along with an entire arm.
The wounds were too severe.
His chest armor was shattered. Blood poured freely. The sternum and ribs within had all been pierced and ground to fragments. Nearly all his internal organs had been hollowed out.
In such a state, a daiyōkai would not die.
But he was gravely wounded.
It was a tear of "Phenomenon."
His very essence had been pierced through.
Furukami, the collision of purity and impurity, was, in essence, precisely this. That instantaneous impact was enough to annihilate all Phenomenon directly… and overwrite it.
Leaving wounds that could not be healed.
Against a daiyōkai, unless one possessed a special blade capable of cutting Phenomenon, the best method was to use a power approaching or equal to their own to cover and "overwrite" their Phenomenon itself.
It was like filling a flowing stream with obstruction. Otherwise, the water would flow back. The Phenomenon would revert.
Only by blocking it, could one inflict an indelible wound.
Inflict permanent, crippling damage!
Sesshōmaru tried again.
Still could not stand.
A third time.
The instant his left knee left the ground, a dull thud resounded from within his chest. More blood poured out.
Sesshōmaru knelt on one knee.
He had never knelt before. Not since the moment of his birth.
"…"
The crimson within his golden slit-pupils had completely faded.
He gasped for breath. With great difficulty, he lifted his gaze.
Before him, within the Shura War-Dog, within the Majestic Armor, a figure cloaked in crimson scales lowered its gaze.
The Māra.
Their eyes met.
Within Sesshōmaru's gaze, only utter, absolute bewilderment remained. As though he could not comprehend. Could not understand.
Yet he did not move.
Could not move.
Amidst this, only a single sound.
Ting.
Exceedingly soft.
The sound of metal striking metal.
At Sesshōmaru's waist, that blade which had always hung quietly, which he had never once actively drawn, slid from its sheath on its own.
Tenseiga.
The other relic Tōga had left to his eldest son.
The Blade That Does Not Kill, the counterpart to Tessaiga.
This blade could not harm the living. Yet it could slay Underworld Messengers and resurrect the dead.
But at the same time, Tenseiga also possessed the characteristic of automatically deploying a protective barrier when its wielder faced mortal danger.
This was the deepest will that Tōga had infused into the blade at its forging.
Even though Sesshōmaru himself regarded it as a humiliation, what his father had left him was, in the end, a blade to preserve his life.
Tenseiga's blade floated forth from the mouth of its scabbard. Its entire body radiated a soft, blue-white light.
The light condensed around Sesshōmaru, forming a spherical barrier roughly 3 meters in diameter, enveloping him completely.
And then, the light flashed.
The barrier, along with Sesshōmaru, vanished from within the abdominal cavity.
Tenseiga possessed the ability to connect to various spaces. In that moment of crisis, it had chosen the most extreme form of protection, directly teleporting Sesshōmaru out of this cleft of the underworld.
Returning him to the mortal realm.
The abdominal cavity of Tōga's corpse fell silent once more.
At the spot where Sesshōmaru had vanished, only a small patch of silver-white fur remained, along with the severed right arm.
The severed limb rapidly dissolved after separating from its main body, transforming into gray powder.
Shinji had witnessed the entire sequence.
He did not pursue.
Because he could not, Tōga was watching from the side.
Nor was there any need.
After this encounter, so similar to the original story, Sesshōmaru would surely come to understand many things.
At the same moment, the demonic energy Tessaiga had devoured in that fleeting instant was finally exhausted.
The canine skeleton of the Shura War-Dog, deprived of Tessaiga's continuous infusion of demonic energy, began to collapse.
Golden light bled from the gaps in its frame. The flames in the canine skull's eye sockets extinguished. The bones of its four limbs shattered and fell, one after another.
The skeletal giant dog vanished completely.
The Shura Form also retracted.
The 60 meters Bone Thunder colossus compressed, shrank, and finally merged back into Shinji's body.
He stood where he was.
The Māra transformation also receded. The crystalline demon horns upon his head disappeared. The crimson scale armor surged back beneath his skin.
His gray robes, now restored, were coated in a layer of bone dust.
In his hand, he held Tessaiga.
The blade had already reverted from that colossal, canine-projection state back to its original form.
A crescent-fang-shaped broad blade.
Silver-white patterns flowed across its surface. The fur upon its hilt stirred faintly.
But compared to when it had first been drawn, there was a subtle change.
Upon its cutting edge, an exceedingly faint layer of gray-violet radiance now clung.
It was the trace left behind after absorbing the residual demonic energy of Tōga.
Though the demonic energy was exhausted, something still remained.
What a pity, that beast-like manifestation had been a one-time thing.
Even with the ability to absorb demonic energy, replicating that degree of transformation would be exceedingly rare.
But the pulse within the blade was now more distinct than before.
It was as though something within had half-awakened.
Shinji silently felt the vibration transmitted through his palm.
"So this is Tessaiga's form in my hands? Devouring demonic energy. Granting it the form of a demon beast."
From the corner, Tōga's remnant soul drifted over.
His molten-gold eyes looked at Tessaiga. The surprise in his voice had already faded. In its place was an indescribable sigh of sentiment.
"Tessaiga changes itself according to its wielder's understanding of 'protection.' If it were that boy Inuyasha, or even Sesshōmaru wielding it, it would likely be something simple: swing the blade, slay demons, break a hundred with one strike.
"But you are different."
Tōga's remnant soul looked at Shinji.
"I can see it. Your protection is not merely about slaughter. You build walls. You forge artifacts. You weave domains.
"Your way of protecting those behind you, is to make yourself stronger. So strong that nothing can pass over you.
"It is not as simple as merely destroying everything before you."
"So what Tessaiga gives you, is not merely attack. It also gives you a wall."
"Absorbing external demonic energy. Mimicking the form of a demon beast to reinforce yourself. In your hands, this blade is the equivalent of an armor that forever evolves on its own."
Not merely slaughter.
In other words, if Shinji wished, he could still use it to manipulate demonic energy and unleash powerful slashes capable of cutting down hundreds of demons in a single strike.
But that was no longer its greatest function.
A weapon capable of absorbing the enemy's demonic energy and mimicking it into a demon beast, this kind of growth potential, in prolonged combat, absolutely surpassed any single ultimate technique.
Moreover, in that brief state of the Majestic Armor Shura just now, Tessaiga had absorbed the residual demonic energy of Tōga and filled the gap in the Five Elements domain.
Though only temporarily, it had already proven that it could also simulate demonic energy.
This had, in truth, given Shinji tremendous inspiration.
When he later forged the Water-element blade from the Cat-Demon's Claw and the Venomous Dragon Reverse Scale, he would have a much clearer path to follow.
Beyond that, Shinji looked forward with great anticipation to what this Tessaiga might bring once cultivated to maximum Affection.
"…Thanks."
Shinji looked at the Tessaiga in his hand and spoke one word.
Tessaiga trembled once within his palm.
Then he sheathed the blade, and it reverted to that tattered, worn-out appearance.
After this, Shinji turned toward Tōga's remnant soul.
"You truly are at ease, letting me deal with your son like that, Inu no Taishō of the Western Lands."
He used the honorific.
"Just call me Tōga. It's no great matter."
Tōga's expression was very calm. His arms were folded across his chest, though his semi-transparent arms seemed to be holding onto nothing at all.
"Tenseiga will protect him. That blade's very purpose of existence is this."
"No matter how much that Sesshōmaru looks down upon it, when it comes down to it, the blade that saves his life will still be this one, the one he considers useless."
He spoke these words with a casual air, as though the matter had nothing to do with him.
But within his molten-gold eyes, the light flickered and swelled amidst the drifting light-dust.