"Sis, Su-sis!"
Before they even reached Lin Yang's house, Village Chief Talon's booming voice had already travelled for two li.
With a creak, a wooden door so peeled and weathered that its original color was impossible to tell swung open, and an old lady with a head of silver hair stepped out.
This was Lin Yang's grandma, Su Xi.
"Grandma!" Lin Yang quickly stepped forward and skillfully supported Su Xi.
Su Xi's legs were bad, so Lin Yang had gone to the Spirit Hall alone.
"Xiaoyang, how did it go?"
Before Su Xi finished, Talon beside her couldn't wait to speak.
"Su-sis, you can enjoy blessings at home from now on. Xiaoyang awakened innate soul power—and rank 5 at that. Rank 5! At the very least, he can become a Soul Elder."
Talon held up five fingers, his voice trembling with excitement.
Su Xi's face was full of disbelief. Only when Lin Yang nodded did she finally accept that her grandson had indeed become a Soul Master.
To people like them, from small and humble households, becoming a Soul Master was practically bringing glory and honor to the ancestors.
"Good, good. I knew Xiaoyang would amount to something."
"Oh, right, Su-sis." Talon hurriedly introduced Su Yuntao.
"This is Master Su Yuntao, the one who presided over Xiaoyang's martial soul awakening. He wants to take Xiaoyang to the Spirit Hall. What do you think?"
"Ah… this…"
Though she was reluctant, for the sake of her grandson's future, Su Xi still decided to steel her heart.
Just as she was about to speak, Lin Yang suddenly said,
"I'm not going. Grandma is old now. I don't want to be too far away from her."
"Xiaoyang, I…"
"Grandma, please listen to me this time." Lin Yang comforted her.
"My innate soul power isn't considered high. There are so many geniuses in the Spirit Hall, I definitely won't get much attention there. It's better to go to a primary Soul Master academy first, then decide after I've grown stronger."
Listening to Lin Yang's orderly reasoning, Su Xi felt as if her grandson had suddenly grown more mature.
"Uh…" Talon couldn't help glancing at Su Yuntao, worried he'd be offended.
"I was being presumptuous."
Su Yuntao wasn't angry at all. On the contrary, he felt that although Lin Yang was young, he thought things through quite well.
"How about this: I'll issue your martial soul certificate. Three months from now, take the certificate and report to Nuoding City's Primary Soul Master Academy. We'll use the working-student quota from your village for you."
The reason he gave the working-student slot was precisely because he'd seen how poor Lin Yang's family situation was.
"Good, good, good. Thank you, Master Su." Talon said quickly.
Lin Yang also bowed slightly. "Many thanks, Master Su."
Su Yuntao personally wrote out a martial soul certificate, left his Spirit imprint on it, and handed it to Lin Yang. After a few words of encouragement, he left Red Maple Village.
"Su-sis, spend this time living well with Xiaoyang. When school starts, I'll have someone take him to Nuoding City."
Su Xi nodded. "Thank you, Village Chief."
"Hey, what's that to thank me for?" Talon waved his hand, then looked at Lin Yang with a kind expression.
"Xiaoyang is the only child in decades from Red Maple Village to possess soul power. Our village's future depends on him."
"One man's rise, and all who follow him ascend"—this was extremely common on the Douluo Continent.
After a few more instructions, Talon turned and left.
Once he'd helped Su Xi back into the house, she lit a stick of incense for her deceased husband and muttered to the spirit tablet in a low voice.
Lin Yang didn't interrupt her. He quietly left and returned to his own room.
Sitting on his bed, Lin Yang slowly raised his left hand. A flash of blood-red light appeared.
In the blink of an eye, a drop of bright crimson—almost unnaturally vivid—blood condensed and hovered above his small palm.
"How is this possible, this is…" Lin Yang's eyes hardened, his voice squeezed out through his teeth.
"Demon blood?"
That was right. Lin Yang's second martial soul was actually the blood of the Demon King.
"Could it be from that time…"
Thoughts surged in Lin Yang's mind.
At the very last moment of the final battle back then, he had been wounded by Muzan's flesh-thorn barrage. Perhaps at that time, a small amount of Muzan's blood had already entered his body.
Muzan had likely intended to turn him into a demon, but Lin Yang died too quickly.
Not only did the demon blood fail to take effect, it even underwent some kind of mutation.
Even after Muzan's death, this drop of Demon King blood had stubbornly remained, quietly lurking in his body until this martial soul awakening.
Seizing the opportunity, this drop of Demon King blood became his second martial soul.
But why hadn't he turned into a demon before? And why wasn't he afraid of sunlight?
Lin Yang touched the markings on his face.
If his guess was right, over the past six years, the reason he hadn't turned into a demon was because his Demon Slayer Mark had been firmly suppressing the demon blood, preventing it from exerting its influence.
The feeling that his innate soul power was more than rank 5 was very likely related to the consumption from the Mark suppressing the demon blood.
"If that's the case…"
His breathing suddenly changed. The markings on his face melted away like ice under the sun, revealing a distinctly handsome face.
"Just as I thought." Looking at his reflection in a mirror, a hint of joy emerged on Lin Yang's face.
Although his memories hadn't recovered in the past few years, his instincts as the Sun Pillar remained. Subconsciously, he'd been using the Mark to suppress the demon blood.
He hadn't been born with the Mark, but somehow this transmigration had made his body far more compatible with Sun Breathing.
If, in the Demon Slayer world, his compatibility with Sun Breathing had been around ninety percent, then now it was at least over two hundred percent.
Next, Lin Yang stared at the demon blood in his hand, his expression shifting between light and dark.
As the Sun Pillar, his attitude toward demons was naturally one of disgust. He would kill any demon he encountered, without exception.
Yet now, demon blood had become his second martial soul. He couldn't shake it off even if he wanted to.
After some thought, Lin Yang left the house and went to a vacant, seldom-visited stretch of wasteland behind the village.
He wanted to test what this demon blood martial soul could do.
After tossing about for an entire afternoon, Lin Yang finally figured out the state of his demon blood martial soul.
Strictly speaking, blood should be a Body-type martial soul.
But his demon blood behaved more like a special Beast-type martial soul. By entering an "attachment" state, its attributes could be added onto his body, enhancing his physique.
Once he used demon blood, Lin Yang unsurprisingly transformed into a demon.
Except for lacking Blood Demon Arts, he possessed an extreme craving for flesh and blood, fear of sunlight, enhanced physical constitution, extraordinary regeneration…
All the traits a demon should have—he had them all.
If this were ten thousand years later, he'd be a perfect seedling for an Evil Soul Master.
Fortunately, Lin Yang could control his demon blood martial soul, choosing whether to be human or demon. That was a blessing in misfortune.
"Sigh, forget it. Since it's Heaven's will, I might as well make good use of this martial soul."
It was easy to foresee that Lin Yang would be using demon blood very frequently in the future.
Just the overpowered regeneration alone was a bug in this world.
No matter how badly injured he became, as long as he didn't die on the spot, he could use demon blood to regenerate. Even being maimed wouldn't matter.
Demons were simply unreasonable like that.
Of course, he still needed to know when to lie low.
If he got too flashy, he'd be captured and dissected for research.
Moreover, so-called immortality was only relative. Aside from the sun, which was his greatest nemesis, if someone destroyed every cell in his body, they could still kill him.
Given his current strength, there were plenty of people capable of doing just that.
At the same time, he needed to find a way to overcome demon blood's weakness to sunlight.
Because of his involvement, the entire Kamado family had survived, and Nezuko had never become a demon. So by the end of his second life, no sunlight-immune demon had ever appeared.
Nezuko's experience would be hard to replicate, but this was the fantastical Douluo world—there would definitely be a way to patch up martial soul defects.
If he could fix his martial soul's flaws, perhaps… he could help Grandma Su Xi live longer.
Lin Yang quietly engraved that goal into his heart.