“Hello, Mr. Qingyuan.”
Shi Hanfeng looked up at the sound.
The moonlight happened to fall on the visitor’s hair, dyeing that faint purple—like butterfly wings—into a gentle silver-white.
Her voice was softer than the dew dripping from the eaves, yet each word was as clear as if carved into stone.
“I am the Flower Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kochou Kanae. I heard from my team members that you defeated a Demon and claimed to come from an organization called the Sea-Roaming Swordsman?”
As she spoke, Kanae nodded slightly.
Her right hand hung naturally at her side, fingertips unconsciously rubbing the hilt of her blade.
It was her habitual alert posture when facing unknown strong foes, yet she masked it well with a gentle tone and a soft smile.
Three team members stood half a step behind her, still dazed from survival, their gazes toward Shi Hanfeng a mix of gratitude and curiosity.
Shi Hanfeng met her gaze, the corners of his lips lifting in a natural smile.
There was nothing forced about it, like ripples spreading across water from a mountain breeze.
He bowed slightly, placing his left hand on his right shoulder and performing a salute not of this era.
The movement was so fluid, it seemed practiced a thousand times.
“Pleasure to meet you, Lady Flower Pillar. Seeing evil on the road… hmm, in your words, encountering a Demon and clearing it as a matter of course.”
As he spoke, his right hand waved lightly, fingers tracing a delicate arc through the air, as if brushing away dust from his sleeve.
Kanae’s slender eyebrows twitched, like willow leaves stirred by the wind.
Her fingers, hanging by her side, paused for half a second before returning to normal.
Crows always conveyed only the key points in their reports.
The message she received was only, “A mysterious person slayed a Demon without a Nichirin Blade.”
Because of this, she had others take over caring for the wounded and came herself.
Now, seeing the young man up close, she felt his origins might be even more complicated than she had imagined.
Especially the way he mentioned Demons—so calm, as if he were speaking of stones by the roadside, even with a hint of detached classification.
It was unlike anyone she’d met: team members spoke of Demons with either burning hatred or thinly veiled terror.
Even other Pillars, when discussing such monsters, always carried some weight in their tone.
But this man spoke of it as if it were the most ordinary task, even calling it “a matter of course,” as though slaying Demons was something he was born to do.
This understanding sparked a subtle confusion in Kanae’s heart, like a pebble tossed into a lake, spreading rings of curious ripples.
Suppressing her thoughts, she lightened her tone as if chatting with a neighbor.
“Mr. Qingyuan, you’re not from this country, are you?”
As she spoke, her violet eyes remained on Shi Hanfeng’s face, not missing the faintest contraction of his pupils or the slightest movement of his lips.
It was a habit cultivated over years—the gentler the probe, the more carefully she concealed the scrutiny in her gaze.
“Your attire, accent, and the ‘Sea-Roaming Swordsman’ you mentioned… forgive my ignorance, but I have never heard of such an organization or title.”
She deliberately made the words “ignorance” especially soft, as if sincerely apologizing for her own lack of knowledge to avoid offending him.
As she finished, she tilted her head slightly, her smile gentle enough to melt winter snow, though the curiosity in her eyes was sharper than a drawn Nichirin Blade.
“Indeed, I am not,” Shi Hanfeng nodded calmly.
The explanation he’d prepared in his mind flowed out smoothly.
“I come from a distant place. I crossed the sea by ship to get here.”
He spoke the truth.
The ship of destiny was also a ship, the star sea a sea—crossing from another world to this one was itself a journey across an ‘ocean’.
“The Sea-Roaming Swordsman isn’t a strict organization either,” Shi Hanfeng continued, his left hand resting lightly on the ChÅ«tatana at his waist, fingers brushing the cold sheath.
“There are no unified commands or regulations. It’s more of a collective name for those of like mind. We roam the lands, guided by our hearts, slaying evil and upholding our own sense of justice.”
Before he finished, he raised his right hand, tapping the freshly filled earth beneath his feet with the end of his sword’s sheath.
A faint scent of blood still lingered there—the last trace left by the Demon before it vanished.
“Just so, cleansing such Aberrants is one of my main duties.”
“Aberrants?”
“Do you mean… Demons?”
Shi Hanfeng met her gaze and shook his head slowly.
“Similar, but not entirely the same.”
He organized his words, reciting the explanation he’d already prepared.
Not entirely a fabrication, but rather a translation of another dimension’s understanding into language this world could grasp.
“In my homeland and the surrounding vast seas, there exist pitiful beings who, in their blind pursuit of The Curse of Immortality, have fallen utterly.”
“They abandon their original forms and reason, twist the very nature of life, and transform into monsters that devour their kin’s flesh and life essence in vain pursuit of distorted and terrible immortality. We usually call such entities Fengrao Aberrants.”
How similar those creatures blessed with immortality by the Fengrao Star God were to the Demons of this world.
Both chased unnatural ‘eternity’, both fed on their kind, both inflicted suffering on the innocent.
Only their origins differed.
This difference, Shi Hanfeng left unspoken; there was no need to explain too deeply at this moment.
As expected, when he finished, the ever-smiling lips of Kochou Kanae pressed tight, as if pinched by invisible fingers.
Her pupils contracted, and her hand gripping the hilt tensed unconsciously.
“Fengrao… Aberrants?”
She softly repeated the strange term.
Each trait he described—pursuing immortality, abandoning form and reason, twisting life, feeding on kin—matched the characteristics of Demons precisely, as if it were another name crafted for them.
But she knew that the origin of Demons was singular—Yoriichi Tsugikuni.
For centuries, the Demon Slayer Corps had pursued the truth with all their might, never finding a second being capable of creating Demons.
Coupled with this man’s unfamiliar name, foreign appearance, and a weapon so unlike the Nichirin Blade…
A bold suspicion rose in her heart, making her breath hitch.
“In your homeland… are there beings similar to Demons as well?”
Kanae’s voice was tinged with inescapable surprise and suspicion, her hand trembling on the hilt.
It wasn’t fear, but the instinctive shock of her worldview being shaken.
She unconsciously wondered if he might be from that ancient and vast land across the sea.
A place with a different culture, perhaps harboring a source as terrifying as Yoriichi Tsugikuni that could create monsters akin to Demons.
Hearing the question, Shi Hanfeng immediately understood her line of thought.
But he had no intention of correcting it.
This world was full of unknowns.
If a Progenitor Doctor could accidentally create a monster like Yoriichi Tsugikuni, if mysterious Breathing Techniques and the Sunlight Blade existed…
Then why couldn’t other corners of this vast world produce different kinds of aberrations?
He could imagine even more possibilities.
If someone told him that across the sea were flying zombies, or cultivators who could communicate with spirits and summon lightning, or vampires in the west who feared sunlight and fed on human blood, or monsters that could stop time, he’d choose to believe first, and doubt later.
After all, Wave Breathing was a kind of Breathing Technique in essence, with similarities to the skills of the Demon Slayer Corps.
So he didn’t answer her question about nationality directly, only affirming the existence of such things.
“Yes.”
Shi Hanfeng’s tone grew heavier, as if burdened by old memories.
His gaze seemed to pierce the night, reaching toward a distant homeland.
“The calamities they caused have spread across countless lands. Once-prosperous nations and brilliant civilizations have been turned to scorched wastelands by their greed and corruption. To hunt them, to purge this cancer of life, is my duty.”
The sense of mission engraved in the destiny of a Hunter’s Arrow perfectly merged with his words, adding gravity to his tone.
“So, you consider Demons to be such Aberrants as well?”
Kanae pressed, leaning forward, curiosity in her violet eyes nearly overflowing.
She had to thoroughly understand his logic—not just to judge him, but for the Demon Slayer Corps’ future decisions.
The stance of someone able to slay Demons without a Nichirin Blade was crucial.
Shi Hanfeng met her gaze and recited the iron law forged through blood and fire.
“When any existence betrays Life’s Principles, begins to feed on its own kind, and obsesses over an immortality built upon suffering, it is wrong.”
At that moment, he felt a force, utterly different from the Fengrao, resonate with his will.
A sharp aura radiated from him, like invisible arrows poised to fly.
Even the air seemed taut.
“Whatever name it is called in the world—’Demon’, ‘monster’, or anything else—its nature has fallen into Aberrance. Its very existence is a violation of Universal Law. Against such Aberrants…”
He paused, his gaze turning blade-sharp, as if piercing the night to target every greedy presence lurking in the dark.
There was no hatred in his eyes, only a cold, almost merciless judgment—the stance of a hunter before its prey.
“The Hunter’s Arrow will always pierce their hearts!”
His words rang out, final and unwavering.
Standing behind Kanae, the three team members did not understand grand terms like “Life’s Principles” or “Universal Law”, but words such as “feeding on kin”, “trampling on life”, and “Hunter’s Arrow” struck directly at their sense of justice and hatred for Demons.
One young member couldn’t help but grip his Nichirin Blade tighter, eyes burning with renewed resolve.
Kochou Kanae was silent.
Her brows furrowed slightly, like willows crumpled by the wind, clearly trying to process the information that so far exceeded her prior understanding.
A loose alliance from overseas, hunting “Fengrao Aberrants”? Treating Demons as the same and purging them?
The explanation was astonishing, but strangely coherent.
It explained both the mysterious power to slay Demons without a Nichirin Blade and the instinctive hostility toward Demons he showed.
That hostility was not born of hatred for lost loved ones, but rather from a higher principle—a kind of “cleansing”, like a gardener pulling weeds, or a hunter chasing a beast.
This recognition only deepened Kanae’s curiosity, and added caution.