After a round of intense questioning, Riku only managed to squeeze out a pitiful amount of info. No surprise there—this oni was clueless, a real "ask three questions, get zero answers" type.
And Riku was certain this guy genuinely didn't know anything. He'd confirmed it multiple times with his iron fists.
"Alright, last question. Think you can hold out until dawn?"
Riku stood up, yanking his katana from the ground, and tossed out his final question with a smirk.
"What… does that even mean?"
The oni looked utterly confused, completely failing to grasp what Riku was getting at.
"You'll find out soon enough."
Riku let out a dark chuckle. In one swift motion, he grabbed the oni's two arms below its neck and ripped them clean off with brute force.
"Argh! What the hell are you doing?!"
The oni let out a pained howl. It was at its breaking point. It had been so cooperative, yet this guy was still this savage!
"You bastard! If you've got the guts, just kill me already!!!"
The oni was done. It had given up all hope, realizing this guy was a straight-up violence junkie who couldn't be reasoned with.
The oni had made a grave mistake—trying to reason with a being who didn't even see it as an equal.
The consequences of that mistake were never pretty. Riku knew this all too well, having made similar errors himself in the past.
"Oh, I'm planning on it."
Riku grinned, stomping down on the oni's head. He pulled his katana from its skull, and before the oni could react, he brought the blade down with a vicious slash.
Every regeneration ability has its limits. If his own had a cap, there was no reason this oni's wouldn't. So, he didn't necessarily need the sun to finish this thing off.
Killing it with sunlight wouldn't grant him any experience points, so Riku decided to take matters into his own hands and give it a shot himself.
But after a couple of swings, Riku switched to his fists. The katana was new, sure, but a samurai sword's design wasn't exactly built for durability. Hacking away like this would wear it out too fast.
Considering he might be stuck dealing with this oni all night, Riku decided to conserve his blade. Better not break it—his trusty, never-wearing-out fists were perfect for this kind of work anyway.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Riku pounded away at the oni's head, quickly reducing it to a mushy pulp. Gory, messy bits splattered all over his hand.
The oni finally fell silent, but it wasn't dead. The puddle of mush on the ground kept wriggling, trying to pull itself back together.
"Hm?"
Riku was about to keep hammering, but a faint surge of kekkijutsu (血鬼術, blood demon art) feedback pulsed through his body. His eyes flicked to Shadow Wolf.
Grr!
Shadow Wolf growled low, tearing into the oni's body, ripping off chunks of flesh. The oni's form was shredded to tatters under its relentless assault.
The scene was brutally bloody. Blood splattered all over Shadow Wolf's body and maw, but slowly, that blood seeped into its form.
"What's… this?"
Riku froze for a second, piecing it together. This kekkijutsu feedback—now he got it, including what happened last time.
It wasn't about killing. It was the blood on Shadow Wolf being absorbed that triggered it.
He was certain he'd never given Shadow Wolf any command to feed, and it had never done so before. But the blood soaking into Shadow Wolf's body? That was something he hadn't even considered until now.
Thinking about it, it made sense. After Shadow Wolf killed, Riku never bothered cleaning the blood off, yet it always vanished quickly. Where did it go? It didn't just disappear—it was all absorbed by Shadow Wolf.
"But this kekkijutsu feedback feels different from last time when Shadow Wolf killed. Is it because this guy's an oni?"
Riku resumed his pummeling, smashing the reforming mush apart while savoring the faint kekkijutsu feedback.
Last time, the feedback had boosted his kekkijutsu, slightly enhancing Shadow Wolf and giving Riku a minor boost to his physical abilities. But this time, the feedback seemed to focus entirely on his own attributes, with no effect on his kekkijutsu.
"Is it because this oni doesn't use kekkijutsu?"
Riku mulled it over, but it was hard to say for sure. He didn't have enough data—more experiments were needed.
If Shadow Wolf could absorb blood, could it devour an entire oni? The thought popped into Riku's head unbidden.
Sure, he didn't see oni as human, but eating one himself? That'd make his stomach churn—not physically, but mentally. It was a psychological line he wasn't keen on crossing.
Unless it was absolutely necessary, he'd rather gnaw on his own fingers than chomp on an oni. Gross, yeah, but less so than the alternative.
But if Shadow Wolf did the eating? That, Riku could stomach. Wolves eat meat—it's just their nature. Just not human meat.
Killing bad guys? Fine. Getting blood on his hands? Unavoidable. He couldn't exactly bench Shadow Wolf in a fight. But eating humans? That was a hard no. Riku's moral line was firm, and he wasn't about to cross it.
He paused his onslaught and gave Shadow Wolf a command, though he wasn't entirely confident it'd work.
Receiving the order, Shadow Wolf didn't hesitate. It opened its massive jaws and chomped down on the oni's body in one swift bite.
A surge of kekkijutsu feedback flooded into Riku's body. It worked—Shadow Wolf could absorb the oni's power by devouring it!
Shadow Wolf didn't stop, taking a few more bites. The kekkijutsu feedback kept flowing into Riku.
[Constitution +1]
The Limit System pinged with a notification, and Riku's eyes widened.
He could feel his physical strength growing, directly reflected in the Limit System's six-dimensional attributes.
But the kekkijutsu feedback came and went quickly. After Shadow Wolf devoured most of the oni's body, the feedback stopped.
Riku signaled Shadow Wolf to stop. No point in continuing if the feedback had dried up.
"That's like getting a free attribute point."
Riku was stunned. He hadn't expected the effect to be this pronounced. The results were beyond his wildest expectations.
As expected, if an oni wants to grow stronger fast, eating is the way to go.
"But what exactly does this devouring do to the oni being eaten?"
Riku's gaze drifted to the wriggling mush on the ground. It was still moving, but noticeably slower now.
"Maybe I can ask this oni how it feels."
Riku held off on more pummeling. He decided to wait for the oni to regenerate and then interrogate it about its experience.
[Ding! Experience +80]
But before long, the system pinged again.
Riku blinked, looking back at the mush. In the moonlight, the puddle and the oni's half-body crumbled into ash, vanishing completely.
Fun fact: The idea of devouring oni was inspired by the concept of "Oni Devourer" lol.