Chapter 95: Four Saint Beasts: Suzaku
"Ugh! So this is what Byakko was eating? No wonder he was depressed and irritable."
Looking at the two independent spawn points below Suzaku's Domain as they began producing large numbers of humanoid units, Yusuke and Kuwabara's faces went flat with disgust.
These humanoid units barely held the shape of an average human body. Their skin was a mixture of various greens, covered in markings that resembled advanced cadaver lividity. Their eyes were blank. Their hair drooped like strips of rotted banana peel left outside for two weeks. When they walked they made soft, wet sloshing sounds, dragging across the floor like a soaked mop.
Compared to these things, even the Rotting Hungry Ghosts outside looked full of vitality.
These were the "farmed humans" that Byakko and Genbu had used during their confinement in the castle as a substitute for fresh humans. Livestock feed.
In fairness, Byakko's comparison of farmed humans to soy products and real humans to meat was actually quite accurate. A person in a vegetative state is basically on a vegetarian diet after all.
Their combat capability was negligible. Pure numbers. Complete cannon fodder. Suzaku was using them to stall.
The question was whether they could pull it off.
Ross was already crouching in place, a circular saw of Nen aura blazing around his body.
[Cartridge/Template mapping switch complete.]
[Your current mapped game protagonist has switched to: Sonic.]
[Your mapped protagonist abilities have switched to: Transmutation Affinity (Grade A), Sonic Speed Movement (Grade D, Lv5), Golden Ring Lifeline (Grade C, Lv2).]
And then he launched forward from a dead stop.
The farmed humans looked soft and limp, but their actual combat power wasn't entirely negligible. Having no self-will at all, only instinct, their artificial muscles carried no natural inhibition, allowing them to generate force far exceeding what their appearance suggested.
Against Sonic Impact, which specialized in treating people like bowling pins, none of that mattered.
[Sonic Speed Movement: Grade D, Lv5 (722/1500), Passive ability. Previous description applies.
The player will accelerate to their physical speed limit within at most 3 seconds (originally 5 seconds).
After the player activates Sonic Impact, it makes an independent judgment against each hostile target in sequence, continuing until the judgment fails or is blocked by an obstacle. (Lv4 additional effect)]
Bowling ball and bowling pins?
At this point Ross was moving with the momentum of a car at full speed. Still no match for a head-on collision with an eighteen-wheeler, but against these obstructing farmed humans, the attitude was the same as approaching speed bumps.
A single charge cleared an open path. The farmed humans who were knocked flying crashed into others of their kind, triggering a chain of knockdowns like dominoes that left none of them managing to get back up for a while.
Nobody was afraid of this level of cannon fodder, but not wasting effort on them... on it... was also fine.
Yet another spiral staircase. Whatever the Four Saint Beasts had against straight staircases remained a mystery. But in the timeline where only Yusuke made it to the top alone, there were now five people walking in at once.
Mineral. Beast. Zombie. Pretty boy. The variety distribution of the Four Saint Beasts.
Somewhat reluctant to admit it or not, when everyone got a clear look at the man standing alone at the top, they had to acknowledge it: this was someone who could stand alongside Kurama in terms of looks, and he carried not a single trace of animal characteristics.
"I am the leader of the Four Saint Beasts. Suzaku.
This is where you meet your end."
Bearing the face that Kuwabara found deeply irritating, Suzaku delivered his declaration with what appeared to be no fundamental difference from the others.
And yet, for some reason, Ross couldn't shake the feeling that the Suzaku standing in front of him seemed a little off.
Like something was... missing.
"One, two, three, four, five. Five people. That will do."
Before Ross's group had even responded, Suzaku made a strange gesture: both hands, six fingers interlaced, index fingers and thumbs pressed together against each other. Demon aura surged.
Demon aura condensed and took form. One after another, perfect copies of Suzaku himself began separating out: identical in every way, except that none of the copies held the strangely-shaped flute.
Worth noting: when Kurama and Hiei saw Suzaku begin moving, both tensed immediately and prepared to act. But when they saw him actually producing clones, both stopped.
Even Yusuke and Kuwabara, who had slightly delayed reactions and were about to interrupt the technique mid-cast, were held back by Ross.
As if he was deliberately letting Suzaku finish.
"I admit it. I underestimated you before. I won't do that again."
"Since you came with five, I will respond with seven."
"This is the supreme demon art that divides my single self into seven!"
"You may think these are merely copies. What I want you to understand is..."
"All seven are real."
"This is the Dark Secret Art! Dark Demon Shadow Formation!"
Seven Suzakus. Seven voices speaking as one, filling the chamber.
The invaders split sharply into two reactions.
Yusuke and Kuwabara were visibly stunned. The one-becomes-seven demon art hit them hard, and the shock was impossible to hide.
Ross, Hiei, and Kurama, by contrast, all wore subtly complicated expressions, as if each of them was writing "are you really doing this?" across their faces.
"Tenshinhan's Multi-Form. Dark Suzaku edition."
Ross put a label on it immediately.
Compared to the strict vow-and-restriction framework human Nen users had to follow when developing abilities, demons genuinely did have certain natural advantages in this area. Like Rando, they could access more and stronger abilities at a lower cost.
An ability like this, where all seven split forms are genuine, would be extraordinarily difficult for a human to develop. The difficulty would go beyond extreme into requiring specific prerequisite conditions to even be viable. Perhaps only people with certain dissociative conditions would have any realistic chance, and even then the split forms would carry a high probability of working against each other.
Suzaku had done it anyway, and the aura, Nen energy, and life force of all seven were perfectly complete. Without some kind of special identifying mark, there would be no way to find the original.
But even the most gifted ability still had to follow certain fundamental rules of the world.
Anyone who had watched Dragon Ball and seen Tenshinhan use the Multi-Form would know: an ability where all copies are genuine actually carries a greater hidden cost than a standard Nen clone.
One person's total potential aura does not multiply sevenfold just because of a cloning technique. It can only become one-seventh of the original through self-division, possibly even less.
Letting it split into this many genuine copies had actively weakened each one individually.
Just as the fight was about to break out, though, the single figure among the seven still holding the strangely-shaped flute stepped back several paces, letting the other six advance toward Ross's group.
The original raised his hand. Mureike, just now flying in through the open window, dropped an ancient scroll into it, radiating something ominous. Suzaku shook it open and let it float in the air before him.
"Listen! Dark Sonata: Flute Movement!"
Ross, Hiei, Kurama... their expressions changed completely.