edge. I swung Kamigoroshi, severing heads, cutting off arms, splitting corpses in half as they staggered toward me. The boat was small, and there was a seemingly endless amount of bodies rising from the depths, filling the air with tortured moans and the stink of rot. Kamigoroshi flashed, and body parts flew everywhere, splashing into the lake or landing in the bottom of the boat.
“Come on,” I growled, slicing through a pair of corpses at once. “This is too easy. At least try to make it somewhat of a challenge.”
As if in answer, more bodies climbed into the boat. As I raised my sword to deal with the swarm in front of me, a cold, clammy hand grabbed my ankle from behind. I turned and kicked the corpse in the face, felt its jaw snap under my boot, before the specter slid beneath the lake’s surface again.
Something landed on my back, and sharp nails dug into my flesh and soaked my haori jacket with icy lake water. The reek of rotten fish made my eyes burn as the creature hissed in my ear and bent to bite my neck. I reached back, grabbed the rank, slimy skull and crushed it between my fingers, then yanked the corpse off my back and hurled it at the specters still in the boat, sending them all tumbling back into the lake.
Silence fell, the only sound the quiet lapping of water against the sides of the vessel. I waited, Kamigoroshi pulsing in my hand, but no more bodies crawled out of the lake, seeking to drag me down to the bottom. After kicking away the body parts scattered on the floor of the boat, I picked up the oars and continued rowing.
A few minutes later, there was a loud scraping sound as the boat bottom hit a rocky shore, impossible to see in the mist. I stepped into knee-high water and dragged the boat onto land, before straightening and gazing at my surroundings.
Fog still drifted around me, though not as thick as out on the lake, and through the gloom I could make out a few jagged trees, barren of foliage, jutting crookedly toward the sky. The ground was a mix of rock and mud; there was no grass, and only a few withered bushes huddled beneath the tree trunks. The taint of Jigoku was strong here, courtesy of what was buried on this island. The very land was saturated with infection, tendrils of corruption seeping into everything. This was indeed a cursed place, and it made me a little homesick. Jigoku wasn’t all fire and brimstone. Beyond the demon cities, away from the screaming, the torture and the constant fighting, there were places like this, barren, misty and ominous, with only a few tormented souls hanging from the trees.
I wondered if the realm had changed in the time I’d been gone. If the demons, oni and O-Hakumon, the ruler of Jigoku, remembered me.
With a snort, I shook myself, dissolving the sudden thoughts of my home realm and the memories of several thousand years. I had spent too much time in the heads of these weak-willed humans. Reminiscing about the past was futile. If O-Hakumon and the rest of my kin had forgotten me during the long millennia that I’d been trapped in the mortal realm, then I would remind them who I was and why I had been Jigoku’s greatest demon.
Resolved, I began walking farther inland.
The island wasn’t large, and even in the fog, I soon found what I’d been looking for. It was impossible to miss, really. A few undead roamed around the base of a jagged, rocky hill, moaning and shambling aimlessly through the trees. After cutting them down, I circled the obsidian outcropping until I reached the narrow mouth of a cave, really just a split in the rock wall, nearly hidden by brush and hanging vines. The dirt around the cave entrance was littered with bones, and one of the withered bushes twisted around as I passed, raking at me with thorny branches. I ignored the corrupted plant and ducked into the narrow crevice, turning sideways to squeeze into the cave.
My eyes adjusted instantly to the pitch-blackness, for which I was glad. I might’ve had to share this weak mortal body with Tatsumi, but the demonslayer was a creature of shadow, more comfortable in the darkness than the light, and his physical form reflected that. The cave was small, barely bigger than a hole in the rocks, but on