Douluo Continent, Huo Yuhao who returned from Sekiro

Chapter 2 A Feeling of Loss

Huo Yuhao slept soundly from morning until evening. During this time, his mother, Huo Yun'er, tried to wake him, but he, who was usually so perceptive that he could deflect every bullet from a rapid-fire musket with the blade of a knife, did not react at all. It wasn't until Huo Yun'er went out to buy things that Huo Yuhao slowly woke up.

In the past year, he had never slept so comfortably for so long. In terms of sleep duration, sleep quality, and the sense of security he felt while sleeping, this was the most restful sleep Huo Yuhao had ever had.

Subconsciously, I reached my right hand towards my left waist, but the familiar, cold touch didn't come. First, I felt a subconscious panic, followed by relaxation and a sense of loss.

Huo Yuhao slowly got out of bed. There was a note under the empty bowl on the table.

"Yuhao, get up and go to the stove to get some meat pies from the pot. They should still be mild."

Huo Yuhao carefully folded the note and put it in his pocket. He plopped down on the bed. Although he was only six years old, his eyes revealed a sense of vicissitude, as if he had lived through many years.

In that dreamlike year, he had no soul power, no soul tool, only fragmented combat skills as a ninja and incomplete pieces of memories.

Huo Yuhao could never forget the day he cautiously moved like a stray dog ​​whose tail had been cut off, huddled in the grass, and finally managed to avoid the patrol of the Ashina samurai and arrive safely in front of the Moon Tower.

Huo Yuhao crawled into the Moon Tower through a hole in the cliff behind it, looking extremely disheveled. There he met the Divine Child (Imperial Child) who would influence his life, a child as weak and thin as he had been in the past.

At that time, he was holding a collection of poems by the dim candlelight. The book contained the works of Li Bai, who was known as the "Poet Immortal" in the East, including "Five Poems on Dongting Lake (Part Two)".

"Ah, my ninja, you've come."

Shenzi Jiulang quickly jumped down from the pile of books, tenderly stroking Huo Yuhao's weathered face. He then laboriously handed Huo Yuhao a katana that was more than half his height and took out a gourd of medicine that could heal injuries.

Perhaps it was this sudden warmth that made Huo Yuhao feel a little overwhelmed. After seeing Jiulang carefully using the medicine from the gourd to wipe his wounds, an idea inexplicably arose in Huo Yuhao's mind.

Is helping to clean a wound something only friends would do?

Seeing Lord Jiulang diligently bandaging his wounds by the dim candlelight, Huo Yuhao's heart was touched to the deepest part.

In the Duke's mansion, Huo Yuhao never had any friends his own age; all he received was the Duchess's cold stares and increasingly blatant discrimination.

Although Huo Yuhao didn't understand the meaning of the long string of words the Divine Child spoke while bandaging, there was one sentence that Yuhao understood: he was making plans to leave Ashina. If that was the case, then he was trying to escape, right?

Looking at his bandaged body and the black katana in his hand, Huo Yuhao couldn't help but have a thought, a result of the combined effect of the remaining memories in his mind and Huo Yuhao's own reaction.

This is my friend, and I must protect him at all costs, just as the commandment in my mind says.

The ninja's creed is to always remember those who are second only to their parents, to protect them with their lives, and to rescue them if they are taken from them.

At that time, Huo Yuhao did not realize how heavy the promise in his heart was. It was a promise that could only be fulfilled by sacrificing lives, dancing in blood and fire time and time again, being covered in wounds, having broken bones and tendons, and even crawling out of hell countless times.

Huo Yuhao tried to negotiate with the Ashina followers, and even tried to beg for mercy on his knees, but the result was always the same: his stomach was slashed open, his intestines, which were more than ten meters long, spilled out, and he was beheaded with a single blow from a cleaved katana.

The immortality brought by the Dragon's Blood allowed him to revive and fall repeatedly, revive again and fall again. Even if he was thrown off a cliff and smashed to pieces, he would wake up again in front of a certain Ghost Buddha.

After being killed by the same samurai more than ten times, Huo Yuhao, who was only six years old and about the same age as the Divine Child, suddenly realized something: weakness and begging for mercy were of no use.

There's a saying that children from poor families mature early. The essence of this saying is that children from poor families are exposed to the realities of the world earlier and have to accept them. Huo Yuhao is a perfect example of this.

It's like that proverb from the frigid winter: Failure is so cold, but Moscow doesn't believe in tears.

From that day on, Huo Yuhao abandoned the weakness in his heart. Perhaps it wasn't abandonment, but rather hiding it. However, it is undeniable that since then, the only side Huo Yuhao has shown to his enemies is the sharp edge of a blade.

After having his left arm severed by Genichiro, Huo Yuhao tried to bite his opponent with the fangs of a ninja. Struck by lightning from the sky, Huo Yuhao learned to retaliate with lightning without touching the ground. He was then finely chopped into minced meat by the twin-sword white ape. Huo Yuhao, disregarding martial ethics, set off two firecrackers and, taking advantage of his opponent's confusion, beheaded him with a single blow.

As long as he can rescue Jiulang, Huo Yuhao doesn't care whether the means he uses are noble or despicable. As long as he can improve his martial arts, Huo Yuhao is never stingy in learning the essence of the martial arts from his enemies who have killed him dozens or hundreds of times, so as to learn from the barbarians' strengths to defeat them.

After overcoming countless hardships, he stormed the castle tower and rescued Kuro. Using the Senpou Kick, the most skilled technique of the Senpou monks, he smashed the gate of Senpou Temple, took the Mortal Blade (which was fatal if drawn), stunned the Guardian Ape guarding the Fragrant Water Lily with two pounds of explosives, and shamelessly sprinkled a bag of lime on the face of a deviated monk. He also took the Lodging Stone, which was offered with Fountainhead Water.

Not only that, he also fought his way to the immortal realm where the god Cherry Dragon resided, stunned him with heavenly lightning, cut open his eyeball and took out a tear, and with the help of his adoptive father's guardian bell, took away the blooming Cherry Blossom. In order to fulfill that promise, Huo Yuhao really risked everything.

In order to allow his friend Jiulang to live as a normal person, Huo Yuhao even ended his own life, because only in this way could the power of the Dragon's Blood completely stop flowing.

"Sir, Lady Emma, ​​the peddler Anayama, and Kotaro."

Huo Yuhao felt somewhat lost. Apart from his memories, everything about Ashina seemed like a dream. He was no longer the one-armed wolf who could fly and escape into the earth, but just a little boy who was only six years old and barely surviving in the Duke's mansion.

"Really, there's nothing left?"

Huo Yuhao subconsciously reached out his hand, staring blankly at it. Suddenly, a sky-blue Buddha candy appeared silently in his hand.

Huo Yuhao was immediately shocked.

(End of this chapter)