"Nik! You really don't have to do this!"

Mitsuri stammered as Nik bashed the head of three slightly sturdier and complete zombies with ease as his War Gauntlets shone dully under the moonlight.

"No, I was the one who invited you to call me after you were free. Although accidentally, I couldn't come and relieve you. So let me do the heavy work."

Nik refused Mitsuri's refusal of his assistance and extracted the pure energy from the zombies before looking for other zombies and continuing his massacre. The number of Zombies had increased quite a lot and even the ground was littered by arms of the zombies that tried to walk free.

Meanwhile, Nik's evolution was also hastened with the influx of energy. And with the history of controlling two types of energy— Elemental and Hamon— Nik was growing closer to mastering this new form of energy.

His actions caused Mitsuri's cheeks to flush as she finally stopped resisting Nik's assistance and started to assist Nik instead, striking when he missed. This way, the duo started to clear quite a lot of Zombies at a quick pace. But, the duo knew that the number itself was the problem and the most efficient manner in this slaughter was to take out the stronger foes while the weaker and the slower ones are to be left to the line of defense of a large number of demon slayers surrounding the perimeter.

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

As Nik and Mitsuri partnered up in tonight's slaughter, a wild guffaw rang followed by the entrance of an Inosuke estranged from his herd as he claimed the head of any and every Zombie unfortunate enough to walk into his path of rush before the wild Inosuke ran away.

Seeing Mitsuri's expression that was on verge of guffawing itself, Nik smiled and uppercutted the head of a Zombie, tearing his head off its poor neck.

The head flew into the air and Nik instantly materialized his Nichirin blade before swiping his blade in a circular motion to cleave the heads of three zombies encroaching to sink their jaws in the sweet meat of their allied undead.

Swish!

Even though Nik had already identified a zombie approaching from behind, Nik let Mitsuri strike, or her sword would have cut his hand. He sighed internally. Mitsuri and Nik were not in sync. They were slowly getting a hang of each other in battle, but it would still take some time to understand each other's habits in battle.

"Nice!"

Nik smiled at Mitsuri before covering the five dead zombies with his neutral energy and extracted the pure energy into his body. As he felt the thin stream of the accumulated energy bloating enough, Nik finally tried to seize control of the flow of energy and try to alter its path within his body to slowly develop control of the energy and then finally, gain a slight affinity with such useful energy.

Alas, he couldn't wrestle the control out of the natural flow and sighed softly when the soft growls of slowly emerging zombies filled the surroundings once again.

"Breath of Gravity: First Form—

Crushing Spectre!"

The remaining five points of energy got consumed as Nik slammed his palms into the ground and instantly, the area of the 20-meter radius with Nik as the center sunk considerably. The strange action and the sudden disappearance of the 'growing'0 zombies elicited a confused gaze from Mitsuri.

"I crushed them while they were still under."

Nik stood up with deep exhalation and then looked around. With his [Life Vision] on a temporary hold due to insufficient energy, Nik relied on his [Perfect Eyesight] to predict the arrival of zombies.

"Nik, what did you have in store for me, this afternoon, I mean."

Mitsuri inquired curiously while she sheathed her sword and walked closer to Nik. Truly, it was a wonder to Nik how Mitsuri's breasts didn't just... pop out from her shirt they way she clothed herself, but either way, he was in no position to complain. He loved those babies exposed or clothed.

"A massage."

Nik placed his swords back into his inventory and matched Mitsuri's gaze, "I planned a great massage for you... no hanky panky stuff. Just a normal massage."

Mitsuri frowned and pondered for a moment, "What does Hanky Panky mean?"

"Sex, of course."

Nik grinned while Mitsuri averted her gaze with a deep flush.

'So hot~'

"So shameful!"

Her thoughts didn't match her words, but Nik did not care. They both were connected and their feelings for each other were well-known.

As the battle raged on Nik and Mitsuri swiftly took care of each zombie. But soon, they did observe a slight increase in strength of the zombies that weren't encountered the moment they popped out of the ground. Evidently, these drifters had arrived at this place after a long journey that made them devour each other. Each of the zombies that were already walking was stronger and faster. Even when they attacked the living with clear intention to kill, their method of attack, however, tilted in a more civilized manner. They were aiming for weak points instinctively.

And they also had a brittle set of teeth. Of course, Nik did not doubt that these creatures would only get stronger and so will their teeth.

Finally, before Nik could cut his opponent down, his foe screamed in pain and anguish as the sun's ray finally broke the dawn alongside the back of the zombie. They had survived another day and only needed to battle for eighteen more days.

Before returning, Elizabeth had commanded the troops to thoroughly search the area around the village for new caves or the sorts of locations that could restrict sunlight to exposed any hidden Zombie that may have been intelligent enough to hide in the first place. Finding none, the group of demon slayers returned with sighs of relief.

"Yo!"

Nik smiled and greeted everybody on the breakfast table. Seeing Nik, Nezuko instantly jumped from the seat beside Tanjiro, eliciting a tear to escape from the eyes of the anguished brother and instantly coronated Nik's lap with the presence of her butt.

"Hum!"

She nodded with a fierce 'hum' and raised her head to smile at Nik.

"You two certainly enjoyed yourself yesterday."

Shinobu complained with a hint of annoyance.

"Hey, I invited all of you."

Nik raised his hands and looked towards his hut. He just received a message from Yuriko. A message that brought a smile to Nik's face. A smile that everyone was familiar with.

Rei and Saya huffed. But this time, Nik looked at Saya and smiled, "Say, Saya... what do you think—"

"Fine!" Saya glared at Nik before swishing her hair with a hint of arrogance, "If you desperately need my presence, I would grace you with it."

"Thanks!"

Nik smiled and broke into his food and the others followed soon. Before leaving, however, Nik did apologize to his members for not being able to accompany each one of them for various reasons, but with Saya within his embrace, Nik did emphasize that he wasn't going to keep others lonely for a long time.

***

Yuriko smiled in satisfaction as she received Nik's reply. Being a mother and a wife, she was already aware that the honeymoon phase in each relationship was temporary and the greater the number of women around a man, the shorter the amount of time to enjoy the honeymoon phase.

So, she did the most sensible thing. Before the break of dawn, she snuck into Nik's house and waited for the moment till the morning meeting is concluded before inviting Nik. Alas, she couldn't hide her astonishment as she found the partner accompanying Nik was none other than her fierce darling, her daughter— Saya!

"Mom?!"

Saya blurted in surprise while Yuriko looked past her daughter to witness a scary smirk on Nik's face.

It was the family bonding time.

Mother, Daughter, and the Lover...

Of both.