"Run? Where exactly do you expect us to run?"
Inside the derailed train, soone finally shouted over the chaos.
The man's face was pale, his hands trembling as he clutched the seat beside him, but his mind was still clear.
"The train is broken! We're stranded in the middle of nowhere! Do you think we can outrun those monsters? Stop panicking and pray those swordsn win!"
His words struck the passengers like cold water.
The screams did not vanish, but they lowered.
Outside, the night had beco sothing out of a nightmare.
A demon was staggering toward the train, its presence foul and suffocating. Hantengu's body looked battered and unstable, but the terror it radiated was still beyond anything an ordinary person could withstand.
Zenitsu's expression changed the mont he saw it.
He had witnessed Zohakuten's fusion with his own eyes. If the four clones had already rged into that monster, then what was this thing crawling toward them now?
A clone?
The real body?
There was no ti to think.
His hand moved to the hilt of his nichirin sword.
Just as he was about to draw, his ears caught it.
Footsteps.
Fast.
Familiar.
Tanjirou.
The mont Zenitsu confird that Tanjirou was alive, the tension in his shoulders shifted.
Without hesitation, he clenched his fist and drove it into his own stomach.
"Guh—!"
His eyes rolled back.
He collapsed into sleep in an instant.
Beside him, Inosuke stared.
"You can just fall asleep like that? That's actually kind of amazing."
Zenitsu's aura changed.
Golden lightning crackled around his body. His eyes opened beneath the haze of sleep, shining with a fierce gold as his fingers tightened around his sword.
"Thunder Breathing—First Form."
The ground beneath his feet sparked.
"Thunderclap and Flash: Eightfold."
He vanished.
A streak of lightning tore across the open field and appeared in front of Hantengu.
The old demon shrieked and reached out to grab him, but Zenitsu's body changed direction at the last instant. Lightning flashed once, twice, then again and again, each movent faster than the last.
Hantengu's eyes darted wildly, struggling to follow him.
On the eighth flash, Zenitsu found the opening.
His sword struck Hantengu's neck.
Steel bit into flesh.
The edge sank deep—but stopped halfway.
Hantengu's flesh clamped down on the sword like iron, refusing to let it pass.
"Tch!"
Inosuke leaped from behind with a roar.
"Move aside! Lord Inosuke will finish it!"
His twin swords ca down with brutal force, striking the back of Zenitsu's sword at the exact point where it was embedded in Hantengu's neck.
"Beast Breathing—Second Fang: Slice!"
The combined force finally drove the sword deeper.
Hantengu's neck began to split.
But an Upper Rank was not sothing that could be killed so easily.
His mouth opened wide.
A violent sound wave erupted point-blank.
The blast tore across the field and slamd into Zenitsu and Inosuke like an invisible hamr. Both boys were sent flying, crashing hard into the ground.
Neither got up.
At the sa ti, on the other battlefield, Akaza noticed what had happened.
His fists lowered slightly.
Across from him stood Kyojuro Rengoku and Sanemi Shinazugawa.
Both Hashira were wounded badly.
Blood ran down the left side of Rengoku's face. His left eye was ruined, the blood dripping from it dark beneath the moonlight. Even so, his posture had not collapsed. His remaining eye still burned like a torch.
Sanemi looked worse in another way. His entire body was soaked in blood, his uniform torn, his breathing heavy. Yet the murderous glare in his eyes had not dimd in the slightest.
Akaza smiled.
"It looks like Hantengu killed that boy."
The air changed.
For a mont, the breathing of both Hashira sharpened.
Akaza's smile widened.
"That masked swordsman pushed Upper Rank Four that far. Impressive. But it doesn't matter now." He tilted his head, voice almost friendly. "You two don't want to die here, do you? Beco demons. Both of you. With your bodies and talent, you can climb higher. We can pursue the pinnacle of martial arts together."
Sanemi's fingers tightened around his sword.
Rengoku's gaze did not waver.
"I believe in that boy."
His voice rang out, steady and bright.
"In the end, the demon will be the one who falls."
Sanemi said nothing.
He had never been fond of wasting words on demons.
Life and death were simple.
If the enemy was still standing, cut it down.
Near the train, Hantengu staggered forward with Zenitsu's nichirin sword still buried in his neck. The passengers inside the carriages scattered backward in terror, cries and curses mixing with the rattle of the damaged train.
Then—
A flash of fire appeared in the dark forest.
Tanjirou burst out from between the trees.
His face was marked by fla.
Purple Demon Power curled faintly across his features, mingling with the heat pouring from his body. In his hand, Asuramaru blazed with fire, its edge wrapped in a scorching arc of Hinokami Kagura.
Hantengu turned.
The instant he saw Tanjirou, his fear reached its limit.
"No… no… why do you all bully the weak?" he wailed, tears spilling down his warped face. "You villains! You wicked villains!"
Tanjirou did not answer.
His eyes held no hesitation.
Only killing intent.
He stepped forward.
Fla surged.
"Hinokami Kagura—Dance."
The strike fell.
A bright, burning line cut through the night.
Hantengu's body was split diagonally from shoulder to waist. The slash tore through flesh, bone, and heart, ripping apart the false body that had been protecting the true one.
From the remains, sothing tiny tumbled out.
A shrunken demon no larger than a mouse.
Hantengu's true body.
"No… no, no, no!" the little demon sobbed, crawling desperately through the dirt. "The clones did it on their own! I was forced! I'm pitiful! I'm weak! Why can't anyone understand—"
In the past, that miserable appearance might have made Tanjirou pause.
He had always been able to sll sorrow.
Even from demons.
But now, whether because of Demonization, the Slayer Mark, or the countless lives weighing on this battlefield, his heart did not waver.
This demon had eaten people.
This demon had tried to devour the passengers behind him.
This demon had lived by hiding behind cowardice.
Tanjirou raised Asuramaru.
"Repent in hell."
The sword descended in a blaze.
The flaming edge cut cleanly through Hantengu's neck.
The world spun before the demon's eyes.
Shock.
Fear.
Confusion.
All of it froze on his severed head.
In the final instant before his body turned to ash, Hantengu rembered a single scene from his human life.
A dark night.
A man staring down at him with hatred.
"You will atone for your sins with that filthy life of yours."
The mory collapsed.
Hantengu's pupils shrank.
Then Upper Rank Four burned away, scattering into embers beneath the night sky.
Within Asuramaru, a notification sounded.
[Ding! Detected intense negative emotions from Upper Rank Four, Hantengu, at the mont of death. Congratulations, you have obtained 20,000 emotion points!]
[Obtained 15,000 Demon Power. Thirty percent will be automatically fed back to Sword Master Tanjirou!]
The mont the notification ended, power flooded into Tanjirou.
It surged through his limbs and bones, strengthening his body from the inside out. Every muscle tightened. Every breath grew deeper. His blood seed to burn.
The reward from killing Upper Rank Four alone far surpassed the results of his entire month of hunting demons.
This ti, Tanjirou did not whisper thanks.
He simply stood there, sword lowered, flas fading around him.
Not far away, Akaza's smile vanished.
His pupils narrowed as he stared at Tanjirou's face.
"That boy…"
The one Muzan had ordered them to kill.
The Demon Slayer whose strength had never matched the reports.
The boy who had just slain Upper Rank Four by himself.
Akaza's gaze sharpened.
And then he noticed sothing else.
Tanjirou's Fighting Spirit was rising.
Rapidly.
Violently.
As if killing Hantengu had awakened sothing inside him.
Akaza's expression turned grim for the first ti.
"Bizarre," he murmured.
For the first ti since arriving, Upper Rank Three beca truly wary.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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