Brandishing his massive, misshapen blade, Kokushibo launched a fierce assault on the three.
Like a beast driving its claws straight down, several colossal slashes fell, punching straight through the floor.
"Stone Breathing: Third Form: Stone Skin!"
Gyomei Himejima's flail and axe whirled around him, erecting a solid defense.
Kokushibo's slashes failed to break through and were shattered instead.
"Mist Breathing: Seventh Form: Obscuring Clouds!"
A thick mist spread around Kokushibo, enclosing him, Muichiro Tokito's figure flickering faintly within it.
Other demons might have been unable to track him, but one who saw the Transparent World, like Kokushibo, was not among them.
Every one of Muichiro's movements was plain to his eyes; the haze did nothing to hinder him.
Just then, a red glow flared in the mist. Tanjiro cut through the clouds, swinging for Kokushibo.
"Moon Breathing: Sixth Form: Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon: Unending!"
Several vertical slashes flew with Kokushibo's swing, seemingly splitting Tanjiro in two.
"Hinokami Kagura: Fake Rainbow!"
On the other side, Tanjiro—upside down—drew a slash.
"Hinokami Kagura: Setting Sun Transformation!"
Meanwhile, Muichiro surged up from below with Mist Breathing's Fourth Form, Shifting Flow Slash.
"Moon Breathing: Tenth Form: Piercing Slash: Reed Moon!"
Two serrated, oval slashes burst out, blocking both attacks and carving numerous wounds across Tanjiro and Muichiro.
As their strikes were checked, Gyomei strode in, both hands casting his flail and axe.
"Stone Breathing: Serpentinite Bipolar!"
Though blind, Gyomei's grasp of the Transparent World was deeper still.
He sensed Kokushibo's breath and muscles with perfect clarity, and thus his blows struck at the most awkward timing and angle for Kokushibo.
Even so, Kokushibo ducked at the last instant, slipping between the pincer blow of the flail and axe.
Gyomei yanked the chain back; it twisted and caught only Kokushibo's warped blade, but it sheared the edge clean in two.
Also within the Transparent World, Tanjiro and Muichiro would not miss the opening. Flames and mist bit into Kokushibo's chest and back without mercy.
A Red Blade harmed demons even more than sunlight. The wounds Yoriichi had given Muzan four hundred years before still had not faded.
So it was with Tanjiro's earlier cut to Kokushibo's shoulder—he had only sealed it on the surface; inside, the wound still burned.
Now, two Red Blades had struck his body again.
It felt like fire searing inward from the wounds, his very organs roasting over open flame.
"Argh!!!"
With a roar, a forest of blades erupted from Kokushibo's body, scoring fresh wounds across Tanjiro and Muichiro and breaking their combo.
"Moon Breathing: Fourteenth Form: Ruthless Metamorphosis: Heaven-Filling New Moons!"
Layered, dreadful slashes spun into a vortex, forcing the two to fall back.
By then, Gyomei had already leapt into the air and hurled his weapons straight at Kokushibo.
"Stone Breathing: Fifth Form: Wheel of Stone: Stony Conviction!"
Still wracked by the pain of his Red Blade wounds, Kokushibo chose to evade rather than clash head-on.
That dodge, however, revealed an opening to the three.
First, Tanjiro exploited his form's advantage—"Sunflower Thrust"—to arrive before Kokushibo, while Muichiro followed with a wide-area strike using the Moon-Dispersing Haze form.
Gyomei landed, planted a foot on the chain's midpoint, and whipped his flail into a face-crushing smash aimed at Kokushibo's head.
"Moon Breathing: Eighth Form: Moon-Dragon Rings Tail!"
Kokushibo unleashed a sweeping, massive slash, dragging all three into its range. Its force alone sheared the surrounding pillars in half.
He misjudged their resolve. He'd meant to force them back and buy a breath, but they charged in with high-commitment forms, tanking the blow head-on.
Flame- and mist-wreathed blades and a crashing flail tore his slash apart—but at a steep price.
A great bloody gouge split all three across chest and belly; the slighter Tanjiro and Muichiro even had the bones of their breastbones cut through.
Even so, they forced themselves to Kokushibo's front. Muichiro drove his blade straight into Kokushibo's body.
As the Red Blade's power ravaged him from within, Gyomei's flail hammered down, blasting apart the arm that held his sword along with half his chest.
A fierce ripple ran through all six of Kokushibo's eyes, for he saw Tanjiro before him, both hands high on the hilt.
A human face—his only clear human face across four centuries—appeared, and that figure overlapped with the boy.
He remembered. Four hundred years ago, the aged Yoriichi had swung in that same posture.
Suddenly he felt he should have died to that cut four centuries past. Looking back, these four hundred years had amounted to nothing—utterly meaningless.
Tanjiro didn't know why Kokushibo had spaced out at such a moment, but he wasn't about to waste the chance.
"Hinokami Kagura: Round Dance!"
A red arc swept across—and severed Kokushibo's head.
Gyomei remembered Charles's warning that Upper Rank One might regenerate even after decapitation, so he didn't stop, but brought the flail crashing down in a frenzy.
He didn't know Kokushibo was mired in doubt—devoid of the will to survive beyond his limits.
Only after he had smashed Kokushibo's body to pieces did Gyomei stop, and the three finally allowed themselves to relax.
…
In the core of the Infinity Castle, the flesh chrysalis pulsed violently—Muzan was in a rage.
Kokushibo and Akaza, in whom he had placed heavy hopes, had both been slain. That left him with no reliable subordinates save Nakime, who controlled the castle.
Even pouring himself into it, he had only just about finished breaking down Tamayo's medicine to turn demons back into humans along with several virulent toxins. It had cost him tremendous energy.
There was no chance to feed now, and the Corps would be upon him any moment.
He suddenly felt the world shudder around him. The Infinity Castle was moving!
He had just been thinking at least he still had Nakime—his crucial piece to control the castle—but a problem arose at once.
He hastily switched to Nakime's view, only to see darkness. His commands received no response.
In another corner, Obanai Iguro and Mitsuri Kanroji stood amid the ruins of a shattered structure, watching Yushiro struggle to seize Nakime's control.
Moments before, they had drawn Nakime's attention so Yushiro could slip close.
Yushiro's fingers were buried in Nakime's temples, veins bulging stark across his face.
Muzan had already sensed the anomaly, and wrestling for sensory control with the Demon King was a brutal strain—but Yushiro grit through it.
"Lady Tamayo, I will see your wish done!"
He murmured, the veins on his face flushing a different hue.
"You dared steal Lady Tamayo from us, Muzan. Come up to the surface and meet your end!"
Boom!
Everyone in the Infinity Castle felt the world heave, and then they were all flung into the air.
At that moment, the Infinity Castle rose to the surface.
______
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