"Tanjiro, be careful!"
Himejima Gyomei hurriedly swung his chains to attack, but his attack was also nimbly dodged by the ice dragon.
Not only that, this ice dragon in mid-air even swung its tail back, slapping away the flail he swung at it!
"Excellent! Then this move shall be called Ice Breathing · Third Form · Big Slap Attack!"
Raising a finger to point, Doma sat cross-legged on his little speaker and shouted loudly.
[Damn it! What kind of creature is this?!]
Struggling to deal with the ice dragon's attacks, Tanjiro was really about to lose it.
Just now, his Transparent World had opened for an instant.
But it was completely useless—he couldn't observe this ice dragon's behavior at all!
Transparent World mainly greatly enhances the user's perception, allowing them to directly observe all changes inside their opponent's body, thereby predicting their opponent's movements.
Therefore, when facing any living being in this world, especially powerful beings with considerable martial arts accomplishment, Transparent World often provides tremendous amplification.
But the problem was, this ice dragon before him didn't have an "inside" at all!
From inside to outside, it was entirely a lump of ice!
What blood vessels, muscles, bones, lungs! It had none of them!
Why could something like this even move?!
This was the first time Tanjiro had encountered an enemy that Transparent World was basically ineffective against.
How could something like this be defeated?
Just as Tanjiro was distracted, the ice dragon in mid-air suddenly accelerated downward, its tail wrapping around his waist, then did a backflip in mid-air, smashing his entire body hard into the ground!
This lump of ice could actually seize openings?!
"Uwaa!"
"Tanjiro!!"
"Amazing! This move shall be called Ice Breathing · Fourth Form · Ice Dragon Suplex!"
Doma clapped his hands, having transformed into the hype man, his emotional value maxed out.
Meanwhile, in the building ruins nearby, Uzui Tengen, who had been unconscious for a long time, suddenly opened his eyes wide, finally waking from his coma.
"*Cough... cough cough...*"
He took a deep breath, his whole body coughing violently.
"Mr. Tengen, how are you feeling now?"
Seeing him finally awake, Kanae hurriedly asked.
And beside her, Genya merely widened his eyes, looking at this scene in disbelief.
He actually came back to life?!
He had no heartbeat and she still brought him back?!
"I'm fine, I just subconsciously entered a death-like state earlier..."
Lowering his head to look at his chest, which had been kicked slightly caved in by Gyutaro, Uzui Tengen replied somewhat weakly.
As a former ninja, Uzui Tengen actually possessed a special "trump card."
He could control his heart to stop beating at any time, allowing his body to enter a "death-like state" where he appeared dead but wasn't actually dead.
Earlier, kicked flying by Gyutaro, sensing the threat to his life before completely falling unconscious, he had subconsciously activated this special ability and started playing dead over here.
If Kanae hadn't forcibly awakened him with her efforts, Uzui Tengen estimated his body would have continued lying there a while longer, only waking when approaching the true line of death.
Besides this, Uzui Tengen actually had another unique ability, which he himself called—
Musical Score.
Through his exceptional musical talent, he could transform an enemy's attack rhythm into a kind of melody that only he could understand, thereby completely grasping the enemy's attack patterns.
Then, as long as he attacked during the gaps between each note, he could completely break through the enemy's offense!
This ability was extremely powerful, with only two drawbacks.
First, the Musical Score required time—after all, only after the enemy demonstrated all their moves could he remember and analyze them.
If encountering an enemy with too great a strength gap, he could easily die halfway through scoring.
Second, this only worked against enemies with certain martial arts accomplishment.
After all, martial arts practitioners had讲究 in every move and form, with relatively fixed hidden logic in their attacks.
But street thugs were different—their fighting style was "turtle-fist," purely hitting wherever they thought of, without any logic, let alone rhythm.
Against such enemies, he would often just start scoring when he discovered the opponent's rhythm had changed again, completely meaningless.
Uzui Tengen had originally planned to use this move against the Gyutaro siblings.
But halfway through playing dead, he discovered the sibling pair had suddenly left, then an even more terrifying Upper Rank Two arrived.
Despairingly, this Upper Rank Two didn't look like a martial arts practitioner at all—his close combat ability was probably on the same level as street thugs.
Or rather, he likely wasn't a close combat fighter at all, but a mage!
A spellcaster!
What could he even score against this?
Completely unworkable!
Opening his eyes to such a desperate situation, Uzui Tengen even somewhat wished he could go back to sleep...
Of course, this was just talk. As a demon slayer of the same corps, with his companions fighting desperately right now, how could he possibly continue playing dead here.
He had to join the battle!
"Kanae, don't worry about me, go help Gyomei and the others first..."
Just as Uzui Tengen forced himself to barely stand up, preparing to join the battle with Kanae, from the darkness behind Doma, three figures were also quietly approaching.
These were three women, each with different appearances but all exceptionally beautiful with fine figures.
They were obviously Uzui Tengen's three wives who had been captured and interrogated in the basement by Ume earlier, and who had finally escaped when Ume retrieved her silk ribbons.
These three were similarly drawn by the commotion of the battle here. Currently, each of them held in their hands a strange wooden box with multiple launch holes.
These were specially modified dart launchers. As long as they pulled the trigger, they could instantly fire over a dozen darts at the enemy!
Each dart was also coated with high-concentration wisteria poison—even Lower Rank demons would completely lose their ability to move shortly after being poisoned!
Obviously, these three were preparing to coordinate with everyone's frontal battle and sneak attack Doma from behind.
In the distant darkness, the three had already quietly set up their launchers and adjusted their aim.
And at this moment here, Doma was still sitting on his beloved little speaker, bending down with his chin in his hand, watching with great interest the battle between Tanjiro and the others and the ice dragon, seemingly completely unaware of the movement behind him.
Noticing his wives' actions at the first moment, Uzui Tengen turned his head to look over.
The four's gazes briefly met. No one spoke, they merely nodded at each other tacitly.
A plan of sneak attack followed by fierce assault was thus silently finalized.
Kanae similarly noticed this. She subconsciously turned to look at Doma, wondering in her mind whether she should warn him.
But she suddenly noticed that Doma's gaze had quickly glanced at her.
Yes, although it was only a very short instant, Doma had indeed looked at her just now.