"What's going on? Why do their injuries look noticeably lighter?"
Muzan Kibutsuji immediately sensed something was off. It was like they'd been reborn. Their movements were sharper, their speed rising again.
Images flickered through his mind, one after another, until they froze on a single woman.
"Tamayo… again with you, you irritating woman. Is this one of your tricks? You even managed to develop a serum that stops my cells from corroding their bodies?"
His face twisted with rage.
"You really know how to get in my way. If I'd known, I would've killed you first!"
Muzan couldn't accept it. That woman he'd once dismissed as an ant had become a thorn that kept stabbing him at the worst possible times.
Now, aside from a few who were still unconscious, the remaining Hashira erupted with near peak speed again.
"You flies! Stand still and die like you're supposed to!"
Muzan roared, the tentacles on his back whipping into a frenzy.
They spun into multiple vortexes around him, dragging and redirecting the others' strikes.
"Pretty sure you're the one dying."
A figure tore straight through the twisting winds and appeared before Muzan in an instant.
Muzan's pupils shrank.
"Not you again. Stop playing these annoying little games!"
The moment he recognized Vincent Fox, Muzan snapped every tentacle toward him at once.
With a thought, Vincent coated his vital points in Armament Haki. His blackened fists ignited, turning into blazing metal, glowing like red hot iron.
He drove a punch forward.
Muzan's web of attacks was crushed outright.
Then Vincent's fists alternated, left and right, hammering Muzan's body into pieces.
Muzan's form splintered, shredded, torn apart again and again.
"What? These wounds…"
Muzan tried to force his body to regenerate, but the growth was sluggish, far slower than it should've been.
"Why? Your fists have the same killing effect as a Crimson Nichirin Blade?"
For the first time, real panic crept into Muzan's eyes.
His healing couldn't keep up with Vincent's destruction.
Punch after punch, like a storm of iron raindrops, slammed into him.
Muzan's body visibly shrank, his mass being erased right in front of everyone.
Suddenly, his blades turned.
Not toward Vincent.
Toward himself.
Slash, slash, slash!
Cold arcs of light carved away the scorched flesh around the wounds, severing and discarding every charred section.
Blood welled out, but Muzan's face eased.
He could feel it.
Once he cut those burned portions away, his regeneration sped up again.
He forced his body to recover frantically, but the cost was brutal.
His stamina was burning out at a terrifying rate. His cells were being wrung dry, squeezed until there was nothing left.
For a moment, faint wrinkles even appeared on his face, so shallow they were almost invisible.
But that only meant one thing.
He was approaching the end of his fuel.
No.
This won't work.
Eyes opened across his back, watching everything. As he dodged the Hashira's attacks, Muzan scanned the battlefield.
He had to eat. If he didn't replenish himself, his stamina would collapse before he could match their rhythm.
More tentacles erupted, lined with fanged mouths.
They shot toward the corpses of fallen Demon Slayer Corps members.
"Trying to desecrate our comrades' bodies? What the hell are you thinking, Muzan!"
Gyomei Himejima exploded forward, his fist smashing most of those newly grown tentacles into pulp.
Even so, Muzan still managed to drag two bodies into himself.
It was the best Gyomei could do, reducing the loss as much as possible.
Muzan felt his strength return, relief washing through him.
But at the same time, a new irritation tightened his expression.
The tentacles Gyomei had struck regenerated slowly too, just like the parts Vincent had smashed.
And from those severed ends came a burning sensation, like sunlight searing through the flesh.
Muzan's gaze snapped to Gyomei's weapon.
The flail had turned red.
In an instant, Muzan understood.
These Hashira had forced their weapons into the Crimson Blade state through impact, elevating them to the same anti demon standard.
A direct counter to him.
And once the trick was discovered, the others followed.
Obanai Iguro withdrew from the center of the fight. He gripped his Nichirin blade with both hands and squeezed with everything he had.
An absurd, crushing grip.
The steel reddened.
"Giyu, catch this!"
Sanemi Shinazugawa suddenly pivoted, lifting his Nichirin blade and slashing toward Giyu Tomioka.
Giyu didn't understand in time. He raised his blade to block.
Clang!
Sparks exploded.
The ringing collision was clear and bright, like a war bell.
Then both Nichirin blades turned red right before their eyes.
The sunlight essence within them, dormant until now, was forced awake by the clash.
"It turned red?"
Giyu froze for a heartbeat, then understood.
Sanemi had done it on purpose.
But the moment everyone focused on forcing their weapons into Crimson Blades, their defense loosened.
Muzan seized the opening.
Countless blades erupted, stabbing toward them.
Every strike aimed at a vital point.
The Hashira snapped back to reality, slashing in a hurry to block.
Where the crimson steel cut into Muzan's flesh, it sizzled, burning with a wet, hateful sound.
Even so, too many attacks slipped through.
"Damn it. I let my guard down."
Sanemi cursed under his breath, wrenching his crimson blade around, but he was too late.
Then the tentacles in front of him snapped apart without warning.
Muzan's confidence faltered. He immediately recalled his blades.
At the same time, he focused on the air around him.
His ears lifted slightly.
Over centuries, he'd trained his senses to a monstrous level.
Even with the battlefield chaos, he caught it.
A new sound.
"One? Two?"
He measured the wind, the tiny shifts, the subtle changes that didn't belong.
"Three. Found you."
He growled, and his blades shot out.
Three figures appeared out of nowhere.
Muzan's attacks tore savage wounds across them.
"You're still alive? Good!"
Gyomei shouted, genuine joy in his voice.
Inosuke Hashibira, Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Kanao Tsuyuri were knocked back, blood spraying through the air.
But the wounds weren't fatal.
They moved again immediately, retreating out of the most dangerous zone.
Kanao's eyes narrowed.
"So fast. I couldn't react at all. Even invisible and we still got hit?"
Zenitsu screamed, half furious, half terrified.
"It hurts! I'm done with this! You bastard, if I'm going to die anyway, I'm killing you first!"
Inosuke howled like an animal.
"It hurts like hell! You disgusting tentacled maggot, come get some!"
They stabilized themselves, barely.
Then Inosuke shoved a hand into his pocket and threw out a huge stack of paper slips.
"I've got a ton of these invisibility talismans on me!"
"Even if you shred them, you're not touching me, you ugly freak!"
"Stick them on your foreheads! All of you!"
"Now get in there and cut this bastard to pieces!"
----------------------------------------------------
The deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels. Don't wait read ahead and witness Vincent's rise before the world catches up!
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