Moonlight shone into the bedchamber.
Kagaya lay there quietly, only his wife kneeling at his side.
In the eyes of Muzan, a monster who had lived for a thousand years, the Kagaya before him now was like a broken lantern on the verge of being extinguished.
"Presumptuous fools, thwarting my plans for a thousand years." Muzan's tone was ice-cold, feeling less furious than he had anticipated.
Perhaps it was seeing the head of the Ubuyashiki Family reduced to such a state, making him feel it wasn't worth getting angry with a dying man.
Or perhaps the millennium of enmity was finally going to end tonight, and he had entered a state of eternal calm.
"Ubuyashiki, you're even giving off the stench of a corpse. You look like you're about to rot through."
"Heh heh... that's only natural...." Kagaya forced himself upright, the festering wounds on his body tearing open with the movement, filthy blood seeping through the bandages. "Six months ago... the doctor said I would die... the only reason I've lasted until today... is because I wanted to watch you meet your death, Muzan...."
"How absurd. The one dying is you, not me."
"....Just by killing you... the curse on the Ubuyashiki... Family... will finally end..."
"I understand your rambling less and less. What does your curse have to do with me?"
"Precisely because... because of a monster like you... our Ubuyashiki Family... has suffered premature deaths generation after generation... generation after generation of illness... forced to rely on the blood of shrine maidens... to neutralize the curse..."
Kagaya was gasping for breath, his words fragmented. Muzan's brow furrowed deeply in irritation.
Impatiently, he looked at Kagaya's dying, rotting body and pointed at his own head, unsure if the other could see him. "Nonsense. Disgusting."
"Has your illness infected your brain as well?"
"What you're saying has no causal relationship whatsoever."
Muzan sighed. This might be the most absurd accusation he had heard in a thousand years. "There are no gods or buddhas in this world. Where would divine punishment or curses come from?"
"Even after killing hundreds or thousands of people, I have never faced any punishment. Doesn't that prove you're raving mad?"
He quietly watched the head of the Ubuyashiki Family cough up blood uncontrollably, feeling only a sense of emptiness in his heart.
How strange. He could end everything now. The loathsome leader of the Demon Slayer Corps was right before his eyes.
Yet he felt nothing at all.
"Heh heh… Muzan, you don't know… there are gods in this world—"
"Speaking of which... your dream is eternity, isn't it..."
"Too bad... that dream ends today... True eternity is not the flesh, but the continuation of the spirit..."
"Once you die... all demons will die, won't they..."
'What?'
Muzan snapped back to attention, seeing the satisfied smile curling at the corners of Kagaya's mouth.
And the dazzling, blazing light rising from beneath his feet...
"Caw!! Caw!! Emergency! Emergency!"
The shrill cries of crows instantly tore through the solemnity of the night.
Dozens of crows, as if prepared, sped towards every training ground, forest path, and the routes the Hashira were sure to take.
Their voices were hoarse and piercing, carrying unprecedented terror: "Headquarters under attack! Kibutsuji Muzan has appeared! All Hashira, assemble immediately! Rush to the Ubuyashiki Estate at full speed!"
"Encircle! Full-speed encirclement!"
'Finally here.'
Taka's figure flashed across the land. His grey-white haori flapped loudly in the raging wind.
His speed was extreme. With each step, the tips of his toes were accompanied by minute explosions of spiritual pressure.
His entire form transformed into a black bolt of lightning, madly weaving through dense forests and rocky terrain.
In the distance, several powerful auras were also converging on the same core point with equally frantic speed.
"That mongrel Muzan! Finally here!" Sanemi's roar echoed through the forest.
In his mind still echoed the false intelligence decoy plan, relayed by Kiriya at the meeting.
"Oyakata-sama must not come to harm... Once we successfully encircle him, that bastard won't escape!"
On another side, Giyu remained silent as a withered log, but those blue eyes blazed with an unprecedented fervor.
He gripped his sword tightly, his breathing rate adjusted to its utmost, a state of desperate resolve, ready at any moment to awaken the Demon Slayer Mark and burn through his life force.
Gyomei, Kyojuro, Obanai, Mitsuri, Muichiro..... All the Hashira-level swordsmen capable of fighting, summoned by the caw of the crows, cast aside all distracting thoughts and raced towards the estate.
Their paths varied… some for revenge, some for protection, some for the millennium-old mission.
But at this same moment, they had only one goal:
Sever the Demon King's head!
Just as the Hashira were less than two hundred meters from the estate, already able to faintly see the outline of the outer wall—
Booooom—!!!
A golden sphere of destruction violently erupted from the core of the estate!
It was a violent explosion capable of shaking the entire valley!
Taka, at the front, was forced to halt, shielding his body with his arms.
A wave of heat rushed towards him. He felt his skin about to ignite.
In the horrified gazes of all the Hashira, the Ubuyashiki Estate, the heart of the Demon Slayer Corps for a century, filled with the fragrance of wisteria… was reduced to a sky full of debris in an instant!
Flames shot into the sky, illuminating half the night sky red.
"No! Oyakata-sama!!"
Mitsuri let out a cry of grief. She stumbled, nearly falling.
In that moment, the presence of Kagaya, along with his wife Amane, and the two children always by his side, Hinaki and Nichika, completely vanished from the world of the living-
As sacrifices to open the gates of hell.
That man, with his own flesh and blood, with the lives of his family, and with this millennium-old sense of mission-
Personally detonated the massive amount of explosives buried beneath the tatami, all to deal a heavy blow to Muzan on this night of fated conclusion!
Amidst the sea of flames, smoke and dust filled the air.
"Cough... ah... Bastard!! Ubuyashiki—!!!"
A twisted, hoarse voice, filled with extreme rage, came from the center of the ruins.
Muzan's once elegant human form was now miserably disfigured.
Half his head had been blown off, his four limbs completely severed. Newly sprouted flesh writhed madly in the firelight like maggots.
What surprised him was that the explosives seemed mixed with countless specially made caltrops and wisteria poison.
These tiny foreign objects had invaded Muzan's bloodstream the moment of the explosion, greatly slowing his regeneration.
He had expected Ubuyashiki to set a trap, but never imagined he would go this far!
"Wait... these toxins are to slow my regeneration... He knew he couldn't kill me? He has another move!"
"Using himself and his family as bait... Did his family know? Were they in on the act too?"
"So young, yet able to conceal such intense killing intent so deeply, even I didn't notice! What a cunning family!!"
'No, calm down. Now is not the time for such thoughts.'
"Muzan—!! You've met your match today!!"
A woman's voice abruptly rang out from the shadows of the rubble and debris.
It was Tamayo!
Muzan's former attendant, who had broken free from his control and spent centuries seeking a way to oppose him!
'That bastard Ubuyashiki had actually collaborated with that wretched woman!'
Using the aftermath of the explosion and a Blood Demon Art that concealed her form, she had approached Muzan and viciously plunged her fist into his still-writhing abdomen.
"This is the medicine to turn demons back into humans!" Tamayo's face, reflected in the firelight, appeared utterly resolute. Her once elegant and dignified features now looked as ferocious as a demon's. "For this moment... I have waited four hundred years! Muzan, come to hell with me!!"