Crimson Sakura Village: Stone's Protection!

"He can't hold out much longer!"

Yuelian made a calm assessment, the threads at her fingertips flying faster.

"Push a little harder! Grind him down until he dies!"

Yeshu chuckled from the shadows.

Yannu spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and lunged again with a savage grin.

Kanae held Shinobu, who was on the verge of fainting, in a tight embrace, biting her lip until it bled.

She could see it clearly: the towering monk who had protected them like a mountain was being driven into a desperate situation because of them.

Immense grief, terror, and overwhelming self-reproach nearly drowned her.

Once again, Gyomei swung his chain, shattering dozens of shadow needles that shot from the darkness above Shinobu's head. As he did, his broadaxe seemed a fraction weaker in blocking Yannu's heavy punch. The impact drove him half a step back, leaving deep footprints in the ground.

Kanae's heart sank with him.

She watched his broad back rise and fall slightly, saw the new wounds upon it, the clothes soaked through with sweat, every moment he was forced to abandon an attack to protect them... They pierced her heart one by one, like red-hot needles.

It was her and Shinobu... They were holding him back!

If he didn't have to divide his attention to protect two children who couldn't fight back, then with the astonishing strength he had shown, even if he couldn't win quickly, he would never have been reduced to taking blows so helplessly!

He could have maneuvered more freely, could have tried to break through, could have... had a chance to interrupt the most terrifying demon in the air as he gathered power!

But now he was like a lion bound in chains. Though he had the strength to shake mountains, he was held fast by the burden of the two of them, forced to stand his ground and endure one fierce attack after another until his strength ran out...

"Shinobu..."

Kanae's voice was terribly hoarse. She shook her little sister hard, whose eyes were growing unfocused in her arms.

Shinobu lifted her small, tear-blurred face in confusion.

Kanae took a deep breath and shouted with all her strength at the figure fighting bloodily before them:

"Sir!!!"

Her voice was faint amid the fierce sounds of battle, yet it carried a piercing note of resolve.

Gyomei swung his axe to force Yannu back and tilted his head slightly to listen.

"Please... don't worry about us anymore!!"

Tears poured from Kanae's eyes, but she stared fiercely ahead. Her shout was choked with sobs, yet perfectly clear.

"Kill them! Go kill those demons! As long as you can avenge our father and mother, as long as you can kill these man-eating monsters!!"

"We... we won't complain even if we die!!! Please!!!"

Her final words were a plea that was almost shrill with anguish.

Shinobu seemed to understand. Her little face turned deathly pale, and she clutched her sister's clothes, but she didn't cry aloud again. She only nodded with all her strength.

Gyomei's movements faltered for an instant.

Yannu seized the chance to strike. Gyomei hurriedly raised his axe to block, but the impact drove him back another step. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and he forced it down.

His back was to the sisters, and he did not turn around.

But his deep, resonant voice carried steadily over the clamor of the battlefield, reaching Kanae and Shinobu's ears clearly:

"Don't speak nonsense."

The simple words carried an unquestionable force.

He knocked aside several shadow blades from Yeshu and drove back Yuelian's encircling threads, his gaze fixed on the demons ahead.

"My breathing is Stone Breathing."

His voice was not loud, but it sounded in every pause between clashes of weapons, steady and firm, like a pulse deep within the earth.

"What does stone exist for?"

"Not for the advantage of conquest, nor the pleasure of victory."

"To suppress evil, to protect all living beings, to... bear the weak and give them a place to live."

He remembered what Oyakata-sama, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, had asked of him when he saved him from death row;

He remembered the oath he had sworn—to use this battered body to atone for the sins he had yet to repay and protect the innocent.

"If I abandon you two today, how could I call myself a Demon Slayer? How could I face Oyakata-sama? What right would I have... to speak of protection?"

The temple drowned in blood flashed through his mind, followed by the children's faces twisted with terror, and Sayo's eyes, utterly consumed by fear as she pointed him out...

The regret and pain of failing to protect them had long since become the hardest part of his very marrow.

"Stone may shatter, but it cannot be moved."

Gyomei's voice suddenly rose, carrying a resolve that shook the heart.

The aura around him underwent an earth-shattering change at that moment!

It was as though a vast, mighty, inexhaustible will had surged into the sky!

The earthy yellow energy of Stone Breathing grew denser and more brilliant, shimmering faintly with a pale golden luster!

His past training, the insights gained in battle, his shared understanding of "protection" while talking with Giyu, and the pure conviction to protect two innocent children to the death in this desperate situation...

All of it, like countless rivers flowing into the sea, finally broke through the last shackles and reached an entirely new realm!

He had achieved enlightenment! He had reached the utmost heights!!

"Bald donkey! You're about to die and you're still preaching! Shut your damn mouth for good!!"

Yannu hadn't noticed the transformative change in Gyomei. All he saw was that Gyomei had taken one of his punches head-on while "preaching" and seemed short of breath.

Wild joy and brutality filled his mind. Believing victory was in his grasp, he madly poured his remaining demonic energy into his arms and charged straight at Gyomei with a roar, carrying the might to crush everything in his path!

This blow contained all his power, and he was determined to smash Gyomei and the ruins behind him into dust!

"Yannu! Don't! Get back!!!"

Yeshu's piercing scream suddenly rang out!

Hidden in the shadows, he was the most sensitive to changes in aura. Now, the monk ahead seemed to have become a volcano on the verge of eruption, and the sense of danger he gave off made Yeshu's very soul tremble!

Yuelian's beautiful face also paled, and the threads at her fingertips trembled violently. She too sensed the terrifying, majestic, weighty pressure awakening and boiling within Gyomei, as though it could suppress everything!

"Something's wrong! His aura... it's completely changed! Back! Get back!"

She screamed as she darted backward ahead of the others, desperately manipulating her threads to pull Yannu back at the same time, but it was already too late.

Yannu paid no heed—or rather, his reckless courage and impulse had overwhelmed all reason.

His massive fists, like stone pillars, had already reached three feet from Gyomei!

At that very instant—

Gyomei opened his "eyes."

He simply "extended" the broadaxe in his hand, which seemed to have become one with his arm, and the chain-wrapped flail forward.

The movement was slow, slow enough for Yannu to see every inch of the paths traced by the axe blade and flail head.

But Yannu discovered to his horror that his own thunderous charge, powerful enough to smash down city walls, was... impossible to divert away from that "slow" thrust!

"Stone Breathing, First Form: Serpentinite Bipolar!!"

Gyomei spoke the words in a low voice, like a mantra from deep within the earth.

The axe blade and flail head lightly "touched" Yannu's oncoming blue-black stone fists, hardened to their utmost limit.

Crack—crack!!

Under Yeshu and Yuelian's utterly terrified gazes, Yannu's arms, which were immune to the vast majority of physical attacks, instantly filled with countless cracks from the points where the axe and flail touched them, like delicate porcelain struck by an invisible hammer!

The cracks spread with unimaginable speed, covering his entire arms, shoulders, and chest in an instant...

The next moment!

"Boom!!!!!"

Yannu's massive, hill-like body exploded from within!

His entire demonic body, along with its hard bones and skin, was utterly pulverized and broken apart by the Stone Breathing infused with shattering, shaking force, turning into the finest dust mixed with blue-black demonic energy that drifted down!

Without even managing a proper scream, Lower Rank Three, Yannu, was reduced to nothing, dispersing completely into the air!

Silence.

A deathly silence fell over the battlefield.

Yeshu stumbled out of the shadows into view, his face as pale as paper and his eyes full of incomparable shock and terror. His lips trembled, but he couldn't make a sound.

Yuelian staggered back, nearly collapsing to the ground. The silver threads at her fingertips fell limp as she watched the drifting dust, as though she had seen the most horrifying sight in the world.

"A... a Hashira...?"

Yeshu's voice was as dry as scraping sandpaper.

"Y-you've got to be kidding... How could a Hashira... be this strong?! One blow... just one blow and..."

Yuelian's teeth were chattering.

"That's no ordinary Hashira... That's... that's a monster! What... what on earth have we provoked?!"

Even in the distant sky, the vortex of flames around Jinhua, whose power had reached the final stage of accumulation, fluctuated violently, a clear sign that he had been deeply shaken.

Kanae Kocho and Shinobu clung tightly to each other, gazing up at Gyomei's back, which seemed even taller now, like that of a god. Tears blurred their vision, but their hearts were filled with a blazing light of hope they had never known before!

They were saved! There was hope for them!

This man... was as powerful as someone from legend!

Gyomei slowly drew back his axe and flail, breathing slightly hard.

The pale golden aura of Stone Breathing flowed ceaselessly around him.

He "looked" at the three remaining demons. The invisible pressure made Yeshu and Yuelian feel as though they had plunged into an ice cave, and they retreated several steps, barely able to summon a thought of resistance.

"Ha ha... ha ha ha... ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

A burst of mad, twisted laughter, full of the pleasure of destruction, suddenly came from the sky, breaking the brief deathly silence.

It was Jinhua!

The purple-black vortex of flames around him was spinning so fast that the naked eye could barely distinguish its afterimages. The point of darkness at its center had condensed to the size of a fist, radiating an astonishing, ultimate wave of destruction!

The air around him was completely distorted, and the ruins below had even begun to melt silently into lava.

"It's done! It's finally done!!!"

Jinhua's laughter was unhinged.

"A Hashira? A monster? So what?! Before my World-Burning Ashen Plain, everything is futile!!!"

He thrust both hands downward!

"Blood Demon Art, ultimate technique: World-Burning Ashen Plain—descend!!!"

Boom—!!!

The fist-sized black core suddenly expanded!

It became a black torrent more than five meters across, composed purely of destructive energy!

Wherever it passed, the air was completely vaporized, forming a vacuum passage!

Before it even touched the ruins below, the heat and destructive waves had reduced them to flying ash!

This was Jinhua's ultimate attack, gathered over a full half hour with everything he had at stake. Its power was enough to wipe nearly half the ruins of Crimson Sakura Village completely off the map!

There was no avoiding it! No blocking it!

Expressions of wild joy and savagery appeared on Yeshu and Yuelian's faces, as though they could already see Gyomei and the two little girls reduced to nothing in the black torrent.

Gyomei abruptly raised his head and "looked" at the catastrophe descending upon them.

He could clearly sense the destructive power within the torrent, enough to threaten his life.

Even though he had just achieved enlightenment and broken through, even though Stone Breathing was formidable, facing an ultimate Blood Demon Art containing all of a demon's power carried an enormous risk if he resisted it head-on, especially when... there were people behind him who needed absolute protection.

There was no time to hesitate!

"Stone Breathing, Third Form: Stone Skin!"

Gyomei let out an earth-shaking roar and poured all the power he had gained from his recent breakthrough into his Breathing Style and the weapons in his hands, holding nothing back!

The flail whirled madly!!

"Hum—!!!!"

A dazzling pale golden radiance erupted!

The light rapidly condensed, forming a hemispherical pale golden barrier centered on him!

It was the strongest defense he could muster at his current realm!

"Ha ha ha! It's useless! Useless!!"

Jinhua laughed wildly in the sky, his face contorted.

"My World-Burning Ashen Plain takes half an hour to gather the power to unleash!"

"Once unleashed, its heat can melt steel in an instant, and its energy can annihilate souls! That tortoise shell of yours can't stop it!!"

"Turn to ash!! Along with that ridiculous protective heart of yours!!"

The black torrent of destruction and the pale golden barrier finally—

Collided!!!

The black torrent of destruction was like a roaring demonic dragon, frantically battering, eroding, and annihilating the pale golden barrier.

The barrier shook violently, cracking under the unbearable strain!

Pale golden fragments of light flaked from the barrier like a torrential rain and vanished.

Gyomei's body shook violently, and blood slowly seeped from his seven orifices!

Every muscle in his body bulged to its limit, his monk's robes billowed, and the ground beneath his feet cracked and sank inch by inch!

"Namo... A—mi—ta—bha—!!!"

More blood spilled from Gyomei's mouth, and his body began to sway slightly.

Fine, spiderweb-like cracks had already appeared on the flail and were spreading rapidly...

Yeshu and Yuelian held their breath, eyes wide and hearts in their throats.

Kanae and Shinobu clung tightly to each other and closed their eyes, too afraid to look, able only to pray desperately in their hearts.

Just as Gyomei seemed about to reach his limit—!!

On the distant horizon, the darkest night before dawn was violently pierced by an extraordinarily swift streak of deep blue light tearing across the sky!

Moving faster than the eye could follow, the streak raced unstoppably toward the center of the clash between destruction and protection, trailing a piercing, continuous thunder of sonic booms!

The reinforcements had finally, at the very last moment—

Arrived!