"Pfft."
As the old man knelt before him, wailing in despair,
Kibutsuji Muzan knew that the man had not held anything back,
and that he was just as unaware of the Blue Spider Lily.
"What a disappointment."
"You made me come all this way for nothing again..."
Kibutsuji Muzan casually tossed aside the physician's granddaughter's corpse.
In truth, he wasn't all that disappointed. Over the several hundred years he had spent searching for the Blue Spider Lily, Kibutsuji Muzan had witnessed countless scenes like this.
He searched endlessly, only to be disappointed again and again.
Even so, Kibutsuji Muzan was in no mood to spare the old physician.
After all, he had already killed the man's entire family. Leaving him alive in this world would be too cruel.
Kibutsuji Muzan believed he showed compassion toward most of his food.
Then his fingers turned into long, sharp spikes, and he drove them straight through the old man's heart.
Kibutsuji Muzan left without looking back. Though he had plenty of time,
he still felt an urgent need to find the Blue Spider Lily.
"Hm?!"
As Kibutsuji Muzan stepped out of the physician's house, he spotted an unusual group.
Two handsome, tall swordsmen, a dignified old man with an imposing presence,
and two equally imposing attendants standing at the old man's sides.
One of the swordsmen radiated an aura like the sun.
The handsome swordsman, whose presence filled Kibutsuji Muzan with loathing, spoke.
"I'm terribly sorry."
"We arrived too late."
Tsugikuni Yoriichi saw that the old physician still had a breath left in him, and that his eyes were wide with rage.
His heart filled with fury and pity.
"I'll avenge you."
"I stake my life on it. I, Tsugikuni Yoriichi, will see it done."
A fierce golden light shone in Tsugikuni Yoriichi's eyes as he stared at Kibutsuji Muzan.
The fated meeting in the Demon Slayer World had finally come to pass.
Sarutobi Hiruzen's influence had spread the word about Kibutsuji Muzan's appearance ahead of time, so this encounter took place many years earlier than it had before.
Kibutsuji Muzan was still wearing a human face, pale and handsome.
But the evil, blood-soaked aura around him was enough to make anyone tremble at a glance.
"The Demon Slayer Corps again."
Kibutsuji Muzan was surprised that the Demon Slayer Corps had come looking for him. The swordsman before him also filled him with unusual loathing.
"I've lost interest in Breathing Style swordsmen..."
"Even so-called Demon Slayer Mark swordsmen like you"
"are no match for me..."
Kibutsuji Muzan paid Tsugikuni Yoriichi no mind.
He lumped him together with all the other Breathing Style swordsmen. That was why he could still laugh.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi said nothing. The instant he saw Kibutsuji Muzan, he knew.
He had been born to defeat this man!
"Sorry to trouble you..."
"Lord Sarutobi..."
"Please stand by in case I need you."
Tsugikuni Yoriichi's expression was grave. He knew the Demon King before him was the strongest opponent he had ever faced.
He would have to give it everything he had.
Of course, Tsugikuni Yoriichi had never encountered an opponent who warranted his full strength before.
Sarutobi Hiruzen nodded and gave Tsugikuni Yoriichi plenty of room to fight.
He could have joined forces with Tsugikuni Yoriichi and killed Kibutsuji Muzan more quickly. But faced with this moment of fateful convergence, Sarutobi Hiruzen was willing to let it have a sense of ceremony.
"You're not all going to attack at once...?"
"You're quite full of yourself..."
"What do you take me for?"
Kibutsuji Muzan's body twisted as his right arm instantly swelled with bulging veins and muscle.
"I am the Demon King!"
"Whoosh—Bam!"
A violent sonic boom burst from the tip of the long whip formed by Kibutsuji Muzan's right arm. It lashed through the air with a furious roar.
The gale swept past, stinging the faces of the spectators watching from the sidelines.
"This..."
Masahiro stared in shock at the woods nearby, where a whole stretch of trees had fallen over.
That wasn't all. The force had cracked the paving stones in front of Kibutsuji Muzan, leaving the ground uneven and shattered.
Tsugikuni Michikatsu was sweating too. He couldn't imagine power on this scale.
"So this is the Demon King..."
At the same time, both of them began to worry about Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
Only Sarutobi Hiruzen remained calm, knowing exactly what would happen next.
This was nothing more than Muzan's final act of arrogance.
From this day on, the so-called Demon King would become the pathetic king.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi rolled aside, evading Kibutsuji Muzan's sweeping whip as if he had foreseen its path.
Though the Transparent World had let him anticipate Kibutsuji Muzan's movements, he still felt a chill run down his back before the other's onslaught, swift as a gale.
Even someone as powerful as Tsugikuni Yoriichi had only a fragile human body. If that attack so much as grazed him, he would die on the spot.
But Tsugikuni Yoriichi quickly steadied himself and activated the Transparent World with all his might.
At the same time, the Demon Slayer Mark on his face had turned red as hot iron!
I see!
Through the Transparent World, he could make out every detail of Kibutsuji Muzan's five heads and seven hearts.
The paths of his blood vessels and muscles were as clear as the lines on his palm.
In the thousandth of an instant, before Kibutsuji Muzan could even react,
Tsugikuni Yoriichi moved. He had never once tested this technique in actual combat: the ultimate Thirteenth Form of his Sun Breathing.
"Sun Breathing: Thirteenth Form"
"Sun Wheel!"
The next moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen narrowed his eyes—not because he was deep in thought,
but because the sun before him was a little too bright.
There, on the open ground in the dead of night,
a blazing sun rose from the earth. A scorching ring of light, wrapped in a fiery whirlwind, filled the entire world in an instant!
Hot! Fierce! Bright!
The intense light illuminated the area like broad daylight, leaving not a trace of darkness.
It was as if they stood face-to-face with the sun. The spectators' mouths went dry, and they could barely keep their eyes open.
Amid the blazing radiance, the tall, graceful figure swung his Nichirin Sword beneath the sun.
From the First Form and Second Form all the way to the Twelfth Form,
Tsugikuni Yoriichi seemed like a spirit dwelling within the sun, performing a dance infused with the Way of the Sun.
Dazzling and magnificent, grand and beautiful.
"Arrrgh!!!!"
"Arrrgh!!!"
Kibutsuji Muzan let out a scream of unbearable agony. Since becoming the progenitor of demons, he had never felt pain like this!
No—Kibutsuji Muzan remembered. It was like the agony he had suffered when he first became a demon, repeatedly trying to venture out beneath the sun and getting burned by its rays.
Only now, the pain was hundreds, thousands of times worse!
In a flash, the blade imbued with the sun's power shattered every one of Muzan's vital organs, while severing his limbs and head.
Kibutsuji Muzan kept trying to use his arms, scattered on the ground, to lift his head, but it was no use.
The tight connection between his flesh and limbs had vanished completely. All that remained was pain like being burned by the blazing sun.
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