Starting from Demon Slayer, Becoming the Strongest Demon Blade! Chapter 50

At that, Tanjiro really couldn't take it anymore.

"Isn't that a little inappropriate? And where exactly are you looking?!"

The train sped along the tracks.

By now, dusk had completely faded into night, and outside the windows stretched an endless expanse of darkness.

Everyone became more cautious.

Nightfall meant demons would appear.

But just then, the door at the rear of the carriage opened, and a thin conductor emerged, holding a ticket punch.

"Tickets, please!"

Tanjiro asked somewhat confusedly, "What is this for?"

"The conductor checks tickets and punches them to prevent fare evasion." Kyojuro Rengoku patiently explained.

By then, the conductor had already approached them.

Kyojuro Rengoku handed over his ticket, and the conductor punched a notch into it.

But no one noticed something.

At the instant it was punched, the writing on the ticket quietly changed.

Tanjiro and the others had their tickets punched one after another, and none of them noticed the changes to their tickets.

But Ashura Maru within the blade understood perfectly well.

The tickets were the medium Enmu used to activate his ability. The only reason Ashura Maru had not warned them was to kill some time.

After all, they still had a long way to go before reaching Akaza's location.

Letting them have a nice dream for now wasn't bad either. Besides, Ashura Maru could wake them from their dreams whenever necessary.

"Have a good dream, Tanjiro."

From the moment their tickets were punched, everyone had already fallen asleep.

Ashura Maru simply watched silently from within Tanjiro's mental world as Tanjiro enjoyed the reunion with his family.

Quietly watching his happy smile.

Ashura Maru also took the opportunity to study the structure of the dream. It simply could not compare to Ashura Maru's own abilities. Ashura Maru could control the entire mental world.

Enmu, on the other hand, was like someone who had opened a small room within the mental world. It could be shattered with a single poke.

Enmu's Blood Demon Art forcibly put people to sleep, probably by the same principle. But running into Ashura Maru could only be considered Enmu's bad luck.

With me here, Tanjiro won't fall for your tricks at all. He's completely immune to Enmu's Blood Demon Art!

Meanwhile.

In the first carriage.

Enmu's severed hand crawled across the floor on its own. The hand had an eye and a mouth, and four humans stood before it.

Its mouth opened, releasing a lazy voice.

"Soon, their sleep will deepen. When that happens, use the ropes I gave you to tie yourselves to one another. But be careful not to touch their bodies.

Powerful demon slayers are easily awakened by outside stimuli, and my dreams are not infinitely large. As long as you find the boundary,

use the awls I gave you to cut through it and destroy the core in their outer subconscious. I still can't leave the engine car for now, so if you want to have a good dream, do your best~"

The four people included both men and women, but all of them looked haggard. Each held an awl that gleamed with a cold light.

They had all made up their minds.

They headed for the carriage where Tanjiro and the others were, each choosing one target. As for Sanemi Shinazugawa, they temporarily ignored him.

Mainly because all those scars were genuinely intimidating.

In the dream.

Tanjiro had returned to his former self. He had shed his uniform and Nichirin Blade and was sitting on his knees inside the room.

His younger brothers and sisters, who had long since died, appeared before him once more, along with his mother.

They looked like one big happy family.

Yet Tanjiro kept unconsciously reaching for his waist. Something felt off, as though he had lost something incredibly important.

Somewhere he did not notice.

In a corner of the dream, a weak-looking boy holding an awl arrived at the edge of the dream.

"Is this the place?"

He pierced the boundary with the awl in his hand and stepped inside.

The boy entered Tanjiro's subconscious. It was a place where sky met sea, blue skies and white clouds reflected upon the boundless azure ocean below.

Peaceful and serene.

When the breeze brushed across the boy's cheek, he was completely stunned by the sight and could not help murmuring.

"So this is what his heart looks like?"

The moment he spoke.

Someone suddenly spoke behind him.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it?"

Ashura Maru's crimson eyes watched the boy who had appeared there, and Ashura Maru did not seem to be in a good mood.

The boy had not expected anyone else to be there. Ashura Maru was an incomparably beautiful girl, and he was momentarily lost in a daze.

He answered without realizing it.

"It's breathtakingly beautiful and endless... and... so warm..."

At that, Ashura Maru nodded slightly, then walked forward alone. "Not bad. But since you've come here, please die!"

With a raise of Ashura Maru's hand, black smoke spread from around Ashura Maru and transformed into sharp spikes that shot toward him.

The boy shut his eyes in terror, his body trembling uncontrollably. But the death he expected never came.

When he opened his eyes.

He only saw a palm made of light blocking the attack before him. The warmth it radiated made him unable to stop himself from crying...

"Your subconscious wants to protect others? That really is just like you, Tanjiro!"

Dream Shatters, Everyone Awakens

Ashura Maru gave up on attacking again and instead raised a slender right hand and snapped her fingers.

"Then I won't kill you this time. Get lost!"

Snap!

The crisp snap rang in the boy's ears, and then his consciousness sank into boundless darkness.

Meanwhile.

In the dream on the other side, Tanjiro had also noticed something strange. He ran alone into a dense forest of ice and snow.

"Tanjiro, what's wrong?"

Behind him came the calls of his mother and family.

But even so, Tanjiro merely lowered his head and kept walking, murmuring.

"I really want to stay here forever. Everything was so wonderful, my family was healthy and happy... But all of this is fake... I already lost everything...

All I can do now is avenge you!"

His will resolute, he sprinted through the snow and ice and shouted with all his strength, "Ashura Maru!"

The moment his voice fell.

Ashura Maru appeared behind him, walked forward slowly, and teased, "You want to leave already? I deliberately didn't wake you right away."

Faced with the teasing, Tanjiro looked exceptionally calm. But in those gentle eyes, there was only determination.

"All I have in my heart now is revenge. Please, Ashura Maru, let me leave this place!"

His resolve had never been firmer. Perhaps seeing his family again had made him understand that, having lost everything, the only thing he could do now was make Muzan Kibutsuji pay the price he deserved!

Ashura Maru looked as though she had no choice but to comply and waved a hand. "Since you asked for it, wake up now!"

The moment her voice fell.

The dream shattered, and Tanjiro, who had been sleeping in his seat, suddenly woke up. He quickly looked around in vigilance.

What he saw were his sleeping companions, along with several extra people. There was also a hemp rope around his wrist, connecting him to a boy in the seat behind him.

"Who are these people? And that rope... Right, Ashura Maru, please wake Zenitsu and the others quickly too!"

Without time to think any further, Tanjiro immediately stood up.

Ashura Maru, within the blade, released strands of black smoke that connected to the other four and shattered their dreams.

But during that time.

Ashura Maru had witnessed their dreams firsthand, especially Zenitsu's. In his dream, he was playing around, smiling in an incredibly lecherous way.

"Ashura Maru, Nezuko, wait for me~"

Seeing this, Ashura Maru could not help twitching at the corner of her mouth. She directly released her power and took control of her false self within the dream.

Just as Zenitsu was about to pounce.

She kicked him flying.

As he stared in bewilderment, Ashura Maru walked over to him. Her sharp blood-red eyes looked down at him as she said coldly.

"Actually, I'm a man!"

Zenitsu froze for a moment after learning the truth.

Then he let out a piercing scream, his expression completely collapsing into something absurdly grotesque.

"Ahhh... No! How could Ashura Maru be a man... This has to be a dream! Impossible... Absolutely impossible..."

Amid his screams, the dream shattered.

Zenitsu successfully escaped the dream, opened his terrified eyes, and shouted.

"It was all fake!"

When he came back to his senses, he saw everyone else looking at him strangely, making him rather embarrassed.

But once he confirmed that it had been a dream, he finally let out a sigh of relief. Then he lowered his head and saw the hemp rope around his wrist.

It was connected to another boy's wrist.

"Who is this guy? And what is this rope supposed to be...?"

The others who had awakened were also confused. Fortunately, Tanjiro hurriedly explained.

"We were hit by a Blood Demon Art and forcibly put to sleep. The tickets smelled like demons, so the tickets may have been the medium used to activate the Blood Demon Art.

Fortunately, Ashura Maru was here, or we wouldn't have been able to wake up."

"The demon has appeared?"

At that, Kyojuro Rengoku stood up and scanned the surroundings, missing no detail with his owl-like eyes.

Zenitsu, unusually, did not lapse into hysterics. Instead, he fumed inwardly, How dare it make me have such a nightmare? Unforgivable! I'm definitely going to cut it down!

As for Inosuke, he had yet to fully come back to his senses from the dream.

In contrast, Sanemi Shinazugawa, seated opposite him, had already drawn the Nichirin Blade at his waist and demanded fiercely.

"Where is the demon? I'll go kill it right now!"