The words had yet to fade.
The bluestone slab beneath Yaha's feet exploded from its center. No cracks spread outward. The entire slab was punched through from below at once, its fragments bouncing half a foot into the air before a suction from deeper down pulled them back.
There was nothing beneath his feet.
Dark purple light surged up from below, three times brighter than the dozen fissures overhead, three times denser, its pull three times stronger. That force did not tug upward. It swallowed downward, as if a gigantic maw had opened beneath the earth's crust to devour everything on the surface.
A feint. The dozen fissures above were only bait, forcing him to direct all his defenses overhead. The real portal had been buried beneath his feet from the start.
Nakime had compressed the spatial laws of the entire Infinity Castle into a sharp knife and thrust it up from the most unexpected direction.
Great swaths of the courtyard collapsed. Not one hole, but seven. Seven dark purple abysses burst open in different places at once, precisely dividing every group standing in the courtyard.
The ground vanished beneath Tanjiro. He plummeted, wildly slashing his blade through empty space and striking nothing. The suction shredded Zenitsu's scream, and Inosuke's twin blades flew from his hands. Three abysses swallowed the three of them in separate directions.
Rengoku reacted fastest. He kicked aside the rubble beside him, his flame-colored blade tracing an arc through the darkness as he tried to cleave the purple wall of light beneath his feet. The instant the edge touched it, his blade bounced off. A sideways pull sent him flying, taking Mitsuri with him. Their figures spun half a turn in midair before being flung into separate rifts.
Giyu rushed two steps forward, toward Yaha. The