Three days passed quickly.
Yaha wandered through the wilderness, stopping and starting. He had forgotten all about the safe route the Old Man had marked out, deliberately choosing places thick with sinister energy instead.
Along the way, he encountered seven or eight low-level demons that lunged at him, drawn by the smell of flesh. These creatures had nothing but hunger in their heads and threw themselves at any living human they saw.
Yaha could not even be bothered to draw the Black Blade at his waist. He merely extended two fingers and flicked them idly a few times, cutting the scum into chunks of flesh scattered across the ground.
The system notification sounded on cue every time. His roleplay level increased by 0.1 percent.
Yaha frowned in disgust at the pitiful figure.
What he needed now was a highly concentrated Sin Crystal. The experience these small fry provided was nowhere near enough. They were nothing but a waste of time.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and continued strolling.
On the evening of the third day.
The sun sank along the distant ridgeline, and the sky rapidly darkened.
Yaha reached the edge of a secluded basin. Loose stones crunched beneath his feet.
He stopped. His gaze swept past the weed-covered slope toward the village below.
A purple mist tightly enveloped the entire village.
The thick mist rolled slowly through the low ground, swallowing every house and road.
A cloyingly sweet, pungent odor drifted through the air, laden with the stench of decay.
Yaha walked down the slope.
Near the bottom of the basin, he spotted several corpses.
The bodies lay in the weeds beside the road. They wore black Demon Slayer Corps uniforms, with the glaring character for "destroy" emblazoned on their backs. They were low-ranking swordsmen who had only recently joined.
Yaha approached and stopped beside one of the bodies.
He hooked the toe of his boot under its shoulder and rolled it over.
The corpse's face had been completely disfigured. Its skin had melted into a puddle of black slime, exposing large stretches of white bone beneath the flesh.
Even the durable uniform had been corroded full of holes.
These people had died without even getting the chance to draw their swords. They had not made it out of the basin before the poisonous mist ate straight through their airways.
Yaha withdrew his foot and turned his gaze toward the dense purple mist ahead.
He smelled something else.
Beneath the pungent poison lurked an intensely powerful scent of blood.
He had smelled it at the Tomioka Family home two years ago, and again on the Hand Demon at Mount Fujikasane a few days earlier.
But this time was completely different.
This time, it was more than ten times as concentrated, carrying an oppressive air of superiority.
It was the distinctive aura Muzan Kibutsuji bestowed upon the Twelve Kizuki.
Lower Rank.
Yaha's eyelids lifted slightly. Deep within his once-languid eyes, a dark red glow began to seep out.
Black curse markings crept silently from beneath his collar. They crossed his jawline and instantly covered half his face.
His lips curled into an utterly vicious grin.
Finally found one. Prey big enough to farm experience from.
With both hands in his pockets, Yaha stepped straight into the purple poisonous mist without the slightest hesitation.
The purple mist instantly swallowed him. The light around him faded completely, and visibility dropped to less than five meters.
The mist was highly corrosive. The moment it touched skin, it triggered a violent chemical reaction.
One breath was all it took for an ordinary human's lung tissue to die completely within three seconds, their internal organs dissolving into a pool of pus and blood.
The swordsmen on the outskirts had died from precisely this potent poison.
The poisonous air brushed Yaha's cheeks and traveled straight down his airways into his lungs.
His chest rose and fell. He even deliberately took a deep breath of the purple mist.
The toxins spread wildly through his blood, trying to destroy the cellular structure of his body.
No system notification sounded. But another power within him began operating automatically.
Reverse Cursed Technique.
Cursed energy surged violently through his pathways at twice the usual consumption rate, converting destructive power into pure healing energy.
The instant the poison ate through a layer of lung tissue, Reverse Cursed Technique restored it completely within a hundredth of a second.
He did not even need to consciously control it.
This body, which housed the King of Curses template, already possessed resistance to the rules themselves that defied all common sense.
To Sukuna, a petty trick like deadly poison did not even qualify as an appetizer worth serving.
The poisonous mist churned around him, giving off faint sizzling sounds of corrosion.
Yaha walked slowly. His combat boots struck the village's poison-soaked stone paving with dull, steady taps.
He surveyed the earthen walls around him, their surfaces riddled with corrosion.
There was no one left alive here. Every creature that breathed had become nourishment for the poisonous mist.
He headed toward the deepest part of the village. That was where the aura of the Twelve Kizuki was strongest.
An abandoned shrine stood in the village center. Purple-black vines coiled around its dilapidated torii gate.
Yaha stopped before the torii. He raised his head and looked at the shadows on the shrine's roof.
In the darkness, a pair of lurking eyes stared fixedly at him. A glaring number was clearly engraved on one eyeball.
Lower Rank One.
This demon lurked in the secluded basin, using poisonous mist to create a completely sealed hunting ground of despair.
Any human who wandered inside, whether an ordinary villager or a Demon Slayer Corps swordsman, would melt into bloody liquid before realizing what was happening.
This had become its safest, most convenient source of food.
It had sensed someone entering the village long ago.
It assumed this was another lost low-ranking swordsman, or a rookie rushing to his death.
A fool who could not even distinguish the aura of the Twelve Kizuki was not worth dealing with personally.
After just ten steps through the poisonous mist, the intruder would collapse, howling in agony as even their bones dissolved.
It waited leisurely on the rooftop, ready to savor the beautiful sight of its prey's skin melting amid piercing screams.
But now, it saw the boy in the black uniform.
With both hands in his pockets, he walked step by step through the dense purple mist capable of melting internal organs.
The boy's gait was utterly casual. He did not cough, cover his mouth and nose, or panic.
Not a single patch of his skin had rotted.
Lower Rank One's eye, engraved with the words "Lower One," contracted sharply.
No human could possibly do this!
It had killed three Demon Slayer Corps swordsmen in this village. None of them had even survived the edges of the poisonous mist.
Yet this brat was breathing deadly poison as though it were ordinary morning mist in the mountains!
An uncontrollable trace of unease welled up within Lower Rank One.
The boy standing beneath the torii suddenly raised his head.
A pair of blood-red eyes pierced the purple mist with effortless ease, locking onto its location with unerring accuracy.
Under that gaze, Lower Rank One's heart gave a violent lurch.
Those were not eyes a human should possess. That was the gaze of an apex predator looking at a plate of meat about to be served!
Instinctive terror tore Lower Rank One's arrogance to shreds. It decided to strike first.
It abruptly raised its deathly pale arms and spread all ten fingers.
Its Blood Demon Art activated.
The swirling purple poison mist around it changed dramatically in an instant. The mist compressed tightly, condensing into several terrifying, translucent wind blades.
These wind blades carried a poison so potent that the slightest contact with blood would be fatal.
A mere scratch would allow the toxins to spread throughout the prey's bloodstream, dissolving them completely from within.
The shrill whistle of air being torn apart rang through the dense mist.
Several purple blades of poisonous wind shot down from above the dark rooftop, sealing off every possible escape route around Yaha.
The wind blades were incredibly fast, closing in on Yaha's vital points in the blink of an eye.
The foremost wind blade aimed mercilessly and directly at Yaha's neck.
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