Lower Rank One's right fist shattered the air, yet failed to touch even the hem of Yaha's clothes.
Yaha merely leaned aside by an almost imperceptible fraction. The enormous claw, steeped in deadly poison, swept past his ear, its putrid wind tousling the loose strands over his forehead.
"Slow."
Yaha drawled that single word.
He slipped his left hand out of his trouser pocket, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and lifted them casually toward the air.
Cursed Technique: Dismantle.
Not even the wind stirred.
An invisible cutting line swept silently across Lower Rank One's thick right wrist.
It did not sever the wrist, but shaved off a small sliver of it. Skin, flesh, and a section of tendon came away together, thin as a leaf.
Lower Rank One's roar caught in its throat. It lowered its head numbly and stared at the fresh wound on its wrist. The skin curled back around the edges, while the cut surface was smooth as a mirror.
No blood flowed. The cutting line had precisely avoided every major blood vessel, gouging away only the outermost flesh, where the pain receptors were most densely packed.
Sizzle.
Demon blood surged, and fresh buds of flesh squirmed eagerly from the edges of the wound, trying to fill the missing patch.
But the instant they touched the air, the wound hissed as though a red-hot iron plate had been pressed hard against it. The tips of the new flesh rapidly charred, crumbling away in blackened flakes.
An excision at the level of the soul. No matter how vigorous the body's regenerative instincts were, they became a pitiful joke before suppression that operated on the level of fundamental laws.
Lower Rank One's eyes bulged, blood vessels instantly webbing across their whites.
It finally realized that the attack that had sliced through the bell tower and severed its left arm had been no coincidence!
"You... what are you..."
Yaha ignored it.
He did not even let his gaze linger on the monster. He took a casual step to the left and tapped the air three times with the fingertips of his right hand.
With those slight movements, fine sprays of blood burst simultaneously from Lower Rank One's left shoulder, right leg, and beneath its ribs.
Three slivers of flesh, thin as cicada wings, were precisely gouged free.
Pain like searing branding irons exploded in all three places at once. Lower Rank One screamed, its enormous body losing its balance as it staggered backward.
It tried to cover the wounds with its remaining right hand, but the moment its fingertips touched the wound on its shoulder, the sizzling necrosis burned them and made it jerk its hand away.
"Don't dodge."
The voice drifted down from overhead.
Lower Rank One snapped its head up. At some point, Yaha had climbed onto the remains of the stone pillar it had just crushed.
Those eyes looked down on it from above. There was no warmth, no killing intent, as though he were watching a worm flipped over with a stick, still struggling in muddy water.
"I'm not done enjoying myself," Yaha said.
He raised his right hand again, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and began making tiny, continuous flicks in the empty air.
With each flick, another invisible thread of death appeared in the air.
The back of its hand, its thigh, the nape of its neck, its flank...
Wound after wound burst open across Lower Rank One's body. None was deep, none fatal; they even avoided every major artery whose severing would cause death. Yet this was ten times crueler than a single beheading.
The "immortal body" it took such pride in had become an instrument for prolonging its suffering. Every cut emitted a teeth-grating hiss of charring flesh. The moment new flesh emerged, the damage to its soul reduced it to ash.
Lower Rank One broke down. It rolled through the ruins, howling, smashing its ugly head against the ground in a frenzy, trying to drown out the marrow-deep torment with external pain.
It wanted to flee.
The poisonous mist was its absolute domain! It desperately stirred the swirling purple mist around it, instantly engulfing Yaha's position in dense, lethal poison, hoping to buy a moment's respite.
But the instant that organ-melting mist touched Yaha's skin, a faint glow from Reverse Cursed Technique flashed past. Like snow meeting the sun, the poison silently evaporated into wisps of white smoke, unable to corrode even a corner of his clothes.
Yaha stood atop the stone pillar and slipped both hands back into his trouser pockets.
"So this is the Twelve Kizuki." His voice carried utter boredom. "You don't even deserve to make me draw my blade."
Those words crushed the demon's last shred of reason.
Agony, fear, and the utter contempt of a superior being for an inferior creature pushed Lower Rank One's tiny brain to its limit.
It stopped retreating. Its remaining right arm clamped tightly around its ravaged torso as it tilted its head back, its bloodshot eyes bulging from their sockets.
"I'm going to... kill you!"
The dying beast's roar tore through the night sky. "Die with me!"
A rumble like muffled thunder came from within its chest. At that moment, all the blood Muzan Kibutsuji had bestowed upon it ignited.
Glowing purple-black lines spread across its skin like a spiderweb, and its body swelled violently like an inflatable ball of flesh. It sucked in every trace of the lingering poisonous mist, compressing it madly, collapsing it into energy of an intensely deep purple-black.
A sweet, bloody stench filled the air, so thick it was suffocating.
This was not poison. This was its ultimate Blood Demon Art, an explosive fusion of life and sin. This single attack could vaporize everything within a ten-li radius, along with the ruined village.
Yaha stood atop the stone pillar, facing that devastating wind pressure as the hem of his black clothes snapped in the gale.
He did not stop it.
He even tilted his head, a shudder-inducing dark red slowly seeping into the depths of his pitch-black eyes.
Within his mind, the cold mechanical voice arrived right on cue.
[Ding! Host detected driving a member of the Twelve Kizuki to desperation, causing it to abandon defense and choose self-destruction.] [Behavioral logic for "absolute evil and suppression by a superior being" has formed a complete loop.] [Roleplay Level +5%. Current Roleplay Level: 30%.] ["Domain Expansion" unlock progress +10%.]
Yaha slowly exhaled a breath tinged with the smell of blood.
The numbers flickering deep in his vision stretched his already upturned lips into a wider grin. This dull little monkey show had finally yielded a worthwhile prize.
Below him, Lower Rank One's body had swollen to its limit. Purple-black pillars of light erupted from its eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth.
"Come to hell with me, you monster..."
Amid the deafening, deranged laughter.
Yaha stood where he was, both hands still resting firmly in his trouser pockets.
Watching the mass of energy on the verge of exploding, he lowered his eyelids halfway and spoke softly.
"Hell?"
As though he had heard the most ridiculous joke in the world, he said, "You think a place like that is worthy of imprisoning the King of Curses?"
Before you continue