Time flew, heavy snow alternating with withered leaves.
Eight full years had passed since that basin village had been sliced into a grid.
Yaha walked across the dead grass of the wilderness, the sun overhead glaring brightly enough to make him dizzy.
Over those eight years, he had scoured most of Honshu in search of high-level prey, but the number on his System Panel remained stubbornly stuck at thirty-three percent.
Slaughtering small fry offered barely any progress. Killing those low-level demons who could not even use a Breathing Style was no different from stepping on ants.
These past few years, he had not even bothered touching the Black Blade at his waist. A twitch of his fingers was all it took to turn those disgusting creatures into a useless mess of rotten flesh.
The progress that Lower Rank One had given him back then barely counted as a light meal, while Muzan seemed to have tucked all the remaining Upper Ranks into a turtle shell, hiding them deep away.
All he could think about now was where to find an Upper Rank to squeeze some loot out of. Wandering aimlessly like this bored him to death.
The instincts belonging to Sukuna inside his body were beginning to ache.
He wanted to tear something apart, to watch those arrogant prey crumble in despair beneath the oppressive power of the laws. That irrepressible urge to destroy needed a sufficiently sturdy punching bag to vent itself on.
A gust of wind blew out of the dense forest ahead.
Yaha stopped and lifted his head slightly.
A foul smell rode the air. Mixed into the scent of fresh human blood was a trace of the stench of Muzan's blood.
That trace was extremely faint, clearly belonging to some inferior spawn that had received very little of Muzan's blood.
Yaha's eyelid twitched. The smell of Muzan's blood meant experience points. Even scraps were better than walking for nothing.
He pushed off, his combat boot crushing a clod of dry earth, and silently leaped up an ancient, towering tree, flipping onto a thick branch.
Yaha lay down lazily, pillowing his head on his hands as he looked through the overlapping leaves.
In the clearing beneath the trees, a chase with an utterly predictable outcome was unfolding.
A boy wearing a green-and-black checkered haori was rolling desperately out of the way, his uniform covered in dirt.
A dark red scar marked the left side of his forehead, and the pair of sun-patterned earrings on his ears swung violently with his movements.
An enormous Spider Demon was pursuing him.
A pale human face grew from its spider's body. Eight bristly, jointed legs scuttled rapidly across the ground, every step leaving a deep dent in the soil as it brutally smashed through the surrounding trees.
The Spider Demon let out a piercing hiss, opened its great maw, and sprayed a torrent of purple poison.
The poison landed on the grass with a corrosive sizzling sound, instantly blackening and withering the turf.
The boy with the earrings drew a deep breath, and a layer of azure water swirled around his blade.
Water Breathing, First Form: Water Surface Slash.
The powerful current and gust from his blade barely managed to scatter the poison to either side.
He rolled across the ground and regained his footing, both hands gripping the hilt of his Nichirin Blade as his chest heaved.
With his eyelids half lowered, Yaha looked into the boy's eyes.
Those eyes were clear and bright, without the madness or murderous intent that should have accompanied such desperation. Instead, they held a cloying compassion.
Yaha's keen gaze could plainly see that although the boy swung decisively, the path of his blade carried the absurd intention of making the monster's death less painful.
The corner of Yaha's mouth twitched.
Someone with such clear, foolish eyes was practically a joke in this meat grinder of a world, where human lives were worth less than grass.
Not only had old Urokodaki taken on a new pupil over the years, but his judgment in choosing disciples had grown as weak as the world around him.
Pitying an inferior creature whose mind held nothing but an appetite for human flesh was the ultimate insult to one's own life.
Showing mercy to an enemy on the battlefield would only get oneself and one's companions killed in the end. That bleeding-heart approach left Yaha inexplicably irritated.
The situation below changed in an instant.
The Spider Demon seemed to lose patience. Its human face twisted, and its abdomen suddenly reared high with a harsh scraping sound.
A vast sheet of tough, grayish-white webbing shot from its rear.
The web glowed a ghastly green, saturated with deadly poison. It spread open in midair like a vast canopy of death, cutting off every route of escape the boy had.
The mesh was so fine that not even a fly could pass through.
Gripping his Nichirin Blade, the boy broke into a cold sweat that trickled down his cheeks to his chin. The azure glow of Water Breathing appeared again, and he shouted as he tried to muster the strength to cut through the enormous web.
But his swing was clearly a beat too slow. The web closed in far faster than he had expected, and the rank stench of poison was already at his nose.
Yaha yawned.
Still lying on the branch without so much as sitting up, he casually raised his right hand and flicked his index finger against the rough bark.
An arc invisible to the naked eye descended without a sound.
Cursed Technique: Dismantle.
There was no disturbance in the air, no unnecessary sound. Not even a single leaf stirred.
The vast poisonous web suddenly halted in midair. Then its halves slid neatly out of alignment, the cut as smooth as a mirror.
The cutting line passed unhindered through the poisonous web and continued through the enormous Spider Demon below.
The Spider Demon's human face still held the savage expression it had worn while spitting its web. The light in its compound eyes froze instantly.
A second later, its enormous body split straight down the middle. One half toppled left, while the other slammed into the dirt on the right with a dull thud.
It never even had time to scream.
The cut surfaces were as smooth as though a god had polished them, without a single drop of blood spilling out.
The power of the laws struck straight at its soul, instantly shutting off any possibility of regeneration. Fresh buds of flesh had barely emerged before they hissed faintly and rapidly blackened and died.
In the blink of an eye, it carbonized into black ash that scattered on the wind, leaving only a lifeless heap of powder on the ground.
The boy held his sword up in both hands, still poised to slash, his pupils trembling violently.
The poisonous web had shattered, and the enormous monster had split in two in an instant before turning to ash. Everything was so quiet that only the rustling leaves could be heard.
Bracing one hand against the trunk, Yaha leaped down from the branch more than ten meters above the ground.
His combat boots landed on the leaf-covered earth with a soft thud, stirring a few fallen leaves into the air.
He slowly straightened and slipped both hands into his pockets, his black Corps uniform jacket fluttering slightly with the movement.
The instant Yaha landed, Tanjiro's sense of smell, a hundred times keener than an ordinary person's, was struck by a catastrophic storm.
It was a bottomless smell of blood, countless times heavier and more terrifying than that of even a pure demon, and it stung the inside of his nose.
His legs involuntarily carried him half a step backward. Veins bulged on the back of his sword hand, as though he were forcibly suppressing the instinctive terror urging him to flee at once.
What stood before him was no human, but a world-destroying beast wearing human skin!
Tanjiro took two long, deep breaths, lowered his Nichirin Blade until its tip touched the ground, and bowed to Yaha. His lips moved, as though he wanted to thank him.
Yaha did not even glance at him.
His half-lowered eyelids lifted slightly, and his gaze passed over the boy's shoulder, fixing directly on the large wooden box strapped to his back.
The box was made of extremely lightweight wood, its surface coated in clear varnish and its door shut tight.
At the very moment the Spider Demon had been sliced apart, an extremely faint tremor had come from inside the wooden box.
Something inside was trembling at the terrifying aura emanating from Yaha.
That smell belonged to a demon.
A dangerous dark red seeped into the depths of Yaha's pitch-black pupils, and the black curse markings on his face flickered into view at the edge of his collar.
He tilted his neck, his joints cracking sharply, and his mouth curved into a languid, malicious smile.
"Parading around with a demon."
Yaha's gaze finally settled on the boy's face, his voice laced with cold mockery.
"You've got some nerve."
Before you continue