The crimson web crashed down with a piercing shriek.
It was less than half a meter above Yaha's head.
Without warning, the web stopped in midair.
An invisible barrier of cursed energy held its strangling force firmly at bay.
A teeth-grating screech of friction echoed through the woods.
A series of sharp cracks rang out as the foremost threads bent and snapped.
Yaha kept both hands in his pockets, his shoulders not even twitching.
The cursed energy he released swept outward like a storm.
The strongest threads Rui took such pride in were blasted into fine powder.
Red dust drifted through the air.
It stained the dead leaves beneath Yaha's feet and blanketed the surrounding soil.
Giyu knelt in a muddy pit filled with blood.
He gasped for breath.
Sweat mingled with blood and ran into his eyes.
He raised his head, looking at the black-clad figure standing in front of him.
His nerves, stretched to their limit, finally gave way, and the Nichirin Blade slipped from his hand.
It struck a rock with a dull thud, the watery blue glow along its edge going out completely.
"Yaha..."
Giyu's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, the rest of his words trapped in his parched throat.
Yaha turned his head.
He glanced at Giyu on the ground out of the corner of his eye.
His uniform was shredded into strips, and wounds deep enough to expose bone covered his body.
Their edges were deathly pale, still seeping blood.
Yaha's mouth twitched.
"Shut up, you embarrassing poker-faced idiot."
His voice was quiet, but his tone was vicious.
He tipped his chin toward Rui ahead.
"You couldn't even handle some little brat playing with yarn. Old Man's going to string you up and whip you when you get back."
His words were harsh.
But Yaha ground the sole of his boot hard into the ground.
Solid rock crumbled to powder beneath his foot and sank deep into the mud.
If he had arrived two seconds later.
The poker-faced idiot on the ground would have become a pile of minced flesh that could never be pieced back together.
Cracks spread rapidly forward through the ground from beneath his foot.
Rui stood beside a broken tree a dozen meters away.
His white hair whipped wildly in the wind.
He looked down at the powdered threads carpeting the ground beneath him.
The flesh on his perpetually cold face twitched uncontrollably.
His numbered eye bulged, riddled with bloodshot veins.
These threads had been strengthened with highly concentrated demon blood.
Even a Hashira could not have lasted three exchanges against them.
Yet now they had not even touched the hem of his opponent's clothes.
"Who are you? How dare you interfere with my family game?"
Rui spoke through gritted teeth, an unmistakable tremor in his voice.
He stared fixedly at the boy ahead, whose body was covered in black curse markings.
An utterly unfamiliar scent filled his nostrils.
It was the pure, overwhelming scent of death.
The instincts Muzan Kibutsuji had bestowed upon him collapsed completely at that moment.
Every cell screamed frantically for him to flee.
Rui's feet shifted back half an inch against his will, snapping a dead twig.
Yaha turned around fully.
He met Rui's gaze.
His hands remained in his pockets.
The corners of his mouth rose into a savagely cruel grin.
"A family game? Done playing house, you freak?"
Those words shattered what little reason Rui had left.
His counterfeit familial bonds were the only pillar sustaining his existence.
Veins bulged across his face, and his pale skin instantly flushed red.
"You have a death wish!"
He let out a shrill, piercing scream.
The demon blood in his body burned without restraint.
He dug all ten fingers deep into his palms, blood gushing out.
It congealed into thicker, tougher crimson threads that crossed and strained wildly before him.
Blood Demon Art: Thread Prison.
A web strengthened to its absolute limit rose from every direction.
The surrounding trees were severed at their trunks, their enormous crowns crashing to the ground.
Dirt flew as red streaks of death sealed off every escape route Yaha had.
With enough force to shred a mountaintop, the cage rapidly contracted around the black-clad boy at its center.
The air shrieked as it was sliced apart.
Yaha stood in the heart of the storm.
The hem of his black clothes lashed wildly.
He could not even be bothered to move his feet to dodge.
He slowly withdrew his right hand.
His fingers were long, their joints well defined.
He held his index and middle fingers together, suspended in midair.
Facing the vast cage of threads before him, he casually traced a short arc.
"Cursed Technique: Dismantle."
There were no dazzling lights or shadows, nor any disturbance in the air.
A spine-chilling sound of slicing rang out.
Swish.
The absolute defense Rui took such pride in disintegrated.
The thick crimson threads broke into countless pieces in midair.
The fragments clattered down, and the surrounding air began flowing again.
The invisible slash continued unabated.
It swept straight through Rui's body.
Thud. Thud.
Two dull impacts echoed through the deathly silent woods.
Rui's hands separated from his wrists.
The left half of his shoulder, along with his entire left arm, slid cleanly off his torso.
The severed limb fell into a pool of blood, splashing up a few drops of dark red muddy water.
Rui froze.
He had not even felt the pain of a blade entering his flesh.
He lowered his head, staring blankly at his bare left shoulder and severed wrist.
The cuts were as smooth as mirrors.
Not a single drop of blood flowed out.
Rui instinctively stirred his demon blood.
Fresh buds of flesh had only just emerged from the cuts, trying to fill what was missing.
A faint sizzling sound arose.
The new flesh rapidly blackened and charred.
It turned into scorched powder that crumbled away.
Damage at the level of the soul had completely cut off regeneration.
A strange sound escaped his throat.
Rui's legs buckled, and he dropped heavily into the muddy water.
Mud splashed onto his pale face, but he did not notice.
His right shoulder remained, yet he could muster no strength in it.
The stench of scorched flesh from the cut filled his nostrils.
He turned his neck and looked at his left arm on the ground.
Its white fingers curled slightly, never to obey him again.
Black ash seeped from the arm's cut surface at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Something's wrong with this..."
Rui's voice was hoarse and broken.
His status as a Lower Rank, which he took such pride in, had become an utter joke before that single invisible slash.
Not only could he grow no new flesh, but his remaining body was continuing to die.
Yaha stepped over the severed threads strewn across the ground, advancing one step at a time.
His combat boots made sticky sounds against the blood-soaked dead leaves.
The black curse markings on his face gleamed eerily in the moonlight.
His dark red eyes held nothing but cold contempt for everything.
"Does it hurt?"
Yaha walked up to Rui.
He looked down from above at the Lower Rank slumped on the ground.
Without drawing his blade, he slipped his right hand back into his pocket.
"This is how a game should end."
Yaha's lips curled.
"When you treated other people as toys, you should've known you'd end up as a pile of rotten meat that could never be put back together."
Behind him.
Giyu clutched his chest and struggled to prop himself up.
He had not detected even the slightest fluctuation of power in that last strike.
Even Water Breathing's Tenth Form did not possess such power.
That had not been swordsmanship at all, but sheer domination at the level of fundamental laws.
Giyu clenched his fists.
The boy's back was reflected in his eyes.
He realized clearly that the strength he had trained so desperately to attain was still so insignificant.
Rui raised his head and stared fixedly at Yaha.
With nowhere left to retreat, the demon's savagery erupted in full.
"I'll kill you!"
"I'll slice your flesh off piece by piece!"
Rui roared frantically.
The remaining half of his body swelled violently, purple veins bulging beneath his skin.
He tried to wring out the very last drop of Muzan's blood within him.
Blood erupted from the stump of his remaining right arm, forcibly congealing into a chaotic red killing net that lunged at Yaha's face.
Yaha watched his prey's dying struggle.
He tilted his head disdainfully.
He raised his left foot, aimed it at Rui's chest, and casually stepped down.
Crack.
The tremendous force snapped several of Rui's ribs, pinning him firmly into the mud.
The newly formed blood web instantly collapsed.
"Kill me?"
Yaha gave a quiet laugh.
"With that wreck of a body, you think you're worthy of saying those words?"
He slowly leaned down, his red eyes boring straight into Rui's.
"Wash your neck."
"Today, I'm going to cut every inch of your bones into cubes the size of a fingernail."
Before you continue