Yaha spread his five fingers.
The air fell utterly still.
The wind stopped flowing, and the shredded wood chips hung motionless before his combat boots.
Immense cursed energy surged from Yaha's palm, visibly warping the space before him.
Thread Rotation whipped up violent currents capable of tearing apart a mountaintop. The red meat grinder was only three inches from Yaha's face.
Then, defying every law of physics, it stopped.
Within fifteen meters, the fan-shaped space was instantly sliced by invisible blades into countless tiny cubes too small for the naked eye to track.
The highly concentrated threads of demon blood rapidly disintegrated within that space, turning into exceedingly fine red dust.
Stripped of its momentum, the dust slid down the invisible barrier of cursed energy, spreading a thick, dark-red layer over the muddy ground.
The grid continued its advance unabated.
Like a net of judgment cast down by a god, it completely enveloped Lower Rank Five.
Rui still held both hands thrust forward, a crazed expression frozen on his deathly pale face.
His mouth gaped wide, his vocal cords vibrating desperately, but the sound stuck in his throat and would not come out.
A barely perceptible crack rippled through the woods.
Like ice splitting under immense pressure.
A red line as fine as a strand of hair appeared on Rui's cheek.
Then came a second, and a third.
Crisscrossing red lines swiftly spread across his neck, chest, and limbs.
The lines were as dense as a fishing net fitted perfectly against his skin.
And he was not the only one.
More than a dozen century-old trees behind him, along with the solid, thick bedrock at ground level, were all covered in the same orderly red lines.
Every substance within the fan-shaped area was marked with death's measuring lines in the same second.
Time took over the execution ground.
Rui's body shifted out of alignment along the red lines, like building blocks.
Flesh split, bones broke, and organs separated.
More than a thousand perfectly identical cubes of flesh were precisely dismantled, then crashed into the muddy water below as their support vanished.
A small mound reeking of scorched flesh piled up at the scene.
The dense forest and bedrock behind him collapsed in unison, cubes of wood and stone pouring down like a waterfall.
An entire layer of Mount Natagumo's northern slope was sheared flat by that power, throwing dust into the sky.
His head, still clinging to a faint trace of consciousness, rolled down the slope formed by the chunks of flesh, tumbled several times through the mud, and finally stopped beside Yaha's black combat boot.
Rui could still see.
His numbered eyes spun wildly, staring at his own body scattered across the ground.
Every cut surface was as smooth as a mirror.
The blood had been severed at its source the instant his body split apart. The cells along the cuts let out faint sizzling sounds as soon as they touched the air.
New flesh rapidly blackened and carbonized, charred powder constantly flaking away.
His ability to regenerate had been completely erased.
His network of nerves had been cut into pieces so small that pain had not even had time to reach his brain.
An emptiness more terrifying than death smashed through Rui's soul.
Before this power, the Blood Demon Art he had taken such pride in was not even worthy of being called the crudest parlor trick.
His life flashed through his mind as he lay dying. His sickly childhood, the blood Muzan had bestowed upon him, and the parents he had once sliced apart with his own threads.
Now, a higher law had cut him into chunks of flesh.
Retribution had come in a form both absurd and direct.
Tears spilled from his deathly pale eyes, mingling with the muddy water on the ground as they streamed down his cheeks.
He looked toward Yaha, his lips trembling slightly as he tried to beg for a sliver of mercy, or perhaps a verdict granting him forgiveness.
Yaha looked down at the head on the ground, an icy coldness showing beneath his half-lowered eyelids.
There was no sympathy in his eyes, only pure indifference.
He found this sort of self-indulgent drama utterly tedious. The strong devoured the weak-that was the only ironclad law in this meat grinder of a world.
He slowly raised his right foot, aiming the sole at Rui's head.
"In your next life, don't pick a fight with someone who protects his own."
Yaha sounded as calm as if he were discussing tomorrow's weather.
He drove his foot down, bringing his combat boot down hard.
A muffled crunch of shattering bone rang out, and the head burst against the muddy ground like an overripe watermelon.
Rui's last trace of consciousness sank completely into darkness, and his ashes drifted away on the night wind.
A mechanical voice rang out in Yaha's mind right on cue.
"Ding. Host detected brutally killing Lower Rank Five." "Perfectly demonstrated the bearing of a superior being. Absolute subjugation of the weak at the level of fundamental laws. Roleplay level increased by fifteen percent." "Current roleplay level: forty-eight percent." "Only two percent remaining until Domain Expansion is unlocked."
Yaha rubbed the grime off his boot sole against the dead grass.
Forty-eight percent progress was decent enough.
Just those final two percentage points, and he could turn this stretch of heaven and earth into his own kitchen, chopping it into mincemeat however he pleased.
He turned around, his gaze sweeping over Giyu behind him.
Ten paces away, Giyu knelt in a puddle of blood and mud.
He looked at the slope ahead that had been sheared completely flat, then at the mountain of cubic remains, and finally at the black-clad youth who had slipped his hand back into his pocket.
His breathing came fast, his ears filled with the buzzing of severe blood loss, and the fingers gripping his Nichirin Blade spasmed uncontrollably.
His memory suddenly slipped back to that snowy night after Mount Fujikasane.
Sabito had held a broken sword, his face drained of color as he demanded to know what kind of monster Yaha was.
Only now did Giyu fully understand the fear Sabito had felt then.
This had long since surpassed the limits of any Breathing Style. This was a natural disaster.
When humans faced the absolute laws of an attack from a higher dimension, all they could do was tremble.
Yaha kicked aside a stone at his feet and looked at his battered, expressionless younger brother, the black curse markings on his own face slowly fading.
"Close your mouth and pick up your sword."
Yaha's voice was thick with disdain.
"There's still a bunch of useless Corps members hanging halfway up the mountain. If you can't even manage to collect the bodies, roll straight down this mountain and stop going around disgracing Old Man."
Giyu swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva.
Bracing his broken sword against the ground, he staggered to his feet. His tattered uniform was soaked in blood, and he shook uncontrollably as the cold wind blew over him.
"Just how far... have you gone?" Giyu's voice was hoarse and dry.
Yaha yawned and gave him a lazy glance out of the corner of his eye.
"All I did was kill some trash playing with yarn. It wasn't enough to make me break a sweat."
He turned his head and looked into the pitch-black woods.
"I'm not interested in coming to babysit you every damn time. Got it?"
Before you continue