The entrance to Blue Stone Town was shrouded in thick, purplish-black fog.
The wind carried a sickly-sweet stench of decay.
Dark red growths covered the wooden houses on either side, swelling and shrinking with wet, sticky noises.
A densely packed crowd completely blocked the town entrance.
The ragged townspeople held farming tools. Their rolled-back eyes stared vacantly ahead, black blood seeping from their corners.
Thick strands of dark red flesh burst through the skin along their spines like vines.
These fleshy roots stretched backward, burrowing deep into the enormous membrane of flesh at the center of town.
Hundreds of living people had become puppets on strings.
Squelch.
A seam split open in the fleshy membrane with a teeth-grating sound.
A malformed demon covered in pustules stepped out through the mud.
His limbs were shriveled. His bulging right eye bore the inscription "Lower Rank Four."
"Welcome to Lord Muzan's feast."
The new Lower Rank Four licked his lips with a withered tongue, his voice like two rusty sheets of iron scraping together.
"Listen closely. How steady these humans' heartbeats and breathing are."
He spread his hands, hundreds of red Flesh Threads attached to his fingertips, and laughed maniacally.
"Noble Hashira, the moment you swing your blades, you'll become murderers who slaughter civilians!"
The townspeople swayed, raising rusty farming tools and hatchets as they pressed forward numbly.
"If you don't strike, these living humans will bite you to pieces."
Shrill laughter spilled from the new Lower Rank Four's throat.
"Human compassion is the most useful weapon in the world!"
Kyojuro Rengoku said nothing.
He clenched his teeth. With his thumb braced against the guard, he forcefully pushed his crimson Nichirin Blade back into its sheath after drawing it barely half an inch.
Facing the charging puppets, he knocked a hatchet aside with his left arm.
The back of his blade struck a man's shoulder.
Bone shifted out of place, and the man's right arm drooped limply.
But he felt no pain at all, and the dark red flesh on his face writhed frantically.
The man twisted around him like an eel. Opening his saliva-filled mouth, he clamped his fangs straight into Rengoku's arm.
Sharp teeth pierced his uniform and tore away a chunk of flesh.
Rengoku grunted.
He caught the back of the man's neck, fought down the instinct to swing his sword, and pinned him in the mud.
He avoided every vital point, not daring to strike a killing blow.
But the smell of blood stimulated the surrounding puppets. The crowd surged forward like a tide.
Rengoku pushed off the ground, weaving through the crowd as a red blur.
A blacksmith swung a Logging Axe straight at him. Its blade swept past Rengoku's ear with a chill gust.
Rengoku tilted his head aside and swept his right leg across, kicking the blacksmith behind the knee.
The blacksmith fell, only to immediately clamp both hands around Rengoku's ankle and open his mouth to bite.
Rengoku wrenched his leg free and swung his sheath backward, knocking away another woman lunging at him.
He could not use Flame Breathing.
Its savage, scorching flames would instantly burn these fragile civilians to ash.
Defending himself with such restrictions drained his stamina and patience.
Rusty hoes struck Rengoku's back repeatedly, gouging several bloody wounds deep enough to expose bone.
Standing behind him, Shinobu Kocho bit her lower lip hard as she watched her companion struggle.
Her purple figure traced a light blur through the air.
She attempted to interrupt their nerve signals with an extremely weak dose of poison.
Her sword tip flicked through the crowd like a bee's stinger, precisely touching three townspeople on their shoulders.
A minute dose of wisteria poison entered their bloodstreams.
But she had underestimated the vicious nature of Muzan's blood.
The townspeople she had struck suddenly let out agonized screams!
The dark red flesh beneath their skin swelled wildly. It devoured the poison like a sponge, then triggered an extremely violent rejection reaction.
Blood vessels burst one after another beneath their skin, and muscles twisted in ways human anatomy should never have allowed.
Crack!
The violent pulling force snapped a townsperson's thigh bone clean in two!
A pale shard of bone pierced the skin, and dark red blood splashed onto the mud. The civilian rolled in agony in a pool of blood.
Shinobu Kocho froze.
She immediately withdrew her sword, pushed off with her toes, and leaped more than ten meters backward, her purple eyes filled with horror.
Her precisely formulated paralytic poison had become a catalyst that accelerated the destruction of the civilians' bodies.
Her sword hand trembled slightly. She dared not use another drop of poison.
The pharmacology she prided herself on had been rendered completely useless.
The demon-slaying squad had fallen into the most hopeless of deadlocks.
They could neither kill nor poison them.
Hundreds of mindless puppets advanced step by step, their encirclement tightening.
The new Lower Rank Four stood atop a raised mound, his shriveled chest heaving with excitement.
He could not defeat a Hashira, but he knew exactly how to torment these righteous swordsmen who considered themselves so noble.
Looking past the blood-covered Rengoku, the new Lower Rank Four fixed his gaze on Yaha at the very back.
"What about that monster who supposedly cuts everything to pieces?"
The new Lower Rank Four extended a scrawny finger, pointing across the space between them straight at Yaha's nose.
"Go on, cut them! Chop these innocent humans into mincemeat along with me!"
Kyojuro Rengoku kicked over two charging puppets and abruptly turned his head.
Blood streamed from his forehead down his cheeks, staining his golden eyelashes red.
"Young Yaha, don't attack!"
Rengoku's voice was hoarse, but his resolve was unwavering.
"Once you kill them, the Demon Slayer Corps won't be able to protect you anymore. This is Muzan's vicious scheme to destroy you!"
He would rather be worn down and killed here than let Yaha bear the guilt of slaughtering civilians.
Yaha stood quietly at the back.
His hands were still tucked into his pockets.
He listened to the new Lower Rank Four's smug taunts and watched that scrawny finger pointing at his nose.
Sukuna's blood slowly boiled in his veins.
Moral blackmail.
The weak loved hiding behind it to bolster their courage.
He did not care whether these ants lived or died.
But what he hated most was trash standing above him, ordering him around in that self-righteous tone.
The careless languor in his eyes vanished completely.
Scarlet light swirled around the edges of his pitch-black pupils like magma about to erupt.
Ancient black Cursed Markings emerged from beneath his collar.
They crept along his pale neck, slowly covering half his face.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets.
His combat boot moved forward half a step.
The ground within thirty meters cracked instantly.
The hard blue stone slabs crumbled into fine powder as though crushed beneath an invisible millstone. The earth sank half a foot.
The hundreds of puppets charging Rengoku did not last even half a second.
It was as though an entire mountain had slammed into their backs.
Their legs gave way together, their knees smashing into the mud as their bones groaned under the unbearable weight.
Hundreds of people were pinned to the ground. Their faces pressed into muddy water, and they could not lift a single finger.
The Flesh Threads attached to their backs pulled taut.
Everything fell silent.
Rengoku and Shinobu Kocho were forced back again and again by the overwhelming pressure, their breathing nearly stopping.
Yaha walked forward over the shattered stone slabs.
His combat boots landed on the rubble with dull crunches.
He skirted the immobilized civilians and stopped directly before the new Lower Rank Four.
"Moral blackmail?"
Yaha lowered his head slightly, rolling the words around in his mouth.
He slowly raised his eyelids. There was not a trace of human warmth in those dark red eyes.
The new Lower Rank Four's laughter caught in his throat as though severed by a blade.
Muzan's blood inside him trembled violently. Icy terror shot up his spine to the crown of his head.
His legs weakened, and he stumbled backward uncontrollably, his back striking the dark red membrane.
"You seem to have misunderstood something."
Yaha's tone was utterly flat, carrying a lofty contempt.
"I don't give a damn about being a champion of justice."
He slowly raised his right hand.
His index and middle fingers pressed together, a wisp of pitch-black cursed energy coiling around their tips.
"Here, I decide who lives and who dies."
A savage aura surged skyward, tearing through the gloom of the night.
Deep within his mind, the system's mechanical voice rang out like an alarm.
[Ding! The host's will has completely transcended hypocritical rules. Mental domination condition met.] [Roleplay level has surpassed the 50% threshold.] [Advanced Absolute Law, Domain Expansion-unlock complete.]
Yaha ignored the voice in his mind.
The smile on his face gradually widened into an utterly brutal grin.
It was time to end this unbearably dull game.
He stopped walking and slowly raised both hands to his chest.
His ten fingers intertwined, knuckles bending as he formed an ancient, forbidding hand seal.
An overwhelmingly vast torrent of cursed energy erupted into the sky like a volcano. Bones gave faint cracks under the crushing pressure.
The sky abruptly changed.
It was as though thick blood had been poured over the once pitch-black night.
Dark clouds churned violently, forming an enormous blood-red vortex, its red light engulfing all of Blue Stone Town.
The wind stopped, and the air filled with an oppressively thick stench of rust.
Rengoku and Shinobu Kocho stood rooted in place, staring blankly at the back of the black-clad youth.
That legendary Malevolent Shrine, which disregarded every defense and stood above all laws.
At last, it was about to unveil its cruelest face beneath this sky.
Before you continue