The instant his feet touched the floor, Yaha released his grip on the back of Shinobu Kocho's collar.
Shinobu stumbled half a step before steadying herself.
The lid of the three-tier food box in her hands had slipped crooked. The smell of cold grilled meat mingled with the scent of rust, seeping through the gap.
She had just opened her mouth to say something.
Yaha's knees slammed into the floor.
He hadn't knelt. His entire center of gravity had collapsed in an instant, his kneecaps striking the wooden floor hard enough to send splinters flying.
He braced both hands against the floor, all ten fingers digging into the grain, his knuckles clenched white. Several deep cracks split the boards beneath his palms.
An extremely low, muffled groan rumbled from his throat. It didn't sound like pain. It sounded as though something was pushing up from the base of his spine, forcing his bones outward, vertebra by vertebra.
The Origins of the two Upper Ranks had collided inside him.
He hadn't fully digested Gyokko's share before Hantengu's had been brutally poured in. Two highly concentrated streams of Muzan's Blood clashed in his meridians like crazed venomous snakes trying to strangle each other, burning until his entire spine blazed with heat.
Four arms burst from his back.
This time, they weren't phantoms. Their dark red outlines were ten times clearer than before, their joints distinct, every tiny ridge on their fingertips visible.
The third arm's nails scraped the load-bearing wooden wall behind him.
The timber split down the middle, its cut surface smooth, without so much as a splinter bursting out. Four bone-deep gashes appeared in the load-bearing wall.
The shock wave blew the lid off the food box in Shinobu's hands, sending it clattering into a corner.
She didn't retreat.
Yaha