Muichiro and Tanjiro soon reached the area where Gyokko was. His Upper Rank Demon scent was so overpowering that even if Tanjiro pinched his nose shut, he could probably still smell Gyokko through the tiniest gap.
A Master Swordsmith lay on the ground beside Gyokko, his life force faint. Without immediate treatment, he would surely die.
"I wonder how things are going over on Hantengu's end~ He must be thanking me. After all, without me, how could he have come to such a fun amusement park~?"
Gyokko leisurely treated the Swordsmith Village as an amusement park, and its villagers as the toys inside it.
He was an Upper Rank. The villagers of the Swordsmith Village were only slightly stronger than ordinary people, making them virtually indistinguishable from anyone else in his eyes. He could toy with scores of them to death with a flick of his fingers.
He tilted his head up slightly and glanced at the night sky, thinking that there was a little over an hour until dawn. An hour was just right. Any less would not give him enough time to play, while any more would make these "toys" boring.
"Hehehe, let's see which of you I should play with next~" Gyokko turned his gaze back toward the villagers before him. To him, their trembling only made them better toys.
Just as he was about to begin his fun, a swirl of ethereal, ink-dark mist suddenly swept around him.
"Mist Breathing, Fourth Form: Moving Current Slash."
High-speed movement and elusive unpredictability were the two defining traits of Mist Breathing, and Muichiro displayed both to their fullest. Until the instant before Muichiro's blade swung out of the inky mist, Gyokko had failed to notice his approach.
But Gyokko was an Upper Rank, after all. He reacted at the