Northern Fukushima Prefecture, Bandai Highlands.
This was a magnificent landscape where volcanoes and forests intertwined.
It was also the location the Demon Slayer Corps had chosen for this year's mass training camp.
The first reason for choosing it was its proximity to the Sendai territory under Xia Xi's jurisdiction, which made travel convenient.
The second was its extremely complex and varied terrain.
It perfectly met the many stringent demands of intensive training.
Nearly three hundred lakes and marshes were scattered randomly throughout the area.
There was also the dense, flourishing Primeval Forest that stretched beyond sight, along with volcanic regions of exposed rock.
There were even villages that had been swallowed by volcanic rock years ago and now lay abandoned.
At this moment, the thin morning mist had only just dispersed.
On the temporary platform erected in the center,
three supreme fighters with distinct temperaments already sat in white haori.
[Sound] [Yao] [Flame]
Three extraordinarily powerful Hashira-level fighters.
Just sitting there, they gave people a sense of their terrifying strength.
The people standing below the platform were equally imposing.
Not one of them was ordinary.
Provisional Hashira, Elite Swordsmen, and outstanding Demon Slayer Corps members selected from across the country.
Nearly twenty of them had energy levels above 100.
And among the most conspicuous and strongest people in the crowd...
Kyojuro Rengoku, his hair the color of flames, was enthusiastically greeting his friends.
"Long time no see, Obanai! Shinobu!"
The trio of ninja whom Xia Xi had dragged into training together in Tokyo back then... the medical ninja, Little Shemaru, and the hot-blooded idiot.
Now, they had gathered here once again.
Compared with their immature, inexperienced selves back then,
even Kyojuro Rengoku, the last of them to pass the Selection,
now showed a faint trace of the composure belonging to