Yet Doma, who had just unleashed that powerful attack,
frowned instead.
The sensation transmitted through the Water Lily Bodhisattva felt wrong...
It was not the usual squelch he felt when smashing other Upper Ranks into pulp.
The icy mist and dust slowly cleared.
The mountainlike giant Buddha of ice
had both its hands severed cleanly at the wrists!
At the center of the meteor-crater-like impact, only the Buddha's enormous severed ice fists remained.
And atop one of those fists,
Xia Xi crouched leisurely, smiling up at Doma above.
The mighty pounding that had always proved unstoppable had failed to dirty even the hem of his opponent's clothes.
The Dawn Hashira rested his blazing, oversized Bright Red Nichirin Blade on his shoulder.
"Not bad, not bad! Now that's more like it!"
"Without that move, I'd have thought you bought your position as Upper Rank Two."
Aside from himself and Gyomei Himejima, that last blow had carried such power that,
in the entire Demon Slayer Corps,
there was probably no third person who could withstand it head-on.
Its strength and speed had even surpassed those of a runaway hundred-ton truck.
"How terrifying~"
Though Doma's words were teasing, the false smile on his face grew ever fainter.
The enormous ice Bodhisattva raised its severed arms.
Moisture in the air gathered instantly, swiftly restoring the missing parts.
Then, under Doma's control, it moved again.
Its movements were startlingly swift for its enormous body.
Whether swift slaps or heavy punches,
every attack broke the sound barrier.
Combined with its immense mass and the poisonous icy mist formed by the Blood Demon Art,
the ice sculpture became a ruthless mountain-demolishing machine.
Whether forest or mountainside,
everything was turned upside down within a few breaths.
Meanwhile, Kanae, who was watching anxiously from a distance,
had long since