(P.S. Starting now, I'll be posting 20,000 characters a day-that's ten chapters-every day until September 5. Kids, the mass releases start now!)
As chance would have it, a Kasugai Crow happened to be outside Central Station at that moment.
A Kasugai Crow with glossy, ink-black feathers flew over.
He perched quietly on a branch of a tall parasol tree outside Central Station.
Now and then, it scratched its feathers or glanced around, its gaze sweeping over the brightly lit yet eerily silent steel fortress below.
Its mission here was surveillance: to relay any abnormalities immediately.
However, when it looked through the enormous glass curtain wall and clearly saw the scene of hell on earth inside the platforms...
Countless people lay silently on the ground, their faces contorted in extreme agony... however many went in, that many fell...
The feathers of this Kasugai Crow, which had weathered countless battlefields, bristled all over in overwhelming terror.
"Caw...!"
A strange cry, so short it was almost soundless, caught in its throat.
It did not even dare make a sound that might alert the terrifying presence inside the station.
The flickering lights and silent deaths inside the station reflected in its eyes, leaving only the instinctive trembling of an animal.
Without the slightest hesitation, the Kasugai Crow kicked off the branch and vanished into the deep night like a black arrow loosed from a bow, soundless yet lightning-fast.
It had to relay everything that had happened here, this terrifying scene beyond imagination, as quickly as possible to the Demon Slayer Corps members gathering behind the lines.
That was its only mission...
Downtown Central Station, outer entrance-
The terrible news did not stop spreading with the Kasugai Crow's departure.
With all contact lost with Central Station's staff and security forces...
Like a massive rock hurled