Kirishima Bupai sheathed his blade and rose, looking down over what had once been the heart of the Yoshiwara Pleasure District's most prosperous northern quarter.
Now, that prosperity was gone.
In its place was a bowl-shaped crater so enormous it inspired despair, its edges as smooth as a mirror.
Inside the crater, there was nothing.
No rubble, no corpses, no scraps of flesh or blood-not even a speck of dust could be found.
Gyutaro, Daki, every trace of their existence, along with the structure of all matter in this area, had been annihilated and sundered by that single slash beyond comprehension.
The crater's edge looked as though an invisible blade had cut it with precision, forming a shocking divide against the relatively intact ruins surrounding it.
Even the areas that had not been cut directly had suffered devastating shock waves and spatial tremors.
Vast swaths of buildings had been reduced entirely to dust, as though trampled by a giant beast.
Almost as soon as the aftershocks of destruction subsided...
Several squads of Demon Slayer Corps support personnel, dressed in dark uniforms bearing the Kakushi insignia, emerged swiftly and silently like ghosts from the shadows beyond the ruins.
They were professional cleanup crews who had dealt with countless horrific battlefields, but...
The sight of absolute emptiness before them still made even the most seasoned Kakushi members freeze on the spot.
It was simply too outrageous. The pupils of those who had just arrived contracted in utter shock, their jaws nearly hitting the ground.
They looked at the tools in their hands, the tools in their hands-stretchers, medical kits, and so on...
Then they looked back at that emptiness. They could neither comprehend nor handle destruction that defied all common sense.
The Kakushi captain recovered first. Forcing down the turmoil in his