Three identical demons.
Three black swamps.
The nauseating stench of decay in the alley had grown overwhelmingly strong.
"To think you actually spotted us. You two brats really are unlucky."
"You could have waited quietly for death. Now we'll let you taste the pain early."
"Which one should we eat first?"
The three demons spoke at once, their overlapping voices forming an eerie harmony that made the scalp crawl.
Kazumi, sheltered behind them, had long since collapsed to the ground in terror, his face drained of color.
Cold sweat seeped from Tanjiro's forehead.
Three demons!
And their scents were exactly the same!
He couldn't tell which one was the original.
"Water Breathing!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Tanjiro drew a deep breath, lowered his center of gravity, and took a defensive stance.
He knew full well that behind him stood an unarmed ordinary person.
He couldn't retreat a single step.
Yet Sasuke remained where he stood, without even moving to draw his blade.
He simply watched the three demons before him coldly through his crimson eyes, two tomoe spinning within them.
As though he were looking at three corpses whose time of death had already been set.
"That red-eyed brat's stare really pisses me off."
"Then let's start with him!"
The demon closest to Sasuke gave a vicious grin and abruptly sank into the swamp beneath its feet.
The next second.
Without warning, the ground beside Sasuke's feet turned into an identical patch of black mire.
A deathly pale hand tipped with sharp nails shot out of the swamp, grabbing for his ankle.
Sasuke didn't so much as twitch an eyelid.
He merely took one light step backward.
That single step avoided the deadly claw with perfect precision.
As though he had known all along where the attack would come from.
The demon was somewhat taken aback when its strike missed.
But it didn't pause. Its entire body emerged from where Sasuke had been standing, and it opened its gaping maw to bite at him again.
Whoosh-
Like a phantom, Sasuke shifted another step sideways.
The demon's teeth closed on nothing but air.
At the same time, the other two demons moved as well.
Their targets were Tanjiro, who looked easier to deal with, and Kazumi behind him.
Both demons sank into the swamp at once.
Tanjiro's nerves instantly stretched to their limit.
I can't see them!
He could only smell their scent coming from every direction, completely unable to pinpoint their positions.
Pop!
Left!
Tanjiro spun around, his Nichirin Blade trailing a stream of water.
"First Form! Water Surface Slash!"
The horizontal slash met a demon emerging from the swamp with perfect accuracy.
The blade struck the demon's neck, but cut only halfway through.
"So tough!"
Tanjiro was startled.
Grinning viciously, the demon reached out with its sharp claws and swiped at his face.
"Oh no!"
At that critical instant, another demon silently emerged behind him to his right.
Its target wasn't Tanjiro.
It was Kazumi, who was so utterly terrified that he couldn't even move!
"Mr. Kazumi!"
Tanjiro's eyes nearly split with anguish. He tried to turn back to help, but the demon in front of him kept him firmly pinned down.
He could only watch helplessly as the demon's sharp claws drew closer and closer to Kazumi's neck.
It's over!
Despair surged through Tanjiro's heart.
Meanwhile.
After several consecutive attacks missed, the demon attacking Sasuke had completely lost its patience as well.
As it looked into Sasuke's cold red eyes, which seemed capable of seeing through everything, an inexplicable sense of agitation and fear rose within it.
"There's something... wrong with this brat!"
No longer willing to keep fighting, it quickly sank into the swamp, preparing to join its companions and finish off the other two weaklings first.
Sasuke watched it disappear into the swamp, his gaze as calm as ever.
His Sharingan clearly captured the flow of energy within all three demons.
He had seen through them long ago.
Though the three demons could act independently, their power was fundamentally from the same source.
Moreover, the power of two of the duplicates was clearly weaker than that of the one that had appeared first.
As long as he killed the original, it would all end.
He slowly turned his gaze toward the third demon, which was about to attack Kazumi.
In his sight, that demon's energy core was the most solid.
That's the one.
Sasuke paid no heed to whether Tanjiro lived or died, nor to that ordinary person's safety.
From the very beginning, he had only one objective.
Kill demons and earn Revenge Points.
Nothing else had anything to do with him.
In the alley.
Tanjiro's roar was filled with despair.
In Kazumi's eyes, nothing remained but the deathly pale demonic claw growing ever larger.
Death was inches away.
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