In the alley, the battle had settled into a strange balance.
The vortex Tanjiro created with Water Wheel was like a spinning cage, pinning the two Swamp Demons firmly aboveground and rendering their prized ability to slip beneath the surface completely useless.
Sasuke, meanwhile, had become a bolt of black lightning.
His figure darted back and forth between the two demons, both dizzy from being tossed around, and every swing of the jet-black Wakizashi in his hand brought a spray of black blood.
Tanjiro could barely catch his afterimages.
That was not Thunder Breathing.
Tanjiro was certain.
The explosive power of Thunder Breathing was concentrated in that single step forward, driving relentlessly ahead.
But this person's movements were stranger, more agile, as though his body held an explosive energy entirely different from a Breathing Style.
Every movement was accompanied by a faint, barely perceptible rumble of thunder.
Whoosh!
Sasuke darted aside again, avoiding a demon's wildly flailing claws, then sliced backward with his Wakizashi, precisely severing the tendons in its lower leg.
The demon screamed and fell to its knees.
Seeing this, the other demon roared and lunged at him.
Without even turning his head, Sasuke hurled the Wakizashi backward.
The short blade traced a cold gleam through the air and pierced the demon's wrist with pinpoint accuracy, pinning its arm firmly to the wall.
Suppression.
Pure, one-sided suppression.
Yet Sasuke's brow furrowed slightly.
He glanced at the demon whose leg tendons he had severed. New flesh was growing at the wound at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The demon pinned to the wall was also struggling frantically, its wound healing just as quickly.
"Tch."
Sasuke clicked his tongue in irritation.
At this rate, I'm just wasting time.
These are all merely clones.
No matter how much damage they take, as long as the true body remains, they can regenerate endlessly.
I have to find the core.
Sasuke abruptly stopped moving at high speed and stood quietly in the center of the alley.
Within his scarlet eyes, the two black tomoe suddenly began spinning faster.
The entire world was deconstructed once more in his vision.
This time, he no longer focused on the demons' movements, but began analyzing the flow of that foul energy within their bodies.
He saw it.
All three demons had energy cores inside them.
But the energy cores of the two before him were like two streams: though they surged, their source was not within their own bodies.
Their energy was connected to the other end of the alley by invisible black threads.
That direction...
That's where the female demon, Nezuko, is.
Sasuke's gaze instantly pierced the chaotic battlefield and locked onto the third demon.
It was the demon whose head Nezuko had kicked apart, which had only just finished regenerating and was now facing off against her.
Through Sasuke's Sharingan, a huge, pulsing heart of energy lay within this demon's body.
The energy threads from the other two demons ultimately converged within that heart.
At the same time, countless finer threads branched out from the heart, rooting themselves deep within the underground swamp.
It both controlled the clones and sustained the entire Blood Demon Art.
Found it.
The true body.
"So that's it. A boring trick."
Sasuke snorted inwardly.
He had completely seen through this demon's Blood Demon Art.
In his eyes, the two clones still clamoring were already no different from corpses.
Seeing Sasuke abruptly stop attacking, the two clones seemed to think he was exhausted. They roared excitedly, broke free of their restraints, and lunged at him again.
Tanjiro's heart tightened at the sight, and he was about to call out a warning.
But then he saw Sasuke make a movement he could not understand at all.
Sasuke neither drew his blade nor retreated.
He simply stood where he was, his hands rapidly changing gestures at a dazzling speed.
"Snake-Ram-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger!"
Tanjiro did not understand a single gesture.
That was not the opening stance of any school in the Demon Slayer Corps.
It looked more like some kind of... ancient ritual, filled with solemn authority.
The instant the final hand seal was completed, Sasuke's chest swelled sharply.
A wave of searing heat erupted outward with him at its center.
The cold, damp air in the alley evaporated instantly.
Tanjiro felt as though even his eyebrows were about to catch fire.
He saw it.
He saw a sight he would struggle to forget for the rest of his life.
An indescribably massive fireball erupted from Sasuke's mouth.
Larger than a house and a destructive orange-red throughout, the fireball roared forward with the force to burn everything to ashes.
"Fire Release! Great Fireball Technique!"
The two clones, only halfway through their lunges, did not even have time to scream.
The instant they touched the fireball, its terrifying heat vaporized them outright, leaving not even a trace of ash.
The enormous fireball swept onward without slowing, scorching a glassy scar into the alley's ground before finally striking a distant wall and exploding with a thunderous crash into a skyful of fiery rain.
The alley was as bright as day.
Tanjiro stood rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging open, having forgotten even to breathe.
What is this?
A Blood Demon Art?
No...
This power is full of destruction, but it doesn't carry a trace of a demon's evil aura.
Is this... a power humans can wield?
The flames dispersed.
Only the last Swamp Demon, the true body, remained standing alone in the alley.
It trembled all over, its face filled with utter terror.
What had it just seen?
Its clones had not been cut down, but... evaporated.
The sunlike flames that boy had breathed from his mouth had completely erased every trace of their existence.
It looked at Sasuke as though looking at an ancient god of calamity wearing human skin.
This person...
He's not a swordsman.
He's a monster!
Run!
I have to run!
That was the only thought left in the Swamp Demon's mind.
It no longer dared to spare Sasuke another glance. Turning, it was about to use every ounce of strength to sink into the last patch of swamp beneath its feet.
Yet a foot gently stepped onto the edge of the swamp.
It was Nezuko.
She blocked its retreat.
From the other side, Sasuke's cold, emotionless voice slowly rang out like a death sentence.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Bzzzt...
A piercing sound, like a thousand birds chirping, began echoing through the alley.
Blue-white lightning bloomed in his left hand, casting a light more despair-inducing than the flames.
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