"Bang!"
Lower Rank Six, Kamanue, who was closest, did not even have time to scream before an invisible force crushed half his body into a cloud of blood. Chunks of flesh and organs rained down on the other demons.
"I'm sorry! Lord Muzan! I'm so sorry!" The remaining Lower Ranks were scared out of their wits and desperately knocked their foreheads against the floor.
Muzan's breathing came fast. The pain in his chest, where Rokuya had forcibly slashed him with "Invincible Might," repeatedly stirred the memories he least wanted to touch deep in his mind. The red-haired man wearing sun-disc earrings and the boy tonight, his silver hair flying wildly as though a demon god had descended into the world-their figures kept overlapping in his mind, sending uncontrollable shudders through him.
"Useless... every last one of you is useless!" Muzan roared through gritted teeth, shattering a wooden pillar beside him with a kick. "The Twelve Kizuki? The Lower Ranks? What an absolute joke! You trash do nothing but hide in the shadows and eat lowly commoners! What value is there in your existence?!"
He swept his hand sharply, and several thorn-covered whips shot from his back, lashing the remaining Lower Ranks like a violent storm.
"Aaaaaah-!"
Their screams echoed through the Infinity Castle.
"Especially that Rokuro!" As though his anger remained unsatisfied, Muzan did not spare even the already-dead Lower Rank Two. "That fool thought he was so clever! He actually let some brat who had only just become a Hashira kill him in a head-on fight! Who did he think he was? Setting traps? He utterly disgraced me! He deserved to die! It served him right that not even scraps remained!"
Muzan paced back and forth, his eyes thick with bloodshot veins. He stared fixedly at the trembling demons