Chapter 101 101: Hunting Down Muzan

"I'll guide you. Stand on me."

Asuramaru did not waste another breath.

The sword flew from Tanjirou's hand, humming with Demon Power. Its body expanded in midair, growing more than ten times larger until it hovered before him like a dark bridge suspended in the night.

Tanjirou did not hesitate.

He leaped onto the flat of the sword and steadied himself, both hands gripping his swords.

"I'm counting on you, Asuramaru!"

"Then stand firm," Asuramaru said. "Don't fall off and make me laugh at you."

Demon Power rose like black smoke and coiled around Tanjirou's legs, fastening him securely to the sword. In the next instant, Asuramaru shot into the sky.

The wind slammed into Tanjirou's face.

Below them, the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters shrank into darkness. Trees blurred into a black sea. The night split apart around them as Asuramaru flew, following the trace of Muzan's aura with terrifying precision.

It did not take long.

At the edge of the Demon Slayer Corps' territory, beneath the cover of the forest, Kibutsuji Muzan was fleeing.

He was moving toward the place where he had entered from the Infinity Castle.

His expression was twisted with fury.

"Damn them... Kokushibo and Akaza were killed by that monster, and that was all the time they bought me? Useless trash!"

But the entrance was close.

As long as he returned to the Infinity Castle, he could still hide. He could still wait. He could still survive.

Muzan immediately sent a command through his blood.

"Nakime! Open the entrance to the Infinity Castle. Let me in!"

No response came.

His face darkened.

"Nakime!"

Still nothing.

Muzan's eyes narrowed, and he used his Blood Demon Art to look through the connection to Nakime.

What he saw made his murderous intent explode.

Nakime had been controlled.

Another demon had seized her.

"You useless bastards!" Muzan snarled. "Not one of you is worth relying on!"

He began fighting for control at once, forcing his will through his bloodline and trying to reclaim Nakime's mind.

Then the air behind him screamed.

Muzan abandoned the struggle immediately and threw his body sideways.

A pitch-black crescent slash tore through the place where he had just stood. It carved a deep trench through the earth and sliced straight through a wall in the distance.

Muzan landed, his face ugly.

They had caught up this quickly?

Behind him, Tanjirou stood atop the enlarged sword as it descended. His haori snapped violently in the wind, and both swords were already in his hands.

"Muzan," Tanjirou said, his voice as cold as the night. "You won't escape."

He stepped off the sword and landed on the ground.

His feet touched earth.

His stance formed in the same breath.

"Hinokami Kagura, Esoteric Art."

Flames surged.

Water rippled through them.

Golden lightning crawled across the burning current.

"Purgatory Dragon, Modified."

Three Breathing Styles activated at once.

A ferocious dragon of fire, water, and thunder coiled around Tanjirou, its claws tearing at the air, its jaws opening toward Muzan. The pressure rolling from it made the surrounding trees tremble.

At this distance, Muzan felt it more clearly than ever.

Tanjirou still had not fully reached Yoriichi Tsugikuni.

But the gap was already terrifyingly small.

The Infinity Castle was unreachable. Nakime could not be relied upon. The only path left was to stall, flee, and survive long enough to create another chance.

Nine bone whips burst from Muzan's back.

Their ends sharpened into blade-like hooks, gleaming pale beneath the moonlight. At the same time, both of his arms warped into grotesque flesh tentacles, each one splitting again until four living appendages writhed before him.

Muzan braced himself.

The dragon came.

Tanjirou kicked off the ground. Blood burst from his nose, and cracks split across the skin of his sword-wielding hands from the sheer strain. The ground beneath him shattered.

The flaming dragon tore through the earth.

Muzan lashed out with all nine bone whips.

They struck the dragon head-on.

Every single one was blown back.

In the next breath, Tanjirou reached him.

The dragon's jaws swallowed Muzan whole.

Inside the dragon's head, Tanjirou swung both swords with all the strength he had.

"Go to hell, Kibutsuji Muzan!"

Even engulfed in scorching flames, Muzan refused to die.

The four flesh tentacles from his arms snapped forward and caught at the twin swords. Fanged mouths opened along the tentacles, unleashing a violent suction force, trying to drag Tanjirou in and grind him apart.

The interference was just enough.

Tanjirou's strike shifted.

His swords still cut through all four tentacles, but the killing blow missed its mark.

Before he could correct it, Muzan drove the bone whips on his back deep into the ground and yanked himself out of the dragon's mouth.

His body was a mangled ruin of burned flesh, shredded muscle, and exposed bone, but even then, he was healing.

The moment he broke free, Muzan turned and fled.

This time, he ran straight for the pitch-black mountains.

Tanjirou followed without a word.

The chase began again.

Trees splintered. Stones shattered. The two figures tore through the forest at a speed no ordinary human eye could follow.

Muzan glanced back at the boy pursuing him, hatred and incomprehension twisting his face.

"Why?"

His voice was sharp with fury.

"Why do you people keep coming after me, one after another? You scream about revenge for dead parents, dead siblings, dead families. If you were fortunate enough to survive, should that not be enough?"

His expression grew colder.

"Why can't you simply treat being killed by me as an unfortunate natural disaster?"

The words struck like filth thrown into the air.

It was no different from saying, Your family was killed by a storm. Why hate the storm?

Even Asuramaru, who had long known what sort of creature Muzan was, felt disgust churn inside him.

Tanjirou's eyes went hard.

Muzan had taken his family.

Destroyed countless lives.

Turned suffering into a disease that had rotted through a thousand years.

And now, after all of that, he spoke as though the grief of others was an inconvenience.

"Muzan," Tanjirou said, "you are a monster that should never have existed in this world."

Muzan's face distorted.

For one terrible moment, the boy before him overlapped with another figure from centuries ago.

Yoriichi Tsugikuni.

That man had once looked at him with the same gaze.

As though Muzan's existence itself was wrong.

A mistake.

A stain.

The real monster is not me.

It is you.

You and Yoriichi.

You are the ones who defy reason!

Muzan wanted to scream it, but he swallowed the words.

He did not need to argue with the dead.

He needed to live.

His arms regenerated fully, and he drove them into the earth and trees, pulling himself forward with monstrous speed. At the same time, he continued breaking down the medicine inside his body. The dose had been small. Its effect was limited. As long as he kept running, he could endure it.

Behind him, Tanjirou gave chase with relentless silence.

Inside the sword, Asuramaru's expression shifted.

He had calculated nearly everything.

Muzan's caution.

The trap.

Nakime's control.

The final ambush.

The one thing he had not expected was that Muzan could run this well.

In a direct fight, the current Tanjirou could crush him.

But Muzan had no intention of fighting.

He was running with everything he had, shamelessly, desperately, and without hesitation.

Worse, Tanjirou's condition was not limitless. His spirit and Demon Power were being consumed at a terrifying pace. At most, he had three hours before he would be forced into deep sleep.

Even if Asuramaru took control after that, there might not be enough Demon Power left to guarantee Muzan's death.

The longer this dragged on, the worse it became.

If Muzan truly escaped tonight, all their planning would suffer a disastrous blow.

Asuramaru's eyes narrowed.

He had planned to sit back a little longer, harvest more emotion points, and enjoy watching Muzan flail.

Now, it seemed he would have to intervene personally.

Just as that thought formed, a system notification rang sharply in his mind.

.....

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