Li Ke's words sounded full of absolute, righteous integrity, but they still made Tanjiro feel like something was slightly off. Although Tanjiro also preferred big breasts, Li Ke's phrasing definitely sounded a bit strange...
However, at that exact moment, Tanjiro caught the scent of Mai Shiranui lingering on Li Ke. His panic-stricken brain instantly cleared up, and he finally realized that he had completely misjudged Li Ke!
He quickly leaned over to sniff his little sister. Sure enough, he didn't smell any traces of Li Ke's hands on her, nor did he catch any scent of lust directed at Nezuko. He only smelled Li Ke's lingering desire for Mai Shiranui. With his mind completely at ease, he immediately threw himself to the floor in a full prostration, loudly apologizing to Li Ke.
"I-I am incredibly sorry, Lord Li Ke! I completely misunderstood you!"
Staring down at the prostrate Tanjiro, Li Ke—who wasn't used to people bowing to him like that—hoisted the boy up by his collar like a small kitten. Looking at Tanjiro's deeply embarrassed face, Li Ke gave him a light shake.
"As long as you understand."
Looking closely at Tanjiro, Li Ke suddenly realized something crucial: this kid technically knew Sun Breathing.
Granted, Li Ke could easily use his resurrection abilities to bring the legendary first-generation breath user, Yoriichi Tsugikuni, back into the world at any given second. However, considering Muzan's severe, deep-seated PTSD regarding Yoriichi, the absolute first thing Muzan would do upon seeing him would be to pack his bags and flee, rather than gathering his remaining forces to try and solo Yoriichi.
But if it were Tanjiro who mastered Sun Breathing, Muzan might actually choose to personally show his face in a desperate bid to eliminate the legacy of Sun Breathing along with the heavily crippled Demon Slayer Corps.
Still, he couldn't leave Tanjiro completely un-buffed. Besides, the baseline Sun Breathing didn't seem to perfectly align with Tanjiro's natural body type anyway...
In that case...
Li Ke's eyes narrowed into slits. If he arranged for Tanjiro to be trained directly by Yoriichi Tsugikuni—allowing him to refine his own customized version of Sun Breathing under Yoriichi's guidance—Tanjiro's combat power would easily skyrocket, wouldn't it?
Furthermore, given the current state of things, they could also have Yoriichi observe the various breathing styles that had branched out over the centuries. That way, the legendary founder could try to evolve Sun Breathing even further. After all, as a historical creator, there were many developments and modern innovations that Yoriichi had never lived to see.
Therefore...
"Hey, kid. Since you made such a massive mistake, you're going to accept your punishment and apologize properly. Let's do this: you dance for me, and we'll consider this matter officially settled."
Li Ke casually swung the short Tanjiro back and forth. Tanjiro looked up at Li Ke, scratching his head with a thoroughly bewildered expression.
"Huh? Me, dance? But... I only know my family's traditional Kagura dance..."
Tanjiro didn't think any further into it. He was perfectly willing to perform a dance if it served as a proper apology. He was just genuinely worried because he only knew his family's ritual performance and nothing else; if it looked too ridiculous, he would feel incredibly embarrassed.
But your family's Kagura dance is the exact thing I'm after, you brat!
"Then just dance what you know. I only want you to apologize, not humiliate you! Come on! Let's head out to the woods!"
The moment the words left Li Ke's mouth, he scooped up Nezuko as well. Carrying both siblings like a pair of small kittens, he walked straight toward the outer perimeter of the Demon Slayer compound.
He kept his Observation Haki active along the way, which allowed him to discover quite a few unsettling developments—a substantial number of Demon Slayer members were locked in private duels and deadly infighting all over the place.
Aside from a small minority engaging in assassination and counter-assassination inside the barracks, the vast majority were choosing to settle their blood feuds deep within the surrounding forest.
Right now, Mitsuri Kanroji, Shinobu Kochou, and a few of the other remaining Hashira were actively running around trying to put a stop to these skirmishes.
Yet, even Li Ke could see the writing on the wall.
The heart of the Demon Slayer Corps had completely shattered.
This was precisely why Tanjiro was so intensely anxious. The state of the Corps was so dangerously volatile that he hadn't dared to let Nezuko out of her box. It wasn't just a matter of external danger; the sheer volume of fresh corpses littering the area made it far too risky, as he was terrified it might trigger Nezuko's demonic craving for flesh.
"No wonder they were in such a desperate hurry to make me the Leader of the Corps," Li Ke muttered with a heavy sigh.
The brutal reality of the current situation was clear: although the crisis had occurred because Kagaya Ubuyashiki was matched against reality-bending monsters he had no mechanical way to defeat, the lower-ranking recruits wouldn't look at it that way.
Perhaps the original two or three hundred veteran members of the old Corps wouldn't blame their master, but these newly recruited members absolutely would.
These recent additions were originally samurai, police officers, and even former military men. Following a massive internal riot, their natural instinct would be to hunt for a convenient scapegoat. When that moment came, the leadership—who held countless secret martial techniques yet relied entirely on a tiny vanguard of two or three hundred loyalists and a handful of flesh-and-blood Hashira—would inevitably face a coup. What came next required no imagination.
The only way to sustain the Demon Slayer Corps now was to install a Leader so overwhelmingly powerful that everyone would be rendered completely speechless. It had to be someone who was vastly stronger than anyone else, held no structural ties to the Ubuyashiki bloodline on paper, maintained excellent relationships with the Hashira, and possessed the raw intimidation factor required to completely crush the rebellious new recruits into submission.
Alternatively, the organization could be revived under the strategic stewardship of such a powerhouse—even if it meant rebuilding the entire Demon Slayer Corps from literal ashes on a clean slate.
Having fully untangled this underlying political web, Li Ke finally understood why Kagaya Ubuyashiki had resorted to a method that could only be described as profoundly cruel—cruel to himself and cruel to his own wife—just to drag Li Ke onto the playing field.
Because Shinobu and Mitsuri had already naturally aligned themselves with Li Ke. While it wasn't impossible to rebuild the Corps by relying solely on those two girls, taking that route would mean the safety of the Ubuyashiki clan could no longer be guaranteed.
Kagaya had no way to gauge Li Ke's true intentions regarding Muzan Kibutsuji. He couldn't be certain if Li Ke secretly desired immortality like Muzan, or if he planned to intentionally keep the demon threat alive to artificially inflate his own political leverage and authority.
Because from beginning to end, only their Ubuyashiki clan absolutely could not tolerate Muzan Kibutsuji staying alive. As for anyone else, as long as they were willing to let go of their hatred, there was a high probability they would simply never encounter a demon again!
Muzan Kibutsuji might have had his courage thoroughly broken, leaving him terrified of mass-producing demons and accidentally triggering the birth of another Yoriichi Tsugikuni. Yet, the fact that he could steadily expand his influence while reducing demons to nothing more than a myth proved this individual was undeniably intelligent.
He had simply never applied that intelligence to a righteous path.
Under these circumstances, if Li Ke ever sought supreme power, he would almost certainly choose to cooperate with Muzan Kibutsuji!
Should that happen, his Ubuyashiki clan would be completely exterminated in no time, and the shrine maiden lineage intermarried with them—Amane Ubuyashiki's family—would face total extinction as well.
Therefore, whether looking at it from a pragmatic, emotional, or moral perspective, the moment he handed the Demon Slayer Corps over to Li Ke, he had to leave behind a fallback option. That fallback option had to be his own family, and ideally, they needed to form a domestic bond with Li Ke.
However, his daughters were far too young, and there were already Shinobu Kochou and Mitsuri Kanroji in the picture. While he knew these two Hashira would help, and the other Hashira would chip in as well, what about everyone else?
Li Ke's power, after all, completely eclipsed everyone else combined.
Therefore...
There absolutely had to be someone he trusted completely—someone with actual competence who could bridge the gap and connect all the Hashira—to keep a close eye on Li Ke.
And the only person capable of that was Amane Ubuyashiki.
Only by having a woman like Amane become Li Ke's wife could they guarantee the absolute integrity of the Demon Slayer Corps. Only by having his daughters marry Li Ke down the line could they ensure the successful continuation of the Ubuyashiki bloodline!
This way, even if Li Ke were to execute his son just to eliminate any future political threats, his daughters and wife would still survive to revitalize the Ubuyashiki clan. After weathering this turbulent period, the Demon Slayer Corps could eventually restore its original purity, or they could simply establish a brand-new Demon Slayer Corps from scratch!
To put it bluntly, this was the absolute best strategic gambit a dying man could have possibly conceived!
After all, Kagaya knew perfectly well that getting Li Ke to extend his lifespan to seventy or eighty years old was an impossibility. He didn't crave that kind of longevity anyway, nor had he ever expected to live that long. Forcing the issue would only cause Li Ke to view him with disgust. By the same token, forcing Shinobu and Mitsuri to beg Li Ke on his behalf would not only make Li Ke resent him, but it would also drive an ugly wedge between Li Ke and the two girls.
His personal integrity made him unwilling to resort to such underhanded methods, and his cold rationality told him there was absolutely no benefit in doing so.
This man was remarkably clear-headed. It was fair to say he was a thoroughly flawless leader.
"He truly is a clever man. And since he went as far as to offer me his own wife and daughters, what else is there left for me to say?"
Li Ke let out a heavy sigh. Within this entire web of calculation, he was the only one forced to carry a sense of moral condemnation... For everyone else, this was the absolute best possible choice for the world, for their mission, and for the survival of the Ubuyashiki clan.
"It is all Muzan Kibutsuji's fault."
Even after fully untangling the situation, Li Ke had no intention of changing his mind or extending Kagaya Ubuyashiki's life. While he certainly possessed the mechanical means to do so, he simply lacked any genuine interest.
He had harbored a slight inclination to help initially, but the moment he realized how thoroughly he was being backed into a corner, that desire evaporated completely. In fact, even his original reservation about not laying a finger on Amane Ubuyashiki diminished slightly.
But the core dilemma remained. When a man systematically hands over his entire legacy, his fortune, and his wife and children to you—fully prepared for the reality that you might even execute his only son—how are you supposed to react?
I guess once a man obtains absolute power, status, and wealth, women really do just start delivering themselves to your doorstep automatically, he thought.
Li Ke chose not to lose sleep over the matter. The reality was plain and simple: Kagaya Ubuyashiki was merely liquidating everything he owned to purchase a pure, uncorrupted future for the Demon Slayer Corps and his children from Li Ke.
It was Kagaya who had targeted his overwhelming dominance and his known weakness for beautiful women; Li Ke hadn't actively gone out of his way to inherit this broken faction.
Any lingering pangs of guilt he had felt earlier vanished entirely.
"It's a genuine shame about Kagaya as an individual, but this method of forcing things onto me is profoundly irritating—especially framing it as if they're buying off a villain! I fully intended to casually help them out anyway, purely out of respect for Shinobu Kochou and Mitsuri Kanroji, along with the decent impression the rest of the Corps left on me. I would have executed Muzan the moment he crossed my path regardless. Yet, they still chose to plot against me! Absolutely infuriating!"
Li Ke located an open clearing and landed smoothly on the ground. He briefly considered having a blunt, face-to-face conversation to lay everything out with Kagaya, but quickly discarded the idea as entirely pointless, especially since he had just pinpointed the root cause of his own frustration.
"The reason I'm feeling this bent out of shape isn't just because this broken legacy is being shoved down my throat, or because they're treating me like some tyrant who needs to be bribed. It seems to be because..."
A sharp visualization of Amane Ubuyashiki flashed through his mind.
"Lady Amane simply isn't breathtakingly beautiful enough to make me throw my principles out the window! While I certainly wouldn't mind having an intimate interaction with her, her looks alone aren't powerful enough to make me completely compromise my own moral boundaries!"
The moment this realization clicked, Li Ke felt an instant wave of absolute relief wash over him.
As long as he remained completely immune to her specific allure, it meant he would never fall into their psychological trap!
When the time came, he would just spell it out clearly to Kagaya and call it a day!
Nobody was going to saddle him with a mountain of uninvited moral obligations—not even a thoroughly decent man like the Leader of the Corps!
After all, letting himself get tied down by forced expectations would only disrupt his grand plan of cultivating a perfectly harmonious, beautiful harem!
Thinking up to this point, Li Ke tightly balled his hand into a hard fist.
If it hadn't been for the fact that Kagaya Ubuyashiki was a fragile, bedridden invalid who would probably end up permanently paralyzed from a single light punch—which would only cause Amane to latch onto him even harder out of necessity—Li Ke would have beaten the man into a medical emergency without a second thought.
Wait, no!
He's already practically an invalid anyway!
Having completely resolved his internal conflict, a refreshed and lighthearted Li Ke dumped Tanjiro onto the empty, secluded clearing. He reached into his pouch, pulled out a small bag of sunflower seeds, and began cracking them open one by one while gesturing for Tanjiro to start his performance.
Left with no other choice, Tanjiro sighed. He had absolutely no way to resist Li Ke, and since he really had been the one in the wrong earlier, his conscience was completely clear.
He was just a bit embarrassed about having to dance on command.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up a stray tree branch from the ground. Following the exact rhythm his late father had beaten into him, he stabilized a highly specific breathing pattern and began to move.
Because Li Ke kept his Observation Haki fully active, he could instantly perceive that Tanjiro's current breathing was fundamentally different from any of the standard Breathing Styles he had utilized before.
Furthermore, it was painfully clear that Tanjiro wasn't naturally built for this particular technique—in fact, Water Breathing didn't suit his baseline physiology well either!
While the distinct Breathing Styles used by Shinobu Kochou and Mitsuri Kanroji still placed a bit of strain on their physical bodies, the structural damage was negligible because their techniques were inherently optimized for their frames. Tanjiro, however, was a completely different story!
His body was actively riddled with micro-injuries and strain caused solely by his unoptimized breathing!
Li Ke also noticed that more often than not, Tanjiro's breathing failed to deliver peak physiological efficiency, forcing him to exert an incredible amount of unnecessary effort. The exact second he tried to draw in a massive, forceful breath, his physical movements became entirely disjointed, severely disrupting his ability to execute a clean, seamless sword strike. This was the ultimate, glaring proof that his body was fundamentally rejecting Sun Breathing!
His physical baseline wasn't anywhere near as genetically blessed as Yoriichi Tsugikuni's!
Which made perfect historical sense. Yoriichi had been born into a massive, prominent samurai clan. No matter how meager his diet might have been at certain points in his life, his nutritional baseline was vastly superior to that of a rural charcoal burner like Tanjiro—to say nothing of the fact that his raw talent and physical ceiling completely eclipsed the boy's by a landslide.
Li Ke silently committed these physiological details to memory. Then, focusing intently on Tanjiro's breathing patterns, he began to subconsciously alter his own respiration to mirror the rhythm.
Even though he had no practical need for this specific Breathing Style, he had always made it a habit to analyze, extract, and absorb the fundamental essence of every unique technique he encountered. He planned to hoard as much foundational knowledge as possible before summoning and consulting with Yoriichi Tsugikuni. Once he laid that groundwork, he would hunt down and slaughter the final monster to unlock his "Genius Mode," ensuring he maximized his structural rewards and statistical gains.
He hadn't forgotten his true purpose as an Endless Traveler, after all!
Yet, as his breathing steadily fell into alignment with the technique, Nezuko—who had somehow subconsciously crawled right back over to press herself against Li Ke's side—seemed to register the shifting atmosphere. Right before Li Ke's utterly dumbfounded eyes, her chest began to rise and fall, mimicking his exact respiratory rhythm!
Yes, entirely on instinct, Nezuko had begun to utilize Sun Breathing!
And what was more...
Her biological compatibility with the technique was vastly superior to Tanjiro's!
The exact instant Li Ke completed a full, flawless cycle of Sun Breathing, Nezuko synchronized with him perfectly. Her demonic physiology instinctively tweaked and restructured the core tenets of Sun Breathing, morphing the technique into a brand-new variation that even Li Ke couldn't fully comprehend.
Immediately after, Li Ke felt Nezuko's internal reserves crater into total emptiness once again! Her physical form began to wildly expand and contract all over again, a glaring signal that her instincts were frantically demanding a fresh supply of raw sustenance!
That was it. By spontaneously mastering Sun Breathing in her sleep, Nezuko had triggered yet another massive evolution!