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As her words fell, the mandala petals gently plucked, and a person's fate trajectory changed once again.
Ubuyashiki, who was originally supposed to exhaust his life three months later due to the curse on his body, suddenly opened his eyes wide, then violently spat out a large mouthful of blood, clutching his chest and kneeling on the ground.
"Master?!"
Blood continuously overflowed from his mouth. Struggling to raise his head for one last look at Mitsuba standing before him, Ubuyashiki completely collapsed on the ground, no longer breathing.
"Master, what's wrong with you?!"
At the same time, Mitsuba also seemed to suffer some kind of backlash. Her face instantly turned pale, and she staggered back two steps.
"Mitsuba? What's wrong?"
Michikatsu frowned and immediately reached out to support her.
"It's fine."
Mitsuba shook her head, taking a deep breath to calm herself.
"It's just that nearly half the blood in my body was instantly drained..."
The power of causality on Ubuyashiki's body was extremely strong, and also extremely fixed.
Arbitrarily altering threads of causality to this degree, even just slightly advancing his time of death, caused considerable consumption for Mitsuba.
It seemed she wasn't truly omnipotent after all.
At least, those "pieces" deeply watched over by the gods were not something she could manipulate at will.
Of course, the gods were also not omnipotent.
Existences similar to Ubuyashiki were ultimately only an extreme minority. The gods also didn't have the ability to turn all people in this world into the "Ubuyashiki" they wanted.
Those humans whose causality couldn't be strongly controlled by the gods were still objects she could modify at will.
But no matter what, she would have to be careful and cautious when encountering similar existences in the future...
Suddenly, Yoriichi surfaced in Mitsuba's mind.
Her elder brother Yoriichi, the "Child of God"—would the threads of causality on his body be the same as those on Ubuyashiki's, or even more so?
Facing a sickly Ubuyashiki, she had already struggled so much.
Then when facing her elder brother Yoriichi, how should she preserve her own life in his hands, and even... defeat him?
"You bastards! You actually killed the Master! You... I will... with you..."
Just as Mitsuba was deep in thought, that one-armed Water Hashira staggered up from the ground. Overcome with grief, he raised his blade and lunged toward Mitsuba.
Annoyed by his noise, Mitsuba, still in contemplation, immediately roared at him:
"Shut up! Then die!"
As her words fell, the threads of causality plucked once again.
This time, Mitsuba expended almost no effort to cause the man before her to instantly die, going down to accompany his Master.
Indeed, it was much more comfortable dealing with ordinary people whose threads of causality were so fragile...
Thus, with the fall of the Water Hashira, among the five Hashira in this headquarters tonight, excluding the Flame Hashira who left early, all had died.
But Elder Brother Yoriichi was not here.
In Mitsuba's mind, Yoriichi's blazing fiery red figure surfaced once again.
It could be said without exaggeration that the Demon Slayer Corps' current prosperity all originated from Yoriichi alone.
It was he who created Breathing Styles for the Demon Slayer Corps, it was he who brought the Demon Slayer Mark and the Transparent World. His sword techniques could be called divine miracles, his strength far surpassed ordinary mortals...
As the strongest Demon Hunter throughout history, Yoriichi alone represented the strongest and most irreplaceable combat power of the Demon Hunters.
As long as Yoriichi still lived, no matter how many times demons destroyed the Demon Slayer Corps, it wouldn't have any impact on the overall combat power of the Demon Hunters.
This sounded cruel, but it was reality.
As the Child of God, Yoriichi was just that powerful.
And Mitsuba never doubted that Yoriichi would stand against her, against the demons.
Because this was an inevitable result, and also the purpose for which the gods let Yoriichi be born into this world.
Elder Brother Yoriichi was destined to embark on the path of slaying the Demon King. This was a future already set in stone by the gods, unshakable.
As long as Mitsuba wanted to live, she absolutely could not harbor any fluke mentality about this.
Therefore, she needed to become even stronger.
Her Blood Demon Art was not truly omnipotent. Considering the possibility that she might encounter Elder Brother Yoriichi in the future, she must make herself stronger in other aspects as well.
"Elder Brother."
Something suddenly came to Mitsuba's mind. She looked at Michikatsu, who was stepping forward to cut off Ubuyashiki's head, and asked:
"Do you know how to enter that Transparent World that Elder Brother Yoriichi spoke of?"
"..."
This was supposed to be an ordinary night.
While Mitsuba and Michikatsu were planning to raid the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters, on the other side, Muzan, who had finally reunited with Tamayo and was busy searching for information about the blue spider lily, ran into Yoriichi, who was also out on a mission, in the outskirts of some place.
The progenitor of demons and the strongest Demon Hunter throughout history suddenly encountered each other just like that.
Disheveled hair, blood-red vertical pupils, black kimono with gold patterns, and that contemptuous smile that seemed to look down upon everything in this world, disdaining all...
This was the first time Yoriichi saw this legendary Demon King with his own eyes.
This man was filled with violent vitality that could be called tyrannical, like magma erupting from a volcano, devouring everything around him.
With just a simple encounter, Yoriichi understood.
The reason the gods let him be born into this world with such a powerful form was to slay the legendary progenitor of demons before him.
This was a kind of mysterious intuition. In this instant, Yoriichi completely understood his life's mission.
He must kill Muzan.
His right hand slowly pressed on the hilt of the blade at his waist. The Transparent World instantly activated, and Yoriichi's eyes saw through everything inside Muzan's body.
Beneath Muzan's skin, which was no different from a normal human's, he had five brains and seven hearts in total.
These brains and hearts were located at various places inside Muzan's body. If they couldn't all be cut out in an extremely short time, it would be impossible to completely kill Muzan.
Therefore, he must use all his strength.
"Your face looks somewhat familiar..."
Looking at Yoriichi, who was facing a great enemy, Muzan's mouth corners slightly rose, his face showing that ever-confident smile.
Yoriichi's face made him feel somewhat familiar, quite similar to Mitsuba's features, very much like a masculinized version of Mitsuba.
But Muzan didn't think much about it.
Whether this Demon Hunter before him was truly Mitsuba's blood relative, or merely coincidentally similar.
Since Mitsuba had never mentioned to him before that she had other elder brothers, that meant this was simply an insignificant matter.
Just kill him directly.
"Forget it, I'm not interested in you..."
With these words, Muzan's arm instantly elongated and mutated into a whip covered with dense spikes, swinging toward Yoriichi with terrifying speed and force!
Relying on the Transparent World to predict and dodge Muzan's attack in advance, Yoriichi glanced back at the bamboo forest behind him that was instantly cut down by the whip. For the first time in his life, he felt a chill run down his spine.
The progenitor of demons' strength not only surpassed any demon he had encountered before, but also far exceeded his expectations.
Muzan's seemingly casual attack—even if just lightly grazed, he could very likely die on the spot!
He could hesitate no longer.
Exhaling a breath of orange-red air, seizing the brief opening after Muzan's next attack, Yoriichi gripped that Nichirin Blade with its burning red-hot edge, and at a speed even Muzan couldn't react to, instantly closed the distance to him!
His wrist turned, and in Muzan's astonished gaze, the twelve forms of Sun Breathing were fully executed in Yoriichi's hands.
Orange-red flames wrapped around the blade, cutting across Muzan's entire body in this instant, repeatedly striking at the five brains and seven hearts inside his body!
Then, the flames dispersed, and everything returned to silence.
His limbs completely severed, his body also split diagonally into two halves, Muzan lay shattered on the ground, looking down at his body that failed to regenerate and recover as it had in the past, his face full of astonishment.
What was happening?
Why couldn't he regenerate?
What was this strange burning sensation?
This man's blade...
Muzan used his severed arms to hold up his head, constantly trying to reattach it to his neck, but couldn't attach it no matter what.
Yoriichi stood before him holding his Nichirin Blade, looking down at him.
He wasn't in a hurry to act, to give Muzan the final blow.
In his mind, the figures of countless people who had been harmed by demons surfaced one by one. Yoriichi's memory finally stopped at that night when Uta was killed.
There was a question he desperately wanted to ask the progenitor of demons before him.
There was a question he desperately wanted to hear Muzan answer with his own mouth.
"What do you take life for?"
There was a trace of barely detectable anger in Yoriichi's tone.
Facing the source of all evil in this world, the origin of all misfortune, Yoriichi's heart was also burning with rage.
However, Muzan didn't answer Yoriichi.
Facing Yoriichi's question, he only raised his head, glaring at him with vicious eyes, the veins on his face bulging and gradually turning black-red.
Failing to get the answer he wanted from Muzan's mouth, Yoriichi then shifted his gaze to Tamayo, who had been standing nearby, wanting to hear what she would say.
Yoriichi had noticed this melancholic female demon from the beginning. As a demon following by the progenitor of demons' side, her strength was ridiculously weak—a character that could be killed in one slash.
Therefore, Yoriichi hadn't paid her much attention before.
It wasn't until this moment that he suddenly noticed—facing Muzan's sudden heavy injury, not only did Tamayo show no intention of coming to help, but she even opened her eyes wide, staring unblinkingly at Muzan with some kind of expectant gaze.
Her hands tightly clutched the corners of her clothes, her body trembling slightly, a glimmer of hope flashing in the depths of her eyes.
A bit strange...
Puzzled in his heart, Yoriichi decided to temporarily ignore her and first give Muzan this final blow.
However, at this moment, he heard the sound of teeth being crushed suddenly come from Muzan's mouth.
In the next instant, Muzan, who was shattered on the ground, suddenly exploded into over 1,800 pieces, shooting out in all directions!
After a moment of stunned shock, Yoriichi quickly swung his blade, doing his utmost to cut down over 1,500 of these pieces!
Even though he had exerted all his strength, in the end over 300 tiny fragments still escaped. If all of them were fused together, it would be exactly the size of a human head.
The surroundings returned to silence once again. Gazing at that head which disappeared into the night in an instant, Yoriichi stood dumbfounded in place.
Kibutsuji Muzan... escaped?
He let Kibutsuji Muzan escape from his hands...?