Chaos. That was Kochō Shinobu's first impression after falling into the Infinity Castle.
Houses and corridors were tilted, and empty platforms floated throughout the air.
As far as the eye could see, the entire place was a scene of disorder and complete irregularity, eerie yet strangely mesmerizing.
In just a few breaths, while still suspended in mid-air, Kochō Shinobu had already lost all sense of direction.
"Hold on to me."
At that moment, Cain's voice rang out.
Kochō Shinobu suddenly felt pressure around her body, and in the next second she was pulled straight into Cain's arms.
"Eh?!"
Kochō Shinobu froze and quickly raised her head.
Looking at that face she knew all too well, she hesitated for a moment and said nothing. Instead, she pointed toward the front right.
"Muzan is over there."
"Yeah, I see him."
Cain looked toward the distant mid-air not far away.
After Nakime activated her Blood Demon Art, everyone present, including Cain, had been dragged into the Infinity Castle.
At this moment, the people suspended within the Infinity Castle were roughly divided into three zones.
Cain and Kochō Shinobu were located in the lower right area, while Ubuyashiki Kagaya and Rengoku Shinjuro were in the upper left.
As for Kibutsuji Muzan, Tomioka Giyu, and the others, they were all suspended in the upper right section of mid-air.
Because they had already obtained intelligence about the Infinity Castle beforehand, Tomioka Giyu and the others did not panic after falling inside. One after another, they pulled grappling hooks from their robes.
The training from the past several days immediately showed its value. Everyone simultaneously threw their grappling hooks to latch onto nearby buildings.
After that, they used the grappling hooks to swing through the air, rapidly closing the distance toward the location where Kibutsuji Muzan was.
Duang~! Duang~! Duang~!
Suddenly, the hurried sound of a biwa echoed repeatedly, and a large number of shoji doors appeared in mid-air.
Tomioka Giyu and the others, who were moving with the help of their grappling hooks, had no time to dodge. They slammed directly into the shoji doors and instantly vanished, sent away to different areas of the Infinity Castle.
Man!
Cain seemed to hear a hallucinated voice in his ear.
Silently withdrawing his gaze from the distance, he immediately abandoned the idea of approaching Muzan through the air.
"What a troublesome Blood Demon Art."
Kochō Shinobu, who had also witnessed this scene, furrowed her brows.
Although she had learned about Nakime's Blood Demon Art during the strategy meeting long ago,
After seeing it with her own eyes, she realized this Blood Demon Art was even more troublesome than she had imagined.
Duang!
At that moment, the biwa sounded again.
A shoji door suddenly appeared beneath Cain and Shinobu.
In an instant, Cain reacted. He reached out and grabbed the edge of the shoji door, hanging in mid-air.
An inconspicuous wisp of Hamon flowed out from his fingertips, and the surface of the shoji door immediately emitted a faint sizzling sound.
"Hmm? What did you do?"
A look of confusion appeared on Kochō Shinobu's face.
"Nothing. I was just confirming a hypothesis."
Because exposing it too early might alert Muzan, Cain had never used the power of Hamon before, relying entirely on Thunder Breathing in battle.
Now that Muzan had been poisoned and temporarily had no spare attention to monitor his surroundings, Cain finally had the opportunity to test the effect of Hamon.
After confirming that the power of Hamon could indeed interfere with Blood Demon Arts, Cain took Kochō Shinobu with him and jumped into the shoji door, arriving in a spacious hall.
Standing in the very center of the hall was a tall man with deep red hair.
"Ho, looks like we hit the jackpot right away."
Cain released Kochō Shinobu, his hand resting on the hilt of the Nichirin Blade at his waist.
"What should I call you? Upper Rank One, Kokushibo? Or Tsugikuni Michikatsu?"
"Tsugikuni Michikatsu?"
Hearing that unexpected name, Kokushibo's six eyes simultaneously turned toward Cain.
"Where did you learn that name?"
"Tsugikuni Yoriichi told me. He also told me you're a pitiful fellow who abandoned everything just for a bit of power to become Muzan's..."
"Shut up!"
Kokushibo suddenly roared, cutting him off.
Perhaps Cain's words had struck a painful truth, because a thick killing intent instantly erupted from his body.
"I don't know where you learned those things! But Yoriichi would never say such words!"
"You're right. Tsugikuni Yoriichi wouldn't say something like that, so I said it for him."
Cain drew his Nichirin Blade.
"In the final moments of your life, do you have any last words?"
"The one who should be speaking last words is you."
Kokushibo also drew the blade at his waist, and the Transparent World silently activated.
At that moment, Kokushibo's concentration rose to its absolute peak, and the world gradually became transparent in his vision.
Using this ability, Kokushibo successfully observed Cain's physical structure.
Perfect.
That was Kokushibo's first impression.
Since the Sengoku period, this was the first time Kokushibo had seen someone who had trained their body to such a level.
Although Cain did not appear overly muscular, there was not a single trace of unnecessary muscle on his body. What he possessed was the most balanced and perfectly optimized physique.
Not only that, the opponent's bodily coordination was extremely refined.
As Cain raised his Nichirin Blade, Kokushibo could clearly see the muscles across Cain's body entering a synchronized state of tension.
However, just as Kokushibo prepared to observe the muscle movements more closely to predict Cain's attack trajectory and prepare a countermeasure,
The body that had been perfectly visible in his sight suddenly rippled.
Then, as if countless droplets were falling into a still lake, waves of Hamon spread outward from various parts of Cain's body.
By the time Kokushibo realized what was happening, the internal state of Cain's body had already been completely concealed.
"Hmm?"
Facing this unfamiliar situation for the first time, Kokushibo widened his eyes as he stared at the black-haired youth before him.
"What did you do?"
"A dying man doesn't need to know so much."
After further confirming the effects of Hamon, Cain stepped forward while gripping his Nichirin Blade.
Current Propulsion, full power activation!
State of Selflessness, full power activation!
Golden lightning arcs and white spiritual light simultaneously covered the surface of Cain's body.
From absolute stillness to explosive movement, Cain's speed reached its maximum in an instant.
Thunder Breathing, Seventh Form: Takemikazuchi!
The slash that had once suppressed the entire Soma Familia under the watchful eyes of the public appeared once again.
Ssh!
A crisp tearing sound echoed through the hall.
By the time Kokushibo reacted, he had already been cut cleanly into two halves by Cain's strike.
From a distance, Kokushibo's legs below the waist were still standing upright.
Meanwhile, the upper half of his body was dragged down by gravity, crashing heavily onto the floor.
Blood poured from the severed wound, and intense pain flooded his mind.
Under the stimulation of that pain, Kokushibo snapped out of the brief shock and looked at the black-haired youth before him with visible confusion.
"Why didn't you cut my neck?"
"To me, cutting anywhere is the same."
By spending money to bribe Takemikazuchi, DanMachi Cain had asked him to combine two different systems, Thunder Breathing and Hamon, creating Thunder Breathing 3.0.
Compared to Thunder Breathing 2.0, the greatest feature of Thunder Breathing 3.0 was the ability to incorporate the power of Hamon directly into attacks.
Although Cain had not cut Kokushibo's neck, the result was no different.
"What a satisfying battle."
Looking at Kokushibo, who was already beginning to crumble into black ash, a cheerful smile appeared on Cain's face.
"Farewell, Tsugikuni Michikatsu. I probably won't forget you for the rest of my life."
...?
Kokushibo's body was completely consumed by the Hamon, dispersing into black ash on the spot.
However, in the final instant before his death, the look he gave Cain was filled with complicated emotions.
Is something wrong with this person's head?
"Seriously, couldn't you cooperate a little?"
Noticing Kokushibo's expression, Cain shook his head in disappointment.
He had originally expected that this martial arts fanatic would say something like "I deeply regret that I could not force Lord Cain to reveal his full strength" before dying.
After silently lamenting the failure of his dramatic performance, Cain turned back toward Kochō Shinobu.
"So? Was that move cool?"
"It's over just like that?"
Kochō Shinobu finally snapped back to reality.
Although the battle had sounded long,
From a third party's perspective, it could only be described as a flash of lightning.
From the moment they met to the end, Cain had not even taken a full minute to defeat Kokushibo with a single strike.
"Cain, I remember you didn't undergo Demon Transformation Surgery, right?"
"Yeah, I didn't."
"Then where does this strength come from? I remember when you fought Upper Rank Two..."
"I was acting."
As if already guessing her question, Cain answered directly.
"If I showed too much strength, it would be easy to scare Kibutsuji Muzan."
Scare Muzan?
Kochō Shinobu looked at Cain, wanting to complain but also feeling that his reasoning strangely made sense.
One-shotting Upper Rank One.
If Cain had revealed that level of strength before the final battle, Muzan might really have hidden somewhere and refused to appear.
"No wonder you asked us to create a poison that suppresses perception."
Kochō Shinobu recalled the scene not long ago when Cain had asked her, Kochō Kanae, and Tamayo to develop a special poison.
At that time she could not understand why Cain wanted a poison that interfered with Muzan's perception. Now the reason was obvious.
Under the effect of the poison, Muzan's senses were suppressed, temporarily preventing him from detecting the condition of his subordinates.
In other words, at this moment Muzan, who was busy breaking down the toxins in his body, had not yet realized that his strongest subordinate had already been killed.
Before Muzan could neutralize the poison and discover Cain's real strength, Cain could act freely without restraint.
"So what's the next plan? Go hunt the remaining Upper Ranks? Or go find Nakime?"
"Neither. Next, we clean up the ordinary demons inside the Infinity Castle."
Cain glanced toward the boxes placed nearby.
The items inside these boxes were things he had asked Ubuyashiki Kagaya to manufacture not long ago.
Because production had been too slow, he only received them on the eve of the final battle.
"What exactly is inside these?"
A trace of curiosity appeared in Kochō Shinobu's eyes.
According to the original plan, she was supposed to join the others in the siege against Muzan.
But after returning from Tokyo, Cain suddenly handed these boxes to her for safekeeping and removed her name from the siege team.
Because time had been limited, Kochō Shinobu still had no idea what was inside them.
"Do you know what needs to be cleared out the most in the Infinity Castle, aside from Muzan?"
Just as Kochō Shinobu was wondering about the secret weapon in the box, Cain suddenly asked a strange question.
Kochō Shinobu thought for a moment.
"It should be Nakime."
"Correct. Aside from Muzan, the one who must be eliminated the most is Nakime."
"But the biggest problem right now is that the initiative of this battle is not in our hands."
Cain opened the box and pulled out a tennis racket reinforced with a steel frame.
"To turn the situation around, we need to find a way to seize the initiative in this battle."
T/N- as promised 3rd chapter is here.
...
Read advance chapters on p@treon
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Join disc0rd link in synopsis.
GIVE ME YOU POWER STONES.