"Dead fish? Baby hands?"
Gyokko's already distorted face twisted even further at those words.
What he hated most in his life was having others mock his appearance and his so-called "art."
Even though he had just witnessed that Lightning Release flatten a mountaintop, the fury of having his sore spot struck forcibly suppressed his fear of Rin.
"You vulgar, lowly, hairless monkey who can't differentiate between trash and art!"
The eyes on Gyokko's forehead and chin bulged at the same time, veins crawling across them as his snake-like tail lashed wildly against the ground, shattering the hard bluestone slabs into pieces.
"Behold my perfect form, freed from the pot! How beautiful, how divine! The scales on my body are masterpieces harder than diamonds!"
"Hmm.. now that I'm seeing you closely, you actually are pretty.." Rin suddenly said, making Gyokko's mouth twitch slightly with happiness, then added, "..pretty ugly."
"You!!!! You filthy human!! Since you're so eager to die, I'll turn you into an ugly little fish and carve you up myself!"
Before his words had fully faded, Gyokko's thick tail coiled tightly, compressing with force before releasing like a spring.
"Blood Demon Art: Death Strangling Fish Scales!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gyokko's figure vanished instantly.
Using his diamond-hard scales and explosive muscular strength, he began leaping at irregular high speed between the trees, walls, and ground surrounding the workshop.
Each push-off left behind a deep crater and triggered a sharp sonic boom.
In the blink of an eye, the air was filled with countless afterimages from his rapid movement.
To an ordinary swordsman, it was like facing a flawless, inescapable net of death closing in from all directions, with no way to tell from which blind spot his true body would launch a fatal strike.
"So fast! I can't track him at all!" Kanroji Mitsuri tightened her grip on her pink Nichirin Blade, retreating nervously toward Tokito Muichiro as she tried to locate Gyokko's real body.
Muichiro frowned as well. At this speed, even a Hashira could have their neck snapped in an instant if they were even slightly careless.
Yet Rin, standing at the center of the clearing, hadn't moved at all.
One hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, while within his pitch-black pupils, the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan—its six-pointed star intertwined with three tomoe—rotated slowly.
What appeared to others as chaotic afterimages became clear, red-dotted trajectories in Rin's vision.
Every contraction of Gyokko's muscles, every angle of his landing, was fully analyzed and slowed by those eyes.
"Die!!!"
The afterimage midair suddenly split in two.
Gyokko's true body, wearing a grotesque grin, plunged down from directly above Rin's blind spot.
His webbed, razor-sharp claws tore straight toward the crown of Rin's head.
"As long as my God's Hand touches you, even by a single hair, you'll instantly turn into a fish! This is my most elegant art!" Gyokko howled inwardly.
Ten meters, five meters, one meter!
At the moment those scaled claws came within half a foot of Rin's head..
Heh~ Rin lifted his free left hand and reached up to meet them.
"Idiot! To think you'd dare grab my hand with bare flesh!" Gyokko was ecstatic, already imagining this arrogant brat flopping on the ground as a fish.
Snap.
A soft sound.
Rin's five fingers clamped tightly around Gyokko's wrist.
There was no mutation, no transformation, no sign of his Blood Demon Art activating.
Because a tenth of a second before their skin made contact, dense azure lightning had already surged from Rin's palm, flooding into Gyokko's body first.
Zzzzzzt—!
Lightning Release: Chidori.
A piercing roar of electricity erupted.
Gyokko's entire right arm went numb in an instant. The next moment, a searing, nerve-shredding agony tore through his entire body.
The demon cells within him, meant to activate his Blood Demon Art, were carbonized on contact by the thousands-of-degree heat carried by the raging lightning.
"Arrrgggghhh—!"
Gyokko let out a shrill scream. His high-speed descent was forcibly halted by Rin's grip, leaving him suspended midair, his body convulsing violently.
"This is your so-called art?"
Rin looked up at the twisted demon in his grasp, his eyes filled with naked contempt.
"It's no different from a loach thrashing in the mud."
With a sharp pull, Rin slammed Gyokko's massive body straight into the ground.
At the same time, the Kusanagi Sword in his right hand finally left its sheath.
Clang.
The black blade traced a cold arc through the night.
Slice!
Gyokko's scales, supposedly harder than diamond, were as fragile as paper before the Kusanagi Sword.
The blade cut cleanly through his neck, severing muscle and spine in a single stroke.
His grotesque head, its features warped and misaligned, tumbled across the ground.
A clean decapitation.
Efficient, precise, without the slightest hesitation.
From the moment Gyokko launched his killing move to the instant Rin broke it with one hand and beheaded him, less than three breaths had passed.
In the distance, Tanjiro and Zenitsu, who had just arrived, witnessed the scene.
They both froze, swallowed hard, and instinctively chose not to step forward.
"What… what kind of joke is this?!"
Gyokko's severed head did not die immediately. The goldfish-like eyes on his forehead bulged wide as foul-smelling blood sprayed from his mouth and he roared hysterically.
"I am Upper Rank Five! How could my scales be cut by an ordinary sword?! You lowly—"
Before Gyokko could finish his curses, a black leather boot came down hard on his face, crushing his mouth and jaw into the dirt.
"Noisy."
Rin looked down at the head beneath his foot.
He had no interest in using Amaterasu to burn the remains to ashes. The moment the Kusanagi Sword severed Gyokko's neck, the demon's life force had already been cut off.
Sure enough, as Rin lifted his foot, both the severed head and the headless body not far away began to crumble rapidly, as if weathered by time.
"No… don't… my art… isn't complete yet… Lord Muzan…"
Amid broken, fading wails, Upper Rank Five completely disintegrated into ash.
As the wind scattered it into the night sky, it marked the complete failure of this invasion.
[Ding! Detected that the host has killed one of the Twelve Kizuki, Upper Rank Five "Gyokko"!]
[Swordsmith Village saved from destruction. Hashira-level battle successfully intercepted!]
[Congratulations to the host for obtaining 10,000 dimension points!]
The system notification echoed in his mind.
Including the 12,000 points from killing Hantengu earlier, this trip to the Swordsmith Village had earned him a total of 22,000 points.
While it didn't match the reward from altering Tengen Uzui's fate during the Entertainment District incident, it was still a solid gain.
Rin flicked the Kusanagi Sword lightly and returned it to its black scabbard.
"Ahh~ Rin San! That was amazing!"
A pink blur rushed over with a cheerful shout.
Kanroji Mitsuri sheathed her Nichirin Blade and circled Rin twice, her face glowing with admiration.
If not for propriety, she might have already thrown herself at him in excitement.
"That grab just now, and that strike! It was like slicing tofu! Even though that demon was so tough, it was completely helpless in front of you, Rin San!" Mitsuri clasped her hands to her chest, her eyes sparkling. "Shinobu-chan is so lucky to have someone as reliable as you!"
Rin rubbed his temples, feeling a bit helpless in the face of this Hashira who radiated unfiltered enthusiasm at all times.
"Ehm.. It's just basic demon-slaying knowledge. No matter how hard their scales are, as long as you break the structure behind their movement, they're nothing more than dead flesh."
At that moment, Tokito Muichiro walked over silently.
He sheathed his Nichirin Blade, his gaze lingering briefly on the pile of ashes before lifting his eyes.
For the first time, clear emotion surfaced in those once-empty eyes.
A desire for absolute strength.
"Your movements had no wasted motion. No excess killing intent."
Muichiro looked at Rin. His tone remained calm, but there was a trace of genuine curiosity.
"How did you accurately predict his landing point at that speed?"
He had been at the center of the battle, so he had seen it more clearly than Mitsuri.
Rin hadn't relied on superior speed to chase Gyokko. Instead, he had simply placed his hand in advance and waited for Gyokko to run straight into it.
That required terrifying perception and absolute control over the flow of battle.
"Want to learn?"
____
12 Advance chapters:Patreon/slept01