Tanjiro, standing in the distance, felt a sharp pain in his eardrums. Even from dozens of meters away, the residual power of the storm scraped his cheeks until they hurt.
However, Yamada, who was at the center of the storm, had not moved a single step. His Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan slowly swirled. The attacks that appeared world-destroying to ordinary people were clearly broken down into slowly flowing energy trajectories in his field of vision.
Swoosh!
Yamada flipped his wrist holding the sword, and Lightning Chakra instantly clung to the Kusanagi Sword.
He did not retreat. Instead, he stepped forward to face the wooden dragon spitting sound waves.
With a lift of his hand, the sword fell. The black blade slashed from bottom to top, striking fiercely along the weak point in the texture of the wooden dragon's lower jaw.
With a crisp tearing sound, the wooden dragon's head, which was larger than a house, was extremely smoothly split in two.
The ultrasonic wave brewing in the dragon's mouth was stifled, dissipating into the sound of leaking air.
Immediately after, Yamada's figure twisted strangely, weaving through the gaps between the hurricane and the lightning.
He stepped on the severed wooden dragon body to gain leverage and soar into the air, swinging the Kusanagi Sword to unleash two crescent-shaped lightning slashes in succession, slicing the two flanking wooden dragons in half at the waist.
"What?!"
A look of astonishment appeared on Zōhakuten's calm face.
The wooden dragons he was so proud of, whose hardness even exceeded that of ordinary scarlet ore, were actually as fragile as rotten wood under this man's sword?
"Since you think these pieces of junk wood can protect you, I'll just burn them all for you."
Yamada, in mid-air, sheathed the Kusanagi Sword and rapidly formed hand signs in front of his chest.
Snake - Ram - Monkey - Boar - Horse - Tiger!
The speed of the hand signs was so fast that even afterimages were hard to see. Amassive amount of Fire Chakra was wildly compressed and heated within Yamada's chest.
Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Accompanied by Yamada's exhalation, three massive fire dragons formed from pure flames roared and soared into the sky.
The high temperature instantly evaporated the steam from the hot springs near the Swordsmith Village.
The fire dragons did not crash directly into Zōhakuten but precisely latched onto the remaining wooden dragons.
The wooden creations were instantly ignited the moment they touched the fire dragons.
The sky-high firelight illuminated half the night sky, and the wooden dragons rolled and collapsed violently in the sea of fire, turning into burning ashes filling the sky.
"Foolish guy! So what if you burned my wooden dragons? The off-target flames can't hurt me at all!"
Zōhakuten watched the few fire dragons shooting straight into the clouds and eventually exploding in the sky, sneering.
He raised his drumsticks again, preparing to summon more wooden dragons.
But Yamada stopped his movements. He stood on a piece of burning wreckage, looking up at the sky, a cold arc curling at the corners of his lips.
"Off-target? A frog in a well like you probably hasn't seen true power in your entire life."
Zōhakuten was stunned and subconsciously looked up following Yamada's gaze.
It wasn't just him. Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke in the distance also simultaneously sensed the anomaly in the surrounding environment.
The weather had changed. The night sky, which had originally only been obscured by thin clouds, had somehow gathered thick, ink-like dark clouds.
This was because the terrifyingly high-temperature airflow generated by the Great Dragon Fire Technique rose rapidly and met the cold air at high altitude, artificially creating a massive thundercloud in less than a minute.
Rumble!
Thunder exploded deep within the clouds.
The humidity and air pressure dropped sharply.
An indescribable sense of oppression pressed down on everyone's hearts.
"Th-this... what is going on? Breathing has become so difficult." Tanjiro clutched his chest, gasping for air.
Zenitsu, who had fallen to the ground, was now trembling, his golden hair standing on end due to the static electricity permeating the air.
As a successor of Thunder Breathing, he could feel more clearly than anyone else present what was brewing in that dark cloud in the sky.
"No... it's impossible..."
Zenitsu's teeth were chattering, his eyes locked on Yamada standing on high, his voice filled with fear from the depths of his soul.
"That is not a Breathing Style... that is true heaven's might. That is the power of nature. How could a human possibly control such a thing?!"
In Zenitsu's collapsing gaze, Yamada slowly raised his right hand.
Zzzzz...
A blinding flash of lightning lit up in Yamada's palm.
This lightning flash acted like a fuse, instantly resonating with the violent natural lightning in the high-altitude clouds.
Rumble!!!
The sky was completely torn apart.
Countless thick bolts of lightning frantically wove and intertwined within the dark clouds.
The deafening thunder seemed as if it would shatter the entire mountain.
Under the terrified gaze of everyone, the lightning in the clouds actually began to gather and transform.
A giant beast made of pure lightning slowly poked its head. It had the horns of a dragon and the mane of a lion, massive enough to cover half the sky of the Swordsmith Village. Every strand of lightning that made up its body contained destructive power capable of leveling mountains.
Lightning Release Secret Technique: Kirin!
The moment this lightning beast took shape in the clouds, the entire Swordsmith Village became as bright as day.
That absolute sense of oppression belonging to nature poured down without reservation.
Zōhakuten froze in place. The Lightning Blood Demon Art he was so proud of was simply not worth mentioning in front of this sky-covering lightning beast.
He wanted to escape, but the stray static electricity in the air had locked down the space around him, and even the air he breathed stung his lungs.
"What kind of monster are you..." A dry whisper squeezed out of Zōhakuten's throat.