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At the exact moment Muzan turned to ashes, a violent tremor—imperceptible to the naked eye yet deeply felt by the soul—rippled through a sinister biological connection, instantly spreading across the entire island nation.
In the forests several kilometers away from the Infinity Castle battlefield, a few low-ranking demons who had escaped the collapsing ruins during the chaos of battle were hiding in shadowy crevices between rocks, panting heavily.
Their eyes gleamed with the relief of survival, greedily sniffing the scent of humans in the air, waiting for nightfall so they could feast on a nearby village.
But soon, their ugly smiles froze.
"Ugh… ah…!" The leading demon suddenly clutched its throat.
It felt every single cell within its body—cells that belonged to Muzan—beginning to self-destruct.
Without the Demon King's will sustaining them, that power which granted them immortality turned into the most vicious poison.
In the cold, dark crevice, their bodies began to crumble like dried clay.
First their fingers, then their limbs, and finally their ugly heads.
They didn't even have time to beg before, in overwhelming terror, they collapsed into piles of foul-smelling black ash.
The same scene unfolded simultaneously in every hidden corner where demons lurked.
Those monsters who once abused their power through Muzan's blood were now facing a reckoning spanning a thousand years.
They lived with Muzan—and perished with him.
The noose that had long tightened around humanity's throat finally snapped completely with Muzan's annihilation.
At the same time, far away at the Ubuyashiki headquarters, Nezuko experienced a violent reaction.
She suddenly sat upright, her back arching from the intensity.
"What's happening to her?!"
Already anxious from losing contact with the battlefield, Kiriya Ubuyashiki felt a surge of unease at Nezuko's condition.
Hearing the shout, Uzui Tengen dashed in like lightning, guarding Kiriya vigilantly.
But soon, Nezuko's condition stabilized.
Her cherry-red vertical pupils began to fade, her complexion regained color, and a human presence started to return to her.
"Muzan… is dead…"
She removed the bamboo tube from her mouth and spoke in stiff human language.
Hearing those words, Kiriya's pupils shrank to a point. He crawled to her side, urgently checking her condition.
It was true.
She had turned back into a human.
Although she had taken the medicine developed by Lady Tamayo to revert demons into humans, its effect had not been ideal before.
But now, she had fully returned.
"Waaah—!"
Nezuko suddenly burst into tears, throwing herself into Kiriya's arms, sobbing uncontrollably as her voice echoed through the forest:
"Muzan is dead! Nezuko has become human again!"
At those words, both Kiriya and his two sisters behind him were instantly overwhelmed with emotion.
Children only eight or nine years old finally looked like children again.
They clung to each other, crying loudly, comforting their wounded hearts:
"Father… Mother… Sister…"
"Kibutsuji Muzan… is dead!!"
At the center of the battlefield ruins, the noise gradually faded.
Asuka staggered forward, picking up the rusted Nugata lying on the ground.
In his current miserable state, he looked exactly like when he first arrived in this world and saw Nugata for the first time.
He was extremely weak now—unable to muster even a trace of spiritual power.
Just as that person had said, he had shut down the spiritual circuits within his body.
Large patches of his skin were rotting, and one eye had lost its focus, but he didn't care.
He knew this body wouldn't last much longer.
"Asuka… you… cough…"
A weak voice came from nearby.
Asuka turned his head and saw the Punch Hashira, Hakuji, lying among the rubble.
Hakuji's condition was already at its absolute worst.
In the previous life-and-death battle, to hold Muzan back, he had endured multiple direct strikes from the Demon King, each laced with deadly poison.
Muzan's cursed toxin had torn his body apart, and with Muzan's death, the demon blood within him was rapidly drying up.
Though he possessed a martial will that surpassed Upper Rank Three, his body was still fundamentally that of a demon.
Asuka silently walked over. With every step, blood seeped from his wounds.
He sat down beside him, exhausted.
"You're going to die."
"Yeah… I can feel it," Hakuji said with a bitter smile.
His makeshift tiger-head mask had long been shattered, and in the gradually brightening dawn, his face looked desolate.
Those eyes that once pursued only the peak of martial arts now carried an unprecedented clarity.
"From our first clash on the Mugen Train… until today… I've never been able to see through you."
His voice came in broken intervals, every word a struggle against the pain.
"You're like a god hanging high in the sky, coldly watching us crawl in the mud…"
He coughed up a mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of organs. His voice grew weaker.
"Who are you, really? A messenger of fate… or a guide from hell?"
Asuka looked at him and replied calmly, as always:
"I'm nothing. Just an ordinary person struggling to survive."
"Ordinary… huh…" Hakuji chuckled, though the movement sent spasms through his body.
"If that's ordinary… then this world's 'ordinary' is something truly terrifying."
The sunlight was beginning to outline the edge of the earth in gold.
"Asuka… do me a favor."
Hakuji's voice grew fainter as he raised a hand that was already beginning to crumble, pointing toward the horizon.
"Find me a good place… I want to… take one more look at the human world."
"I've been a demon for too long… so long I've almost forgotten what sunlight looks like."
Asuka silently extended his decaying arms and lifted the once battle-crazed warrior—now a dying man.
His steps were slow, but steady.
When he reached the hilltop, a warm golden ray of sunlight slanted across both of them.
He gently set Hakuji against a tree.
By now, Hakuji's lower body had almost completely turned to ash, drifting away in the breeze.
"…It's beautiful…"
He gazed greedily into the distance.
The morning sky was wrapped in clouds, refracting into magnificent shades of violet and gold.
Within those clouds, he seemed to see a girl with short black hair, smiling warmly like a blooming flower.
'Hakuji, come home.'
"Koyuki…"
He murmured soundlessly, tears sliding down his patterned face.
He turned his head and gave Asuka one last look.
"Thank you… If there really is a next life… I hope we can fight freely in a world without demons."
Asuka stood in the wind, letting the morning breeze tousle his black hair.
"Hakuji," Asuka said, a rare trace of gentleness in his voice.
"I hope… you can live happily—even in hell."
Hakuji smiled—the most peaceful smile of his life.
"I'll take your blessing…"
Then, under the full embrace of sunlight, his upper body also disintegrated into countless particles of ash.
The remnants swirled once in the wind, as if bidding farewell, before completely disappearing into the world.
On the other side of the battlefield, beneath the shadows of broken ruins, another choice was being made.
Yushiro knelt on the ground, tightly clutching a delicate hairpin.
It was the only thing Lady Tamayo had left behind.
There was no sunlight around him, yet he felt as though he were burning.
Lady Tamayo was dead… and he would have to endure endless loneliness…
He slowly stood up, looking toward the sunlit world.
He was a demon, but not bound by Muzan. He wouldn't vanish with him.
If he wished, he could hide in the mountains, survive in the shadows for hundreds, even thousands of years.
But a world without Lady Tamayo was nothing more than a longer, colder nightmare.
"I can't let you walk alone in that place… It's too cold there. You'll get lost."
Yushiro wiped away his tears, his gaze becoming resolute.
Sss—
Without hesitation, he stepped out of the shadows and into the radiant, sacred sunlight.
"Lady Tamayo… wait for me…"
Amid the shifting light and shadow, Yushiro's figure quickly faded, turning into a wisp of smoke that vanished into the cool morning breeze.
And thus—
On this land, no demons remained.