"Impressive physique, but your movements are too direct."
Rin tapped the ground lightly, his body rising into the air. He not only avoided the sweeping flail but stepped directly onto the thick chain connecting the weapons.
Following the chain's path, he closed the distance in an instant, appearing right in front of Himejima. The tip of his wooden sword pointed straight at the blind monk's glabella.
"Water Breathing, Eleventh Form: Dead Calm!"
Seeing Himejima in danger, Tomioka Giyu finally entered the fight.
A circle of tranquil, mirror-like blue ripples spread around him. This technique, capable of nullifying all incoming attacks within its range, was pushed to its absolute limit.
The moment Rin's wooden sword pierced into the rippling water, he felt a slight resistance.
But only slight.
"So-called absolute defense only exists because it hasn't encountered absolute power that can break through its limits."
Rin let out a faint chuckle, the muscles in his right arm tensing as he exerted force.
With sheer wrist strength, he forced his blade downward, crushing through Giyu's wooden sword and the surrounding blue ripples, before slamming it heavily onto Giyu's shoulder.
Bang!
Giyu Tomioka let out a muffled groan as he dropped to one knee, the bones in his shoulder creaking under the impact.
In just a few exchanges, the three strongest Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps were once again completely suppressed.
And this time, they truly felt the presence of death.
Shinazugawa Sanemi lay on the ground, coughing up blood. His broken ribs had pierced into his lungs.
He stared at Rin's pitch-black eyes, devoid of any emotion, and understood that Rin's earlier words had not been a joke.
He was going to die.
He would truly be killed by this man.
"What kind of joke is this…"
Sanemi's fingers dug into the gravel, his nails curling back as blood seeped out.
That crushing sense of helplessness when facing an Upper Rank, the humiliation of watching his comrades fall while he could do nothing, surged wildly through his mind.
"How can I die here?! I still have to tear that bastard Muzan to pieces!"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Sanemi's heart began to pound at a frenzied, overloaded rate.
One hundred fifty. One hundred eighty. Two hundred!
His blood boiled as it surged through his veins. His body temperature rose sharply, and even the surrounding air began to distort from the heat radiating off him.
"Move… MOVE!"
With a roar that no longer sounded human, Sanemi forced himself up despite the agony of his shattered bones.
The moment he stood—
A cyan-green Demon Slayer Mark, shaped like a spinning windmill, suddenly appeared on his right cheek and rapidly spread toward the corner of his eye.
The Wind Demon Slayer Mark had awakened.
With its appearance, Sanemi's speed and strength surged explosively.
Ignoring the pain entirely, he became a raging gale, charging straight at Rin once more.
"Wind Breathing, Seventh Form: Gale—Sudden Gusts!"
Countless violent wind blades wove together into an inescapable net, their power more than doubling compared to before.
At almost the same moment, Himejima Gyomei, who had been suppressed, felt a strange resonance awaken within him.
The muscles in his arms swelled, his body temperature breaking past its limit. A gray-brown Demon Slayer Mark, resembling cracks in stone, spread from his forearm across his chest.
"Namu Amida Butsu! Sever all karma!"
With the Stone Demon Slayer Mark activated, Himejima's strength rose to a terrifying level.
He yanked the chain with force, breaking free from Rin's suppression. The massive ironwood flail tore through the air with a sonic boom, crashing down toward Rin from behind.
A pincer attack, combined with Hashira-level finishing moves enhanced by the Demon Slayer Mark.
Facing an assault that finally held some weight, Rin no longer chose to block it head-on.
His figure flickered like a phantom. Just a moment before the wind blades collided with the flail, he kicked off the ground and rose into the air.
Boom!
The wind blades and the wooden flail slammed into each other at the spot where Rin had stood. The violent shockwave blasted a massive crater into the rocky ground, sending debris flying in all directions.
Rin turned in midair and landed steadily on a boulder a dozen meters away.
He looked at Sanemi and Himejima, both marked and breathing heavily, then casually tossed aside the wooden sword in his hand, now riddled with cracks.
"Assessment over."
His voice returned to its usual calm, and the suffocating killing intent around him vanished completely.
"Not bad. You finally forced that power out."
Hearing this, the tension in Sanemi and Himejima's bodies finally loosened.
The backlash from overexerting the Demon Slayer Mark hit immediately. Sanemi's legs gave out, and he collapsed onto his back, gasping for breath, unable to even move a finger.
Himejima lowered his weapon as well, sitting down cross-legged, his chest rising and falling heavily.
"Rin-dono… so this is the power of the Demon Slayer Mark… truly… extraordinary…"
Himejima spoke between breaths.
Rin leapt down from the boulder and walked toward them.
He raised his hands, and a gentle glow of Yang Release chakra, brimming with vitality, blossomed in his palms.
"Don't speak. Relax your bodies."
Rin placed his hands on the shoulders of Sanemi and Himejima.
The emerald-green light seeped into their bodies through their skin.
Sanemi's broken ribs rapidly reconnected and healed under the nourishment of Yang Release. The cells that had been drained dry from forcibly activating the Demon Slayer Mark greedily absorbed the life energy, like parched earth drinking in long-awaited rain.
In less than half a minute.. Sanemi pressed a hand to his chest in disbelief.
There was no pain. Not only that, but the weakness and near-death exhaustion that followed the Demon Slayer Mark's activation had completely vanished, replaced by a sense of strength and vitality he had never felt before.
"The deficit in your lifespan has been restored. Remember this feeling. Over the next few days, I want you to be able to activate the Demon Slayer Mark anytime, anywhere, at will."
Rin withdrew his hands and turned his gaze toward Tomioka Giyu, who was still trying to steady his breathing, yet had not managed to awaken his mark.
"As for you…"
Rin looked at the aloof Water Hashira and spoke without mercy.
"Too many distractions. If you can't awaken it by tomorrow, go back and run the mountain path with those three brats."
Giyu's expression stiffened. He silently tightened his grip on the wooden sword, a flicker of unwillingness passing through his eyes.
And so, under Rin's brutal training—pushing them to the brink of death, then pulling them back again—the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps entered a period of explosive growth in strength.
____
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