"Yamada-san... is this the power of the Demon Slayer Mark... indeed... extraordinary." Gyomei said, panting.
Yamada jumped down from the boulder and walked to the two of them. He raised his hands, and a touch of Yang Release Chakra full of infinite vitality bloomed in his palms.
"Don't speak, relax your bodies."
Yamada placed his hands on the shoulders of Sanemi and Gyomei respectively.
The emerald green light seeped into their bodies through their skin.
Sanemi's broken ribs were quickly reconnected and healed under the nourishment of Yang Release, and those cells that had dried up and were depleted due to the forced activation of the Demon Slayer Mark greedily absorbed this life energy.
In less than half a minute.
Sanemi touched his chest in shock. Not only did it not hurt, but the weakness and near-death feeling after activating the Demon Slayer Mark were swept away, replaced by an unprecedented fullness and robustness.
"The deficit in your lifespan has been replenished. Remember this feeling. Over the next few days, I want you to be able to activate the Demon Slayer Mark anytime, anywhere, and at will."
Yamada withdrew his hands and turned to look at Giyu, who was still struggling to steady his breathing but had not yet been able to activate the Demon Slayer Mark.
"As for you."
Yamada looked at this aloof Water Hashira and added mercilessly, "Too many distracting thoughts. If you can't awaken it by tomorrow, go back and run the mountain path with those three little brats."
Giyu's expression stiffened. He silently gripped the wooden sword in his hand, a flash of unwillingness passing through the bottom of his eyes.
Just like that, under Yamada's hellish torture of both kindness and severity—beating them half to death and then bringing them back—the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps ushered in a golden period of strength explosion.
—
The special training for the Hashira in the deep mountain valley has been going on for a full month.
With the support of Yang Release Chakra, an unreasonable "medical cheat," the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps have experienced hundreds of near-death encounters.
Now, everyone has mastered the trick to activating the Demon Slayer Mark, and their overall combat power has seen an unprecedented explosion.
These swordsmen, who have been suppressed for too long, were eager to fight, wishing they could immediately charge into the demons' lair and completely eradicate the Twelve Kizuki.
But Yamada knew very well that actively searching for Muzan in the vast mountain forests was far too inefficient.
That old monster who has lived for a thousand years has superb methods for escaping and hiding.
As long as he retreats into the Infinity Castle, outsiders wouldn't even be able to touch a single hair of his.
To make him crawl out of his safe shell voluntarily, one must throw a piece of bait onto the water's surface. An exquisite piece of bait that he would be absolutely unable to refuse, even at the risk of having his throat pierced by a fishhook.
Yamada cast his gaze toward Tanjiro, who was swinging his sword under the waterfall against the current.
At noon, the sun was scorching.
Yamada took Tanjiro, who was carrying the wooden box on his back, away from the valley training ground to a flat meadow with an open view.
"Yamada-san, what are we doing here? I still have three thousand swings left to complete for today's training." Tanjiro asked, puzzled, while wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Put the box down and open it." Yamada replied, getting straight to the point without answering.
Tanjiro was stunned. He looked up at the bright sun in the sky and waved his hands repeatedly. "No. It's noon, and there's not a bit of shade outside. If Nezuko comes out, she will be burned by the sunlight."
"She won't."
Yamada crossed his arms, his tone firm. "The Kamado family bloodline is special. The defect in Nezuko's body that made her fear the light, which belonged to the demon side, has long been assimilated and repaired. She can now walk in the sunlight."
Tanjiro's mouth fell open.
But out of unreserved trust in Yamada, he still stepped forward and unlatched the wooden box.
Creak.
The box door was slowly pushed open.
Nezuko, who was hiding inside, poked half of her head out. Facing the blinding light, she instinctively wanted to retreat into the depths of the shadows.
But when she tentatively reached out her fingertips and touched the golden sunlight, the excruciating pain of her flesh melting, which she had expected, did not appear.
What wrapped around her fingertips was a warmth that belonged to the human world.
Nezuko stared blankly at her palm, then slowly climbed out of the box. Her feet stepped onto the soft grass, and she was completely bathed in the scorching sun.
A breeze blew by, lifting her long, black hair.
She reached up and removed the bamboo tube from her mouth, and from her dry throat came syllables.
"Good... good morning... brother."
Tanjiro's eyes turned red, and tears streamed down his face.
He rushed forward, hugged his sister and sobbed uncontrollably.
This scene was something he had looked forward to in his dreams for countless days and nights.
Yamada stood to the side, not disturbing the reunion of the siblings. His gaze swept seemingly casually over a cluster of bushes at the edge of the meadow.
Deep in the shadows of the layers of leaves, an eyeball covered in blood vessels, with the character "Four" inscribed on its pupil, was staring intensely at Nezuko under the sunlight.
That was a reconnaissance eyeball spread by the new Upper Rank four, Nakime.
Since losing two Upper Ranks in the battle at the Swordsmith Village, although Muzan dared not send his main forces out to hunt, these silent eyeballs had spread across more than half of Japan like a net.
Yamada had noticed the tracking of this eyeball a few days ago. He had deliberately brought Nezuko to this unobstructed open ground today just to put on a show for the peeper in the dark.
Seeing that the time was about right, Muzan should have already received a sufficiently clear image.
Yamada slowly turned his head, his gaze crossing the meadow, meeting the eyeball hidden in the shadows.
"Did you see it clearly? The thing you've been searching the whole world for for a thousand years is right here."
He raised his right hand, and a wisp of faint blue electricity danced on his fingertips.
"If you have the guts, come and take it yourself."
Pop.
A flash of lightning streaked by, precisely hitting the reconnaissance eyeball in the bushes, turning it into a wisp of smoke that emitted a scorched stench.