At the other end of the Infinity Castle, Sanemi and Giyu, who were eradicating a group of lower-rank demons, suddenly felt the ground beneath them violently shake.
Immediately after, they watched in horror as the bottomless architectural complex above them was instantly flattened by a dazzling purple slash.
The violent pressure stirred up a hurricane, scattering the surrounding demons.
"What in the world is that thing?!" Sanemi slashed down a demon, then looked up at the faintly visible Susanoo in the distance, his eyes nearly popping out.
Giyu gripped his nichirin blade, a flicker of understanding in his deep blue eyes. "This is Yamada-san's power."
...
At the same time.
Nakime, hidden in the Infinity Castle's core control room, was facing unprecedented despair.
Her single eye, etched with the character "Four", was bloodshot, and she frantically plucked the strings of her biwa, even tearing her fingernails from excessive force, staining the instrument with blood.
"Can't stop it... I can't stop it at all..." Nakime's voice was tearful.
She tried to manipulate the surrounding architecture to fill the gaps created by the destruction, tried to use spatial folding to teleport that man away. But that purple energy was too vast—so vast that her Blood Demon Art was forcibly shattered the moment it touched the edge of that power.
Every swing of his sword destroyed thousands of her rooms, exceeding her maximum speed of reconstruction.
Just then, the wooden door beside her was violently pushed open.
Muzan rushed in, disheveled, his pale face now filled with undisguised terror and fury.
"What are you doing, Nakime! Why didn't you teleport him out!" Muzan grabbed Nakime by her collar, his pupils staring intensely at her.
Just moments ago, the room he was in was almost split in half by a stray slash.
That imminent threat of death brought back the terror of being sliced into pieces when he faced Yoriichi hundreds of years ago.
"Muzan-sama... I can't..."
Nakime trembled all over. "That man's power has anchored space, my Blood Demon Art can't move him an inch. The structure of the castle is collapsing..."
"Useless!"
Muzan flung Nakime to the ground.
Through a crack in the control room, he looked at the hundred-meter-tall Susanoo in the distance.
Those crimson eyes seemed to pierce through all obstacles, coldly staring in his direction.
He was targeted.
Muzan's heart tightened. He could clearly feel that the killing intent contained in that gaze had firmly locked onto his and Nakime's location.
"Change coordinates! Immediately summon all remaining Upper Ranks! Stop him for me!" Muzan hysterically issued his command.
However, it was too late.
...
Inside Susanoo's crystal.
The hexagram in Yamada's eyes stopped spinning.
Under the insight of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, all the Blood Demon Art energy lines, hidden beneath the wooden structure like a spiderweb, pointed to a single core node.
"Found you."
Yamada's lips curved into a cold, sharp arc.
The hundred-meter-tall Susanoo dispersed the twin swords in its hands, extended its left arm, and a massive longbow, condensed from Lightning Chakra, instantly formed.
The right hand drew the bowstring taut. An energy arrow, tens of meters long, wreathed in violent lightning and the pitch-black flames of Amaterasu, rapidly compressed and formed on the bowstring.
"A simplified version of Indra's Arrow, I'm giving it to you."
Thwack!
The bowstring vibrated, emitting a deafening roar.
That arrow transformed into a meteor, carrying terrifying kinetic energy that tore through everything, shooting straight into the deepest part of the Infinity Castle. Its speed was so immense that it even generated ear-splitting sonic boom clouds in the air.
All obstacles in its path, whether rock or heavily layered wooden doors, were instantly shredded by the lightning upon contact, then incinerated into nothingness by Amaterasu's black flames.
"No... No!!!"
In the control room, Muzan let out a desperate roar, watching the destructive light rapidly enlarge in his vision.
Without hesitation, he kicked Nakime aside on the ground, his figure transforming into an afterimage, desperately fleeing in the opposite direction.
The next second.
Boom!!!
The arrow violently struck the control center where Nakime was located.
An earth-shattering explosion echoed throughout the entire underground space.
Violent lightning, mixed with the inextinguishable black flames, instantly engulfed that entire area.
Nakime didn't even have time to let out a scream before, along with her biwa, she was reduced to scattered ashes by this terrifying energy.
With Nakime's demise, the Blood Demon Art that controlled the spatial laws of the Infinity Castle completely collapsed.
Crack... Crack...
A sound like shattering glass echoed in everyone's ears.
The inverted pavilions and suspended corridors, having lost the support of the Blood Demon Art, finally faced the reckoning of real-world physics.
The entire Infinity Castle began to collapse.
A violent sensation of weightlessness struck again. Only this time, it wasn't falling into an abyss, but rather spatial repulsion.
The scenery of the real world replaced the broken wood.
Boom!
Accompanied by the final deafening thud, the flying wood splinters and dust dispersed.
The night wind blew.
Yamada deactivated Susanoo, holding Shinobu, and landed steadily on a grassy plain.
He looked up. Above him was the boundless starry sky and a bright crescent moon. Around him were rolling mountains and dense forests.
They had returned to the real world, landing in a wilderness tens of kilometers from the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters.
And not just them.
With the forced disintegration of the Infinity Castle, the Hashira, regular members, and hundreds of demons who had been trapped inside were all haphazardly "expelled," scattered across various corners of the wilderness.
"We're back on the surface?!"
Tanjiro picked himself up from the ground, taking a deep breath of the earthy night air, his face filled with shock.
"We really got out! That damned maze is gone!" Sanemi gripped his nichirin blade, cautiously surveying his surroundings.
On an open patch of ground less than a hundred meters from Yamada, several figures emanating terrifying pressure slowly rose from the dust.
Kokushibo was wielding a sword.
Akaza's face was full of rage, his body covered in tattoos.
And standing behind them, Muzan's clothes were disheveled, his face twisted to the extreme.
For the first time in a thousand years, the Demon Slayers and the Demon Progenitor faced each other directly in the open, real world.
"To destroy my castle... like this."
Muzan stared intently at Yamada standing in the distance, killing intent permeating the air as if it were tangible.
Yamada released Shinobu's hand, stepped forward, and casually slung his Kusanagi Sword over his shoulder.
He looked at the Demon King opposite him, and let out a contemptuous scoff, "Your tortoise shell shattered, how does it feel?"
Yamada's gaze was disdainful, his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan shimmering with a crimson glow in the night.
"Next, it's time to settle the old debts you've accumulated over the past thousand years."
***
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