Chaos.
That was Kocho Shinobu's first impression after falling into the Infinity Castle.
Houses and corridors were tilted, and empty platforms were scattered throughout the air.
As far as the eye could see was a scene of chaos and complete irregularity, eerie and magical.
In just a few breaths, while still in mid-air, Kocho Shinobu had already lost all sense of direction.
"Hold on to me."
Just then, Lynn's voice rang out.
Kocho Shinobu felt a squeeze from her surroundings, and in the next second, she was pulled into Lynn's arms.
"Eh?!"
Kocho Shinobu was stunned and raised her head.
Looking at that face she knew all too well, she hesitated for a moment and said nothing, instead pointing toward the front right.
"Muzan is over there."
"Yeah, I see him."
Lynn looked toward the mid-air not far away.
After Nakime activated her Blood Demon Art, everyone, including Lynn, had been pulled into the Infinity Castle.
At this moment, in the mid-air of the Infinity Castle, the location where everyone was situated was divided into three zones.
Lynn and Kocho Shinobu were in the lower right, while Ubuyashiki Kagaya and Rengoku Shinjuro were in the upper left.
As for Kibutsuji Muzan, Tomioka Giyuu, and the others, they were all suspended in the upper right mid-air.
Because they had already obtained intelligence regarding the Infinity Castle beforehand, Tomioka Giyuu and the others did not panic after falling into it, and one after another, they pulled grappling hooks from their robes.
The training from the past many days played its role at this moment; everyone simultaneously threw out their grappling hooks to wrap around nearby buildings.
After that, they used the grappling hooks to swing through the air, continuously closing in on the direction where Kibutsuji Muzan was located.
Duang~! Duang~! Duang~!
Just then, the hurried sound of a biwa rang out repeatedly, and a large number of shoji doors appeared in mid-air.
Tomioka Giyuu and the others, who were moving with the help of their grappling hooks, couldn't dodge in time and crashed headlong into the shoji doors, vanishing as they were sent to other areas of the Infinity Castle.
Man!
Lynn seemed to hear a hallucination in his ear.
Silently withdrawing his gaze from afar, he abandoned the idea of approaching Muzan in mid-air.
"What a troublesome Blood Demon Art."
Kocho Shinobu, who also witnessed this scene, furrowed her brows.
Although she had learned about Nakime's Blood Demon Art during the strategy meeting long ago,
After seeing it with her own eyes, she found this Blood Demon Art to be even more troublesome than imagined.
Duang!
Just then, the biwa sounded again.
A shoji door appeared out of thin air beneath Lynn and Shinobu.
In a flash, Lynn reacted, reaching out to grab the edge of the shoji door to hang in mid-air.
An inconspicuous wisp of Ripple flowed out from his fingertips, and the shoji door made a sizzling sound.
"Hmm? What did you do?"
A look of confusion appeared on Kocho Shinobu's face.
"Nothing, just confirming a hypothesis."
Because exposing it early would startle Muzan, Lynn had never used the power of Ripple, using Thunder Breathing to fight the entire time.
Now that Muzan was poisoned and had no spare energy to focus on his surroundings for a short time, he finally found an opportunity to test the effect of Ripple.
After confirming that the power of Ripple could affect Blood Demon Arts, Lynn took Kocho Shinobu and jumped into the shoji door, arriving in a spacious hall.
In the very center of the hall stood a tall man with deep red hair.
"Ho, we hit the jackpot right away."
Lynn let go of Kocho Shinobu, his palm resting on the hilt of the nichirin blade at his waist.
"What should I call you? Upper Rank One Kokushibo? Or Tsugikuni Michikatsu?"
"Tsugikuni Michikatsu?"
Hearing the unexpected name, Kokushibo's six eyes simultaneously looked toward Lynn.
"Where did you learn that name?"
"Tsugikuni Yoriichi told me. He also told me you're a pitiful fellow who threw everything away for a bit of power to become Muzan's..."
"Shut up!"
Kokushibo suddenly roared, interrupting him.
Perhaps because Lynn's words touched a sore spot, a thick murderous intent radiated from his body.
"I don't know where you learned those things! But Yoriichi would never say such words!"
"You're right, Tsugikuni Yoriichi wouldn't say such things, so I said them in his place."
Lynn drew his nichirin blade: "In the final moments of your life, do you have any last words?"
"The one who should speak last words is you."
Kokushibo likewise drew the blade at his waist, and the Transparent World was quietly activated.
At this moment, Kokushibo's focus rose to the extreme, and the world gradually became transparent in his eyes.
Using this power, Kokushibo successfully observed Lynn's physical structure.
Perfect.
That was Kokushibo's first impression.
Since the Sengoku period, this was the first time Kokushibo had seen someone who had trained their physical body to such a realm.
Although he didn't look overly muscular, there wasn't a single bit of excess in the muscles on Lynn's body; what was presented was the most standard, perfect form.
Not only that, the opponent's physical coordination was also very strong.
As Lynn raised his nichirin blade, he could observe the muscles on the opponent's body entering a tensed state at the same time.
However, just as Kokushibo was preparing to observe the muscle movements to further predict Lynn's attack direction for a countermeasure,
The physical body that was clearly visible in his eyes suddenly rippled.
Then, as if countless water droplets were falling into a lake, a large number of Ripples rose from various parts of Lynn's body.
By the time Kokushibo reacted, the internal state of Lynn's body had already been shielded.
"Hmm?"
Encountering this situation for the first time, Kokushibo's eyes widened as he looked at the black-haired youth before him.
"What did you do?"
"A dying man has no need to know too much."
After further testing the effects of Ripple, Lynn took a step forward holding his nichirin blade.
Current Propulsion, full power start!
State of Selflessness, full power start!
Golden electric arcs and white light formed from spiritual power simultaneously covered the surface of Lynn's body.
From stillness to movement, Lynn's speed amplified to the limit in an instant.
Thunder Breathing, Seventh Form: Take-Mikazuchi!
The slash that had once suppressed the entire Soma Familia under the watchful eyes of the public manifested at this moment.
Ssh—!
A crisp tearing sound rang out.
By the time Kokushibo reacted, he had already been sliced into two halves by Lynn's attack.
Looking from a distance, Kokushibo's legs below the waist were still standing in place.
While his physical body above the waist was pulled by gravity, hitting the ground with a thud.
Blood flowed from the severed gap, and intense pain rushed to his mind.
Affected by this pain, Kokushibo snapped back from the fleeting shock and looked at the black-haired youth before him with some confusion.
"Why didn't you cut my neck?"
"To me, cutting anywhere is the same."
By spending money to bribe Take-Mikazuchi, DanMachi Lynn had asked him to combine the two different breathing methods, Thunder Breathing and Ripple, to create Thunder Breathing 3.0.
Compared to Thunder Breathing 2.0, the biggest feature of Thunder Breathing 3.0 was the ability to utilize the power of Ripple, attaching Ripple to attacks.
Although Lynn didn't directly cut the neck, the result was the same.
"What a hearty battle."
Looking at Kokushibo who was gradually turning into black ash before him, a pleasant smile appeared on Lynn's face.
"Farewell, Tsugikuni Michikatsu. I probably won't forget you for the rest of my life."
...?
Kokushibo's body was completely consumed by the Ripple, dissipating into black ash on the spot.
However, in the instant before his death, the gaze he cast toward Lynn was full of complexity.
This person... is something wrong with his head?
"Really, couldn't you cooperate a bit?"
Noticing Kokushibo's expression, Lynn shook his head in disappointment.
He had expected that this martial arts fanatic, Kokushibo, would say something like 'I'm truly sorry for not being able to make Lord Lynn use his full strength' before dying.
After secretly lamenting the failure of his cosplay, Lynn turned back to Kocho Shinobu.
"How was it? Was my move just now cool?"
"It's over just like that?"
Kocho Shinobu snapped back to reality.
Although the battle just now sounded long,
From a third-party perspective, it could entirely be described as a flash of lightning.
From meeting to the end, Lynn didn't even take a minute to one-shot Kokushibo with a single strike.
"Lynn, I remember you didn't undergo Demon Transformation Surgery, right?"
"Yeah, I didn't."
"Then what's with your strength? I remember when you fought Upper Rank Two..."
"I was faking it."
As if guessing what Kocho Shinobu was going to ask, Lynn gave the answer directly.
"If I appeared too strong, it would be easy to scare Kibutsuji Muzan."
Scare Muzan?
Kocho Shinobu looked at Lynn, wanting to complain but also feeling that his words were quite reasonable.
One-shotting Upper Rank One.
If Lynn had exposed this strength before the final battle, Muzan really might have been scared and just found a place to hide.
"No wonder you asked us to create a poison that shields perception."
Kocho Shinobu recalled the scene not long ago when Lynn asked her, Kocho Kanae, and Tamayo to create a poison.
At that time, Kocho Shinobu didn't understand why Lynn wanted them to create a poison that limited Muzan's perception, but now she understood.
Affected by the poison, Muzan's perception was suppressed, making him temporarily unable to sense the changes among his subordinates.
In other words, at this moment, Muzan, who was busy breaking down the toxins in his body, had not discovered the fact that his top general had been one-shotted.
And before the opponent finished breaking down the poison and realized Lynn's true strength, Lynn could do whatever he wanted without any restraint.
"What's the next plan? Go find the remaining Upper Ranks? Or go find Nakime?"
"Neither. Next, we clean up the ordinary demons within the Infinity Castle."
Lynn looked toward the boxes nearby.
The things in these boxes were what he had asked Ubuyashiki Kagaya to make not long ago.
Because the production speed was too slow, he only got them on the eve of the final battle.
"What is inside these?"
A hint of curiosity appeared on Kocho Shinobu's face.
According to the original plan, she was supposed to join the others in besieging Muzan.
But after returning from Tokyo, Lynn suddenly threw these boxes to her for safekeeping and removed her from the siege list.
Because time was limited, Kocho Shinobu still didn't know what was inside until now.
"Do you know what the thing that needs to be cleared out most in the Infinity Castle is, besides Muzan?"
Just as Kocho Shinobu was feeling curious about the secret weapon in the box, Lynn suddenly asked a peculiar question.
Kocho Shinobu thought for a moment: "It should be Nakime."
"You're right. Besides Muzan, the one who needs to be killed most is Nakime."
"But the biggest problem right now is that the initiative in this battle is not in our hands."
Lynn opened the box and took out a tennis racket with a frame covered in steel.
"To reverse the offensive, we need to find a way to seize the initiative in this battle."
...