From the moment Izumi Kiyokazu sensed the demon's presence, he had been consciously laying a trap. Based on how Yamada Mura handled the thugs and himself, it was clear the demon was cautious to his very marrow.
Kiyokazu lacked a Nichirin Sword. Facing such an opponent, if he failed to deliver a decisive, immobilizing blow in one go, the demon would likely flee. Letting a creature that had marked him live would mean never being able to close his eyes to sleep again.
Watching Yamada Mura charge at him, intent on a finishing blow, Kiyokazu didn't hesitate for a single heartbeat. He took a deep breath, and in that instant, his Sun Breathing was pushed to its absolute limit.
Since his reincarnation, this was the moment he was in his best state—and this was the most powerful technique his current body could possibly sustain!
"Sun Breathing, Sixth Form—Burning Bones, Summer Sun!"
The fundamental difference between this form and the First Form: Dance lay in the number of consecutive strikes. Having inherited the complete legacy of Sun Breathing, Kiyokazu realized that when Yoriichi Tsugikuni fought Muzan all those years ago, this was likely the technique he found most effective.
This form allowed one to unleash dozens of slashes in an instant, at a speed nearly invisible to the naked eye. Theoretically, there was no upper limit to the number of strikes; as long as one followed specific respiratory trajectories and possessed a sufficiently powerful physique, hundreds of slashes could be executed in a single breath.
When Yoriichi sliced Muzan into more than 1,700 pieces of flesh in an instant, he had likely mastered this form to its ultimate conclusion. While Kiyokazu possessed a perfect understanding of the style, his physical limitations meant he could only manage twelve slashes in this moment.
But against a creature that wasn't even a Lower Rank, twelve were more than enough!
Kiyokazu stepped on the torch, extinguishing it. A sudden, brief darkness swallowed the riverbank. The confident, predatory grin on Yamada Mura's face froze. The sudden loss of light meant he hadn't fully adjusted his vision.
But even in the dark, he could sense it—the brat's aura had undergone a cataclysmic transformation!
Damn it! Damn it!
His instincts screamed at him to stop, but to ensure the boy's death, he had already accelerated to his maximum velocity. He couldn't stop now.
He was a cautious demon, but with Kiyokazu poisoned, lacking a Nichirin Sword, and missing chunks of flesh from his arm, Yamada felt he couldn't afford to stay cautious. If the brat fled at full speed, the struggle would surely be seen by people in the city, which would draw the Demon Slayer Corps. He might lose his chance to devour the corpse!
No, I have to bet on this! He doesn't know my weakness! He can't kill me without a Nichirin Sword!
At that thought, Yamada pushed his speed even higher. Simultaneously, he used his claws to rake his own skin, sending a massive spray of poisonous blood flying. Even if Kiyokazu managed to hack him apart, as long as that blood touched the boy, victory would belong to the demon!
Without a Nichirin Sword, he couldn't be killed. Even if dismembered, he could just pull himself back together!
However, the "wisdom" of going all-in only works when both sides are nearly spent. If one side still holds a hidden trump card, the one who gambles everything usually ends up shattered.
Unfortunately for Yamada Mura, Kiyokazu was the one who was prepared.
When the demon closed within two meters, he realized that the terrifying pressure Kiyokazu was emitting had actually been condensed into a tight radius around the boy's body. What Yamada had felt earlier was merely the "leakage" of that aura!
Now, surrounding Kiyokazu was a pressure so terrifying it made the demon's very soul tremble. If Kiyokazu had felt like a faint current of heat during their earlier exchange, then the boy wielding the dagger now had become a blinding, magnificent sun at high noon!
Kiyokazu's eyes ignited in the darkness, looking as though a soul-piercing flame burned within them. His left arm, stripped of flesh, was still bleeding, but his posture was like a bow drawn to its absolute breaking point—a state of total, lethal tension.
In this moment, Kiyokazu threw everything he had into the strike. Life or death—this was it!
"Sun Breathing, Sixth Form—Burning Bones, Summer Sun!"
"Impossible!!"
The moment he saw the slashes that seemed to fill his entire field of vision, Yamada Mura let out a shriek of absolute terror. He wanted to flee, to abandon everything and run, but he discovered to his horror that his body refused to obey.
A primal fear, buried deep within the blood of Muzan Kibutsuji, was triggered like an explosion!
Yamada wanted to escape this zone that had suddenly turned as bright as day, but it was too late!
Kiyokazu moved. In that single instant, it looked as though twelve versions of him appeared simultaneously. The dagger, shimmering with a dark-red light, flickered in an interlocking pattern, forming a stream of crimson radiance like a flowing river!
The trajectories of the strikes, moving far beyond the eye's ability to track, wove a giant net of dismemberment that instantly enveloped the charging demon!
The dagger wasn't particularly sharp, but bolstered by Sun Breathing, flesh and bone alike were sliced and crushed with ease under the rusted blade. It wasn't until his severed limbs hit the ground that Yamada Mura's brain finally registered what had happened.
"Eh?" he squeaked instinctively.
With his body shattered into dozens of pieces—the largest being no bigger than a palm—he was still alive. Demons feared only the solar energy stored in Nichirin Swords. Even Sun Breathing, unless developed to its absolute peak, could not kill a demon with an ordinary blade.
To make matters worse, despite his efforts to dodge, Kiyokazu had been splattered with a significant amount of the poisonous blood. As his own flesh began to fester and rot, he found himself barely able to stand.
Yamada Mura's head rolled to the side. He glared at Kiyokazu with eyes filled with venomous hatred, his voice rising in a manic, excited rasp:
"A mere human! You actually... you actually pushed me this far! But too bad, I'll still live! I'll recover and swallow you whole! No—before I eat you, I'll devour those brats you're with first! They're important to you, aren't they? I'll make sure to swallow them slowly. I'll crunch every single one of their bones right in front of your eyes!"
Suddenly, a thunderous voice boomed through the night:
"Flame Breathing, First Form—Unknowing Fire!"
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Demon Slayer: Starting by Snatching Daki(71 Chapter- Ongoing)
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