Chapter 192: Hot Springs are Great, One Must Soak in Them
In the days that followed, Akira and Gyomei coordinated a strict rotation to stake out the opulent temple of the Eternal Paradise Cult. They agreed to send immediate word via Kasugai Crow at the slightest disturbance, prepared to launch a joint raid the moment their target showed his face. Unfortunately, an entire month dragged by in agonizing silence. They caught absolutely no sign of Doma.
There was one agonizingly close call. Akira had just received a whispered alert and sprinted to the rendezvous point. Before he and the Stone Hashira could even breach the cult's perimeter, the Upper Rank's foul presence simply vanished. The disappearance was incredibly abrupt. Through his heightened senses, Akira perceived a strange phenomenon: a sliding wooden door materialized out of thin air directly beneath Doma's feet. It swallowed the demon whole and vanished just as quickly, leaving behind nothing but empty air and the lingering scent of blood.
Gyomei stood in the quiet woods, his blind eyes turning toward the empty temple. He gripped his prayer beads, deeply perplexed by the sudden evasion. He initially assumed this spatial manipulation was an extension of Doma's own Blood Demon Art, though he questioned the sheer range and limitations of such a technique. Regardless of the mechanics, a Blood Demon Art capable of instant teleportation caused the difficulty of cornering and executing the Upper Rank to skyrocket into near impossibility.
"That likely isn't the Blood Demon Art of the bastard leading the Eternal Paradise Cult," Akira spoke up from the side, his hand resting thoughtfully on the hilt of his Nichirin Blade. "It belongs to another demon entirely. Just a moment ago, right as he vanished, I heard the faint twang of a biwa."
Because Akira already knew of Nakime's existence from his past life's memories, his ears were primed to catch that specific, resonant pluck of strings the exact second Doma dropped out of reality. The note was incredibly faint. Given their distance from the temple's inner sanctum, Gyomei had not immediately registered the sound over the rustling leaves and distant wind. However, upon thinking back carefully and sifting through his immense auditory memory, the giant man recalled the distinct, sharp note he had previously dismissed as mere background noise.
, Akira had been observing the Upper Rank through the piercing lens of the Transparent World. He had seen the exact posture and muscle movements of the demon lounging inside the Eternal Paradise Cult. Doma certainly hadn't been holding an instrument.
As Gyomei regained his composure, his massive shoulders relaxing slightly, Akira added another grim observation. ", a demon capable of instantly teleporting an Upper Rank away from a secure location is very likely a subordinate highly valued by Muzan. The destination at the other end of that spatial Blood Demon Art is quite possibly the Demon King's personal stronghold."
Since the timing was perfect, Akira naturally didn't mind feeding the Stone Hashira a bit more crucial intelligence. Seeding the existence of the Infinity Castle into the minds of the Hashira in advance would at least provide them with vital psychological preparation for the inevitable final war.
It was actually quite tragic when one truly thought about it. The Demon Slayer Corps had bled and died for a thousand years with the singular, ultimate goal of eliminating Muzan, yet they possessed virtually zero recorded information about him before Tamayo allied with them. Aside from the bare facts that his name was Kibutsuji Muzan and that he was the ancient, disgraced ancestor of the Ubuyashiki clan, they operated in total darkness.
Since the death of Yoriichi Tsugikuni hundreds of years ago, not a single swordsman who laid eyes on Muzan had survived to tell the tale. It was no wonder the Demon King had never truly taken the Demon Slayer Corps seriously. For a millennium, he had treated them as mere gnats, focusing the entirety of his vast intellect and resources on his desperate search for the Blue Spider Lily.
After all, across those long, blood-soaked centuries, only Yoriichi had ever managed to strike genuine, mortal terror into his cowardly heart. Aside from the legendary Sun Breath user, absolutely no one had possessed the strength to threaten Muzan's life.
"Muzan..." Gyomei murmured, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. Just speaking the name of the Demon King caused a heavy, suffocating weight to settle over the Stone Hashira's heart.
From Tamayo's detailed reports, the upper echelons of the Demon Slayer Corps had already learned a horrifying truth. When Muzan narrowly escaped Yoriichi hundreds of years ago, he had already evolved past the fatal weakness of decapitation. A Nichirin Blade to the neck would do nothing. In this modern era, the only force of nature capable of turning him to ash was the rising sun.
This revelation was undoubtedly catastrophic news for the Corps. Muzan's raw power was beyond question. Even the Upper Ranks, monsters created with just a minuscule fraction of his blood, possessed enough destructive force to push the Demon Slayer Corps to the brink of total annihilation if they ever decided to attack en masse.
Faced with an immortal, ever-regenerating god of death, the only viable tactic the swordsmen could adopt was the most brutal and disadvantageous strategy imaginable: a pure war of attrition. They would have to throw their fragile human bodies into the meat grinder, stalling Muzan second by agonizing second until the sun breached the horizon.
And this suicidal plan only held a fraction of a chance under the strict premise that Tamayo succeeded in synthesizing a drug to prevent Muzan from splitting his body into hundreds of pieces to escape. If a literal god of swordsmanship like Yoriichi couldn't destroy all eighteen hundred fragments despite launching over a thousand strikes in a single instant, the current generation of Hashira had absolutely no hope of catching them all.
This grim reality was exactly why the current Hashira maintained a surprisingly high level of acceptance toward Tamayo's presence. First, since being granted sanctuary within the Ubuyashiki estate's hidden borders, the elegant demon doctor had never committed a single suspicious act. Quite the opposite. The coagulants and anti-venoms she developed in tandem with Sawaki and Kanae Kocho had already dragged dozens of grievously wounded slayers back from death's door.
Second, Tamayo had once stood before the assembled Hashira and calmly stated that, if necessary, she would use her own flesh as a sacrificial vessel to forcibly inject the aging drugs directly into Muzan's system. To exact her centuries-long revenge on the man who ruined her life, Tamayo was willing to sacrifice absolutely everything, including her own soul.
It was precisely because of her unwavering conviction and life-saving contributions that even the most violently anti-demon Hashira now directed a much milder, respectful attitude toward her. The shift in atmosphere was so noticeable that Yushiro now openly dared to snap and voice his petty complaints to the Hashira's faces without the constant fear of being instantly decapitated.
Having failed to ambush Doma, Akira found himself harboring a quiet, simmering frustration. He naturally vented this pent-up aggression on a slew of incredibly unlucky demons during his subsequent night patrols. With the sensory overload of the Transparent World at his disposal, tracking down hidden demons hiding among the human populace became terrifyingly efficient.
This enhanced vision also allowed him to observe the onset of Tamayo's experimental poisons with careful, intuitive precision. He could watch the cellular breakdown within a captured demon's body in real-time, allowing his detailed field notes to serve a much greater purpose for the medical team back at the Butterfly Mansion. At the very least, he was putting the legendary Transparent World to highly practical use.
Otherwise, if he wasn't actively hunting down high-end combatants like Doma and Akaza, nor assisting the research team with live data, wouldn't his grueling effort to awaken the Transparent World have been a complete waste of potential?
It was precisely because he went out hunting live test subjects so frequently that Akira's specialized Nichirin Blade began to show a noticeable amount of wear and tear along the edge. The minor chipping meant he needed to make a trip to the hidden Swordsmith Village for proper maintenance.
Now, one shouldn't misunderstand the situation; the wear and tear certainly wasn't from cutting demon flesh. With Akira's monstrous physical strength and refined breathing techniques, ordinary low-level demons simply weren't qualified to cause even a microscopic scratch on his blade. The dulling of the edge actually came from him aggressively chopping down thick timber.
As for why a Hashira was out in the woods acting like a lumberjack? That was naturally to harvest local materials, carving thick wooden stakes to securely pin down the thrashing demons for his live field experiments. He couldn't exactly lug around a massive, heavy bundle of hemp rope or iron chains every single time he went on patrol. That would be far too inconvenient for his high-speed movement.
He just didn't know if Haganezuka would literally transform into a vengeful, bloodthirsty spirit on the spot if the eccentric smith ever learned the truth. The man had poured his absolute heart and soul into forging a masterpiece strong enough to withstand combat of any intensity, only for Akira to casually use it to chop firewood.
Back when Haganezuka forged this specific blade, he had essentially overdrafted his own life force. For three agonizing months, the masked smith barely slept or rested. He reduced his basic eating and drinking to dangerously low levels, pouring every ounce of his blood, sweat, and manic obsession into the steel.
His dedication was so extreme that the exact second the blade was polished to perfection, Haganezuka collapsed into a dead faint. The entire Swordsmith Village had been thrown into a chaotic panic, working frantically for days just to keep his heart beating. Ultimately, it was Akira who had to carry Sawaki Kocho on his back, sprinting through the night to reach the hidden village so the skilled doctor could pull Haganezuka back from the brink of death.
It wasn't until very recently that Haganezuka finally reopened his personal forge, and even then, he was only permitted to craft lower-quality, mass-produced training blades for the Corps' Cultivators. He would have to recuperate and rebuild his stamina for quite a while longer before he could safely take on custom forging tasks for official swordsmen again. That was a strict, non-negotiable order handed down directly from the village chief.
When Akira casually mentioned over dinner that he was heading out to the Swordsmith Village to get his edge touched up, Kanae immediately set down her chopsticks and expressed her desire to tag along. Her own slender, specialized rapier was just about due for its routine maintenance anyway.
also, her violet eyes sparkled with a hint of anticipation as she brought up the famous natural hot springs located within the village. It would be the perfect opportunity for them to take a long, private soak together, effectively melting away the deep-seated physical and mental fatigue accumulated from years of relentless training and bloodshed.
As for the minor technicality that it was only the very beginning of autumn, and the ambient temperature hadn't actually dropped enough to make it the optimal season for a boiling hot spring soak... well, that completely missed the point.
Akira simply smiled, his gaze lingering on the beautiful Flower Hashira. The point was simple: hot springs were great, and when given the chance to relax in one with the woman he loved, one absolutely must soak in them.
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