Chapter 201: Husband and Wife Mixed Doubles
The moment the Nichirin Sword was drawn from Tsugikuni Yoriichi's waist, all the extreme physical enhancements produced under the Total Concentration state of Sun Breathing compressed into that single blade.
The steel turned red.
An orange-red that shone from within, like molten iron flowing into a mold. That was the color of sunlight. The color of the sun condensed by human will and breathing, clinging to the razor edge of the blade. Unlike an ordinary weapon, this was the advanced Bright Red Nichirin Sword. It was a state where the body was pushed beyond its mortal limits through superior Breathing Styles, and all the solar energy carried by the steel was fully activated with a crushing grip.
Muzan's vertical pupils contracted to pinpricks.
Though she still harbored deep contempt for humans and absolute arrogance regarding her immortal body, she moved. Calling herself a natural disaster, she could never allow a mere human to trample her. Her five fingers spread wide. The skin at her fingertips burst apart, and thick, purple-black tentacles shot out from the bloody gaps. Each appendage was as thick as a grown man's arm, branching at the ends into razor-sharp bone spikes. They moved with such ferocious velocity that they left only blurred afterimages under the cold moonlight.
Ten tentacles struck from ten different directions, entirely sealing off all of Yoriichi's evasion routes.
But Yoriichi did not dodge. He took a step forward. Just one step.
Tentacles swept past both sides of his body. The closest one grazed his earlobe, shearing off a few strands of crimson hair. But not a single strike landed.
The Transparent World—the innate ability Tsugikuni Yoriichi possessed to see through the internal workings of all living things—presented the exact trajectory, speed, muscle exertion, and rhythm of every single tentacle in his vision. To his eyes, those blindingly fast appendages were practically stationary.
He turned his body, paused his step, and swung his blade.
A simple horizontal slash.
The burning edge cut directly into Muzan's left shoulder as they brushed past each other, slicing diagonally down through to her right waist. The Bright Red Nichirin Sword seeped the searing heat of Sun Breathing directly into the wound the instant it cleaved through her flesh.
Muzan's body was cleanly bisected. The cut surfaces charred black instantly, emitting a foul, scorched stench.
The next second, the Progenitor of Demons' terrifying regeneration kicked in. Purplish-black granulation grew frantically from both sides of the severed torso, attempting to violently stitch the body back together.
But Yoriichi's second strike had already arrived. From the center of her crown, slicing all the way down.
Then the third strike.
The Nichirin Sword never stopped after leaving its sheath. Yoriichi's figure blurred into a golden afterimage under the moonlight, his blade drawing countless intersecting, overlapping arcs of fire.
These were the sword forms created specifically to complement Sun Breathing.
The Thirteen Forms.
Dance, Clear Blue Sky... Fire Wheel, Fake Rainbow, Flame Dance. The final form returned smoothly to the starting point, creating an endless cycle of the Thirteen Forms, without beginning or end.
The Thirteen Forms of Sun Breathing were not thirteen distinct, isolated moves, but a complete, unbroken cycle—starting with Dance and ending with Dance, connecting head to tail, never stopping. At the very moment of their conception, they served only one purpose: to simultaneously shatter all the vital points of Kibutsuji Muzan, a monster possessing five brains and seven hearts, leaving absolutely zero room for regeneration.
This was exactly why Kobe Hikaru had declared that Tsugikuni Yoriichi was the only blade capable of killing Muzan. It was the direct result of the intelligence Hikaru had provided him in advance—classified information about Muzan's anatomy that even the Demon Slayer Corps had failed to accurately record.
Yoriichi used only a fraction of time to forge a set of breathing techniques sufficient to utterly obliterate the Progenitor of Demons. It was even more refined and lethal than the techniques he had created during his original, fateful encounter with Muzan.
The crimson blade light wove an inescapable net across the night sky. Every flash of steel carried the scorching heat of the sun, and every strike landed without suspense directly upon the exact coordinates of the brains and hearts hidden within Muzan's shifting anatomy.
Muzan's regeneration speed was monstrously fast. But the cycle of the Thirteen Forms was faster.
In the span of just a few breaths, thousands of slashes rained down. The burning edge shredded the newly sprouted granulation. The solar heat caused the tissue of the cut surfaces to continuously carbonize, destroying the regenerated flesh over and over again.
Five brains. Seven hearts. Shattered repeatedly within the endless loop of the Thirteen Forms.
Muzan finally howled.
The sound was neither human nor demonic; it was a high-pitched, agonizing shriek, like the sharp friction of raw flesh being ground down under extreme pressure. Her body constantly collapsed, reorganized, and collapsed again within the storm of crimson light. Each reorganization grew weaker than the last. Each regeneration slowed to a crawl.
The scorching heat of Sun Breathing accumulated deep within her core, the properties of sunlight seeping into every single cell like a lethal toxin.
Thirty paces away, Kobe Hikaru stood perfectly still, gripping Onikiri and Yomikiri in both hands. A faint blood mist drifted out from his form, acting as a sensory net across the battlefield.
He didn't intervene. There was no need.
From the very beginning, this battle was Tsugikuni Yoriichi's solo stage. Hikaru only needed to do one thing: clean up. He had to ensure that not a single fragment of Muzan escaped this desolate wilderness.
Until Yoriichi's final strike fell.
Dance, returning to the starting point.
The crimson blade light drew a flawless circle, reducing the last remaining lump of Muzan's purplish-black flesh into fine, burning powder.
The blade light dissipated. Only drifting ashes and a lingering scorched stench remained in the cold wilderness air. Muzan's body had vanished. Not even a microscopic fragment was left behind.
But Yoriichi did not sheathe his sword. He stared down at the Nichirin Sword in his hand, his brow furrowing slightly. Suddenly, he spoke.
"He is still here. Not dead."
Yes, even though he had just eradicated every visible trace of the Progenitor of Demons, Yoriichi's unmatched intuition screamed that the monster was still present.
Observing from the sidelines, Hikaru raised his gaze and clicked his tongue. "As expected."
In the surrounding darkness, ghostly figures strode forward into the moonlight.
"I truly underestimated you all," one of the figures sneered.
A pale face, handsome features—it was Kibutsuji Muzan. But not in his female form; this was a male.
Another figure echoed from the left, "This is the first time I've been pushed this far."
Another pale face, handsome features. It was, impossibly, another Kibutsuji Muzan.
And a third, a fourth, a fifth...
Dozens of Kibutsuji Muzans stepped out of the shadows. Male or female, old or young, tall or short—yet they all radiated the exact same suffocating aura and possessed the exact same slit-like vertical pupils.
They spoke simultaneously. "But, it ends here."
In perfect unison. Or rather, same mouth, same voice.
The scene was deeply eerie and terrifying. Especially since Yoriichi's Transparent World clearly revealed the impossible truth: these figures all possessed independent hearts, independent brains, and independent blood circulation.
Dozens of Kibutsuji Muzans. Every single one was the original body.
Hikaru stood his ground, his crimson Demon Eyes sweeping over the encroaching figures. His tone remained unexpectedly deadpan and calm.
He had anticipated this exact possibility. He always remembered Tsuchigumo's words. Before leaving Kaede Village, that gaseous Great Yokai had warned him about Muzan—mentioning that he had swatted the demon lord to death seventeen times, and each time, Muzan would simply reappear.
Reappear. Not recover on the spot. Not survive unharmed. Reappearing from somewhere else entirely.
To achieve such a feat, there was only one logical explanation. Before being 'killed', Kibutsuji Muzan had already split off a part of himself. Flesh Pre-storage. As long as any single piece of flesh remained alive somewhere in the world, Muzan would never truly die. That isolated lump of flesh would simply regrow a complete body, complete with five brains, seven hearts, and a fully intact consciousness in a short amount of time.
This was not an ability Muzan possessed in the original Demon Slayer records. But this world was not just Demon Slayer. It was a chaotic, mixed worldview.
This land housed the Hyakki of Kyoto led by Hagoromo Gitsune, the corrupting influence of the Shikon Jewel, Uesugi Kenshin's divine power of Bishamonten, and ancient Great Yokai like Tsuchigumo and Sesshomaru, who had roamed the earth for centuries.
In such a terrifyingly overpowered world, a Progenitor of Demons who relied solely on basic immortality could never have survived for five hundred years. If on-the-spot regeneration was his only trick, he would have been wiped out ages ago. After all, the human side boasted legendary figures too. Priestesses like Midoriko, or monstrous slayers like Minamoto no Yorimitsu. Even if Muzan actively avoided the Great Yokai, demons fed on humans, and eventually, some reckless subordinate would inevitably provoke a being they shouldn't have.
Yet, for five long centuries, facing Exorcists, Onmyoji, Great Yokai, divine artifacts, and literal incarnations of gods and Buddhas, Kibutsuji Muzan had survived.
He had to have a trump card. And this trump card was glaringly obvious: splitting his own flesh in advance and hiding it in various secure locations across the world. It functioned exactly like a lich's phylactery in Western fantasy. As long as the phylactery remained intact, the lich could not die. As long as a single trace of flesh existed, Muzan was immortal, reaching a level where even traditional sealing techniques were rendered useless.
Thus, the current standoff.
"You're not surprised?" the nearest male-form Muzan sneered, his eyes narrowing.
"Not surprised," Hikaru admitted frankly, his voice dry. "Because this is also part of my plan."
The expressions of the dozen Muzans shifted simultaneously. "—You still have a plan?"
Hikaru indeed had a plan. In the original plot he was familiar with, Tsugikuni Yoriichi dealt Muzan a devastating blow that scarred him for a lifetime, yet Muzan still managed to escape, surviving all the way until the Taisho Era hundreds of years later.
To permanently deal with Kibutsuji Muzan, one Tsugikuni Yoriichi was clearly not enough. A plan within a plan was absolutely necessary. Yoriichi, after all, was just phase one... in fact, Yoriichi was merely the bait. The bait designed specifically to force out these dozens of hidden main bodies.
While the original Yoriichi was peerless and could steadily suppress Muzan, his very nature dictated that he would only ever be a notch stronger than the enemy he faced. The intent of 'Nothingness' grew with the environment; he would always be just strong enough to steadily suppress the immediate threat. So, as long as Muzan believed Yoriichi was Hikaru's ultimate trump card, the demon lord would remain arrogant and overconfident.
And this was exactly what Hikaru wanted. He refused to be limited by the constraints of the original plot. He would rely on his own methods.
"Did you really think I only prepared Tsugikuni Yoriichi?"
Amidst his deadpan words, Hikaru raised his left hand. He flipped his palm, and thick blood mist gushed out from between his fingers. It didn't spread downward into a sensory net; instead, it surged upward—toward the sky.
The dark red blood mist, heavily laced with Yao Qi, condensed into a highly visible pillar of crimson light, shooting straight into the heavy clouds.
It wasn't an attack. It was simply... a signal. A signal calling out to someone far in the distance.
The direction of the call pointed straight toward Musashi Province, Kaede Village.
The person being called—Kikyo.
This was Hikaru's true preparation. He knew Muzan would come for him, and he knew Yoriichi could severely wound the demon lord. But he knew even better that severely wounding him wasn't enough. A monster that could constantly split and regenerate, thriving in this complex, high-power world, could likely never be completely killed by a single sword.
A net was needed. A net massive enough to cover a vast territory and trap all of Muzan's clones simultaneously. And in this era, in Japan, and especially in the Kanto region, only one person possessed the capability to achieve this.
His lover, the priestess with the strongest spiritual power in existence: Kikyo.
At that exact moment. Hundreds of miles away, in Kaede Village, Musashi Province.
The night was deep, and the warm lights in the main hall of the shrine still flickered. Kikyo sat kneeling gracefully before the altar. Her traditional white and red priestess attire was utterly spotless, her dark hair cascading down her back like a silken waterfall. Her exquisite face was cold and serene, her eyelids half-closed in silent meditation.
She was waiting.
Ever since Hikaru had last contacted her during the day, she had been waiting for his signal. There were no unnecessary explanations. She didn't ask for any. She knew he wouldn't act without absolute purpose, and she knew every single step he took was calculated. Their trust required no words.
She only needed to wait. And the wait ended now.
That crimson pillar of light pierced the distant night sky, visible even from the horizon. Kikyo's eyes opened, her cold, clear gaze reflecting the faint red glow bleeding through the window.
She stood up. Her movements were extremely light, yet grounded with absolute steadiness.
Kaede was keeping watch out in the courtyard. The little girl had been dozing on the wooden porch, but upon hearing the soft footsteps, she lifted her head dizzily, rubbing her sleepy eyes.
"Sister...?"
"Go back inside." Kikyo's voice was gentle, but it carried an authority that left no room for negotiation.
Momiji and Botan hurried out from the side hall. Momiji, with her black hair tied in a practical ponytail, and Botan, with her round face and wide, anxious eyes, both wore their respective priestess outfits. Their faces were tight with tension.
"Lady Kikyo, that light in the sky—"
"It's him."
Kikyo didn't elaborate. She walked directly under the massive wooden Torii gate of the shrine, then pressed her hands together. Pure, blinding spiritual power surged from her palms, seeping down through her fingertips and plunging into the soil beneath her feet.
She spoke, her voice carrying the rhythmic, sacred cadence of a priestess's prayer. It wasn't loud, but it echoed with crystal clarity through the silent night.
It was the Earth Barrier. The very same technique she had once demonstrated to Hikaru, capable of using a fragment of an enemy's body as a medium to establish a localized suppression field against their power.
But the Earth Barrier she had shown him back then only covered the modest expanse of Kaede Village. Now, it was entirely different.
The priestess's spiritual power used the soil beneath her feet as a root, spreading outward in all directions along the deep, hidden veins of the earth. Starting from Kaede Village, with Kikyo as the absolute epicenter.
First, it swallowed Musashi Province. Then, crossing the borders, it surged violently into Sagami. Finally, it expanded outward to encompass Kozuke.
Covering three entire provinces, stretching nearly a thousand miles.
Such terrifying power undoubtedly did not belong to Kikyo alone. She was strong, yes—strong enough to face a Great Yokai head-on, and if the matchup was favorable, she could even drive one away. But she could never, by her own solitary existence, mobilize spiritual power across a range of hundreds, let alone thousands, of miles. Even if her soul possessed the raw capacity, her mortal flesh could never withstand the crushing weight of such an output.
This was... the collective faith of two provinces.
The shrine in Kaede Village had already been elevated to the absolute Shinto center of Musashi and Sagami. It was the sacred ground where 'Kishin Hikaru' was enshrined. Because the devout faith of over a hundred thousand people from both provinces gathered here through the shrine's interconnected barrier network, Kikyo—as Hikaru's only designated priestess, the resident priest, and the sole Chief Priest of his sanctuary—acted as the central hub of this massive network of faith.
Her individual spiritual power couldn't cover hundreds of miles. But the concentrated 'faith' of the people allowed her to transcend human limits. This was exactly why the elite priestesses and priests of the Grand Shrines always looked down upon those from masterless, rural shrines; true power at this level never relied on individual strength, but on the accumulated faith of a nation, or even the world.
Now, Kikyo finally wielded this faith. She had become exponentially stronger—so strong that she had completely surpassed the limitations of her original destiny.
And within the vast range covered by the expanding Earth Barrier, Kibutsuji Muzan was present. Dozens of his 'main bodies' were standing right there. More, the severed flesh and scattered ashes of the Muzan that Yoriichi had just cut down were scattered across the dirt.
Those remnants were the absolute perfect mediums required for the Earth Barrier to lock onto its target.
Thus, the trap sprang.
The brilliant light of the spiritual barrier rose from the ground. It wasn't a dome descending from the heavens, but an inescapable net of light growing upward from beneath the earth. The soil glowed. The plants glowed. The stones glowed. The earth itself became a living extension of the barrier.
The light was incredibly soft, carrying the gentle warmth of the soil. It wasn't blinding, nor was it burning. Yet, it caused absolutely everything carrying Kibutsuji Muzan's bloodline information to be violently suppressed, pinning them directly to the spot.
Kikyo knelt beneath the Torii gate, her long black hair blown upward by the sheer updraft of flowing spiritual power. Her cold, flawless face remained devoid of any unnecessary emotion.
Except for the slightest, almost imperceptible curve at the corners of her mouth.
It was faint. But as Momiji and Botan exchanged a quick glance, they both saw it.
Lady Kikyo... was smiling.
Because he had sent the signal. It meant his operation was proceeding flawlessly. It meant everything was falling exactly into his calculated plan. And it meant—he would be coming back to her soon.
She was already growing impatient from the wait.
Meanwhile, back in the desolate wilderness of Kozuke Province.
The light of the Earth Barrier bled upward from the ground. It didn't spread with explosive speed, but its sheer coverage was staggering. The entire Kanto Plain was swallowed by that soft, earthen glow in a matter of dozens of seconds.
The dozens of Muzans felt it simultaneously. The very ground beneath their feet was actively rejecting them. The earth itself recognized the foulness within their bloodline and violently refused their presence.
They tried to run. The soil beneath their feet instantly became viscous, every step feeling like dragging weights through a thick swamp.
They tried to split. The moment newly grown flesh detached from their bodies, it was swallowed by the glowing net on the ground, instantly turning to ash.
They tried to burrow underground. But the earth itself was the carrier of the barrier; every single inch of soil aggressively targeted the Progenitor's blood coursing through their veins.
In the eyes of the nearest male-form Muzan, genuine, unadulterated terror finally surfaced, his vertical pupils trembling. "What is this?!"
Hikaru looked at him. The crimson Demon Eyes glowing beneath his demonic mask flickered with an eerie, mocking light. "This is called the Earth Barrier. A specialized power designed specifically to target you."
Naturally, the Earth Barrier wasn't invincible. It was virtually useless against Great Yokai who had achieved true manifestation and possessed no physical blood to target. But Muzan was still leagues away from the level of a Great Yokai. Even if he arrogantly paraded himself as a natural disaster, a walking calamity, he simply didn't qualify.
Not even close.
Muzan's face twisted grotesquely. On that unnaturally handsome visage, true, desperate ferocity appeared for the very first time. "You brat... You, brat!"
He was enraged, more furious than he had been in centuries, but beneath the rage lay a suffocating layer of anxiety. Although the dozens of 'main bodies' gathered here did not represent his entirety—as the Progenitor, he could split infinitely, and every piece of flesh carried his will—he could feel the true horror of the trap.
He was a truly immortal existence, but because of that very nature, he could feel the barrier covering the three provinces suppressing him not just on a physical level, but from his very source. The conceptual existence named Kibutsuji Muzan was being rejected.
No matter how many pieces he split into, no matter how many fragments he scattered across the globe, they were ultimately one connected whole. All evil demons entering this domain would be suppressed. All evil demons arriving here would be countered.
But if it were only this, it still wouldn't be enough. The barrier could only suppress; it could not destroy. And mere suppression was never Kobe Hikaru's end goal.
Standing amidst the glowing field, Tsugikuni Yoriichi watched the barrier bridge heaven and earth, a rare sense of awe flickering in his eyes.
Following this, Hikaru immediately soared into the air, hovering above the trapped demons. He spoke, his voice deadpan yet echoing with heavy finality.
"I know you're anxious, but don't be anxious just yet." He looked down at the struggling monsters. "This matter isn't over."
As the words left his lips, the Asura Transformation violently unfurled.
Thick bone spikes shot out simultaneously from his elbows, shoulder blades, and spine. A massive, white skeletal frame extended and wove itself around his body at a speed visible to the naked eye. Crackling thunder burst from the gaps in the bones, filling the empty spaces and condensing into dense, purple muscle fibers. A thin, highly concentrated film of Yao Qi expanded from the surface, enveloping the entire bone-and-thunder structure.
A towering, six-meter-tall Bone-Thunder Giant rose from the wilderness, casting a massive shadow over the trapped Muzans.
But this Asura Transformation was fundamentally different from his previous uses. In the direct center of the giant's chest cavity, a core of light interwoven with dark red and orange floated steadily—that was the Heart of Asura, beating with a heavy, rhythmic thrum. Down at the waist, a dark green core of light surged with power—that was the Kidney of Asura pulsing.
The two demonic organs vibrated in perfect unison. A dual cycle of fire and water formed an incredibly simple, yet devastatingly efficient circuit inside the Asura Transformation. The heart pumped the energy, and the kidney accumulated and refined it.
Yao Qi was no longer just a one-way infusion drained from his main body; instead, it generated, circulated, and multiplied autonomously within the giant structure. The massive amplification of Yao Qi brought by the synchronized operation of the two organs stacked directly upon the foundation of his Ninth Transformation, violently pushing the actual output of the Asura Transformation to the level of the Eleventh Transformation.
Although it was still quite a distance from rivaling a true Great Yokai, in terms of sheer concentration and total volume of Yao Qi, it was more than enough.
Enough for what he was about to do next.
Hikaru opened his eyes from deep within the armored chest of the Asura giant. Purple patterns and flowing orange light intertwined within his crimson Demon Eyes, and at the deepest depths of his pupils, an extra wisp of silver-white moonlight ignited.
This was the integration of the Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation.
It was the Hand of Soul-Seeking and Sure-Hit—the absolute ability to completely ignore physical distance and environmental obstacles to inevitably strike a target once their soul was locked. Under the massive amplification of the two demonic organs, the range of his perception skyrocketed exponentially.
From half an inch beyond his body's surface.
Expanding to ten paces.
A hundred paces.
A hundred miles—
Until it directly touched the outer boundary of Kikyo's Earth Barrier.
And then, it connected.
What maintained the operation of the Earth Barrier was originally the localized faith directed toward Kobe Hikaru himself. Therefore, he could use it too. He could mobilize that vast network of faith.
The exact moment the perception net of the Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation touched the containment net of the Earth Barrier, the two massive systems overlapped and merged flawlessly.
Kikyo's barrier used Muzan's split bodies in Kozuke as a physical medium to mark the existence of the collective entity known as Muzan throughout the entire world. And now, Hikaru's Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation used his soul as an unbreakable anchor, locking onto every single marked target.
The two nets fused into one omniscient grid.
The entirety of Japan. From Kanto to Kyoto, from Echigo to Shikoku, from Kyushu to Mutsu.
Every single demon ever created by Kibutsuji Muzan's tainted blood. Every single microscopic piece of Muzan's flesh hidden in the darkest corners of the land.
All of them were locked on.
It was as if thousands of red dots of light were igniting one by one within Hikaru's perception, densely packed and inescapable. Spread across the entire world.
"I see you."
Hikaru's voice boomed from within the giant body of the Asura Transformation, dull, distant, and utterly devoid of mercy. He looked down at the dozens of Muzan clones before him, securely pinned in place by the Earth Barrier, thrashing in vain.
"Every piece of your flesh, every demon, every backup hidden in the shadows—" He raised his massive, thundering hand. "I see it all."
Kibutsuji Muzan was enraged, and for the first time in five hundred years, utterly terrified.
This was Kobe Hikaru's true targeting.
It was his absolute, certain kill.
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