As he spoke, Kaigaku's blade danced again.
"Thunder Breathing, Third Form!"
"Thunder Swarm!"
Zenitsu was wounded again, new cuts blooming across his body in jagged streaks.
Kaigaku pressed his advantage, swinging his sword and firing another bolt of lightning.
"Thunder Breathing, Fifth Form!"
"Heat Lightning!"
Zenitsu was struck again. His clothes and hair were scorched, the smell of burning fabric snapping through the air.
"Well? Hahahaha! With my Blood Demon Art boosting it, can you feel it?"
"Your muscles trembling, every nerve screaming?"
"Today I'm going to make you taste what I've lived through. The fear that makes every cell in your body shake and shriek!"
Kaigaku raised his sword once more, and the room erupted in brutal thunder.
"Thunder Breathing, Sixth Form!"
"Rumble and Flash!"
"Hahahaha! My lightning will keep spreading through your wounds!"
"Soon your body will go numb. Then the current will surge into your heart, and you'll just lie there and die quietly!"
"Watch carefully. Burn it into your muscles, into your cells."
"I surpassed Thunder Breathing!"
Boom!
Zenitsu's body was blasted backward. He flew off the edge of the floor and plunged into a bottomless abyss.
"Remember this! When you die and see that old bastard, tell him how strong I am now!"
"Let him regret it in hell!"
Kaigaku stood at the edge of the pit, shouting down into the darkness.
"Grandpa… won't go to hell."
Zenitsu's voice rose from below, sharp with fury.
"The one going to hell is you!"
In mid fall, Zenitsu's body jerked.
His feet slammed against the wall, steadying him in a perfect brace.
His right hand clamped around the hilt.
That pale mist of breath curled at his mouth again, gathering into something tangible.
He was charging his strongest strike.
Crack!
Lightning burst from within Zenitsu's body, making Kaigaku flinch.
Then Zenitsu became a streak of golden thunder, crossing an impossible distance in a blink, and his blade flashed.
Kaigaku's head flew.
"Thunder Breathing, Seventh Form!"
"Flaming Thunder God!"
Decapitated, Kaigaku still hadn't even seen the strike.
"What… was that?! Why have I never heard of it?!"
His head and body continued falling, separating further as they dropped.
Even as he began to crumble, he screamed into the void.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
"That old man really did favor you!"
"He hid a technique like this and only taught it to you!"
Kaigaku raged until his throat should have been raw, while Zenitsu, spent, also began to fall again, his strength gone.
Hearing those words, Zenitsu only shook his head.
"No. Grandpa wasn't like that."
"This… is my form."
"Mine alone."
"I was going to fight beside you with it… one day."
But Kaigaku's soul had already twisted beyond recognition the moment he accepted demon blood.
Zenitsu's explanation only sounded like bragging to him.
"You made it yourself?"
"You useless trash who only knows First Form, and you invented a seventh technique for a style that only has six?"
"How is that possible?"
"You're worse than me. You're nothing."
"How could you do something even I couldn't do?!"
Kaigaku tilted his head up, staring at Zenitsu falling alongside him.
A smug smile crept across his face.
"So what if you're stronger?"
"From this height, you'll shatter into pulp too!"
"You won't."
A cool, calm voice cut through the air.
Kaigaku's head, not yet fully dissolved, jerked toward a pair of pale violet eyes.
The speaker's tone was distant, almost indifferent.
"Someone like you only knows how to take, and never how to give."
"No wonder your greed swelled until it devoured you first."
"You haven't tasted what it means to die alone, have you?"
"Go on. Savor it."
Kaigaku watched, helpless, as the figure caught Zenitsu mid air, then kicked off the walls in rapid succession, carrying him to a safe landing.
"Grandpa!"
Zenitsu, slipping into unconsciousness, felt as if his spirit had drifted into another world.
Across a river, he saw an old silhouette leaning on a cane.
Wasn't that his grandfather?
Tears spilled from Zenitsu's eyes instantly.
He ran to the riverbank and cried out, voice shaking.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa!"
"I couldn't get along with Senior Brother Kaigaku. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have become like this!"
"I tried to contact him… I kept sending letters… but he never replied."
"I'm sorry, Grandpa. This is my fault."
"Even when you were alive, I never became what you wanted me to be."
"Grandpa, why won't you look at me?"
"Do you hate me now?"
His foot caught on something. Zenitsu fell to his knees.
Then the figure across the river moved.
His voice was gentle.
"Zenitsu."
"You've always been my pride."
Back in reality, Zenitsu's eyes opened.
"How is he? I know him. Please, think of something!"
Murata, the Corps' loudest nobody, was scanning the area nervously while shouting at the same time.
Zenitsu blinked his exhausted eyes open and looked at the boy bandaging him.
It was Yushiro.
Zenitsu's voice came out thin.
"Please… I'm counting on you…"
Yushiro nodded, then immediately shot Murata a glare.
"Shut up, you worthless Murata. Watch the surroundings, or you'll get us ambushed."
Murata froze.
"...Huh?"
"What's your problem?! Show me your rank!"
"If you're lower than me, I'm not letting this go!"
Yushiro frowned and ignored him.
He pulled a small pill from his pocket and pushed it into Zenitsu's mouth.
"With this, the lingering damage from the Blood Demon Art should stop."
Yushiro spoke softly, full of confidence.
The pill was a medicine Lady Tamayo had developed, called Blood Demon Stop.
A drug designed to suppress the worsening effects of Blood Demon Arts.
"Hey, hey, can you hear me?" Murata leaned in. "You need to digest it fast, okay?"
"If those cuts don't stop spreading, your eye might get sliced open too!"
Murata immediately panicked at his own words.
"Shut up! Don't say horrifying stuff like that to an injured guy!"
Yushiro, still ignoring him, wrapped more bandages around Zenitsu.
"That's a ridiculous amount of blood."
"Even with clotting medicine, it won't stop."
The others nearby saw how miserable Zenitsu looked and tried to encourage him.
While he worked, Yushiro couldn't stop thinking about Kaigaku.
That demon had been Upper Rank Six.
"You got lucky," Yushiro said bluntly.
"The Upper Rank you fought was clearly newly promoted. He didn't know how to properly use his power or his combat skills yet."
"Give him another year, and he would've killed you the moment you met."
Murata exploded.
"What is wrong with you?! Stop saying things that crush people!"
Then Murata immediately lowered his voice, realizing how loud he was.
"Hey! Keep it down! Are you trying to lure every demon in the castle over here?"
"If you're tired of living, go find a demon to fight yourself, but don't drag us with you!"
At the same time, Yushiro closed his eyes and began using the "Eyes" on the Kasugai Crows nearby to observe the overall battlefield.
Elsewhere in the Infinity Castle, Muichiro Tokito and Gyomei Himejima continued to move at high speed through the shifting corridors.
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The deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels. Don't wait read ahead and witness Vincent's rise before the world catches up!
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