Winter gave way to spring, and as the weather warmed, insects had begun to chirp at night.
It was another full moon, its light making the earth look as if a thin frost had been hung over it. Yet in this calm and peaceful setting lurked something that broke the harmony.
By a path running through the fields stood a teahouse, meant to give travelers a place to rest.
A place like this was hardly luxurious, but it wasn't a ramshackle hovel either.
But in the night's stillness, strange sounds came from within.
The sounds of flesh tearing and chewing kept echoing out, as if some wild beast were feeding inside.
Closer to the door, blood had seeped out beneath the wooden threshold, and the stench was nauseating.
No one knew when it had begun, but the place had become a demon's hunting ground. Who knew how many travelers had been devoured by the fiend nesting in the teahouse.
No lamps were lit inside, but the moonlight was bright enough.
A demon with hair hanging loose leaned beside a table with a broken leg, gnawing on a human arm.
Few demons could withstand the corrosion of the Demon King's blood when accepting Muzan's transfusion, so they typically lost all memory and reason from their human days and were driven by the demon blood's nature to eat people.
This demon was no exception. He had completely forgotten the memories and name of his human life.
Now he was only Zhiluo, a man-eating demon who wanted to join the Twelve Kizuki.
To reach that goal, he had to eat more people to grow stronger and earn that lord's favor.
Just as Zhiluo was working to absorb the fresh meal, a rapid knocking sounded at the door.
"Open up, the Demon Slayer Corps is here to help!"
"Um, Mr. Charles, I don't think we ever officially joined the Demon Slayer Corps?"
"Don't sweat the details. We're doing the same job anyway!"
...
Zhiluo's pupils widened. He'd been a demon long enough to know what the Corps was.
To him, their swordsmen were enemies—but also better-quality meat.
This time was different. The people outside made even his skin prickle.
He himself didn't know it, but because he preyed on travelers along the road, the Corps had never been able to fix his location before.
So all he'd met till now were low-ranking swordsmen. This time was different.
As he weighed fleeing, the people outside seemed to lose patience and opened the door.
Convinced demons were the superior species, Zhiluo didn't run. He unleashed his Blood Demon Art at the intruders.
As Charles pushed the door open, a mass of threadlike strands surged in like a clump of seaweed.
On closer look, they were bunches of hair—jet-black and glossy, with fine texture—but enough to fill half a room, which only made it all the more horrifying and nauseating.
This was Zhiluo's Blood Demon Art: controlling his hair to grow at high speed and wielding it at will.
Not only did it grow with astonishing speed, it was quite tough; the swordsmen he'd met before couldn't even cut through it.
As he tried to entangle the newcomers, a flare of fire lit up. Zhiluo saw the boy with the box draw his black katana, and with one swing a burst of flame sheared through the encroaching hair.
So they really had brought "warmth"—only this warmth would burn him to ash.
Charles said from the side, "He even has a Blood Demon Art. Tanjiro, you good?"
Tanjiro gripped his blade in both hands, confidence in his voice. "Absolutely!"
It had been a month since Charles and Tanjiro began training under Sakonji Urokodaki, during which they'd received formal instruction in the Breathing Styles.
Most of the time had gone into training Tanjiro.
After absorbing Urokodaki's experience, Charles quickly perfected his own Breathing and mastered Total Concentration. Soon after, he could maintain Constant, Total Concentration Breathing twenty-four hours a day.
Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, he never found a way into the Marks or the supreme realm of the Transparent World.
Charles surmised that after entering a Marked state, a swordsman who had absorbed excess natural mana would undergo a bodily change. The life force they emitted would make it easier for those around them to draw in natural mana as well.
That was the reason Marks were said to be "contagious."
He had no idea how to awaken a Mark himself. To awaken one and resolve its erosion of lifespan would probably have to wait until the first Marked swordsman appeared.
Charles then worked with Urokodaki to draft a new training plan for Tanjiro.
Urokodaki was already considered the Corps' strictest trainer, but only after seeing Charles's regimen did he realize he'd been too gentle.
"A boy like Tanjiro can't be overtrained," Charles had told him.
Of course, he had the confidence to say that because he supplied all kinds of potions; without them, the regimen would have killed a person in under three days.
Even so, Tanjiro felt like he'd taken a tour through hell.
The payoff was Tanjiro's rapid growth. He could now wield Sun Breathing with ease and enter Total Concentration.
He had even developed early the ability to sniff out the thread of openings and could control it deftly in battle.
In combat, he had truly come into his own, like a blade newly honed.
However, maintaining Constant with Sun Breathing was far harder than with standard styles, and his body wasn't yet strong enough to bear it.
Over that month, the Corps delivered the high-grade Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand and Scarlet Crimson Ore Charles requested, and the Nichirin in Tanjiro's hands was forged by Charles.
In the original story, the smith Haganezuka was the one responsible for Tanjiro's Nichirin.
At first he balked that someone would request raw materials instead of having the Swordsmith Village do the forging. But after watching Charles forge, he hit the floor in prostration, begging through tears to take Charles as his master.
It wasn't so much his sincerity that moved Charles as his obsession with forging that startled him, so Charles gave him part of his forging notes.
As in the original, once Tanjiro gripped the finished blade, it turned an obsidian black.
Charles himself had no need of a Nichirin; he already had his own weapon.
A Nichirin blends natural mana into a special blade, whereas Charles's inherent armament was condensed pure mana—effectively a perpetually Red Blade of natural mana in its active state.
Charles rather wanted Muzan's review on which hurt more: his War Saint or Yoriichi's Red Blade.
With their goals on Mount Sagiri complete, the group continued their journey.
The Corps also sent a kasugai crow—the same chatterbox that followed Tanjiro in the original—to serve as their link.
With the Corps' intel backing them, they kept up their training as they cut down the demons they met on the road.
Over a dozen days, they encountered five demons in all, and Zhiluo was the first among them with a Blood Demon Art.
Demons weren't truly rampant; only Muzan himself and a few of the higher-ranked Upper Moons could turn humans into demons.
Coupled with the Corps' tireless battles, their numbers stayed relatively low.
By danger level, demons roughly fell into three types. The lowest were those with only a trace of the Demon King's blood.
Like the one Tanjiro met on Mount Sagiri in the original, stronger than humans but within limits, and with slow regeneration.
The next level were aberrant demons, whose bodies had twisted into inhuman forms, sprouting limbs or organs humans didn't have.
A typical example was the Hand Demon Tanjiro faced during the Final Selection—massive, with dozens of arms, scarcely human in shape.
The one he later met with spider-like legs also belonged to this type.
Though they lacked Blood Demon Arts, their special physiques and far superior attributes made them plenty dangerous.
Above them were the demons with Blood Demon Arts, powers gained by consuming large numbers of humans.
Of course, the strength gap within this category was vast.
The Zhiluo before them had an Art, but frankly wasn't among the strong.
Charles had no intention of stepping in against such an opponent; even for Tanjiro it was below a pop quiz.
Tanjiro drew in white vapor laced with sparks and lunged at Zhiluo.
Zhiluo thrust out a palm, and the outstretched hair all exploded into mad growth.
His power was akin to Lower Rank Five Rui's, except Rui's Thread Prison had an edge and strength that could shear even a Nichirin, while Zhiluo's hair wasn't nearly that strong.
Its advantage was sheer quantity—enough to wrap a person and strangle them, or worm through the nose and mouth to wreak havoc inside.
As the flood of hair surged in, Tanjiro's arms moved.
"Hinokami Kagura: Burning Sun Mirror!"
The flame-wreathed blade carved two symmetrical red arcs through the air, and the reaching hair snapped cleanly.
Tanjiro stepped in, and the fire-wreathed edge fell again.
Zhiluo saw only his hair severed in an instant, turning to ash in the light, and then Tanjiro stood before him.
"Hinokami Kagura: Round Dance!"
A ring of flame expanded, and Zhiluo felt his vision begin to spin.
Vaguely, he seemed to see someone sitting before him, while he held a comb, carefully brushing that person's hair.
Sunlight poured before his eyes, and he couldn't make out the face in the mirror.
Tanjiro sheathed his blade and fell silent, watching Zhiluo's head crumble to ash.
Demons really were empty, pitiful beings. He felt the same way every time he slew one, and it only steeled his resolve to cut down Muzan Kibutsuji.
Charles said, "Looks like you can handle this level easily now. Next up, we go find opponents on the Twelve Kizuki's level!"
______
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