Tanjiro swung his Nichirin blade, severing the threads that sliced through the air, then looked straight at the short, white-haired boy across from him.
Just moments earlier, he had followed a scent to the Mother Spider Demon.
To his surprise, all he smelled on her was fear and pain.
Tanjiro couldn't imagine what she had endured to face his blade without resistance, as if she longed for death.
He didn't hold back like some saint and dream of redeeming her. The only mercy he could offer was to swing with the gentlest hand.
Though he didn't know Water Breathing's form that lets demons die without pain, he still let the Mother Spider Demon turn to ash within the warm feeling—buried deep in memory—of basking in sunlight.
Soon after, Tanjiro ran into the Father Spider Demon with a spider's head.
Perhaps born of Rui's obsession that "a father must protect the family," in terms of raw power, the Father Spider Demon was the strongest.
He had a body far tougher than most demons and immense physical strength, and he could molt to grow stronger.
Charles suspected the strength of the spider family all came from Rui.
First, it was too much of a coincidence for a group of demons with spider-modeled Blood Demon Arts to cluster at Natagumo Mountain.
Second, Charles knew Muzan. Muzan had said he had special expectations for Rui.
That wasn't just because Rui, like Muzan in his human days, had been plagued by illness.
Muzan had no such thing as compassion. Perhaps he'd turned Rui into a demon for that reason, but it was likely Rui's potential that caught his eye.
Charles guessed that Rui's obsession with familial bonds had given him the ability to share power with other demons—an ability neither the Upper Ranks nor Muzan himself possessed—thus drawing Muzan's attention.
And so was born the spider family on Natagumo Mountain, each with a related power.
What the Father Spider Demon gained was the mightiest ability for direct combat.
Unfortunately for him, Tanjiro now was nothing like the boy who came to Natagumo in the original story.
With First Form: Burning Bones, Summer Sun, Tanjiro used a regeneration-crushing strike to lop off the Father Spider Demon's arm, then beheaded him just as he tried to molt.
At last, only the true Lower Rank Five remained before Tanjiro.
When Charles and Stella, having slain the Sister Spider Demon, arrived, they found man and demon locked in a fierce fight.
Tanjiro brandished his black Nichirin, running through Hinokami Kagura's forms one by one, slicing apart every strand of wire-strong thread Rui spun with his Blood Demon Art.
Charles had already put Tanjiro through simulation drills, mimicking Twelve Kizuki abilities with magic devices or spells so he could acclimate early.
Thus Tanjiro was remarkably composed, while Rui seemed… rattled.
Not because he was being outmatched in the exchange, but because Tanjiro had pierced his sore spot with a single sentence earlier.
While Tanjiro fought the Father Spider Demon, Rui had watched with cold eyes.
In Rui's mind, a father must protect the family; a father who cannot is unqualified.
So when Rui said he would avenge his father, Tanjiro refuted him.
"You don't carry the grief and anger of losing family at all, so stop lying. The family and bonds you've made with fear and terror are completely fake!"
To have the thing he valued most denied—how could Rui not crack?
Tanjiro shifted his footwork, fire trailing long off his blade, faint crimson patterns glinting along the steel.
"Blood Demon Art: Thread Cage!"
Rui clapped his hands, pulling apart a woven sheet of threads and dropping it straight over Tanjiro.
The large trees beside him were first bisected cleanly, then shredded to fragments—proof of the threads' razor edge.
Facing threads nearly invisible to the eye, Tanjiro used his nose to sense their approach and trajectory.
All that remained was to… keep swinging!
"Hinokami Kagura: Sun Halo Dragon: Head Dance!"
As Tanjiro moved, a fire dragon appeared from nowhere; wherever it snaked, the threads snapped in unison.
The dragon's head twisted, lunging for Rui's neck, Tanjiro cutting within its jaws.
But Rui was still a Twelve Kizuki—one who, in the original, could pull off severing his own neck with threads before a blade could finish the job.
Blood welled from Rui's fingers, and the threads before him turned crimson. They lost the stealth of ordinary threads, but their toughness multiplied.
After cutting several threads, Tanjiro's momentum was already waning. His blade struck a blood thread and failed to shear it; the fire dragon vanished as the form was checked.
Then a wide canopy of blood-red threads swept down.
"Blood Demon Art: Thread Prison!"
He flipped out of the way, only to steady himself and see another spiderweb of blood threads racing in.
A lick of flame appeared at the corner of Tanjiro's mouth; his body seemed to stutter like dropped frames, and in the next instant he had unleashed multiple cuts.
The blood threads dropping over his head snapped inch by inch, turning to ash in the air. Tanjiro closed on Rui again.
Rui's expression twisted. Failing to kill this hateful boy who had touched his reverse scale had driven him beyond calm.
Bloodlust spurred him to conjure more threads, weaving a spiraling web before him and hurling it at Tanjiro.
"Blood Demon Art: Thread Rotation!"
Compared with Thread Prison, Thread Rotation's destructive power was on another level; it scraped a layer off the ground itself.
Tanjiro didn't retreat. He stepped in.
"Hinokami Kagura: Round Dance!"
It was the first and simplest form of Sun Breathing—and also its most powerful.
The spinning blood threads stalled for an instant, then the expanding ring of flame split them in two.
Rui hadn't imagined his strongest strike could be cleaved so easily. By the time he reacted, the leaping Tanjiro was already above him.
"Hinokami Kagura: Beneficent Radiance!"
The flames corkscrewed down. Tanjiro landed behind Rui, and Rui's head fell from his shoulders at the same time.
This time, Tanjiro gave him no chance for tricks like severing his own neck with threads before the Nichirin could finish the cut. He truly slew the demon.
Sheathing his blade, Tanjiro turned back, clear-eyed, to watch Rui turn to ash.
"Go to another world and atone properly—then find your true family and bonds."
Charles sighed on the side. With his involvement, Tanjiro was far stronger than in the original. It seemed foes of this level could no longer put much pressure on him.
To awaken a Mark and the Transparent World, they would need stronger opponents.
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