Chapter Fifty-Nine: Dance of the Solar Storm!
(Important note: I have final exams — I'm a high school student — so I won't be publishing much, but I'll post from time to time. Sorry… once I'm done, I'll come back strong.)
Enjoy~~~
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Time stopped in that dark forest.
The wind had gone silent, and even the night crickets swallowed their tongues in fear of the aura that suddenly erupted.
The black blade of the sword was touching the pale skin of the "Demon King," Kibutsuji Muzan's neck.
On the other end of the blade stood Tsugikuni Ren (Ron), a mocking smile on his face, his emerald eyes shining with a light that combined the Six Eyes and the Transparent World, revealing every weakness in the terrifying entity before him.
"Y-you… Yoriichi!"
Muzan whispered in a trembling voice—not from the cold, but from a shock that pierced the cells that had lived for centuries. He clenched his teeth so hard they nearly shattered, staring at the face that haunted his nightmares.
The resemblance was terrifying.
The same hair, the same features… but there was something different. This "Yoriichi" before him had softer, almost feminine and delicate features, and his eyes lacked that terrifying Buddhist serenity—instead, they carried arrogance and madness.
"Yoriichi?" Ren chuckled lightly, a cold laugh that pierced the forest's silence.
"Do you still remember and tremble in fear of my older brother? How pitiful you are for a Demon King… your memory only works when it comes to remembering who humiliated you."
Ren didn't wait for a response.
"Shing!"
He drew his sword at a speed beyond visual perception—not backward, but straight across Muzan's neck. A deep gash opened in the demon's hardened flesh, and before the blood could touch the ground, Ren spun around his axis with immense centrifugal force.
"BOOOOM!"
A roundhouse kick reinforced with cursed energy slammed directly into Muzan's chest.
The Demon King's body flew like a cannonball, smashing through an entire row of ancient trees before disappearing into the darkness.
Ren brushed imaginary dust off his kimono and casually adjusted his hair strands.
"Hmph. Trying to run, huh… I thought kings didn't flee."
At that moment, he sensed movement behind him.
He turned slowly, his glowing eyes piercing the darkness and landing on Tamayo, who stood frozen, her eyes filled with terror and hope.
"Don't move from where you are…" Ren said in a low voice, but the killing intent wrapped around his words was heavier than mountains.
"Otherwise… I'll kill you first."
Tamayo trembled. She knew he was serious. This boy was not the kind Yoriichi—he was a storm of destruction.
Yet, instead of running, she did something he didn't expect.
Tamayo dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead into the muddy ground.
"Please…" she cried in a broken voice, tears streaming from her violet eyes.
"Please… kill him! End him!"
Ren's eyes widened slightly.
"Hoh…?"
He knew that Muzan's death meant the death of all demons connected to him, including Tamayo.
To ask for her own death in exchange for Muzan's… at such an early point in history?
"It seems your hatred for him runs deeper than I imagined… even deeper than the future version the 'original' met…" Ren thought with mild admiration.
"Well, that makes things easier."
Before he could respond, a monstrous roar erupted from deep within the forest, accompanied by an immense pressure wave that uprooted shrubs.
"You scum!!"
Muzan emerged from the dust—but he no longer resembled that elegant noble.
His luxurious clothes were torn apart, his body swollen. Deformed masses of flesh bulged from his back, from which nine long, sharp bone whips erupted, moving wildly. Mouths filled with fangs opened across his body, and his crimson eyes shone with pure madness.
This was Muzan's full combat form.
"My power has increased far beyond what it was in those years…" Muzan growled, his voice coming from multiple mouths at once.
"And you think a foolish person like you can compare yourself to Yoriichi?!"
Muzan's mind worked at terrifying speed as he analyzed his opponent.
"He doesn't have the mark…" Muzan thought triumphantly.
Muzan had studied the Demon Slayer Mark carefully.
He remembered that Hashira from the Rengoku clan (Kyojuro's ancestor) who awakened the mark to kill an Upper Moon, only to die immediately after the battle at the age of twenty-nine.
"The mark is a curse," Muzan concluded.
"It grants power in exchange for life. Anyone who awakens it dies before the age of twenty-five. Yoriichi was the only terrifying exception. But this boy? No mark, no curse… which means no power!"
A distorted victorious grin spread across Muzan's face as he aimed his nine bone whips at Ren.
"You can't defeat me, you fake Hashira—eh?"
Muzan's insane smile vanished instantly, replaced by utter shock.
The person who filled his vision a second ago… completely disappeared.
His senses detected nothing.
The opponent didn't run, didn't jump—he was simply erased from the fabric of reality itself.
Within that narrow temporal gap, Ren's mind operated like a supercomputer.
"Let's see…" Ren thought calmly as he moved within a dimension Muzan couldn't perceive.
"I've developed a new Breathing style for some time now—one that combines Storm Breathing, created by Ren (the original), with the legendary Sun Breathing."
"This combination doesn't just grant me explosive speed—it allows me to use Sun techniques with power and speed exceeding the original. It's well known how difficult it is to merge Sun Breathing with cursed energy due to their opposing natures, unlike Storm Breathing, which was designed to be flexible and compatible with various techniques."
Ren smiled as memories of his harsh training surfaced.
During his life as Tsugikuni Ren, he never neglected Storm Breathing—he refined it into the perfect bridge between worlds. He added the mobility of Wind Breathing and the obscurity of Mist Breathing to make it impossible to predict.
This effort led to Storm Breathing reaching 100% completion, making it the ideal vessel to merge with any other energy—whether Sun Breathing or even raw cursed energy.
"Let's first use the full power of Storm Breathing…"
Ren inhaled an enormous amount of oxygen, infused with dense cursed energy.
[Solar Storm Breathing: First Form – Storm Dragon Dance]
He muttered the name in his mind; he knew it was long and somewhat cheesy, but he didn't care about formalities now.
Ren launched forward at a speed surpassing the sound barrier, cracking the ground behind him, appearing directly before Kibutsuji Muzan in the midst of his grotesque transformation.
And horrifyingly… Muzan's transformation was now complete.
The Demon King at 100% power—his body covered in mouths and lethal bone whips.
But before Muzan could even blink—
A voice, cold as death, whispered directly behind his ear:
"Behind you, idiot."
The sound came right next to Muzan's ear.
He turned in terror to see Ren smiling demonically, an aura of black, red, and golden energy cloaking him like the mantle of a hellish king.
"Let's begin the dance…"
An unstoppable technique!
[Solar Storm Breathing: First Form – Storm Dragon Dance!]
"Shing! Shing! Shing!"
The world froze in Muzan's eyes.
He saw thousands of blades of flame and lightning surround him in a fraction of a microsecond. He couldn't even move his whips to defend.
Ren's blurred image vanished from before Muzan, only for Ren to appear several meters behind him, slowly sheathing his sword with elegant flair—like a violinist finishing a symphony.
"Click."
The sound of the scabbard closing was the signal.
"BOOOOM!"
Muzan's body exploded.
Blood and flesh scattered in all directions.
His bone whips were sliced into fragments, his limbs severed from his torso, and even his head was nearly torn off.
The Demon King collapsed onto the ground as a pile of minced flesh.
"Ghhhhh!"
Muzan tried to scream, but his throat was shredded.
Ren looked at him coldly, his emerald eyes analyzing the situation.
"Regeneration… slow."
The flames of Solar Storm Breathing burned Muzan's cells, preventing them from reconnecting quickly. Scars were visible, smoke rising from his wounds.
"Hmmm…" Ren placed a hand under his chin, thinking deeply, utterly unconcerned with the writhing monster before him.
"I still need to merge Sun Breathing at 100% with cursed energy. If I had done that, he wouldn't even be able to move right now."
Muzan's body slowly began to reconnect, his eyes overflowing with hatred and fear he hadn't felt in centuries.
Ren thought for a moment.
"Should I use Hiromi Higuruma's Domain Expansion?"
If he used Domain Expansion: Deadly Sentencing, it would likely result in the same outcome as what happened to Hakuji or Akaza before.
It would erase the demonic entity known as the "Demon King," turning Muzan into a mere weak human with no power whatsoever.
Killing him then would be far easier—Ren could literally kill him without Muzan moving at all.
A single flick of Sukuna's technique 'Dismantle' would be enough to erase him from existence.
"No…" Ren shook his head.
"That's a waste. And boring too. I don't just want to kill him. I want his power. I want to become the Demon King."
While Ren was lost in his narcissistic thoughts, Muzan seized the opportunity.
"This monster… he's more dangerous than Yoriichi! Yoriichi was human—but this thing… it's a demon wearing human skin!"
Muzan gathered every ounce of power he had and detonated his body into a mass of flesh and speed, attempting to flee into the darkness.
"Oh?" Ren lazily raised his head and watched Muzan retreat at insane speed.
"Trying to run again? Didn't you learn anything from fighting Yoriichi?"
Ren sighed and lightly kicked the ground.
"Fwoosh!"
He turned into a crimson beam of flame, crossing the distance instantly, cutting off Muzan's path and standing before him with a cold smile.
Muzan froze.
Despair began seeping into his non-beating heart.
Ren raised his right hand, crossing his index and middle fingers before his face, while his left hand extended backward as if brushing an invisible blade. His eyes gleamed with a terrifying light.
Ren spoke calmly, yet his words carried the weight of the entire world:
"Ryoiki Tenkai…" (Domain Expansion)
Muzan's eyes widened.
"What… is this…?"
"Rakuyo no Jinja!" (Shrine of the Fallen Sun!)
Liquid darkness erupted from beneath Ren's feet.
It wasn't ordinary darkness—it was a void that swallowed the forest, the trees, the moonlight, and Muzan himself.
The world transformed into a vast expanse: black waters reflecting a crimson sky, at the center of which burned a black sun engulfed in hellfire.
Ren stood at the center of his domain, looked at the trapped Muzan, and said with a wide smile:
"Welcome to my world, King of Rats. Here… you are nothing more than food."
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End of Chapter 59.
We've reached nearly 60 chapters, and that's thanks to your interaction… thank you!
I wrote this chapter at different times, so there's some chaos—sorry about that.
Important clarification: Regarding the technique 'Domain Expansion' in the Demon Slayer world
I'd like to clarify a crucial point regarding the appearance of Domain Expansion in recent chapters. Some may wonder: how does this power align with the logic of the Demon Slayer world?
In Jujutsu Kaisen, we saw that characters who lack cursed energy (such as Maki and Toji) are not bound by domain rules. So how did Akaza and Muzan fall into Ren's and Ron's domains?
The theory is this: in this world, cursed energy already exists, but no one has the ability to sense or perceive it because it is completely unknown to the people of this era. Ren and Ron are the only ones who managed to tame and use this energy, while their enemies fell victim to it because they are unaware of its existence and lack the means to counter something they cannot even perceive.
A heartfelt message to the novel's followers
I've recently noticed a clear decline in interaction, whether in views or comments. Honestly, I write this novel out of passion to share my ideas with you. Despite my limited time and periods of lost motivation, I continued publishing for those who supported me from the beginning.
Writing is an exhausting process that consumes a lot of effort and time without any financial return, and my only motivation is your genuine interaction. So I ask you—rather than the usual encouragement like "keep going" without real engagement—to share your deeper opinions with me:
• What did you like about the plot?
• What points didn't satisfy you or made you upset?
• What are your analyses and expectations for upcoming events?
Ignoring these messages makes me feel like my efforts are going to waste. Your interaction is the fuel that keeps me going on this journey—and without it, I may have to stop and start a different project.
I'm waiting to read your analyses and opinions in the comments.
Thank you for reading the chapter, and sorry for the interruption.