Chapter 120: Seventeen Deaths, A True Great Yokai
A thousand miles away, in the mountains north of Kyoto, the world was a study in gray.
Low-hanging dark clouds pressed down with such weight that the peaks were reduced to blurred, hulking silhouettes. A thick, chilling fog surged up from the valley floor, carrying the cloying stench of rot and damp earth, shrouding everything in a suffocating, grayish-white haze.
On a ridge where even birds refused to tread, a man stood alone.
He wore an elegant kimono, his features were impeccably handsome, and his skin was a stark, unnatural white. Within the mist, his red, slitted pupils contracted, sharp and predatory.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
Beneath his feet, the ground was a ruin of shattered rocks, charred earth, and blood. A staggering amount of blood. It wasn't from an enemy; it was his own. New blood, old stains, dried crusts, and pools not yet coagulated—layer upon gruesome layer, it saturated the earth for several yards in every direction.
He had 'died' here. Many, many times.
Then he had returned to life, only to die again. An endless, brutal cycle.
Muzan's expression was perfectly placid. It was not the calm of a peaceful mind, but the deep, chilling numbness that comes only from absolute habituation.
His gaze suddenly shifted, turning eastward toward the distant province of Musashi. It was too far to see, but he could feel it with perfect clarity. The seven 'demons' he had dispatched had been utterly annihilated.
They had died cleanly, efficiently. Not even a lingering trace of their auras remained.
Yes, the demons Tsubaki had lured to Kaede's village were no random beasts. They were his, sent there intentionally by Muzan to gather intelligence. After all, one of his subordinates had fallen there before; he needed to understand the nature of the threat and confirm if the Demon Slayer Corps was involved. Those seven had been powerful, carefully selected from his ranks.
And now, they too had been wiped from existence.
Fortunately, this time, his pawns had 'brought' him a piece of sufficiently interesting news before their demise. Their annihilation, it seemed, was directly connected to the very reason he had come to this desolate place.
Muzan withdrew his gaze and turned silently, facing the opposite direction.
At the far end of the ridge, the 'mist' was even thicker, a evident wall of gloom. That was no mere fog. It was Yao Qi, so dense it had almost condensed into a physical substance—a grayish-white miasma that clung to the mountainside like a permanent, malevolent storm cloud.
Within a ten-mile radius of this epicenter, all vegetation was withered and dead. The ground was scarred with deep cracks, and even the stones bore fine fissures, squeezed into fracturing by an oppressive, ambient pressure. It was the pure, crushing force exerted by a being's mere existence.
No living creature dared to approach.
Because at the center of that suffocating cloud, something was crouching.
Seven and a half meters. That was its height even with its body curled into a compact mass. If it were to stand, no one knew how tall it would be; it hadn't stood upright in two hundred years.
Its sheer size was absurd. Though it possessed a vaguely humanoid silhouette, its two thick legs were coiled beneath it, their knees bending backward like the hind legs of a monstrous spider. Its broad, five-toed feet clawed into the bedrock, using the entire mountaintop as its throne.
Six arms protruded from its torso. The top pair, thick and powerful, rested on its knees, their knuckles as wide as the mouth of a large bowl. The middle pair, slightly thinner, were folded across its chest. The bottom pair, the longest of all, hung limply, their fingers buried deep in the soil.
But the most terrifying part was its face—or rather, the mask that served as one.
A stark white bone mask covered its entire visage. Its design was a grotesque fusion of human and arachnid features, with a broad forehead, flared cheekbones, and a sharply pointed chin. The surface was as smooth as porcelain, broken only by three narrow, black slits for its eyes and mouth. Behind those slits, two pools of ghostly green light burned with a cold fire.
Those were its eyes.
Behind the bone armor, a wild, messy mane of crimson hair was just visible.
Tsuchigumo.
According to Hikaru's own summaries and the evolutionary patterns observed by Kyoto demons like Kidomaru, this was a Great Yokai that had undergone at least thirteen molts. It had completed its qualitative transformation, becoming a being of pure, gaseous power. It was a true standout, perhaps the strongest of the common Tsuchigumo demon lineage. In ancient times, as the leader of its clan, it was a demon of such renown that it could stand alongside legends like Shuten-doji and Ootengu—infamously ill-tempered and bloodthirsty.
Its greatest passion was challenging the strong.
It had once been grievously wounded in a battle against the Lord of Pandemonium of that era, forcing it into a deep, centuries-long slumber. Now, it had only just awakened, and it remained in the dazed, irritable state of one roused too soon.
This was Muzan's target. This was the existence he sought to recruit, acting under the orders of Hagoromo Gitsune and using the guise of a minor demon under Kidomaru's command.
To Muzan, the situation was truly fascinating. The ones who had killed his demons were not the Demon Slayer Corps, but the priestess and the Oni Samurai guarding the Shikon Jewel—the very same individuals responsible for Kidomaru's earlier defeat. And his entire purpose for coming here, to invite Tsuchigumo, was to deal with them.
It was what one might call a perfect coincidence.
However, this was not Muzan's first visit. He had come many times before. He had delivered his message many times before.
And he had died many times before.
Those bloodstains were the proof.
Fortunately, Muzan had never lacked for patience. As he always did, he began to walk through the thick night, heading toward that even denser cloud of Yao Qi. His pace was steady, neither fast nor slow. With every step, the rocks beneath his feet groaned and cracked—not because he crushed them, but because the sheer pressure of the Yao Qi ahead was causing the very earth to fracture.
When he was still twenty yards from Tsuchigumo, he stopped. Experience had taught him that getting any closer would result in being slapped into oblivion.
"Here again?"
From behind the bone mask, a voice rumbled forth. It was coarse and deep, like the sound of a giant boulder rolling down a mountain compressed into speech, and it was laced with extreme impatience.
"Lady Hagoromo Gitsune requests that you—"
Muzan never finished his sentence.
The two arms hanging at Tsuchigumo's sides twitched. With a speed that completely defied its massive size, a giant palm slammed down.
Muzan's body was smashed into the ground. His entire torso exploded into a fine mist of blood, while his legs remained grotesquely stuck in the newly formed crater.
But moments later, as the fog at the edge of the mountain swirled, another Kibutsuji Muzan appeared, walking in from the periphery. His kimono was perfectly intact, his face as handsome and unblemished as ever. He glanced at the severed legs of his previous 'self' without a change in expression.
"This is the seventeenth time, Lord Tsuchigumo," he stated calmly.
"Then why the hell aren't you dead yet?" Tsuchigumo's voice was thick with irritation.
The green light behind the bone mask flickered. All six of its arms began to move, not to attack this time, but in a gesture of pure, agitated impatience. The sight of six monstrous limbs twitching in unison was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
"You cannot kill me, Lord Tsuchigumo," Muzan said.
"I know." Tsuchigumo's middle arms uncrossed from its chest and spread wide to its sides. The movement held an unexpected, roguish quality—a bizarre contrast to its terrifying appearance. "That's why it's so annoying."
It shifted its jaw, and the bone mask made a faint creaking sound. "A little thing that won't die, running here every few days to make a racket. If this were two hundred years ago, I would have chewed you into nothing but crumbs in one bite."
"But you have grown weaker," Muzan replied evenly. "So you cannot chew me into nothing now."
Silence descended for two long seconds.
Tsuchigumo's top two arms lifted from its knees. It interlaced its massive fingers and propped its chin upon them. The posture, combined with the stark white bone mask, gave it a strange, almost thoughtful air.
"Fine," it grumbled. "For the sake of your persistence, I'll give you a chance to speak, brat. What does that Hagoromo Gitsune want from me this time?"
"The situation in the Kanto region has changed." This was the first time in nearly a month that Muzan had been allowed to speak this much. "That area was originally under the purview of Lord Kidomaru. However, he is currently unable to manage it, so Lady Hagoromo Gitsune needs you—"
"Kidomaru?" Tsuchigumo's tone was dripping with a clear sneer. "That brat who follows Shuten-doji around? Isn't he at least somewhat capable? Even he can't handle it?"
"He had an arm broken by an Oni Samurai and a priestess working in tandem."
The green light behind the bone mask flared. Tsuchigumo drew out its next word, a low hum of burgeoning interest. Not interest in the political situation, but in the raw concept of 'combat'.
Muzan noticed this immediately. "That shrine maiden and the Oni Samurai… they possess the Shikon Jewel."
All six arms froze. The green light behind the mask blazed with sudden intensity.
"The Shikon Jewel?"
The air became still. Even the Yao Qi that permeated the mountains for miles around ceased its flow. Tsuchigumo did not speak; it seemed to be lost in thought.
For a long, long time. So long that Muzan subconsciously began to feel that this time, too, would end with him being crushed into paste.
Then, that rough, deep voice sounded again. It held no rage, nor did it hold agreement. It was simply a statement.
"Let me sleep for a few more days."
The six arms returned to their original positions. The top pair rested on its knees, the middle pair folded back across its chest, and the bottom pair hung down to the ground once more.
"A few days later—we shall see."
Muzan's vertical pupils flickered. He did not press the matter. After all, 'we shall see' was the closest thing to an agreement he had received in seventeen visits. Every previous answer had been "Get lost," or simply a fatal blow.
This was progress.
Muzan turned and walked back into the fog.
Behind him, Tsuchigumo's massive body curled up again, its six arms folded, resembling a silent, unmoving hill. The green light on its bone mask slowly dimmed.
But long after Muzan had walked away, a faint sound drifted through the mist—an extremely soft murmur from behind the bone mask, as if someone were talking to themselves.
"The Shikon Jewel… is that the thing left behind by that student of Suzaku, that Midoriko…"
"Interesting."
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