Chapter 168: Fire That Cleanses All Evil
"You're looking for Tsugikuni Yoriichi?"
Kagaya's smile widened, his voice calm as still water.
"Isn't he already here?"
When those words passed from Kagaya's lips, Gyokko's body froze.
Soon, Gyokko noticed something.
"Blaze?"
In the sky above the Ubuyashiki Estate, a blaze streaked across like a meteor, catching the attention of Kagaya and Gyokko.
Surprisingly, the blaze descended toward their location.
"What the—?!"
Gyokko was startled, quickly retracting his entire body into his vase, disappearing from sight.
Before long, the meteor-like blaze soon landed in the courtyard of the Ubuyashiki Estate with a thunderous crash.
*BOOOM!*
A thunderous roar ensued.
The blaze in the courtyard unleashed an astonishing heat and exploding flame, turning into a flame wave that surged outward.
The temperature in the area skyrocketed rapidly.
The bridges and flowing water in the courtyard were engulfed by the flame wave.
Even Kagaya, sitting on the veranda, faced the flames head-on, only for them to suddenly part just before reaching him, leaving sparks on the wooden veranda.
Watching all this unfold, Kagaya looked at the courtyard covered in scattered sparks and let out a bitter smile.
"You went a bit overboard, Tsugikuni Yoriichi."
In response, he received only a faint chuckle.
"Heh, Lord Ubuyashiki, you're really playing with fire by not fleeing and leaving this mansion."
With those words, as the flames gradually dissipated in the courtyard, a figure emerged from the blaze.
"I hope I'm not too late?"
Riezel stepped through the flames, looking at Kagaya.
"Naturally." Kagaya smiled gently.
However, the voice of a third party quickly chimed in.
"You must be Tsugikuni Yoriichi?"
Such unfriendly words naturally came from Gyokko.
In the next moment, a vase appeared silently on the courtyard wall, and Gyokko emerged from it. Only then did Riezel turn to look at him, noticing two eyes on his forehead and mouth.
"Upper Five, huh?" Riezel said calmly.
"Yes, I'm the Upper Five, Gyokko."
Gyokko shifted his body, his small hands swinging, while bloodshot eyes fixed on Riezel's, appeared somewhat angry.
"How dare you wreck someone else's stuff right off the bat? Do you have something wrong in your head?"
"Wreck someone else's stuff?" Riezel was confused for a split second, then quickly realized. "Ahh, you mean this?"
He kicked a shattered vase at his feet.
"Don't kick it, you damn brute!" Gyokko fumed, veins popping on his face. "That was a vase I painstakingly crafted! An artwork! Even if you're a monkey, you should know to respect others' art, right?!"
"Huh? I've never heard of monkeys respecting someone's art before..." Riezel responded indifferently. "And besides, the word 'respect' is for humans, not for freakish creatures like you. You, a fish that doesn't look like a fish, a worm that doesn't look like a worm... Let's not even talk about whether you have the qualifications to talk about respect, just talking about the art you're mentioning, I don't see any art in it."
As soon as he finished speaking, he directly extended his foot, crushing all the vase shards lying beneath him.
"Bastard!" Gyokko's anger instantly boiled over. "I thought Lord Muzan had sent us to track down an extraordinary big shot, but now it seems like you're just a muscle-headed monkey, clueless about art, clueless about appreciation!"
He quickly materialized a vase in his hand, veined with aquatic marks.
"Monkeys like you, devoid of any artistic sense, should disappear from this world!"
Gyokko raised the vase.
"Thousand Needle - Fish Kill!"
In the next instant, as the vase in his hand stirred, numerous goldfish poured out of the vase's mouth like carp leaping through the Dragon Gate. They soared into the air before collectively shooting sharp needles toward Riezel.
What made it terrifying was the sheer number of sharp needles, which was as vast as the countless goldfish surging from the small vase, almost covering the entire sky above the courtyard.
In this way, countless sharp needles, hiding the sky and covering the earth, descended, creating a sky-splitting sound while blanketing the entire courtyard.
Naturally, Riezel was among them, still standing at the center.
"Watch out!"
Kagaya couldn't help but remind in panic, but soon realized that such a reminder was entirely unnecessary.
*Sizzle!*
As the descending needles touched within approximately three meters of Riezel's body, they instantly melted away in a series of ear-piercing noises.
"What?" Gyokko was stunned by the scene he saw. 'H-He actually melted my 'Thousand Needle - Fish Kill' with high temperatures?!'
Upon closer inspection, the air and space around Riezel were highly distorted, with phenomena resembling steam and mirages occasionally appearing, indicating how high the temperature was there.
Because of this intense heat, the ground beneath Riezel's feet had long turned black, and the goldfish, which fell not far from him, were instantly roasted, turning into cooked goldfish in an instant.
'What breathing style is that? I've never heard of it before!' Gyokko couldn't believe his eyes.
With over a hundred years of experience, as an Upper Rank of the Twelve Kizuki, he had faced Demon Slayers countless times, including some Hashira.
Gyokko had encountered numerous breathing styles, both those belonging to the current Demon Slayer Corps and those in the past—he had seen and dealt with them all.
Even so, he had never witnessed a breathing style causing such an absurd phenomenon.
Using high temperatures to melt his Blood Demon Art? Could a breathing style possess such power?
"Tch!" Gyokko clicked his tongue and raised the small hands on his body, causing vase after vase to sprout forth.
In total, there were ten vases, all adorned with slime-fish veined marks on their surfaces.
"Blood Demon Art - Ten Thousand Gliding Slime-Fish!"
Gyokko quickly directed the ten vases toward Riezel and threw them.
In the next moment, a large group of sharp-toothed slime-fish burst out from the ten vases.
The number of sharp-toothed slime-fish was staggering, seeming as though there were ten thousand of them, forming a massive wave-like fish that flooded the courtyard and swarmed toward Riezel.
The scene of these relentless sharp-toothed slime-fish lunging forward was akin to a swarm of piranhas attacking in the water. Once engulfed, one's flesh and blood would likely be devoured in an instant.
With such numbers and ferocity, even high temperatures couldn't withstand them. Except for the initial moment when the sharp-toothed slime-fish at the forefront were charred into charcoal, the rest used the bodies of the charred fish as shields, successfully reaching Riezel.
However, just as thousands upon thousands of sharp-toothed slime-fish were about to engulf Riezel and consume him, he finally moved.
"Sun Breathing - Sixth Form - Burning Bones, Summer Sun."
A vortex of flames appeared.
It was a sword form very similar to Kyoujurou's 'Blooming Flame Undulation'.
At this moment, the swirling flames slashed like a vortex, pulling all the sharp-toothed slime-fish into its center.
*Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!*
In an instant, the sound of sharp blades slicing through flesh echoed continuously, causing each fish to fall to the ground in pieces.
Upon seeing this, instead of feeling shocked or angry, Gyokko's mouth twisted into a peculiar smile.
'Heh, naive, my slime-fish isn't that simple.'
Few knew that Gyokko's 'Blood Demon Art - Ten Thousand Gliding Slime-Fish' and even 'Thousand Needle - Fish Kill' were aquatic creatures imbued with deadly poison.
Goldfish from 'Thousand Needle - Fish Kill' spat out needles laced with a neurotoxin that could paralyze the body's nerves.
'Ten Thousand Gliding Slime-Fish,' on the other hand, had body fluid containing a deadly poison that could easily enter the body through the skin. Hence, the more the slime-fish were cut, the more body fluid containing this deadly poison they would release. If someone touched even a small amount of it, they would be poisoned immediately.
Currently, Riezel had nearly killed ten thousand sharp-toothed slime-fish. While his ability astonished Gyokko, it was undoubtedly an action to hasten his own demise.
'Here's where you'll perish from the poison, hyo, hyo, hyo...' Gyokko thought gleefully, clearly relishing in other's misfortune.
Unfortunately, he would end up disappointed.
Even after thousands of slime-fish were slain, no matter how much bodily fluid splattered, none touched Riezel's body at all. After all, the intense heat surrounding his body could evaporate even Blood Demon Arts, let alone mere bodily fluids.
Moreover, Riezel wasn't afraid of poison.
After all, his highest-ranked 'Abnormal Resistance' development ability was more than just for show.
*BOOM!*
Before long, a vortex of flame-like slashes completely obliterated all the slime-fish, even dragging the ten vases Gyokko had thrown into the flames, reducing them to ashes.
By the time Gyokko realized something was amiss, the vortex of flames was already upon him.
"Shit!"
The smile on Gyokko's face froze, and the eyes on his forehead and in his mouth shrank to the size of pinpoints.
Riezel's figure then emerged from the vortex of flames, coldly staring at Gyokko, wielding a black-bladed sword he had somehow drawn.
*BOOM!*
In the next second, the surging flames erupted from the courtyard walls, resembling a red lotus suddenly blooming under the moonlight.
Within the red lotus, the walls collapsed, the ground shattered, and even the courtyard's bridges were finally affected and utterly destroyed by the flames.
Watching from the veranda, Kagaya, though coughing violently, had increasingly bright eyes.
'This power... this flame... this heat... it's too powerful!'
Kagaya's heart trembled.
'Is this what he called the evolved Sun Breathing?'
'Why do I feel like the fire from this strongest breathing style resembles the red lotus karmic fire that can cleanse all evil?'
'It's simply...'
Kagaya couldn't find suitable words to describe his feelings at this moment.
'It's simply born to defeat Kibutsuji Muzan!'
'Kibutsuji Muzan... your end has finally come...'
'Finally come!'
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