Chapter 15: Escape
The demons' unusual collective activity was clearly aimed at Hakuya-senpai, and Tanjiro realized he had been mistaken for Hakuya by these demons.
Tanjiro quickly discovered the reason for the mistaken identity: the fox-shaped warding mask he wore, similar to Hakuya's—both crafted by their master, Urokodaki Sakonji.
Tanjiro's thoughts raced, and in a split second, he hatched a daring plan.
"I'll fight my way through and create an opening. You guys carry Zenitsu and run down the mountain!" Tanjiro whispered urgently to the young men accompanying him.
Hearing this, one of the young men swiftly retreated behind Tanjiro and hoisted the unconscious Zenitsu onto his back.
Just as Tanjiro and the others prepared to move, the demons—sensing Tanjiro's intention and having already anticipated his strategy—launched their attack on everyone except Tanjiro himself.
Ten demons simultaneously lunged at Tanjiro's group. In this critical moment, Tanjiro remembered Hakuya's words of encouragement from their training together. Filled with newfound confidence, he instantly activated Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance.
Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance utilizes swift footwork to attack enemies while moving rapidly. The fluid, dancing-like movements are what earned this technique its graceful name.
As Tanjiro activated Flowing Dance, his form moved swiftly around the group like flowing water. As the demons lunged forward, Tanjiro's Nichirin blade slashed down along the "opening thread"—the vulnerable line he could perceive through his heightened senses. The blade's edge flickered across each demon's field of vision, and as the light faded, Tanjiro had severed the heads of all ten demons in one continuous motion.
Looking at the ten demons whose heads he had just decapitated, Tanjiro was overcome with disbelief and excitement. He had actually accomplished something he thought impossible moments ago.
Because of Hakuya's overwhelming presence during Final Selection, Tanjiro's own abilities had been overshadowed, and he had constantly doubted himself. But now—
Just as Tanjiro stood stunned by his own achievement, the scent of danger suddenly intensified, snapping him out of his trance.
"Run! Now!" Tanjiro shouted.
Immediately, everyone began sprinting down the mountain. They hadn't expected Tanjiro to be so formidable—but then again, Hakuya and Tanjiro were disciples of the same master, so how could Tanjiro, as his fellow student, be any less skilled?
As they fled, a massive horde of demons gave chase. Their momentum was overwhelming, like a relentless tidal wave of death.
Tanjiro glanced back and gasped. A rough count revealed at least fifty demons pursuing them.
Like rabid beasts, they chased Tanjiro and his companions with frenzied determination.
"Hakuya-senpai, is this the mess you stirred up? This is actually going to get us all killed!" Tanjiro ran frantically, complaining internally. If he had known this would happen, he never should have gone looking for Hakuya, causing himself to be mistaken for his senior by these vengeful demons.
At that moment, the boy carrying Zenitsu on his back twisted his ankle while running, and both he and Zenitsu tumbled to the ground.
The boy instinctively tried to stand, but the sharp pain shooting through his ankle prevented him from putting weight on his leg.
Tanjiro stopped abruptly, but the other young men didn't stop—they kept running down the mountain without looking back.
Tanjiro knew he couldn't stop them even if he tried, so he ignored their retreat and turned back to rescue the boy with the sprained ankle and the still-unconscious Zenitsu.
Meanwhile, as Hakuya continued advancing deeper into Mount Fujikasane, he noticed a small red area appear on his system's minimap. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't a single red area at all, but a vast expanse of densely packed red dots. Because there were so many clustered together, the map had mistakenly perceived them as one continuous red zone.
However, such a massive concentration of markers was clearly abnormal. If it wasn't a glitch in the system, then every demon on Mount Fujikasane had gathered together in one place.
But why would these demons suddenly congregate like this? After observing for a few seconds, Hakuya noticed that the mass of red dots seemed to be moving rapidly in one direction—as if they were chasing something.
"Looks like I need to check this out," Hakuya muttered, and he immediately sped toward the disturbance.
Halfway there, Hakuya encountered the young men who had abandoned Tanjiro and the others. Seeing them fleeing for their lives, Hakuya blocked their path.
Upon seeing Hakuya—wearing his distinctive fox mask—appear before them, they all skidded to a halt.
Having been saved by him before, they immediately recognized him.
"What happened?" Hakuya asked bluntly.
"Hakuya-senpai! Your fellow disciple Tanjiro is in danger! Dozens of demons are gathering and attacking him! You have to save him!" one of them explained the situation clearly and concisely.
While many details were missing, they were unimportant. What mattered was that Tanjiro was in mortal danger.
Hakuya didn't waste time asking more questions and instantly vanished from their sight, moving at incredible speed.
He rushed as fast as he could toward the massive cluster of red markers on his map.
Back at the attack site, Tanjiro was about to help Zenitsu to his feet when the demon horde reached them.
The boy with the sprained ankle, lying beside Zenitsu, seemed to have accepted his inevitable death. He shouted at Tanjiro, "Leave us! Just go! Or you'll die here too!"
But Tanjiro ignored the boy's desperate plea and, driven by his compassionate nature, rushed forward to help them.
However, he was still a step too slow, and the tide of demons instantly engulfed both Zenitsu and the injured boy.
"No!" Tanjiro couldn't accept this outcome and screamed in anguish.
The next moment, a brilliant flash of yellow lightning erupted, and the demon wave that had submerged Zenitsu and the injured boy was violently blown away.
Tanjiro looked carefully and discovered that Zenitsu had somehow stood up, traces of electricity crackling around his body.
The demon wave scattered, but immediately more demons rushed forward to take their place.
Zenitsu stood with his eyes tightly closed, his entire body poised in a sword-drawing stance—completely different from his usual terrified demeanor.
"Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash."
Zenitsu took a deep breath and spoke in a calm, focused voice that bore no resemblance to his usual panicked tone.
In an instant, his entire form flashed like lightning itself, and every demon that had rushed forward died instantly under Zenitsu's blade.
Tanjiro stood momentarily dazed, and even the boy with the sprained ankle was stunned speechless.
No one could have imagined that the cowardly, constantly crying Zenitsu actually possessed such incredible hidden strength.
After a brief moment of shock, Tanjiro realized that Zenitsu alone couldn't reverse the situation against so many demons. He immediately moved to Zenitsu's side and launched his own attack during the gap in Zenitsu's assault.
"Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide!"
Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide unleashes multiple consecutive slashes that flow like crashing waves. It can be used against multiple enemies simultaneously, dealing damage across a wide area.
In this critical moment, Tanjiro unleashed the Fourth Form of Water Breathing. The Nichirin blade gifted to him by Urokodaki Sakonji danced with his movements, creating visible ripples in the air. These ripples were the manifestation of water generated through proper breathing technique.
"Now's your chance! Get out of here!" Tanjiro shouted to the injured boy while slashing through the oncoming tide of demons.
Although Tanjiro and Zenitsu had the situation momentarily under control, there were simply too many demons—the situation would spiral out of control again at any moment.
Seeing the temporary reprieve, the injured boy gritted his teeth, endured the pain in his ankle, forced himself to stand, and limped toward safety as fast as he could manage.
However, the sheer number of demons made it impossible to stop them all. One demon that slipped through their defense suddenly lunged at the limping boy.
"Look out!"
Tanjiro tried to disengage and help, but this momentary distraction allowed several demons to break through his guard. Multiple demons bit into Tanjiro's thigh, and the searing pain disrupted his breathing rhythm.
"This is it... we're finished!"
Despair flooded Tanjiro's heart.
Zenitsu, still unconscious but fighting with his body moving on pure instinct, frantically dodged the demons' attacks with supernatural agility.
"Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash!"
"Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash!"
"Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash!"
However, with each successive release of Thunderclap and Flash, Zenitsu's stamina rapidly depleted. After his fourth consecutive attack, his body finally gave out and he collapsed unconscious once more—this time truly unable to continue fighting.
At this critical moment, Hakuya arrived.
"Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance!"
Hakuya, arriving at the perfect moment, immediately unleashed the same Flowing Dance technique that Tanjiro had used earlier.
Compared to Tanjiro's execution, Hakuya's Flowing Dance was devastatingly more efficient—at least twice as fast, with movements so fluid they seemed almost impossible.
"Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide!"
Without missing a beat, Hakuya simultaneously transitioned into Striking Tide, executing both techniques in rapid succession. This required extraordinary breath control and perfectly timed changes in breathing rhythm—a level of mastery far beyond what most swordsmen could achieve.
The demons surrounding Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and the injured boy were completely annihilated by Hakuya's overwhelming assault in mere seconds.
After temporarily regaining control of the battlefield, Hakuya grabbed the injured boy and threw him clear of the demon horde with calculated force—hard enough to get him to safety, but not hard enough to cause injury.
Then Hakuya grabbed the unconscious Zenitsu and flung him in the same direction.
Finally, Hakuya approached Tanjiro and asked, "Can you still fight?"
Tanjiro shook his head to clear it, and a glimmer of hope flashed through his previously despairing expression. Relief washed over him—Hakuya-senpai was here.
"Tanjiro, regulate your breathing again. The battle isn't over yet!" Seeing that Tanjiro's injuries weren't life-threatening, Hakuya firmly reminded him to restore his breathing technique.
Tanjiro, who quickly regained control of his Total Concentration Breathing, rapidly entered his fighting state once more. The bleeding from his wounds slowed and eventually stopped as he controlled his blood flow through proper breathing.
Hakuya's sudden arrival and devastating display of power caught the demons completely off guard. After witnessing the overwhelming aura emanating from Hakuya and seeing so many of their kind slaughtered in seconds, the surviving demons finally regained some semblance of rationality—along with genuine fear.
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