The swift strike did not hit the demon, but instead shattered the vase.
Shinichi gripped his Nichirin Sword and tilted his head to look at the broken vase.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, from the mouth of another round vase that had appeared nearby, a slippery body quickly emerged.
"Oh my! My vase, you little brat are so hateful. This vase was a rare masterpiece, you know. Look, it would have been perfect to put your head and two hands inside, but now it's all broken, and it's all your fault!"
Gyokko - Shinichi learned the name of this bizarrely ugly Upper Rank demon from its own mouth.
Upper Rank Five - Gyokko.
Shinichi found the name rather off-putting.
Looking so ugly, it really lowered the average attractiveness of the Upper Ranks.
That Muzan guy was truly disgusting after all.
Though he thought this, Shinichi wouldn't underestimate Gyokko's strength.
After all, no matter what, Gyokko was still an Upper Rank demon.
The gap between Lower Ranks and Upper Ranks was truly vast.
Twirling his sword again, Shinichi gripped the Nichirin Sword with one hand and placed his other hand on the short Nichirin blade at his waist.
If Iron Birch Slash wouldn't work, then he'd use dual blades.
Gyokko showed no reaction to Shinichi's battle preparations, only continuing to complain about the vase Shinichi had just cut and constantly describing how perfect it would have been with Shinichi's body parts inside.
Shinichi couldn't be bothered to argue with this ugly demon.
In a moment, he would slice this guy into a thousand pieces and stuff them nicely into its ugly vase!
Compared to the calm Gyokko and Shinichi, Lower Rank Three - Oniguma who's caught between them, was the most uncomfortable.
As a Lower Rank, Oniguma's strength should have been enough for it to rampage freely as long as it didn't encounter a top Hashira from the Demon Slayer Corps.
But today, it just happened to run into a Hashira and one of the strongest Hashira's at that.
If there was no one else here, that would have been fine, but who would have thought that an Upper Rank Five would suddenly appear behind them!
Damn it!
With an Upper Rank here, Oniguma couldn't even escape.
It didn't think this peculiar-looking Upper Rank would speak well of it in front of Muzan.
"Damn it!" Both of Oniguma's faces twisted in distortion, its muscles suddenly swelling to twice their size and its claws secreting an eerie black poison.
Noticing Oniguma's abnormality, Shinichi frowned, shifting his gaze from Gyokko and pointing a finger directly at Oniguma while spoke disdainfully.
"Small fry should know their place. Get lost, you're not qualified to stand on this battlefield. With that ugly body of yours, at most you'd be good as a blood bag."
Shinichi's last sentence was strange, but neither Oniguma nor Gyokko caught its meaning.
However, in an unnoticed corner, a chaotic gray shadow moved slightly.
"What!?"
Hearing Shinichi's words, Oniguma was about to explode with anger.
Since becoming a demon, no one had ever humiliated it like this.
But... Boom!!
A pale green-colored wave of air instantly spread out with Shinichi at its center.
The dense and powerful life force made Oniguma's breath stop, its ugly face turning somewhat pale.
It instinctively looked back at Gyokko.
"This... sir..."
"Ohhoho, interesting, very interesting. Little boy, arent you afraid we'll gang up on you? Although I quite enjoy doing that, occasionally fulfilling a dying person's wish isn't so bad~" Gyokko's small arms near its head contracted and expanded, the two mouths where its eyes should be opening and closing were very creepy.
"Since that's the case, go and take the head of that little boy Muzan-sama wants. Those two idiots playing with balls seem to have died already, what a fool. Also, there's a traitor female demon there too, catch her as well." Gyokko's slippery body twisted back and forth as it ordered Oniguma.
Although being ordered around by a demon other than Muzan felt unpleasant, at the moment, Gyokko's command felt like a chance for escape to Oniguma.
It almost immediately turned to run, "Yes, Upper Rank sir!"
Whoosh!
Suddenly, a green light flashed!
"Forest Breathing, Thirteenth Form: Niten Ichi-ryu - Wolf Spirit!"
Awooo!!
An invisible wolf's howl rang, countless sword lights intertwined in an instant, merging into a giant wolf charging forward, baring its sharp fangs and claws as it pounced towards Gyokko.
"What's this, being so hasty isn't good. Come on, play with my little darlings first~" Gyokko's two mouths curved eerily.
Bang bang bang bang!
Four uniquely patterned porcelain vases suddenly appeared in its hands near its head, their mouths pitch black as if dark currents were surging within.
"Blood Demon Art: Ten Thousand Gliding Slime-Fish!"
Whoosh!!
In an instant, countless black shadows gushed out of those four porcelain vases, moving at extreme speed.
Looking closely, those thin black shadows were actually ugly bulging-eyed iron-fanged mackerel-like demons.
Countless ferocious mackerels charged forward endlessly, covering the sky and ground as they pounced towards the ethereal green giant wolf.
Rip! Rip!
In a flash, countless sounds of flesh tearing apart rang out.
Shinichi gripped his dual Nichirin blades tightly, his face somewhat puzzled.
These mackerels were somewhat beyond his expectations, not because they were strong, but because he felt they were too weak.
Although there were many, as soon as they collided with his attack, they would instantly shatter.
However, Shinichi soon realized he had been a bit careless.
Although these mackerels were very weak, the moment they shattered, they also sprayed out countless drops of highly poisonous black liquid.
This dense poison was the mackerel's most lethal weapon.
In the brief moment of contact, this poisonous liquid would penetrate the skin.
No matter how strong Shinichi was, he couldn't dodge it all, so inevitably, some poison still contaminated him.
From the outside, it appeared that the ethereal green giant wolf was entangled by thousands of mackerel-like demons.
Although the wolf itself was roaring and tearing apart these mackerels with all its might, under the gnawing of countless mackerels, the green wolf slowly shattered and disappeared, revealing an exhausted-looking Shinichi inside.
Contaminated by the poison, Shinichi's sword grip was now slightly deformed and his speed gradually slowed down.
The lethal poison inside those hagfish, while unable to kill Shinichi, was greatly weakening and damaging his body and strength.
"Ohhoho~ What's wrong? Little boy, are you done already? Aren't you a Hashira? Is this all the Demon Slayer Corps' Hashira are capable of? I remember over a hundred years ago, there was a quite impressive Water Hashira from the Demon Slayer Corps. Hmm, that was a very pretty girl, with beautiful big blue eyes. Oh right, I still have the vase I made with her eyeballs and legs, want to see it?"
As Gyokko proudly recounted its past atrocities, it failed to notice that Shinichi's heterochromatic eyes were becoming increasingly fierce.
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Ten Thousand Gliding Slime-Fish (一いち万まん滑かっ空くう粘ねん魚ぎょ Ichiman Kakkūnengyo? - Gyokko summons a total of ten thousand floating mackerel-like demons with sharp teeth from multiple striped pots with fish icons to attack his target and devour them whole, leaving nothing but bones.
When these fish are cut, they release a poison before disintegrating completely. T
his poison is percutaneous, meaning it can merely be absorbed through the skin in order to kill a target.
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