As Maito's body, having lost all signs of life, gradually turned to ash and dissipated into the air, Shinichi who had witnessed it all was utterly stunned.
For a moment, he couldn't understand why Maito had done it.
Just as Shokyu had said, he was his subordinate.
Shokyu's schemes ran deep; loyalty to him should have absolutely yielded greater rewards.
And yet now...
Meanwhile, another figure on the battlefield had witnessed Maito's disintegration with their own eyes—Lee.
At this moment, Lee stood frozen in place, staring blankly in the direction where Maito had vanished.
Her gray eyes seemed to have lost all their light, leaving only emptiness and a deathly stillness.
"What an... idiot..."
Beneath her wide, gray robes, Lee's hands clenched into tight fists as she spoke with helpless finality.
Her tone was complex, making her thoughts impossible to decipher.
"Hm? Lee, it seems you have quite a few thoughts of your own. What? do you wish to follow in Maito's footsteps and betray me as well?"
As if sensing something, Shokyu shifted his gaze to Lee with a half-smile on his face.
His tone was laced with a playful yet unquestionable pressure.
"I hope you've considered the consequences."
Lee did not answer.
She didn't even spare Shokyu a glance, merely staring vacantly at the empty ground where the last specks of Maito's ashes still drifted in the air.
The next moment, an aura of resolute, death-seeking intent erupted from Lee!
She snapped her head up, her once-dim eyes replaced by a moth-to-a-flame madness.
Her figure instantly transformed into a gray bolt of lightning, moving too fast to be seen clearly.
With two flashes of gray light, a pair of rusty iron daggers emanating a sinister chill stabbed forth as Lee charged recklessly toward Shokyu!
"Why are you all so stupid?! You've already become demons, so why you hold on to such ridiculous emotions? I should have just made you all into puppets from the start! Utterly foolish."
The sneer on Shokyu's face deepened.
Watching Lee rush toward him, a rare trace of annoyance appeared in his eyes, as if he couldn't comprehend why his subordinate who had followed him for several hundred years would betray him so easily and foolishly.
And in that brief delay, while Shokyu was entangled with Lee...
"Shinichi!"
A clear, cold voice, tinged with worry and fury, rang out.
The demonized Shinobu, like a mother hen protecting her chick, had already shielded Shinichi behind her.
Her eyes, glowing with a faint purple light, stared coldly at Shokyu.
However, when she saw the figure clutched in Shokyu's hand, a flicker of shock inevitably crossed her eyes.
Shokyu was covered in bloody gashes.
Countless crimson wounds emitting a black aura marred his exposed skin.
But despite their gruesome appearance, the injuries had a negligible effect on him; he didn't even bat an eye.
And in his hand, he was brutally clutching Lee's body.
Lee's small, thin frame was lifted effortlessly.
Her rusty iron daggers clattered to the ground.
She struggled feebly in Shokyu's grasp, her throat crushed as she was only able to force out a few hoarse wheezing sounds like a broken bellows.
What was happening?
Wasn't Lee on the same side as Shokyu? Although she didn't know what was going on, Shinobu's first instinct was to protect Shinichi.
He was in extremely poor condition; Shokyu had nearly drained all the life force from his blood.
The blood flowing through his veins was now dark and sluggish, cold and lifeless.
What little life force he had left was rapidly fading away and his vision was already starting to go black.
Before long, a series of whooshes cut through the air!
Tengen Uzui and Obanai Iguro arrived, but they weren't the last.
Behind them, Giyuu Tomioka, Kyojuro Rengoku, Kanae Kocho, and Mitsuri Kanroji arrived almost simultaneously.
The other Hashira, having quickly dispatched the low-level demons and Kamaro, closed in from all directions, forming a tight encirclement that locked Shokyu firmly in the center.
With his hand still clutching Lee, Shokyu glanced around at the Hashira who surrounded him, their killing intent was palpable.
Not only was there no trace of nervousness on his face, but a deeper, more contemptuous and mocking smile spread across it.
He seemed to relish the feeling of being surrounded by "the weak."
"Heh... There are always so many meddlesome insects," he said, looking down at Lee, who was still twitching faintly in his grasp.
He seemed to have lost his last shred of patience.
"Whatever. I can't be bothered to figure out what you lot are thinking."
Before his voice had even faded, his five fingers tightened abruptly!
CRACK!
The sickening crunch of splintering bone was horrifyingly clear.
Lee's neck had been snapped.
However, for a demon of Lee's constitution, such an injury was hardly fatal.
The deadly part was the bloody mist coiling around Shokyu's hand, which took the opportunity to bore into Lee's body and frantically drain her life force.
Soon, Lee's struggles slowly ceased, and the light in her eyes rapidly dimmed.
But Shokyu wasn't finished.
He raised his other clawed hand and stabbed down viciously.
The crimson talons plunged through Lee's chest like a venomous snake, instantly shattering the core of life force within her.
Having done this, Shokyu tossed Lee's limp body forward as if discarding a piece of trash.
It landed right in front of Shinobu.
Shokyu leisurely clapped his hands together, as if he had just performed some trivial task.
His mocking gaze swept over the surrounding Hashira, who were on high alert.
Finally, his eyes met with Kamaro, who was holding Nezuko.
By now, the Demon Slayers had slaughtered nearly all the low-level demons on the battlefield.
The Hashira encircling Shokyu launched their attacks almost in unison, while on the other side, the Tokito brothers lunged toward Kamaro, intending to rescue Nezuko.
"Hehehe." Shokyu's voice carried a lofty indifference, as if it originated from another dimension.
"Naive humans. In the new world that is to come... you are nothing but insignificant dust."
Though it was a pity he wouldn't get the chance to land the finishing blow, seeing Shinichi's life force on the verge of dissipating was enough.
Shokyu had no desire to waste any more time here.
"Farewell..."
Twang!
The sharp strum of a biwa string echoed as space violently distorted.
In the instant before the Hashira's attacks could land, the figures of Shokyu, Kamaro and the unconscious Nezuko blurred like reflections in water, faded, and then vanished completely from the blood-soaked battlefield.
All that remained was a scene of utter devastation.
And just as Shokyu vanished, the body of Lee, who had landed before Shinobu, began to crumble into ash.
In the final moments before her life completely faded, she used the last shred of her remaining consciousness to arduously raise a disintegrating hand, pointing tremblingly at the nearby Shinobu.
Her lips quivered, and from her throat, she squeezed out a single, broken yet exceptionally clear word.
"Blood..."
After uttering that word, her final gaze passed over Shinobu's shoulder, looking deeply in the direction where Maito had vanished.
Then, her arm fell limply, and her entire body, like burnt-out embers, completely disintegrated into ash, scattering into the night wind thick with the stench of blood.
At the scene, all that remained were the members of the Demon Slayer Corps, their hearts filled with rage and grief, and Shinichi, who lay on the ground with the horrifying bloody hole in his chest still seeping blood, his breath as faint as a candle in the wind.
Lee's final word was like a strange brand, seared deep into Shinobu's heart.
Blood?
What was Lee trying to say? Whose blood?