The battlefield was chaos incarnate.From the shattered ruins of the Infinity Castle, the night sky itself seemed to tremble. Muzan had shed the last semblance of humanity—his body no longer flesh but an abomination of writhing veins, pulsating eyes, and countless maws screeching in unholy harmony. He towered, a grotesque titan forged from the corpses of his devoured kin, his malice filling the air like poison.
"Don't let even a fragment escape!" Tharion's voice roared above the carnage, cutting through despair like a blade of its own. His presence anchored the Demon Slayers, battered and bloodied, but still standing. "Hold the lines! Cut down every stray piece—this ends here!"
Muzan's many eyes shifted toward him, hatred condensed into a singular will to devour. The monster lashed out, tendrils like spears of flesh stabbing toward everything that lived. But Tharion was already moving—his blade, radiant with the flames of the sun itself, carved through the onslaught with arcs of searing brilliance. Each swing was not just a strike, but a declaration: no darkness would escape his light.
The others scattered, engaging Muzan's fragments, severing every tendril and malformed limb that broke off from the abomination. Nezuko's flames burned the crawling horrors. Inosuke and Zenitsu fought like men possessed, striking at every twitching parasite. Shinobu's remaining poison found its mark in wriggling flesh, buying precious seconds.
But Muzan's core—the monstrous heart beating at the center of the abomination—still pulsed with unstoppable fury. His voice, layered with the echoes of countless devoured demons, thundered across the battlefield:"You think you can erase eternity? I AM THE NIGHT ITSELF!"
Tharion's grip tightened on his sword. His breathing slowed, then deepened, as if inhaling the cosmos itself. The patterns of the Sun Breathing danced along his body in radiant spirals of fire. But this time, he pushed past the known forms. He felt it—the fourteenth form, a culmination of every breath, every battle, every flame that had ever burned against the dark.
The others stopped, their eyes drawn to him as the battlefield seemed to bend under the heat. His blade glowed not red, not gold, but white—a core of energy so intense it warped the air, searing brighter than dawn itself.
"Fourteenth Form…" His voice was low, steady, reverent. His aura blazed outward, setting the ground aflame. "Supernova – Blazing Annihilation."
He surged forward, vanishing into a streak of burning light. Muzan roared, every limb thrashing, every mouth screaming, a tidal wave of flesh and hatred trying to engulf him. But Tharion did not falter. He spun, his blade tracing a sphere of incineration—like a star detonating in the palm of the earth.
The explosion of radiance tore the night apart. A dome of solar fire consumed Muzan's monstrous body, vaporizing every fragment, every shriek, every ounce of his cursed existence. The Demon King's roar turned into a final scream—anguished, defiant, and then silenced, drowned in light.
For a moment, it seemed as though the very sun had descended upon the battlefield.
Then came the aftermath. Silence. Ash. The wind carried embers like falling stars.
But amidst that silence, a sharp ding reverberated within Tharion's mind.
[System Notification]
Warning – Limit Break Engaged.
Excessive use of power beyond limiter threshold detected.
Even a body crafted by the gods has reached its physical limit.
Condition: Forced Sleep State initiated.
Recovery cycle required.
Tharion staggered, his sword dimming. His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, every muscle screaming, bones cracking under the weight of what he had unleashed. His vision blurred—faces of comrades barely distinguishable through the haze of fatigue and burning pain.
The system's cold, merciless reminder rang again:
[Critical Notice] – Body has entered post-limit fatigue. Consciousness shutdown imminent.
He smiled faintly, blood at the corner of his lips, eyes turning toward the fading embers of Muzan's destruction. "It's… over."
And then his body gave way. He collapsed, his blade still warm in his hand, his figure finally succumbing to the sleep of exhaustion—a sleep not even the gods could deny.
Around him, the Demon Slayers stood in stunned silence. Some wept, some screamed in triumph, others simply fell to their knees in disbelief. For the first time in centuries, the night sky was free from Muzan's shadow.
But all of them knew—this victory was carved upon the edge of Tharion's sacrifice.
The dawn had come.At last.
The battlefield was silent, save for the crackle of dying embers. Where Muzan's abominable flesh once writhed, only ash remained, drifting away into the night sky like cursed snow finally laid to rest.
At the center of that ruin lay Tharion, motionless, his chest barely rising with shallow breaths. His sword, dulled of its radiant glow, rested limply in his hand, the edge buried in the soil like a fallen sun.
"Tharion!" Tanjiro's voice broke the silence, ragged and desperate. He stumbled forward, wounds forgotten, eyes wide with panic as he knelt beside the unmoving figure. His hands hovered, trembling, afraid to touch, afraid to confirm what he feared.
"He's breathing… barely," Shinobu's voice came soft but steady, kneeling opposite Tanjiro. Her hands checked his pulse, her expression taut. Relief flickered through her eyes, but worry lingered. "He's alive. But his body… it's beyond exhaustion. It feels like he's burned through something no human—or god—was ever meant to."
Nezuko knelt quietly beside them, her hands clutching Tharion's arm, as though grounding him, as though willing him to stay.
The rest of the Demon Slayers gathered in a daze. Inosuke, still bloodied and breathing hard, dropped to his knees, his boar mask cracked and hanging by a strap. "He… he actually did it." His voice, usually so wild, trembled. "The bastard actually killed Muzan…"
Zenitsu stood in shock, his blade dripping blood, his body trembling not with fear but with something else—a disbelief too heavy to grasp. "We… we're free?" he whispered, tears welling despite himself. "No more demons in the night?"
From the distance came cries—not of terror, but of relief. Slayers still standing raised their weapons, voices breaking the heavy silence with ragged cheers. Some wept openly, collapsing into one another. Others simply looked to the sky, as if seeing it for the first time.
The night was still dark, but for the first time in centuries, it felt like dawn had already arrived.
Rengoku's voice, hoarse yet steady, cut through. He stood tall despite the blood that stained his uniform, eyes blazing with the same fire as always. "Raise your heads, Demon Slayers!" he bellowed. "The King of Demons has fallen! Tharion's light carried us through, but it is our blades that carved this path together!"
A chorus rose—a raw, broken, victorious chorus. Their numbers were fewer than they had begun with, but their spirits burned brighter than ever.
Murata, leaning heavily on his sword, whispered with a faint smile, "We survived… because of him." His eyes turned toward Tharion, lying still amidst them. "He carried the sun into the abyss."
But even as triumph filled their hearts, a sobering weight hung in the air. Shinobu's words echoed in their minds: no human, or god, was meant to bear this strain.
"Will he wake again?" Tanjiro asked, his voice raw, childlike in its hope.
Shinobu's gaze softened, but her answer was careful. "I don't know. His body has entered a forced state of recovery… sleep deeper than anything natural. It might take days. Weeks. Perhaps longer." She tightened her grip on his wrist, feeling the faint pulse. "But so long as his flame doesn't go out… there is hope."
The corps turned their eyes toward Tharion—not just as a comrade, but as the warrior who bore the weight of centuries of suffering and ended it with his own hands.
Above them, the stars glittered in quiet approval, free from the haze of demonic malice for the first time in living memory.
And though night still cloaked the land, every heart knew… dawn was coming.
The war against Muzan Kibutsuji had ended.Peace had finally begun to take root.
But the price of that peace lay sleeping, his fate resting in the uncertain hands of time.