Fairy Tail: Igneel's eldest son in Anime Multiverse Chapter 583 561: Password Accepted

The sashes Daki released looked like ordinary textiles, but they were creations of her Blood Demon Art.

Especially after she recalled the sashes that had flown back from afar and her hair turned white, Daki's power grew stronger.

Astonishingly tough sashes slashed at Tanjiro like the sharpest blades, even throwing sparks when they struck his edge.

Tanjiro's swings were steady, batting away the four sashes that came cutting in.

At this point, Tanjiro deeply understood the gulf between the Lower Ranks and the Upper Ranks.

Power, speed, and skill were on completely different levels.

His original plan was to cut the sashes, then rush in and take Daki's head.

But the sashes were terrifyingly tough, and their suppleness bled off the force of his cuts. In the end, he could only block Daki's attacks.

If not for Charles's special training, Tanjiro wouldn't even have been able to keep his forms smooth and stable.

The reason he had the confidence to cut the sashes was that he had once done it.

Since they knew Daki and Gyutaro's abilities, they naturally carried out adaptive training before fighting them.

And during that training, Tanjiro did manage to cut the magical device used as a prop… a single time.

Charles told him that if he could completely master that one swing, he would step into a higher realm.

Ever since, Tanjiro had been working toward that.

He had recalled and practiced the feel of that cut more times than he could count, but in a real fight he kept discovering that something seemed missing; he just couldn't reproduce it.

He raised his blade along his arm, guiding the stabbing sash to skim off his edge and deflect aside.

But another sash fell from the other side; a line opened across his shoulder, and he only just slipped out in time.

Before he could catch his breath, several more sashes lashed in together. He blocked with his blade, but the impact sent him flying.

He smashed through the tavern wall and slammed hard onto the street.

No sooner had he pushed himself up than a sense of heart-stopping danger surged over him. He reflexively used Fake Rainbow.

Daki's sash cleaved him open—but then his image dissolved in the air like a mirage. A heartbeat later and the real Tanjiro would have been split in two.

Half a sleeve fell to the ground—that was what Daki's strike had sliced off of him.

Tanjiro's pupils tightened, not only because of the wound carved into his chest, but because that one blow from Daki had ripped open most of a street.

Before the fight, he and Charles had spent a large sum to evacuate nearly an entire block.

But Daki's strike had extended into the next street as well; he could even hear the screams, smell the blood in the distance.

"Why?"

He stared coldly at Daki as she strolled out from the tavern's ruins and demanded an answer.

Tanjiro had always believed demons were pitiful beings who had lost their lives and everything important, all stolen by demon blood.

But seeing Daki, in perfect control of her senses, wantonly destroy and take lives showed the simple Tanjiro, for the first time, what evil truly was.

With a look of incomprehension, Daki sneered and glanced at him sidelong. "What do you mean, why? Oh, you mean this?"

As she spoke, sashes flew again. Before Tanjiro could react, every building around them was sliced to pieces, and the screams from moments ago fell silent.

"Hahahaha! So you're just another ugly, boring one. What's there to care about? Strong and beautiful demons can do as they please—of course we can!"

Tanjiro suddenly remembered the story Charles had told him about Yoriichi.

On the brink of cutting down Muzan Kibutsuji, he finally understood the feeling behind that question Yoriichi had asked.

So Tanjiro said, "What's so funny? What's so entertaining about it?"

Daki's vision blurred, and a strange scene surfaced before her eyes.

In the hazy image she saw only a pair of earrings sway. When her vision cleared, she saw Tanjiro wearing the same earrings.

"What do you take human lives for?"

As the words left his mouth, Daki saw that man standing with his blade again, and her body trembled involuntarily.

She went mad, unleashing a storm of sashes that all slashed for Tanjiro's vital points.

As he spoke, Tanjiro felt his body heat abnormally. Vaguely, he seemed to rediscover the feel of that swing from training.

So he chose to release his emotions.

Flames surged from his edge; the sashes Daki fired in were cut clean through. In an instant, he slashed more times than one could count. Tanjiro closed on Daki as the broken sashes fluttered behind him and burned to ash.

The image before Daki's eyes didn't vanish. As Tanjiro drew closer it even grew clearer, freezing her in place.

In that instant, Tanjiro's blade came down and severed Daki's neck.

Her body dropped to its knees, her head rolling aside as she wailed at the top of her lungs.

"You ugly freak, how dare you cut off my head! It's outrageous! Help me, Brother!"

In his mind, Tanjiro recalled Charles's warning that the hardest part of dealing with Upper Rank Six was that you had to sever the siblings' necks at the same time.

And that Gyutaro usually hid inside Daki's body, appearing when her head was cut off.

"I have to move now!"

Seeing the writhing mass of flesh at Daki's neck stump, he made his decision at once.

But with that last strike, he had pushed Sun Breathing to its utmost. His breath was ragged; his lungs and every muscle were numb with searing pain.

And at that moment, a man crawled out of Daki's severed neck.

His hair was like dry straw, scar-like marks marred his face, and his body was bizarre—ribs jutting, belly sunken—like a starving ghost from hell.

The other Upper Rank Six—and the stronger one—Gyutaro had appeared.

He picked up Daki's head and set it back on her neck, gently wiping away her tears.

"You made my sister cry."

The flesh-like stuff in his hand warped into a short-handled sickle. Raising his arm, Gyutaro moved to slit the throat of the immobilized Tanjiro.

But when his arm swung down, the sickle dropped to the ground along with his hand. Tanjiro had vanished as well.

A few meters away, Charles set Tanjiro down, then shoved the Nichirin back into his hand.

Daki stared in disbelief. "Brother, what are you doing? How could you let them get away?"

Gyutaro looked at his severed wrist; in the next second, a new hand had grown.

"Impressive. You actually cut off my wrist. And looking at you—good-looking, no spots or scars on your skin, tall and well-built—you must be popular with women. I'm so jealous!

Would you hurry up and die? Die horribly, skin split and flesh torn, body in pieces, and then…!"

As he ranted, Gyutaro clawed at his face and body, scoring bloody lines that healed in a blink.

Charles raised a hand. "That's enough. I'm not here to fix your psychological problems. Take your grievances and go to hell."

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