Chapter 80: Muzan's Madness |
The Upper Ranks—First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth—had all fallen to the Demon Slayers, and the final Sixth Rank was finished off by Muzan himself when she found herself on the verge of defeat at Yushiro’s hands!
And so...
The Upper Ranks were no more.
Initially, it had seemed the demons held the advantage, but the actual clash had settled everything. The Demon Slayers had secured a crushing victory; only a few individuals, including Zenitsu and Inosuke, had sustained serious injuries.
Nearly all the other slayers had escaped with minor wounds or emerged completely unscathed. They immediately began converging on the Progenitor of Demons, while a few took a moment to catch their breath and recover from their injuries.
At that very moment.
Muzan was locked in a ferocious struggle.
By now, Tamayo looked exhausted, her face as pale as chalk as if she had lost a vast amount of blood. Gyomei, on the other hand, was covered in wounds despite having awakened his Mark.
Across from them stood Muzan, his eyes wild with insanity and his face—if it could still be called that—twisted with rage.
They had been in a desperate position from the start. Even with Tamayo utilizing the Progenitor’s own body and her Blood Demon Arts, and Gyomei wielding his Mark and the Transparent World, they could not overwhelm Muzan, who had been fighting at full strength from the beginning.
As the situation deteriorated, Tamayo had resorted to drastic measures. Without hesitation, she had allowed her opponent to tear apart and consume nearly half of her body, seizing that opportunity to weaken him with her most potent poisons.
Although the cells of a fledgling Progenitor like Tamayo were less evolved than Muzan's, they were fundamentally on the same level—a level far beyond those of Kokushibo or any other demon. Thus, absorbing them provided the Progenitor with an immense boost.
But Tamayo's concoctions proved just as troublesome!
The drug to turn him back into a human.
The drug to accelerate aging.
The drug for cell destruction.
The drug to halt division...
That savage cocktail, combined with Tamayo’s flesh, triggered cardinal changes within Muzan's body—changes that took both him and his adversary by complete surprise.
Under the influence of the drugs, Muzan’s body disintegrated to such a degree that he lost not only his human look but even his humanoid shape, collapsing into a swirling mass of flesh and blood.
"And what was it you said? Now you have finally become a monster, not just on the inside, but on the outside as well..." Tamayo replied coldly, her face deathly pale.
There was no denying that losing nearly half her cells had dealt Tamayo a severe blow, but Muzan’s condition was no better. He could barely control his own body or his cells.
The chaotic lashes of his boney tentacles and the uncontrolled growth of maws, eyes, and limbs across his flesh were clear proof of his instability.
"Become a monster? Ha! Ha-ha... ha-ha-ha-ha! I feel absolutely magnificent!" Muzan shrieked maniacally.
The formless mass of flesh and blood, propelled by dozens of boney tentacles, lunged madly toward Tamayo, shattering the floor beneath him into a spray of splinters.
"Muzan..." Gyomei growled, swinging his axe and chain.
As one of the most gifted Hashira, he had not only awakened his Mark and achieved the Transparent World but had even stained his weapon crimson, essentially mastering the strongest abilities available to a Demon Slayer. Yet, despite all this, he found himself unable to oppose the completely maddened Muzan!
The utterly inconsistent and insane state of the demon's flesh made it impossible to predict his movements using the Transparent World, even though Gyomei could see right through him.
Muzan attacked unpredictably, devoid of any sequence or logic. Consequently, the Stone Hashira could do nothing but remain on the defensive, unable to find an opening for a counterattack.
Ultimately, Gyomei was barely keeping pace, and only because the Transparent World allowed him to see the incoming strikes. It was only a matter of time before he was caught. Not to mention, Muzan's Blood Demon Arts were still very much in play.
If not for Tamayo repeatedly shielding the Stone Hashira from the most dangerous blows, the situation might have been even worse.
Right now.
With one powerful strike, Muzan knocked Gyomei aside and lunged at Tamayo, driven by a frantic desire to consume her entirely and finally complete his evolution.
"Become one with me, Tamayo! Then I shall become the true Progenitor of Demons... no, I shall transcend demons, conquer the sun, and become the god of this world!" Muzan roared excitedly, sprouting a seemingly infinite number of boney tentacles.
Meanwhile, Tamayo, white as a sheet, swept her hand to create a web of spatial threads and vanished instantly, reappearing dozens of meters away.
But a moment later, her expression shifted sharply. At the exact moment of her teleportation, one of the many tentacles had shot toward her location, coiling around her body like a chain.
"Come... come to me..." chanted the countless maws on the Progenitor's formless mass, rapidly closing the distance to Tamayo’s coveted flesh.
Without a second thought, she pulled on her spatial threads and moved again, but the boney tentacle stayed with her. A split second later, even more tentacles converged on her.
"Go on, serve your purpose... become one with me... repay me for turning you into a demon! Your power is mine by right!!!" Muzan bellowed, forming a massive maw from his flesh to swallow the woman in a single gulp.
The Stone Hashira tried to help, but the Progenitor was so far gone in his madness that he would rather take a hit from a Crimson Nichirin Sword than lose the chance to devour Tamayo.
But just then...
A momentary flash streaked between them.
Whoosh!
It severed no fewer than a dozen tentacles in a single stroke.
"Mmm... what is this monstrosity? Is that actually Muzan?" Makomo asked, staring curiously at the formless mass of flesh.