"Did you guys... hear a strange drumming sound?" Zenitsu, trembling nearby, seemed to have heard something.
The great fire licked at the wooden house, instantly igniting into a blaze. However, it died down just as quickly. It was as if a peculiar power coated the wooden structure, preventing the flames from spreading and catching properly.
"This is troublesome. Do I have to compete with it in terms of chakra?" Uchiha Nagi frowned. This house was strange; fire wouldn't burn it. Did he need to use an exceptionally large-scale ninjutsu to destroy it? Competing in terms of raw power was clearly unwise. Demons possessed regenerative abilities far exceeding humans, and Nagi couldn't be sure if there was an underground passage. What if he destroyed the house only for the demon to escape through a tunnel?
Before Uchiha Nagi could finish his thoughts, Tanjiro set down the wooden box, asking the two children to look after his sister, and then dashed inside.
"Ah, Tanjiro, wait for me! I'm so scared—" Zenitsu, tears streaming down his face, quickly followed.
Uchiha Nagi shook his head. Such a reckless approach. If he weren't the protagonist, he would have died countless times over. If this were the ninja world, Tanjiro might have shared the same fate as Nawaki—possessing the destiny of a protagonist, but not the luck...
To avoid losing access to Sun Breathing, Uchiha Nagi also followed. Upon entering the house, he frowned. Tanjiro, who had just entered, had already vanished. An interdimensional space? A house that shifts dimensions?
In the past, he would never have entered such a place under any circumstances. But now, with his Mangekyo Sharingan and Susanoo providing absolute defense, Uchiha Nagi was naturally fearless. Nevertheless, he cautiously created several Shadow Clones to scout ahead. There was no harm in being careful.
He cautiously entered a room, only to find that the direction of gravity was bizarrely reversed. The ground seemed to be on the ceiling. With a light jump, Uchiha Nagi adjusted to the gravity and landed steadily on the ceiling—or rather, what was now the floor for him. The demon in this house could alter directions and even change the rooms themselves...
But no matter how it changed, it was useless against Uchiha Nagi, as he could use chakra to firmly adhere to any surface.
Just as Uchiha Nagi was about to search for Tanjiro, a sinister voice echoed from the side.
"What good luck! To think there's another one with rare blood, hahahaha~"
An ugly figure walked in—a demon with eyes on its stomach and its head covered in mouths. "Hahaha, you're mine!"
It opened its blood-red maw and lunged at Uchiha Nagi to bite him. Nagi frowned; the opponent seemed to rely solely on brute force...
Boom!!
After several explosions, the muscular demon's body was blown into several pieces, while Uchiha Nagi stood calmly on the other side. It turned out Uchiha Nagi had used his Sharingan to cast a genjutsu on it, then tossed a few kunai with explosive tags attached. The demon, under the illusion, had gleefully swallowed them as if they were flesh. The explosive tags then detonated from within, blasting it apart.
"No wonder Itachi liked using genjutsu. Sometimes, dealing with someone is truly simple. No matter how strong the opponent is, as long as genjutsu is their weak point..." Uchiha Nagi muttered to himself, a certain pitiful individual named Deidara coming to mind. He possessed the power to level any village, yet he was utterly crippled by genjutsu.
"What happened? I clearly killed you! My head, how did my body shatter?" the demon asked in disbelief.
"The dead don't need to ask so many questions," Uchiha Nagi said coolly, walking up to it. He swung his short sword, severing its head from its mangled body.
"Hahaha, it's useless! Without a Nichirin Blade, you can't kill me~" The remaining head laughed maniacally, looking at Uchiha Nagi with scorn.
Uchiha Nagi grinned, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth. "It doesn't matter. You can regenerate, right? I'm also very curious if you truly have no limits..." He then swung his short sword again, dicing the still-writhing flesh into several more pieces.
"Bastard~" The male demon's face contorted with rage. Flesh began to sprout from its neck, but in the next second, Uchiha Nagi swung his blade, slicing off every newly grown part. After the second round of cutting, perhaps due to the lack of a head to command it, the demon's body stopped moving. The head, however, still struggled in Uchiha Nagi's grasp.
"Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus? I'm quite curious. If your neck is severed by an ordinary blade, will your body grow a new head, or will a new body grow from the head?" Uchiha Nagi held up the head with interest, looking into its eyes. "And then, would both of them be you? Would you fight yourself?"
Uchiha Nagi then pieced the demon's body parts together and was surprised to find that the limbs could actually reattach themselves. Such potent life force.
"You... Are you a devil?"
Dong!Dong! Dong!!
At that moment, in another room, Tanjiro was being tormented by a demon with several drums embedded in its body, pushed to the brink of life and death. Along with him, another Demon Slayer wearing a boar's head mask was also suffering.
Every time the demon struck a drum, the room would rotate. Tanjiro, unable to use chakra to cling to surfaces, could only fall repeatedly with the shifting gravity. Meanwhile, the demon, while rotating the room by beating its drums, also attacked him with invisible, sharp claws.
"Damn it, my leg... the fracture hasn't healed yet," Tanjiro gritted his teeth, the pain affecting his performance.
[Water can take any shape.]
Suddenly, the words of his Water Breathing teacher, Urokodaki Sakonji, surfaced in Tanjiro's mind.
"That's right! The ten forms of Water Breathing can adapt to any environment, even with a fractured leg!" Tanjiro had a sudden epiphany, a surge of understanding flowing through him. With a burst of fighting spirit, Tanjiro was no longer so disoriented. He continuously used Water Breathing to twist and adjust his body, even managing to parry the demon's invisible claws with his sword techniques from time to time.
The Drum Demon, Kyogai, frowned. "I need to devour that rare blood quickly. Damn insects, damn insects..." Kyogai's eyes snapped open in fury. Deep within his pupils, the characters for "Lower Six" were visible, though they were scarred with a large 'X'. He was the former Lower Rank Six, now demoted.
"Blood Demon Art—Rapid Drumming!" Kyogai's face twisted in a snarl as he began to beat the drums on his body frantically. The room started to spin wildly, and countless sharp claws followed his attacks.