Lower Rank Kamanue 22: Chapter 22: Tetsuya Kamihara vs.
Lower Rank Kamanue The sudden shift in Tetsuya’s aura immediately caught Kamanue’s attention.
‘A Hashira!’ Kamanue’s heart jolted.
Why was a demon giving him the distinct, highly dangerous feeling of a Demon Slayer Hashira?
Crack!
Tetsuya snapped an arm-thick branch off a nearby tree.
Stripping away the excess twigs and leaves, he fashioned it into a makeshift wooden sword.
Seeing this, Kamanue’s expression turned icy.
“Fighting me with a tree branch?
Don’t underestimate me!” Weighing the branch in his hand, Tetsuya replied flatly, “Drop the act.
You’re secretly relieved I’m not holding a Nichirin Sword, aren’t you?” Tetsuya’s eyes burned a deep crimson, the twin blood-red tomoe spinning lazily.
Under the Sharingan’s terrifying visual acuity, every micro-expression on Kamanue’s face was crystal clear.
Deducing his inner thoughts was a piece of cake.
Having his bluff called so effortlessly, Kamanue flew into a rage out of pure humiliation.
“I won’t let you die an easy death!” He was one of the Twelve Kizuki, an existence standing high above the masses of ordinary demons, second only to That Man and the Upper Ranks.
For some nameless stray to provoke him was pure suicide!
Both of them were demons and possessed immortal bodies, but that didn’t mean demons couldn’t kill each other.
Demons still had stamina limits.
All he needed to do was beat his opponent to a bloody pulp, wait for sunrise, and toss him into the light.
He would turn to ash just the same!
Coincidentally, Tetsuya harbored the exact same idea.
Boom!
Kamanue moved like a blur, his figure melting into the darkness as he dashed at hyper-speed, materializing right behind Tetsuya.
“So fast—watch out!” Tamayo warned aloud.
As expected of the Twelve Kizuki; he was completely different from any demon she had encountered before.
They were on entirely different levels.
Swish!
Aiming straight for Tetsuya’s head, Kamanue threw a vicious, merciless punch.
He intended to blow the kid’s head off in a single strike, but his every movement was perfectly tracked by the Sharingan.
“Flower Breathing, Fourth Form: Crimson Hanagoromo!” Spinning on his heel, Tetsuya unleashed a devastating upward-curving double slash!
The sheer ferocity of the strike instantly forced Kamanue to recall the suffocating terror of facing a Hashira.
Bang!
The two clashed.
A tree branch, no matter how sturdy, was still not a Nichirin Sword.
The front half was obliterated by Kamanue’s fist, and the fierce wind pressure from the punch pressed down on Tetsuya like invisible knives.
The tension in Kamanue’s chest eased significantly.
“Looks like you’re all talk!” “Flower Breathing, Sixth Form: Whirling Peach!” Tetsuya’s expression remained perfectly calm.
Just as the fist was about to connect, his leg muscles coiled tight.
He sprang off the ground in a flash, executing an aerial cartwheel that gracefully bypassed the punch entirely.
At the same time, he unleashed a horizontal slash.
Phantom petals danced in the air, wrapping a lethal killing intent around the strike as it crashed into Kamanue’s back.
Thud!
A heavy, muffled sound echoed as Kamanue’s back caved in deeply.
“Pfft!” Kamanue’s eyes widened in horror.
The immense shockwave scrambled his internal organs, causing him to cough up a massive mouthful of blood.
Stumbling two steps forward, he realized the truth after a single exchange.
Disbelief flooded his mind.
How could a demon this strong exist outside of the Twelve Kizuki?!
“Flower Breathing, Fifth Form: Peonies of Futility!” Tetsuya wasn’t going to let such a perfect opening slip by.
He unleashed a flurry of nine consecutive strikes from multiple angles, converging on a single point aimed squarely at Kamanue’s head.
The jagged branch jabbed forward like the layered petals of a peony.
If this move connected, Kamanue’s skull would be pulverized.
In the hands of a Hashira-level swordsman, even a mere branch could wield terrifying destructive power.
“Blood Demon Art: Divine Mechanical Transformation!” His scalp tingling with impending doom, Kamanue roared.
A bloody crimson light erupted from his skin as his flesh instantly morphed into razor-sharp barbs.
He spiked them outwards wildly, turning his entire body into a deadly human hedgehog.
Swish!
As the barbs glinted with a dangerous chill and shot toward him, Tetsuya violently launched himself backward.
He had been on guard against the enemy’s unknown Blood Demon Art the entire time.
He only ever committed seventy percent of his power to an attack, reserving the remaining thirty percent specifically to ensure he always had a path of retreat.
Creating a gap of twenty to thirty meters, Tetsuya stared intently at Kamanue.
Because this guy had been casually “downsized” by Muzan Kibutsuji in the original timeline, intel on his abilities was pitifully scarce.
Kamanue let out a cold sneer.
“You should be proud that you forced me to use my Blood Demon Art!” Following that, the barbs covering Kamanue’s body retracted back into ordinary flesh, but his arms seamlessly morphed into twin blades.
The gleaming silver steel reflected the bright moonlight, radiating an incredibly dangerous aura.
Tetsuya narrowed his eyes.
Transforming his own body into a weapon…
this guy’s Blood Demon Art was actually pretty interesting.
At the same time, Tetsuya was running into a bit of a wall himself.
After stringing together multiple Flower Breathing forms, he could clearly feel something was off.
It felt incredibly clunky.
Through Soul Manipulation: Puppeteer, he had gained Kanae Kocho’s swordsmanship and combat experience.
But he wasn’t Kanae.
His strength, speed, flexibility, and physical constitution were entirely different.
The forms of Flower Breathing were specifically tailored by Kanae, branching off from Water Breathing to perfectly suit her own body.
The exact same sword technique executed by two different people was destined to have different power outputs.
That being the case, there was no reason for him to rigidly stick to Kanae’s signature Flower Breathing.
“Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide!” Tetsuya surged forward, moving like a phantom.
He launched a multi-stage attack that rolled out like a tidal wave, the fierce slashes chasing relentlessly after Kamanue.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Kamanue and Tetsuya blurred across the street, the tree branch and the steel blades clashing repeatedly.
The crisp, ringing sounds shattered the quiet night.
Naturally, a tree branch couldn’t hope to match up to solid steel blades.
Upon closer inspection, Tetsuya wasn’t actually meeting Kamanue’s blades head-on; instead, his strikes consistently glanced off the flat sides of the blades, expertly deflecting their sharp edges.
Kamanue was absolutely furious.
“You damn monkey!” Swish!
Swinging his bladed arms like a madman, Kamanue unleashed an overwhelming barrage of blood-red slashes, completely sealing off Tetsuya’s retreat.
Tetsuya’s eyes were as calm as a stagnant pool.
His Sharingan darted rapidly, analyzing the inescapable net of blades until it found a single, narrow opening.
He slipped through with incredible agility.
In the blink of an eye, the two had exchanged dozens of blows, leaving the surrounding area scarred with the violent remnants of their clash.
Tetsuya bided his time, coldly observing the shifts in Kamanue’s temper.
“Water Breathing, Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust!” Tetsuya decided to intentionally expose a flaw in his guard.
Gripping the branch with both hands, he executed a rapid, straight-line thrust that rippled through the air like a drop of water hitting a tranquil pond.
‘My chance!’ A look of sheer joy washed over Kamanue’s face.
As long as it was a direct clash, he could chop that pathetic tree branch into splinters in seconds.
“Blood Demon Art: Dragon Crest Slash!” A wicked, feral grin twisted Kamanue’s face.
He raised his dual blade-arms high into the air and brought them down with devastating force.
“Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux!” In that exact split second, Tetsuya seamlessly changed his form.
Spiraling and surging forward like a torrential water dragon, he struck the flat sides of Kamanue’s descending blades, effortlessly deflecting them.
Kamanue’s eyes bulged in shock.
Tetsuya didn’t stop spinning.
With every continuous rotation, the momentum generated a howling gale, and the kinetic force channeled into the tree branch grew increasingly terrifying.
Boom!
The fully charged slash crashed squarely into Kamanue’s head.
The accumulated power detonated all at once, obliterating his skull like a smashed watermelon.