Chapter 306

Butterfly Shinobu gazed at Ron beside her, a flicker of curiosity flashing through her violet eyes.

This man was like a shroud of mist... just how many more secrets was he hiding?

Ron looked at Tanjiro and smiled. "You asked me earlier how I knew about you. Actually, there's a certain fate that ties the two of us together."

Tanjiro blinked in surprise. "... Eh?"

Ron pointed at the Hinokami Kagura earring on his ear and grinned. "Besides that earring, Yoriichi Tsugikuni also passed down another important thing to your ancestors, which has been carried on through the generations by the Kamado family. That is..."

"That is...?"

Tanjiro stared at him intently, unable to stop himself from swallowing hard.

Shinobu and Kanao also watched Ron with curiosity.

Ron took a leisurely sip of sake. "That would be the so-called Primordial Breathing, the origin of all Breathing techniques—the strongest Breathing style created by Yoriichi Tsugikuni himself: Sun Breathing."

The atmosphere instantly fell silent.

"The strongest... Breathing technique?"

Shinobu and Kanao were utterly shocked.

Tanjiro's eyes went wide. "Sun... Breathing?!"

"That's right." Ron nodded. "Yoriichi Tsugikuni was born with an innate understanding of the principles behind Breathing techniques. After reaching adulthood, he applied those principles to create his own Sun Breathing. Later, when he tried to pass it on to others, he found that they couldn't master Sun Breathing the way he could—they couldn't withstand its overwhelming power. So he adapted the original Sun Breathing and taught it to the Demon Slayers of that era, developing the five fundamental styles: Water, Thunder, Flame, Stone, and Wind. From those five, countless other derivative styles with their own unique traits were born."

At this point, Ron took another sip of sake and smiled at the three of them. "You could say Sun Breathing is the origin of all Breathing techniques, encompassing the entire system. Moreover, Sun Breathing radiates the same power as the sun itself, which is why the swordsmanship derived from it deals tremendous damage to demons. I think it's fair to call it the strongest Breathing technique, don't you?"

The three of them were completely stunned by his words, their faces filled with awe.

Tanjiro stammered, "B-b-but I've never even learned any Sun Breathing! My father was just an ordinary—"

Before he could finish, something seemed to dawn on him, and he froze.

Was his father... really just an ordinary person?

"To prevent Sun Breathing from being lost, Yoriichi Tsugikuni modified it and wove it into the ancestral ritual dance of the Kamado family, passing it down in secret."

Ron smiled at Tanjiro. "Hinokami Kagura is Sun Breathing."

Upon hearing Ron's words,

Tanjiro was completely dumbfounded.

Of course he knew what Hinokami Kagura was.

The image of his frail father dancing ceaselessly in the heavy snow, witnessed with his own eyes as a child, was still vivid in his mind.

Shinobu, seeing the look on Tanjiro's face, understood that everything Ron had said was true, not mere words.

Ron gently set the sleeping Nezuko on his lap down onto the grass beside him, picked up a nearby branch, stood up, and smiled at Tanjiro, who was still trapped in his shock.

"The reason I said we were fated is because... you and I are both users of Sun Breathing."

"Those who walk the same path share the same destination."

"Since I've come to this world, let it be my way of repaying the bond forged through Sun Breathing. Tanjiro, I'll make you strong—strong as Yoriichi Tsugikuni was in his prime, blessed by the gods themselves. Then you can take his place, finish what he couldn't—killing Kibutsuji Muzan—and end this thousand-year fate."

At this moment, Ron stood casually, a gourd of sake in one hand and a withered branch in the other.

But in Tanjiro's eyes, he seemed like a mountain shrouded in mist, its peak invisible.

He radiated an overwhelming presence that even made Shinobu feel a touch of suffocation.

Ron took a sip of sake, looked down at Tanjiro with an impassive expression, and pointed the withered branch in his hand at the Nichirin blade resting beside him.

"Come on."

Under the crushing weight of that presence, Tanjiro stared up at those calm blue eyes gazing down at him, his heart trembling violently.

A fear he had never felt before rose within him, plunging him into an icy abyss.

It was... the fear of death.

The campfire flickered.

The forest was utterly silent.

"What's wrong? Hurry up and grab your blade and stand. Don't you want to get stronger?"

Ron spoke again, his voice calm yet carrying a chilling, heart-pounding pressure.

Tanjiro swallowed hard, forced down the terror in his chest, and reached for the Nichirin blade beside him.

His hand was trembling.

"Huh? Am I... really this cowardly?"

Tanjiro noticed this and couldn't help feeling confused. When he had been fighting powerful demons, with his life hanging by a thread, he hadn't felt this afraid—so why now...?

With trembling hands, he gripped the Nichirin blade, slowly rose to his feet, and stood before Ron, gazing up at the unfathomable young man in black.

I see...

I understand now...

Tanjiro tightened his grip on the Nichirin blade.

Demons were powerful, but as long as he gave it everything he had, there was still a chance of victory.

But...

Tanjiro gripped the hilt of his Nichirin blade with both hands, cold sweat streaming down his forehead, staring fixedly at Ron and those indifferent eyes looking down at him.

The person standing before me now is someone I absolutely cannot defeat as I am right now... a monster!

Ron took a sip from his Infinite Sake Gourd in his left hand, raised the withered branch in his right toward Tanjiro, and said casually, "Come on. Come at me with everything you've got."

Having already sensed the gap between them, Tanjiro didn't hesitate for a moment.

He pushed off the ground, dashed swiftly in front of Ron, and swung his black Nichirin blade in a clean, straight slash aimed at Ron.

Water Breathing, First Form.

Water Surface Slash!

He watched the slash coming at him, as if carrying a stream of blue water along its edge.

"Too slow."

Luo En said flatly.

His body tilted slightly to one side, and the dead branch in his hand shot toward Tanjiro's throat at extreme speed, like a streak of grey light, utterly merciless.

"So—so fast!"

Tanjiro's hair stood on end.

He hurriedly leaned his body back, barely dodging that thrust, but a bloody gash was still cut across his neck.

Luo En looked down at Tanjiro, who had fallen on his backside onto the ground, raised the dead branch in his hand—which looked as though it would snap in half at the slightest bend—and said to him with an utterly calm expression: "Focus your spirit. Don't think about when to use the sword technique, or which move of the sword technique to use. Instead, leave everything to your body to judge. Fight on instinct. If you can't do that… you might really die, you know."

Tanjiro stared at him, his pupils contracting sharply.

He smelled it.

That sentence… was not a lie!

16. Training, Parting

Within the mountain forest at night.

Tanjiro forcibly suppressed the fear in his heart and the pressure of that invisible aura, and, driven by his longing to grow stronger, swung his blade at Luo En.

"Water Breathing, Fourth Form."

Striking Tide!

Facing Tanjiro's multi-stage assault crashing toward him like a tide, Luo En's figure flickered. The dead branch in his hand became a streak of grey light, stabbing again and again at the weakest points of the attacks, making Tanjiro feel it was extremely strenuous.

Luo En, while holding the dead branch and attacking Tanjiro, said to him: "Water Breathing emphasizes a mind free of distracting thoughts, an inner stillness like still water—only then can it unleash its greatest power."

Tanjiro struggled to swing the Nichirin Blade in his hands to block attacks as violent as a raging storm.

He was forced to retreat again and again.

The clothes on his body were also slashed open in gash after gash by that dead branch, whose speed was bizarrely fast and whose trajectory was unfathomably changeable.

Kanako, watching from the side, asked softly: "Why… can't it be cut?"

"Because he never actually landed a cut in the first place…"

Shinobu watched the two men's sparring, her purple eyes slightly widened, filled with shock and amazement.

She had never seen swordsmanship like this.

It was simply like a heavenly steed soaring through the sky.

Unrestrained, ever-changing, exhausting the marvels of swordsmanship, reaching a realm that transcended ordinary imagination.

It was simply… inconceivable!

The dead branch in Luo En's hand stabbed into Tanjiro's shoulder, sending him flying backward, and at the same time, he also stopped that fierce, continuous assault.

A flash of light gleamed in Tanjiro's eyes.