The battlefield was quiet in the way only devastation could demand. Craters pocked the earth like celestial scars, and the air shimmered with residual energy—cosmic, volatile, and wrong. A broken katana lay half-buried in the dirt, its blade still humming faintly with the last breath of its wielder.

Tanjiro Kamado groaned, his body refusing to rise. Blood streaked his face, mixing with the dirt beneath him. His sword arm trembled, fingers twitching toward the hilt he could no longer grasp. Above him, stars flickered unnaturally in the sky, as if the heavens themselves were watching with bated breath.

Then the ground pulsed.

A shadow fell across Tanjiro’s body, unmoving, resolute. The pulse came again, this time from the blade you held. It sang with a frequency that bent the air, a soundless scream that made the stars recoil. The sword’s edge glowed faintly, a vein of pale blue light running down its center like a frozen river.

The demon ahead snarled, its form shifting like smoke and starlight. It had devoured hundreds before breakfast. It had bent gravity to its will. But now, it hesitated.

Because you were still standing.