To the Flames of the Sun

Chapter Seventeen

This CUTIE PATOOTIE😭😭

Tanjiro's POV

Twisting whirlpool- Flowing water!

The twisting barricade of water that swirled around me easily managed to intercept the arrows being thrown by the Arrow demon, but my sword felt so heavy. I couldn't stop now.

Second form, improved: Lateral water wheel!

I couldn't stop now, I couldn't stop now, I couldn't- The water wheel sliced right through the head of the Arrow demon and I wa thrust back into the air by the force of the water wheel.

"Damn! Curse you! Curse you! Curse you!"

I collapsed to the ground and lifted my head to lock eyes with the demon whose head had also collapsed to the ground, with an eyeball popping out from its socket.

"All I had to do was bring you to him and I would've won his approval! I'll never forgive you!"

By 'him', I could easily guess that he was referring to his ultimate boss, the Demon King. But bring me to him? As in capture me for him? Well, if he and his associate, that Temari demon, were really attempting to capture me alive, then they had done a pretty bad job at it so far. But only if they were attempting to capture me alive. If their king had told them that he didn't care whether they brought back my living body or not, then they had obviously tried to achieve the latter. Still, something somehow didn't seem to add up.

Especially when I recalled how I had seen the Demon King up close only about an hour ago and he had talked some strange nonsense about my bloodline existed because of him and how the hanafuda earrings, my father's pride and joy, were a gift from him and whatnot. None of that made sense and none of the Arrow demon's words made sense. My eyes slightly widened. Were they all in on this act? Had they all conjured up some type of sadistic script to mess with my head and distract me from my mission?

"Shoving my face into this vile dirt!"

The demon yelled once more and I slowly pulled my body to sit up. Well, it wasn't my fault he and his companion had destroyed Lady Tamayo's mansion and taken the fight instead. If they hadn't done that, then his face would have probably been shoved into the polished floor of the house.

"You're going down with me!"

Now I became fully alert once more, steadily inching my own fingers towards my sword on noticing that the demon's hands had begun to shake as well. This was the concerning part. All the previous few demons I'd dealt with till now had more or less, immediately disintegrated into thin air after being slain. This demon, however, was continuing to talk and even move other parts of his body despite his head being severed from his neck, and the sight was disturbing to watch, to say the least.

And that was how, even before I could make any move of my own, the Arrow demon had impaled many of his deadly arrows through my whole body.

And then I was getting pulled and pushed around by a force stronger than the arrows he'd hit me with! The only way for me to save myself from getting smashed against a tree or the ground itself was to go on the defensive by unleashing move after move. But I had never made so many consecutive strikes in one go!

Fourth form: Striking tide! To slash the tree I was about to be smashed into.

Second form: Lateral water wheel, waterfall basin! To slice through the goddamn roof of the house I was about to be smashed into

No, I had definitely made so many consecutive strikes in one go! What made it worse was that the pressure of those red arrows constantly following me was bearing down on my body and I was barely being able to move my sword to even make a strike.