Kawagishi tilted his head skyward, but the blizzard had reduced the heavens to a swirling gray void. The storm churned the clouds into a shapeless mass, obliterating any trace of sun or stars. Between the tempest and his own fractured awareness—how long had he been running? hours? days?—time itself felt suspended.

  Yet the moon's pale glow still reached through, its light refracting endlessly across the crystalline snow. The landscape glittered with an eerie luminescence, brighter than any moonlit night had a right to be.

  "Demons can’t be killed except by sunlight," he recalled the village elders warning. "Even the strongest turns to ash beneath dawn’s touch."

  A shudder wracked his frame. If this storm breaks at daybreak... I’d be dead before I could blink.

  His stomach chose that moment to twist violently, a fresh wave of gnawing emptiness overriding all else. Desperate, he scooped a handful of snow into his mouth. The meltwater trickled down his throat, momentarily dulling the inferno in his gut.

  Relief lasted precisely three heartbeats.

  His abdomen convulsed—sour bile surged up his throat as the snowwater revolted against his demonic physiology. Black-tinged vomit splattered the pristine snow.

  The momentary relief vanished as Kawagishi retched violently, black bile staining the snow. The hunger roared back fiercer—a ravenous beast clawing at his insides.

  Can demons survive on anything but human flesh? His mind raced. Even immortals need energy. Without feeding... would I wither into dormancy?

  His claws dug into frozen earth. To avenge his family, he needed strength. To gain strength, he needed to eat.

  Not my kin. Never my kin. The resolve crystallized. Evildoers. Or those already slain by other demons.

  The thought of facing Tanjiro after indiscriminate slaughter made his gut churn worse than the hunger. Yet consuming even the wicked felt monstrous—an irrevocable descent.

  What if... A feverish idea sparked. What if demons could devour other demons?

  The fantasy briefly eclipsed his gnawing void. But reality reasserted itself—the howling blizzard, the featureless white hellscape swallowing his earlier tracks.

  "Can't... delay..." His voice rasped like wind through dead branches. Every cell screamed for sustenance.

  He staggered upright. Days of regeneration and flight without feeding had left him critically weakened. The scant drops of Kie’s blood he’d lapped earlier now felt like cruel taunts.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Although his demonic physique left his body unscathed—and even considerably stronger than before—in truth every single cell in Kawagishi was screaming out for nourishing energy. Without it, they’d simply go dormant until one day somehow reawakened by blood and flesh.

  Realizing that his condition was far from ideal, Kawagishi could no longer afford to stand paralyzed by thought, regret, and self-reproach.

  “I need to find some [food] to satiate my hunger—and a safe haven to shelter from the sunlight.”

  Unable to discern any direction in the featureless white wasteland, he had no choice but to choose a direction at random. As he briskly moved forward—musing over his next steps—his pace was little more than a light jog by human standards.

  Even a newly turned demon, though weakened by lack of sustenance, still possessed a body far superior to that of an ordinary human. After all, demons are predators who feast on human flesh.

  While on the move, Kawagishi silently kept count. After about half an hour of such brisk walking, he suddenly halted. A slight twitch of his nose was all it took before his eyes were suddenly filled with countless strands of blood shot across them.

  He drew a deep, icy breath, letting the chill air fill his lungs before his raging mind finally calmed down. That familiar sensation allowed him, with great effort, to suppress the dark cravings stirring within.

  “Phew.”

  “This scent… it’s blood…”

  “And there’s also an aroma that’s savage, brutal, chaotic… It must be a demon.”

  After all, being of the same family generally meant sharing similar innate talents. Tanjiro’s sense of smell had long since reached the point where he could detect a person’s emotions. Although not as acute as Tanjiro’s, Kawagishi’s own sense of smell had always been far superior to that of a normal human.

  Now, as a demon—with his bodily functions significantly enhanced—his once keen sense of smell had become even more sensitive. Though still not quite on par with Tanjiro in his prime, it now vaguely rivaled the acuity Tanjiro had as a child…

  “Demon!”

  Kawagishi suddenly clenched his fist, his sharp nails digging deep into his flesh. Yet, in that moment, he completely ignored the searing pain.

  Before Muzan’s appearance, Kawagishi’s head had already sustained a severe blow from the black-haired demon. In that state of near-fatal injury, he hadn’t even caught a clear glimpse of Muzan’s face—only a vague sense of his presence.

  “That man turned me into a demon, but I can sense that I don’t have the ability to turn others into demons.”

  “Does that mean only he can create demons, or rather, that only a specific group of demons can beget others?”

  “But no matter what, a being who can create demons must be exceedingly rare…”

  “Better to act on that idea for now.”

  Kawagishi’s suspicions were almost certainly correct—only Muzan Kibutsuji possessed the power to create demons.

  “Just you wait. One day, I’ll find you.”

  At that moment, Kawagishi made up his mind: he would seek out the nearby demon. It wasn’t solely the cloying scent of blood that spurred him on; more than that, he needed to find traces of Muzan.

  In Kawagishi’s view, Muzan and demons were inevitably connected. By relentlessly tracking any signs of demons, he was sure he’d eventually glean some information about Muzan.

  There was a certain legacy of knowledge embedded in demonic blood—a legacy that also explained why Kawagishi himself lacked the ability to create demons. In the moment he was transformed, he came to understand the very nature of demons: an insatiable greed for human flesh and an unending thirst for slaughter. No matter how kind and harmless a person might have been in life, once turned into a demon, all traces of human goodness would twist into something monstrous…

  Savage brutality was the very essence of a demon.

  Yet Kawagishi felt that, unlike other demons, he was somehow different. Although he still craved flesh, his human rationality and memories had not entirely faded. To some extent, he could still resist his baser instincts.