Demon Slayer : The Silent Journey

Chapter 66: Seiji vs Gyomei

[Seiji's POV]

Imagine seeing a disaster coming from a mile away.

Imagine having all the time in the world to think of a way to fight against said disaster.

Imagine preparing a plan and acting perfectly on it.

Imagine the disaster holding back.

But then.

Imagine being sent flying away after all that.

Imagine all your efforts being crushed by overwhelming strength.

Imagine seeing a disaster from a mile away and still being absolutely crushed by it.

It did not matter if you saw it coming from a mile away. It did not matter if you could predict it perfectly or if the world was in slow motion.

You still got blasted away to kingdom come.

Might makes it right and raw strength bends logic.

...

...

If you were still imagining all these in your head, then lucky you. Because truthfully, I was not as lucky.

*BOOOOM!!!*

'Holy shit!!' I thought in my mind while being sent flying away like a ragdoll by a simple palm strike from Gyomei.

It was one thing to know strength, and another to feel strength.

I knew how strong Gyomei was, I trained with him and my eyes told me exactly how strong he was. But to feel that strength being used against me was like being sent to a new dimension.

I knew he could push boulders weighing 10 tons. But that was starkly different when you were pushed with the force of 10 tons.

The difference between knowledge and experience had never been clearer to me.

'But would you lose?' a voice asked me in my head.

'Nah, this meme is seriously overused at this point.' I replied while doing flips in the air to disperse the sheer kinetic energy flowing through my body.

Then I landed with a soft thud.

The shockwave caused by his strike was noticed by everyone as they all moved back and gave us room for the upcoming battle.

"I understand Seiji. You are at that age where you want to test your strength and see how you stand against someone you consider the strongest. But you have to understand that this is meaningless. We are all allies and we are equally strong in our own ways." Gyomei said while joining his hands in prayer. He also spoke like a monk.

I smiled.

Although the way he spoke was humble, there was an underlying pride and confidence you would expect from the strongest human alive.

You can't lie to me, I'm deaf and I see the truth.

He was still treating me like a kid who merely wanted to test myself against him. The thought that I could have surpassed him never really crossed his mind.

This was exactly why I wanted to do this.

My eyes can see the truth of the world and the truth is, I was already stronger than Gyomei. So this was not fighting to me.

There was no such thing as fighting to me in the first place. This was not a fight, this was not a battle or a duel.

This was just me, speaking the truth to everyone and telling them that I was the strongest.

This was not a conversation, this was not a debate. It was an announcement.

"Esoteric Art : Breathing Styles."

"Flame Wind Breathing : Inferno."

My whole body was encased in raging flames and green blades of wind wrapped around me. Fire and wind went together like bread and butter.

The intensity of Flame Breathing and the violent nature of Wind Breathing. A mix between these two resulted in a catastrophic style of fighting.

It was a breathing style with the greatest destructive ability.

Gyomei was the mountain I wanted to crush.

My body exploded out, ferocious and violent. The air seemed to vibrate due to sheer potency as I drilled through the atmosphere.

There was no need to aim, no use for accuracy. I was going to shred everything that was in front of me. I was going to raze the mountain to the ground.

Gyomei planted his feet firmly on the ground when he heard the unstoppable force behind me. Then he took a deep breath that stripped the air around him.

"Stone Breathing : Third Form,"

Gyomei, a mountain in my eyes suddenly became something else. He no longer gave off the feeling of a mountain that was giant with no purpose.

I saw the image of a great fortress behind him that stood with the sole purpose of stopping any attack. He had become an immovable object.

"Stone Skin!!"

He tugged at the chain of his weapon with great force. The flail and the axe at both ends of his chain moved at the speed of sound and rotated around him.

They were so fast that the human eye wouldn't be able to see them. Such heavy objects moving at such speed simply did not make sense.

But I pushed forward with more intensity, the flames around me wrapped into bright red flames as I crashed into the living fortress.

And thus, an unstoppable force met an immovable object.

Have you ever wondered what would happen in such a case?

Well...

*BOOOOOOOOOM!!!*

There was a loud explosion that shook the entire vicinity,

Then everything except the two suffered the consequences of the clash. The pavement of the Demon Slayer Headquater ripped apart like a new asphalt road.

Cobweb of cracks scarred the earth, imprinting a literal image of power that the earth couldn't hold. The air exploded and the wind fled from the clash in the form of a hurricane.

Gyomei's white eyes widened and I could see surprise in those blind orbs.

It was not a single clash. My arm blurred and with incredible speed, I slashed at Gyomei from different directions. The Stone Hashira was not as fast but with the help of his axe and flai, he was able to keep up with me.

A cloud of dust and pebbles rose and our weapons created bright sparks with every connection they made. We remained at a standstill for a few seconds until Gyomei took a step back.

The fortress faltered.

But that single step gave a new footing to him. Bulbous veins popped out from his body and raw strength flooded out from each of his swings.

The attacks forced me to stop my attack because I saw that the force behind them was enough to bend my sword.

...

Gyomei heaved a huge sigh while his clothes fell apart. They were ripped by the wind blades produced by my sword.

His clothes came off to reveal his godly physique. His huge muscles looked like they were carved from stone.

But on his body, you could see cuts. They were not enough to penetrate his skin but enough to leave a mark, a scratch.

"You manage to use two breathings at once," Gyomei said with a heavy voice. The other Hashiras let out a collective gasp and they turned towards me.

They could not see the effects of breathing styles and they did not have eyes to see the pattern of my breathing. So all this time, they were not aware of my ability.

But Gyomei could hear my breath and he saw the world with a different perspective that allowed him to observe things on a deeper level.

"Indeed. It's nice no?" I asked with a smile.

"It is truly an impressive feat. And what you used just now was..." he questioned.

"Flame Breathing and Wind Breathing," I answered.

He nodded.

"You have become a master of breathing style itself." he declared, "But that won't be enough to move me. I had stood against fiercer force, I had burdened worse."

Then he took the initiative this time. He took a powerful step forward, sending shockwaves which I assumed helped him feel the world around him.

Like a bat using echolocation.

He was slow, the slowest amongst us Hashiras. But one didn't need to be fast when they had such weight behind every move. They would crush anything regardless.

Inevitable need not hurry.

"Stone Breathing : Second Form," he declared loudly and boldly. He tossed his spiky ball into the air before stepping on the chain to bring it down with the speed of a meteorite.

"Upper Smash!"

He might be slow but his weapon was anything but. They moved like a whip, easily breaking the sound barrier.

I moved away just enough that the flail missed me and left a crater on the ground. He did the same with his axe, throwing it in the air before stepping on the chain to bring it down with incredible speed.

The ground broke under his attack.

But I remained unharmed.

Even if I was weaker than him, I wouldn't lose. I could predict his attacks, he would never be able to catch me.

I shot forward at the speed of sound, I hoped the sonic boom messed with his hearing even if just for a bit.

"Thunder Breathing : Third Form." I unleashed multiple slashes at him from all directions. Lighting crackled around me with each swing I took.

"Thunder Swarm."

The Stone Hashira met me head-on. He was more than capable of matching one breathing style at a time. My incredible speed was matched by his overwhelming strength as we clashed in different places.

My eyes observed his joints and muscles to predict his movement, giving me enough time to deal with his attacks even if each of them weighed a ton.

But with each clash, I noticed that he was slowly overpowering me, like a boulder rolling off a mountain, he was gaining strength and momentum.

It was repetitive action, the main concept behind Gyomei's strength. By applying persistent force against an object, you could move mountains. I learned it so I knew it.

I would lose my advantage in a drawn-out battle.

So with a great leap, I created distance.

"Thunder Stone Breathing : Arc of Ruin."

I declared and the muscles on my arm enlarged visibly, ready to produce inhumane stregth even at the cost of great fatigue.

The sheer strength of Stone Breathing mixed with the explosive power of Thunder Breathing.

I pulled back my blade as far as I could and when I landed on the ground, I swung my sword. The force behind my swing was so strong that it sliced anything that was in front of me.

My long blade sliced through the air, and not a single noise sounded. But the strength behind my blade was such that Gyomei could feel the attack coming.

He brought up his chain to block the attack but it might as well be paper in front of my blade. His iron chain was cut into two and he was forced to bend down his gigantic frame to escape the wind blade that followed.

*FWOOOSH!!!*

The ground cracked, ripped apart by the sheer potency of my wind blade that went on until it left a giant slash mark on one of the houses.

That was supposed to end this fight but I suppose Gyomei was too experienced to be taken out just like that.

But still, forcing him to dodge was an accomplishment.

He flashed me a smile with beads of sweat falling from the side of his face.

He was not shocked, humiliated or angry when he was forced to dodge. He simply had a proud smile on his face. The kind of smile my big brother would have when I beat him in a board game.

"Stone Breathing : Fourth From." He said and the suction of air was strong enough to move my hair.

"Volcanic Rock, Rapid Conquest,"

I said this before, but Gyomei was a mountain.

And that mountain just exploded like a volcanic eruption. My eyes widened as every fibre of his body pulled themselves together until I thought they would snap due to the strain.

Humans could not use 100% of their muscle mass. Their body could not take it. Their bones would break and their tendons would snap.

Even I could only use 100% of my muscle power briefly with the help of Thunder Breathing.

But right now, Gyomei was doing just that. Yet his bones were not crushed, and his tendons did not snap. He was fine.

His body was heating up to a ridiculous degree and his sweat evaporated, producing steam. He was like a real volcano that was erupting.

The sheer power and energy around him seem to shake the air itself.

That..I was not expecting that at all. Even my eyes could not have predicted this outcome because it was just impossible.

He grabbed the broken chains with both hands. I could barely predict his movement because all of his muscles were working and tensing up.

I knew I had to end this in an instant.

"Esoteric Art : Breathing Styles!!" I prepared my body to surpass its limit as well.

"Storm Breathing : Lighting Wave,"

The speed of Thunder Breathing. The accuracy of Water Breathing. The force of Wind Breathing.

All of these boiled down into a single move. My body left an afterimage and before anything could react, I blitzed past Gyomei and stopped at the other side.

The sound created by the attack was so high-pitched that no one except Gyomei could hear it. The frequency of the vibration from the sound caused every glass nearly to shatter in an instant.

...

...

...

Gyomei halted in his place and after a single second, the prayer beads he wore on his neck broke and fell off.

The prayer beads hit the ground one by one but other than that, he was unharmed. I made sure he was so.

I remained in my place. Not to look cool - even though it was - but because I literally could not move after using three breathings at once. My body still could not handle it.

On the other hand, Gyomei stood up straight and he declared.

"I lost."

If I wanted to, I could've cut off his head at that moment.

And thus, at the age of 16, I officially became the strongest Hashira.

To be honest, it took more effort than I thought it would.

..

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Alternative title : Blind man vs Deaf man : The battle of disability.

Gyomei : This Stone Hashira humbly demand stones for his fight, amithaba.

[IMAGE]

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Author: Yeah, there is no way to list out all of Seiji's special movements. Fighting is like a conversation, he could literally adapt to anything he faced so all these forms are too many to list out.

And even if we did, he could create a new form on the fly because he is just that OP.

And regarding his power level. He is already at the same combat power as Upper Moon 3 but he would lose because of the demon OP regeneration.

But with Combat powers alone, he can even overwhelm them except Muzan and Kokushibo.

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Emmanuel_Capricorn