Spirits of the Deceased

Watching from the site of the split boulder, the spirits Sabito and Makomo wonder whether the boy they trained can prevail. The towering demon, meanwhile, learns from Tanjiro that the era has changed twice since its imprisonment and rages that it has been trapped so long. It curses Sakonji Urokodaki by name, revealing that the old man sealed it on the mountain decades earlier.

The creature boasts that it has endured by consuming roughly fifty selection applicants over the years. Counting on its many fingers, it names Tanjiro as the fourteenth student of Sakonji it has met, having already eaten the previous thirteen. It singles out two it recalls clearly: a powerful boy with a scarred mouth and a small, swift girl, admitting it tore the latter apart when she lost her composure.

Realizing the demon killed Sabito and Makomo, Tanjiro lunges in a frenzy, hacking wildly at its many arms. Sabito's spirit urges him to settle his breathing rather than fight on raw fury. A stray arm slams Tanjiro into a tree and shatters his warding mask, while the applicant he had saved flees. On the edge of death, Tanjiro glimpses a vision of his brother Shigeru begging him to wake.

Steadying himself, he dodges the grasping limbs, surprising the demon, and headbutts a massive arm aside. The creature stays confident, recalling that its neck once resisted even Sabito's blade. Tanjiro closes the distance, perceives the opening thread, and cuts cleanly through the giant neck with the First Form of Water Breathing.

The chapter confirms the Hand Demon as the oldest and strongest foe of Final Selection, the killer of thirteen of Urokodaki's pupils. It ties Tanjiro directly to the deaths of his teachers Sabito and Makomo, lending fresh weight to his fight.

By felling the demon despite a broken mask and overwhelming odds, Tanjiro all but secures his survival of the trial, demonstrating how far his training under Urokodaki has carried him and reinforcing the lesson that a demon's strength scales with the lives it has taken.