As the sound of Nik unsheathing his blade fell on the demon's ears, its focused, wrathful eyes focused on their direction before his pupils dilated while all the rage hidden behind his yellow, cruel gaze retracted, giving a way for amusement to resurface.

"Ah... Urokodaki... that mask... hehehe, you are his disciples, aren't you? Kukuku

What number does it make you two?"

The demon chuckled hoarsely while the duo frowned. To know of Sakonji Urokodaki meant that this demon was imprisoned here by Sakonji himself, and looking at its unstable state, Nik was forced to reckon that maybe... just maybe...

Sakonji's shyness on bidding farewell wasn't all that welcomed by the demon when it was left here all alone.

"What... What are you saying? Demon!"

Tanjiro roared, not for anything else but just to give himself the courage to at least move without staying stuck in one position.

"Ah... I remember one fox... he left an impression on me... soft pink hair, a large scar on the side of his face.

There was also one little girl... quite a swift one."

The demon cackled while Tanjiro's eyes were growing bloodshot. Now, it wasn't about just encouraging himself to move, Nik felt that the demon had gone a little bit personal with Tanjiro when he mentioned the two. Maybe his past acquaintances?

Nik had already closed his distance towards Tanjiro and spoke loud enough for him to hear.

"Don't listen to him. Losing your focus is definitely not what the Master taught us."

"You don't understand Nik-san... this demon killed... this demon has been killing off all of Master's disciple.

The one that trained me... they were all killed by him."

Although Tanjiro's statement held many questionable facts, Nik decided to ignore them and looked at the demon, whose yellow pupils showed a sadist's emotion as it continued.

"She was so angry... when she lost her focus, I ripped her from limb to limb—"

"You ripped a girl?"

A blade sliced past one of the hands as a shower of blood erupted accompanied with the demon's scream as Tanjiro woke up from his dazed rage and looked towards his right and didn't find Nik.

"Sakonji's disciple at that... this means... my elder apprentice... 

This is the kind of thing, you should never speak of... not in front of me.

Nik whispered while holding the squirming green hand as it slowly turned into dust while Nik smiled softly.

"Lest you find a blade stuck within your throat, ripping your entire body into shreds."

"Bastard! It hurts! You— you'll be the fourteenth and that kid will be the fifteenth!"

Nik's smile only grew wider as he brandished his Nichirin sword.

"Didn't I tell you? Stop saying such a stupid thing. You killed them? Funny. Didn't Tanjiro just say that they trained him?"

Nik shot towards the demon while Tanjiro also took the chance and shot from the opposite direction, flanking the demon as the green monster roared while multiple hands shot towards the both of them.

'Second Style: Water Wheel!'

Both of them roared within their hearts and in tandem, rotated their body while creating a wheel of water that cut through any demonic hand. The continued their path towards the demon's neck while it suddenly laughed and dozens of hands shot out from the ground, appearing in front of the duo.

While Tanjiro had to attack the hands with the blunt side of his blade, Nik gritted his teeth while veins popped across multiple parts of his body as a small dagger formed from tidal waves appeared within his hands.

With this, his Hamon was almost exhausted, but throwing the dagger instantly reduced a small circular region within the arms to be morphed into nothing but ashes.

If it had been an ordinary demon, the fight would have been over, but the vitality of the demon was way too high to be extinguished. Although the demon squealed in rage, Nik still reached towards his head and slashed at his neck.

And once again, the demon's eyes turned into slits of pure joy, after all, the sword wouldn't budge through the hands that were wrapped across the demon's neck. Tanjiro's eyes widened in surprise. Although his back had been thrashed against a tree, he was still able to stand back up quickly.

"Keke, got you, number fourteenth."

The demon's soft cackle couldn't even compare to Nik's whisper as he licked his lips softly while his eyes turned gentle.

"Your neck isn't your only weak point, bitch."

A dagger made of blue lightning struck against the demon's left eye while the hands that were already upon Nik punched him viciously, sending him flying.

"Kuhaaa! Noo! This... can't happen!!!!"

A shrill scream erupted from the maws of the demon as cruel, lightning Hamon filled his head, slowly crumbling his entire brainpower into nothing but ashes.

'Oh, well...'

Nik shrugged at the demon's maddened scream while Tanjiro quickly made his way towards Nik, helping him up and looking at the demon. Since the lightning Hamon was raging chaos within the demon, there was no obvious indicator of the attack on the surface save for the bloody eye.

"It should be dead... but for confirmation's sake, we should wait here for some time."

Nik spoke softly as the slowly disintegrating body fell on the ground. Meanwhile, Tanjiro looked at the demon with hatred, but soon regained his composure. 

"So? You are now training with ghosts?"

Nik questioned with twitching lips while blood naturally flowed from the corner of his lips while Tanjiro smiled sheepishly.

"How would I have known that? It's not like they had a board or something..."

Nik nodded at his words and then looked at the demon. Although it was clear that the demon won't live, Nik still decided to stay nearby in the hiding. Meanwhile, he sent Tanjiro to grab some game and took the chance to finally eat his [Ripe Peach ×2 (G)].

It was a green grade item that he had purchased for 3000 SO each before he had left the system. The item healed 10%of his injuries and also reduced any sort of status effect and built-up fatigue. With his vitality, even he would take a few days to get healthy.

Of course, during this time, he made an astonishing discovery.

The rest of the nights were finally cleared with Tanjiro's assistance who would take care of Nik with a concern befitting a parent, once again, triggering some sort of unknown feeling that made Nik startle internally. 

Because what he felt wasn't any sort of positive feeling, but it felt like some sort of suppressed disgust against the care... no, the concern he received.

And honestly, Nik couldn't make any heads or tails about the situation, often leaving him in some sort of dazed situation.

Finally, after what felt like months, the seven-night condition had been cleared and the duo finally made their way towards the area filled with wisteria flowers that would make any Demon faint just by the sheer quantity of the flowers.

Once again, what greeted their sight was two twins, the same ones, a black-haired boy and a white-haired girl, not that anybody could tell. But the number of Trainees... no, the number of passed contestants were quite low when compared to the number of Trainees that entered the selection.

Once again, in perfect synchronisation, the two twins smiled softly and spoke with a little bit of passion within their voice.

"Congratulations, all the demon slayers gathered.

We will now inform you about certain core information."

Meanwhile, Nik also sent his own query to Brian.

[Why didn't you tell me about the methods which can increase our stats without any stat points?]