One Piece: Dungeon Shop. Scamming Garp, Reward: Eight-Tails Jinchuriki-Chapter 348: Descent into the Infinity Castle!

Chapter 348: Chapter 348: Descent into the Infinity Castle!

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Chapter 348: Descent into the Infinity Castle!

Brulee’s voice was a high-pitched, ragged scream, but it held a power that silenced the room. She lunged forward, her small hand stinging as it slapped Perospero’s arm away from Katakuri.

"Brulee?! What is the meaning of this?!" Perospero clutched his hand, staring at his sister in pure shock. "Have you lost your mind too?"

"If loving my brother is madness, then I am insane!" Brulee shrieked, positioning herself in front of the massive Katakuri like a shield. She looked tiny, like an ant protecting a giant, but her presence was immovable.

"He’s done enough! He’s bled enough! He’s spent his whole life being ’Perfect’ so the rest of us didn’t have to feel the sting of Mama’s laughter! Can’t you see he’s drowning?!"

Brulee turned around, looking up at the man who had always been her sky. Tears carved tracks through the dust on her face.

"Brother, I heard it all. I was in the mirrors... I heard the shopkeeper. You don’t have to be the Perfect Masterpiece anymore. Not for me. Not for this scar. I don’t care if the whole world laughs at us, as long as you can finally breathe!"

Katakuri stood frozen. He looked at his sister—at the scar he had blamed himself for every single day of his life. He instinctively reached for his scarf, wanting to hide his "monstrous" mouth, to protect her from the sight of the very thing that started their tragedy.

"Don’t you dare hide!" Brulee shouted, her voice breaking. "If I were the one who turned into a monster... if I were the one bleeding in the snow... would you have left me? No! So why are you trying to carry this hell alone?!"

Brulee wiped her face with her sleeve and turned to Blake. Her eyes burned with a fire that eclipsed her fear.

"Boss Blake! That dungeon... that world called [Demon Slayer]. I am going with him!"

The tavern erupted into murmurs. Even Blake set his coffee down, a look of genuine intrigue crossing his features.

"It is a world of slaughter, Brulee. There are no mirrors to hide in there. You could very well die. Knowing that, do you still wish to follow?"

"I’m going!" Brulee’s answer was a steel strike. "I don’t care about the demons or the hell. As long as I am with my brother, I am already home! If we are to die, we will die together, free of that woman!"

"Brulee..."

Katakuri slowly knelt down, his massive frame creaking. For the first time in thirty years, the "Perfect Man" let his guard fall. He reached out and ruffled her hair, his touch clumsy but filled with a depth of love that words couldn’t reach.

"It is the path of Shura," he whispered, his voice no longer a commander’s growl, but a brother’s promise. "It will hurt."

"I’ve lived with pain my whole life," Brulee whispered back, leaning into his hand. "I’m not afraid."

"Good."

Katakuri stood. The air around him didn’t just vibrate; it seemed to scream. His Haki surged, but it was no longer a cold, suppressing weight. It was a golden, incandescent flame of defiance. He took Brulee’s hand in his own, his grip firm.

"Let’s go. We’re going to tear that world apart until we find what we’re looking for!"

WOOON—!

A pillar of absolute, obsidian light descended from the ceiling, engulfing them. In the final fraction of a second, before they vanished into the code of the dungeon, the tavern saw it—Katakuri’s scarf had slipped. For the first time, his mouth was visible.

He wasn’t scowling. He was grinning.

[System: Players Charlotte Katakuri and Charlotte Brulee have entered the special instance: Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Battle.]

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[Dungeon: Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Battle]

[Current Identity: The Wandering Giant and the Scarred Maiden]

[Mission: Survive the night and decapitate the Progenitor, Kibutsuji Muzan.]

The heat of the tavern was gone, replaced by a cold so sharp it felt like needles in the lungs.

Katakuri looked down at himself. His leather vest had been replaced by a heavy, dark haori, stretched to the breaking point over his massive shoulders. At his hip hung a nodachi—a blade so large it looked like a slab of iron. To the people of this world, he wasn’t just a samurai; he was a walking calamity.

"Brother... it’s so dark," Brulee whispered. She was dressed in a simple, tattered kimono, her hand clutching his tightly.

"Don’t be afraid. Stay in my shadow." Katakuri’s voice was a warm anchor in the freezing night. "As long as I draw breath, no demon will touch you."

He could feel it—his Haki was suppressed, the "Future Sight" clouded by the rules of this new world, but his core strength remained. And more importantly, he could smell it. The air was thick with the scent of old blood and a lingering, oily malice.

"Over there." Katakuri’s eyes narrowed. In the distance, through the skeletal trees, a massive mansion sat in an eerie, expectant silence.

...

The Ubuyashiki Estate

The courtyard was a theater of the macabre. A man in a black Western suit, his hair curled in elegant, serpent-like rings, stood with an air of absolute, nauseating superiority.

Kibutsuji Muzan. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Across from him sat a man who was the literal opposite of power. Ubuyashiki Kagaya was a dying ember, his skin mapped with purple, rotting scars, his eyes clouded with blindness.

Katakuri and Brulee watched from the darkness of the forest. Katakuri’s breath slowed. He watched the way Muzan spoke—the way he looked down on the dying man with the same "discarded trash" gaze Big Mom used for her failures.

"A pathetic farce," Katakuri muttered. To his eyes, Muzan was a physical weakling, a creature of vanity and fear hiding behind a veil of immortality.

But the blind man... Kagaya was different. His life was a guttering candle, yet the aura he radiated was one of profound, unshakable peace.

"Is that the ’Father’ of the slayers?" Katakuri whispered. A man who cannot even stand, yet his children would die for his name?

"I hate him, Brother," Brulee whispered, her nose wrinkling at Muzan. "He smells like Mama. Like a monster that thinks it’s a god."

Katakuri nodded. Suddenly, his instinct flared. His [Observation Haki] pierced the immediate future!

BOOM!!!

The world turned white.

The explosion was catastrophic. Ubuyashiki Kagaya hadn’t just set a trap; he had turned his own home, his own body, and the lives of his family into a final, thunderous strike. To hold the demon in place for one second, he had sacrificed everything.

Heat scorched the trees. Debris, laced with iron caltrops, whistled through the air like bullets.

"Madman," Katakuri breathed, even as a shard of pure respect pierced his heart. He didn’t hesitate. His arm swelled into a massive mochi shield, hardening with Armament Haki to protect Brulee from the blast’s fury.

In the center of the crater, a mangled, screaming Muzan was desperately trying to stitch his flesh back together.

"DAMN YOU, UBUYASHIKI!!!"

But the night wasn’t over.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Shards of color tore through the smoke. The Hashira had arrived. They were men and women of all shapes, their faces twisted in a grief so profound it fueled a killing intent that rivaled the sun. They didn’t care about the fire. They didn’t care that they were mortal.

"MASTER!!!" Himejima Gyomei’s voice was a sob of iron as he swung his massive spiked flail.

Katakuri watched them—the weak, the broken, and the mortal—throwing themselves at a god-like monster with a smile of absolute resolve.

This... Katakuri’s hand trembled against his blade. This is what the shopkeeper meant. Imperfect protection. A family built not on fear, but on a shared heart.

Compared to the Big Mom Pirates, held together by the threat of soul-theft, these humans were the strongest beings he had ever seen.

"Brother..." Brulee was weeping as she watched the slayers charge. "They’re so foolish... they’re all going to die..."

"Yes," Katakuri said, his voice thick with a new kind of pride as he drew his massive blade. "They are fools. And they are magnificent."

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