Above the sea of blood, tens of thousands of rusted blades poured down like rain.
The Innate Domain of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit, 'Iron Wail, Iron Soul'.
The perfect killing intent bestowed upon the space itself rushed toward the two intruders like a waterfall, carried by the rule of sure-hit.
Kaaaaang-!! Clang! Clang-clang-clang-!!
The rupturing sounds of splattering blood and shattering chunks of iron echoed madly inside the domain.
The 'Simple Domain' deployed in a circle beneath Hideto's feet was neutralizing the sure-hit effect of the pouring rain of blades.
However, just because the sure-hit effect was erased didn't mean the tons of steel masses falling from the empty sky disappeared. Blades with physical mass and gravity poured down indiscriminately.
"Heat Haze Dance!"
Hideto swung his halved tachi like a madman.
The refracted space became a massive shield, twisting the trajectories of the pouring blades.
The blades bent bizarrely in midair and smashed into the sea of blood on either side of Hideto. But their numbers were far too overwhelming.
The dual manipulation of cursed energy—maintaining a Simple Domain while simultaneously deflecting physical trajectories with the Refraction Cursed Technique—was gnawing away at Hideto's stamina at a terrifying pace.
"Haa... Damn it. This is what they mean when they say it's pouring buckets."
Hideto exhaled dryly, breathing heavily. Before he knew it, thick beads of cold sweat had formed on his normally languid forehead.
On the other hand, Sugawara no Utsugi's defense was on a different level.
A blue cursed energy thinly and densely coated his entire body and the blade of his tachi, fluctuating fiercely.
The secret art of the Sugawara Clan, 'Falling Blossom Emotion'.
At the exact moment the sure-hit blades were about to touch Utsugi's skin, the coated cursed energy reacted automatically, repelling the blades in reverse and shattering them to pieces. Utsugi was slowly walking through the pouring rainstorm of steel.
Clang! Crunch!
Every time he swung his tachi, dozens of rusted swords were severed, scattering fragments over the sea of blood.
However, Utsugi's brow was also slightly furrowed.
'Just enduring is not the answer.'
The amount of cursed energy the Special Grade possessed was vast enough to cover an entire mountain.
If they persisted with a defensive battle like this, leaving aside Utsugi who had the Six Eyes, Hideto would eventually run out of cursed energy first, and the ones whose concentration would break were themselves, humans.
And the price for that brief moment when their concentration broke was far too horrific.
Seu-euk-!
"Ugh...!"
A short groan burst from Hideto.
In the brief moment when the output of his Simple Domain wavered slightly, a single curved spearhead he failed to refract grazed Hideto's left shoulder.
Blood splattered. It was a wound no more than a scratch, but in that instant, Hideto's eyes rolled back bizarrely.
[Gyaaaaah!! It's burning!! My child!!]
The Special Grade's Innate Technique, Iron Wail, Iron Soul.
The memory of the death of an Emishi warrior imbued in the spearhead that cut his shoulder was forcibly shoved into Hideto's mind. The horrific despair of a vengeful spirit who had to witness the death of his family while being burned alive ravaged Hideto's soul as if tearing it apart.
"Keu-eugh... Heo-eok...!"
In reality, it was only 1 second. But Hideto, having fully experienced a horrific death within the hallucination, dropped to one knee, panting and coughing up blood with bloodshot eyes. The face of the normally languid maverick was distorted with extreme fear and pain.
"What a low-quality... cough, fucking hallucination..."
Hideto gritted his teeth, gripping the hilt of his sword with a trembling hand. Even though he had only been grazed once, the axis of his mind was shaking to its roots. If he took a few more hits of this garbage, it was obvious his mind would collapse and go mad first, even if his body was fine.
"Narrow the defensive barrier. Stick close behind my back."
Utsugi's cool voice was heard. Utsugi stepped in front of Hideto and raised the output of Falling Blossom Emotion to its limit.
"Hey, Sugawara. We'll dry up and die at this rate. Try some sort of trick."
Hideto staggered and stuck close behind Utsugi's back, minimizing the radius of his Simple Domain.
"I know."
Utsugi's blue Six Eyes spun fiercely.
The pouring rain of blades, the boiling sea of blood, and the 'outline' of the massive barrier enveloping this horrific otherworldly dimension. The Six Eyes were disassembling the structure of this hell down to the atomic level, searching for the seam of the barrier where the density of cursed energy was the thinnest.
'The core of the barrier. It's the center of those blood-red dark clouds in the sky.'
Utsugi's gaze pierced through the trajectories of the pouring blades and fixed upon the very center of the red clouds swirling high in the sky.
"Just 2 seconds. Squeeze out all your cursed energy and refract the space above my head. Open a tunnel the blades can't reach."
"Hah. You're an expert at working people to the bone."
Hideto wiped the blood from his mouth and laughed.
"Not even giving me time to catch my breath after coming back from the dead."
"Failure is not an option."
"Alright, I'll open it right up for you!"
Hideto explosively drew out his remaining cursed energy. He forcibly dispelled his Simple Domain and poured all that cursed energy solely into 'Refraction'.
Paaaaat-!!
From the tip of Hideto's broken sword, a massive spatial distortion shot out like a beam, reaching toward the sky. As soon as the tens of thousands of blades falling toward Utsugi's head touched that distorted space, they began to split bizarrely to either side, like a waterfall diverting around a rock.
A safe zone lasting a mere 2 seconds, opened toward the sky.
Utsugi did not miss that fleeting moment.
Kicking off the sea of blood, Utsugi's figure defied gravity and shot toward the sky.
"Falling Blossom Emotion • Condense."
Utsugi withdrew the Falling Blossom Emotion enveloping his entire body, compressing all his cursed energy to the extreme solely into the tip of his tachi. A perfect thrusting stance that abandoned defense.
As the end of the tunnel closed, a few blades grazed past Utsugi's side and thigh.
Seu-euk, Seu-geu-geuk-!
Blood splattered. At the same time, the horrific hallucination of Iron Wail, Iron Soul struck Utsugi's brain.
The pain of limbs being severed, the chilling sensation of a neck being sliced, the terrible smell of burning flesh. The memories of death experienced by dozens of Emishi warriors tried to tear Utsugi's soul apart.
But Utsugi didn't even blink an eye.
The capillaries in his eyes burst, pouring out tears of blood, but he instead bit down on his lip and shoved those horrific memories of death to one corner of his brain.
'Do you think you can disrupt my mind with this mere illusion?'
Utsugi, having swallowed the hallucination with a beast-like tenacity, finally reached the core of the barrier, the center of the blood-red dark clouds.
The cursed energy condensed in his tachi broke past its critical point, emitting a bizarre noise.
The flow of cursed energy captured by the Six Eyes, a perfect strike without an ounce of waste, and a mental focus sharpened to the extreme in a desperate crisis. The miraculous moment where all these conditions meshed perfectly.
From the tip of Utsugi's sword, a pitch-black flame that swallowed the blood-red sky flashed.
Spatial distortion. A black luminescence of cursed energy.
A spatial distortion occurring within an error margin of 0.000001 seconds of a cursed energy strike.
The strike called 'Black Flash' exploded right in the middle of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit's domain.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang——!!!!!
A black lightning bolt tore the sky.
The Special Grade's Innate Domain shattered into pieces with a massive rupturing sound, like a window pane smashing. The sea of blood, the falling tombstone-like blades—all were swept away by the black shockwave and evaporated into thin air.
Paaat-!
Their vision returned to its original colorlessness.
The gloomy summit of the Ou Mountains. The pouring fog.
The massive main body of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit was shrieking bizarrely as it crashed into the mountain ridge, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Landing, Utsugi breathed heavily and readjusted his grip on his tachi, which was stained with tears of blood.
Hideto also staggered and raised his body from the muddy ground.
"Haha... to smash the entire domain to pieces. You really are nothing short of a monster."
Hideto let out a hollow laugh mixed with astonishment.
"No time to catch our breath."
Utsugi's blue gaze flashed toward the fallen Special Grade.
"It's right after a Domain Expansion. That thing's Innate Technique is temporarily burnt out and cannot be used. Now, when both hallucinations and regeneration are impossible, is our only chance."
An absolute common sense in Jujutsu combat.
Right after expanding a domain, the Innate Technique carved into the user's brain burns out temporarily due to overload, rendering it unusable. No matter how vast a Special Grade's cursed energy was, it could not escape this rule.
"We sever its windpipe completely right now!"
The figures of Utsugi and Hideto shot forward explosively at the same time.
Trajectories of perfect slaughter, completely disregarding defense.
Hideto wrapped the Refraction Cursed Technique around his sword, slicing away indiscriminately at the Special Grade's remaining legs that were wriggling in resistance, opening a path. Breaking through that gap, Utsugi raised his tachi toward the very center of the centipede's massive head, the core of cursed energy captured by his Six Eyes.
"This is the end."
Utsugi's tachi perfectly cleaved the Special Grade Cursed Spirit's massive head vertically in two.
Seu-geu-geuk-!! Crunch!
The hard carapace split, and rotten brain matter and dark red resentment spewed out explosively into the air. The massive centipede's body thrashed as if convulsing, then soon collapsed onto the mud with a thud and ceased moving.
"...Is it over."
Hideto exhaled roughly, letting his broken sword hang limp.
However, Utsugi's eyes, as he checked the corpse of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit, narrowed slightly.
The centipede's head, split in half. Normally, a cursed spirit should have immediately turned into purple ash and vanished. But far from turning to ash, the monster's spilled blood was tangling with the mud, maintaining a bizarre viscosity.
And in that moment.
'...No. This isn't a single entity...!'
Utsugi's complexion hardened, turning pale.
The one single thing his calculations were wrong about. This Special Grade Cursed Spirit was a 'colony' formed from vengeful spirits who had died unjustly decades ago.
Although it took the form of a centipede, each and every one of the tens of thousands of vengeful spirits that made up this monster retained their individual souls and cursed energy.
In other words, the one that had deployed the domain called 'Iron Wail, Iron Soul' and had its technique burnt out just now was only the vengeful spirit holding the 'single initiative' commanding this massive colony.
Only one boss-level vengeful spirit had burned out; the remaining 9,999 vengeful spirits were still glaring at Utsugi and Hideto, their techniques perfectly preserved.
"Fall back...!!"
For the first time, Utsugi shouted urgently and leaped backward.
But it was too late.
From the entire carapace of the massive centipede body they thought was dead, tens of thousands of human faces simultaneously widened their eyes and let out bizarre sneers.
[Foolish... beasts of Yamato.]
Poo-ook-! Pook! Poo-woo-ook-!!
From all over the fallen massive body, spearheads and broken sword blades thrust out in all directions like the quills of a hedgehog. Like a trap hidden within its innards bursting open, a perfect surprise attack was executed at close range.
"Keu-heok...!"
"Ugh...!"
It was even before they could deploy a Simple Domain.
Dozens of rusted blades and spear tips mercilessly pierced the bodies of the two men, who hadn't even been able to open up distance. Spearheads penetrated Hideto's abdomen and thigh, and Utsugi, despite reflexively batting them away with his tachi, allowed deep stab wounds to his shoulder and side.
The physical pain was only the beginning.
Into the brains of the two men, who had deactivated their defensive mechanisms convinced the technique was burnt out, dozens of hallucinations exploded simultaneously.
[Save me!! My leg!!]
[I'm hungry... I can't see...!!]
[Aaaaaaaah!! It's burning!!]
"Aaaaaaaah——!!!!"
Even Hideto, normally insensitive to pain, let out a horrific scream and collapsed onto the mud, covered in blood.
Utsugi, too, barely held on using his tachi as a cane while rolling his eyes, but red blood was pouring from his mouth like a waterfall.
Their sense of reality crumbled. A muddy torrent of horrific despair, enough to make them forget who they were or even where they were, swallowed the souls of the two men.
Above the muddy ground where the two mavericks collapsed coughing up blood.
The body of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit, whose head had been split in half, gathered the spilled mud and steel and began to regenerate at a terrifying speed.
[Struggle forever... in the swamp of death.]
A chilling echo of tens of thousands of voices layered into one.
Looking down at the two men, who were plunged into despair and hallucinations, unable to even control their bodies, the massive, resurrected body of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit bent bizarrely toward the sky once again.
Thousands of bladed legs clashed in the air, forming the hand sign of death.
[Domain Expansion (領域展開)]
Blood-red dark clouds were once again descending upon the sky of Mutsu.
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