Whatever the case, Kenjaku’s opinion of Mayoru had completely changed.
He had begun to suspect that among the people whose brains he altered, an unimaginable monster might have emerged—someone with the potential to reach Gojo Satoru’s level.
He simply never expected that talent to appear and shine so brightly on the very first day.
“This cannot be your full strength, can it?” Kenjaku stared intently at Konoe Mayoru through his borrowed vision.
“Come.
Show me your limits.” Boom!
The cursed spirit that had been launched skyward suddenly crashed into an invisible barrier.
It had struck the colony’s boundary.
Once someone became a player, they were forbidden from leaving.
That rule applied even to cursed spirits.
After the impact, it finally began to fall.
The altered direction of gravity around its body had returned to normal, allowing the Earth to reclaim it and drag it back down.
The spirit slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash.
Only half of its body remained, leaving it in a miserable state completely unlike its earlier arrogance.
When the dust dispersed, Mayoru examined the cursed spirit and sighed in admiration.
“You’re surprisingly tough.” Its defense had probably been instinctive.
The special grade had reinforced its body with cursed energy at the last moment.
Although it could not fully withstand Mayoru’s punch, it had escaped with only half its body destroyed.
For an ordinary person, losing half their body meant certain death.
Monsters like Gojo and Sukuna could recover through their absurd Reverse Cursed Technique, but most humans would already be awaiting burial.
The cursed spirit, however, began regenerating by using its enormous reserves of cursed energy.
It could not instantly restore itself, but the wound did not appear fatal.
Even Mayoru could tell that its cursed-energy output had begun to decline.
When the spirit looked at him again, none of its earlier rage remained.
Its eyes were now filled entirely with fear.
Cursed spirits could feel terror, especially when confronted by a technique they could not understand.
The unknown frightened them as much as it frightened humans.
It could not comprehend how someone with such terrible cursed-energy control could produce such overwhelming power.
Its first instinct was to run.
However, half its body had been destroyed, and its instincts warned that turning its back on Mayoru would guarantee its death.
The cursed spirit forcibly suppressed its urge to flee and faced him once more.
There was only one option left.
Even the spirit understood that it had to reveal its true power and eliminate this human.
It could no longer rely on crude violence.
It needed something absolute—an attack its enemy could not resist.
The special-grade cursed spirit summoned its remaining energy and finally prepared to activate its cursed technique.
It had been born from the chaos in Shibuya the previous night.
The destruction caused by Sukuna and the deaths inflicted by the millions of released cursed spirits had filled Tokyo with distorted cursed energy.
The victims’ final terror and boiling emotions had granted it reserves far beyond those of an ordinary cursed spirit from the moment of its birth.
Now, it released all its remaining cursed energy at once.
A swelling shadow spread across the sky as the cursed spirit formed a hand sign with its damaged hands.
Muffled words emerged from its shattered mouth.
“Domain…
Expansion.” The instant those words were spoken, darkness surged outward.
“A Domain?!” Sakiko could not suppress her cry as she watched the darkness rapidly stain the surrounding space.
Kei looked toward her, and Sakiko realized the girl knew nothing about jujutsu.
She could only force herself to explain.
“You can think of it as one of jujutsu’s ultimate techniques.” “Normally, using Domain Expansion requires extremely advanced barrier techniques.
Once you’re trapped inside, however, the user’s cursed technique gains a guaranteed-hit effect.” “Guaranteed hit?” “The attack doesn’t need to travel toward you.” “It only becomes real at the moment it strikes.
That is what makes a Domain so dangerous.” Sakiko knew that a sorcerer with a Domain would usually crush one who lacked one.
The latter might delay defeat with something like Simple Domain, but such methods only bought time.
Eventually, the Domain’s technique would still kill them.
Yet Domain Expansion was supposed to be an exceptionally advanced skill.
Barrier techniques alone were enough to defeat the efforts of countless sorcerers.
How could a cursed spirit with so little intelligence possibly use one?
“Its technique must include a Domain by default.” Unlike Sakiko, Kenjaku possessed far more experience and was not surprised.
Ordinary sorcerers needed to master barrier techniques before constructing a Domain, but certain innate techniques naturally came equipped with one.
Kenjaku possessed cursed spirits with similar abilities.
Jujutsu High also had a rare suspended gambler whose technique automatically included a Domain.
“This is rather unfortunate.” Kenjaku now acknowledged that Mayoru was special, but the advantage of possessing a Domain remained overwhelming.
In his eyes, whether Mayoru manipulated gravity or controlled kinetic energy, neither ability could resist a Domain itself.
Before a Domain’s technique struck its target, it had no physical form.
There would be no kinetic energy for Mayoru to detect or erase.
“What a pity.” “Still, geniuses often die young.
That is part of what makes this world so entertaining.” Although slightly disappointed, Kenjaku had no intention of interfering.
If Mayoru died on his first day, it merely meant his cursed technique had only been worth that much.
“A Domain?” Like everyone else, Mayoru was surprised for the first time.
He knew the gap between possessing a Domain and lacking one was immense.
Kashimo Hajime had been questioned for years precisely because he possessed neither a Domain nor an easily understood cursed technique.
After his brief shock faded, however, Mayoru felt somewhat fortunate.
Worried that his battle might affect Kei and Sakiko, he had deliberately moved away from them earlier.
That decision prevented both girls from being dragged into the Domain.
Otherwise, protecting them would have been a genuine headache.
As darkness enclosed him, Mayoru sighed in appreciation.
“I really hit the jackpot.” Anyone who had read the manga knew that certain people were born exceptionally fortunate, with techniques that automatically included Domains.
The most famous example was Deadly Sentencing.
Higuruma Hiromi was an extraordinary genius.
Starting with the Domain built into his technique, he reverse-engineered barrier techniques, then used those principles to develop cursed-energy reinforcement.
Within only twelve days, he reached a level comparable to a Grade 1 sorcerer.
Since this creature was a special-grade cursed spirit, having a technique that included a Domain was not unreasonable.
Inside a Domain, the user’s technique was strengthened and granted both guaranteed-hit and supposedly guaranteed-kill effects.
The guaranteed-kill part was rather questionable.
From Mayoru’s memories, very few Domains actually killed their targets without fail.
Still, a guaranteed hit was undoubtedly troublesome for ordinary people.
However, Mayoru was not especially concerned about that.
Instead, he studied the flow of cursed energy throughout the Domain.
To someone capable of manipulating vectors, cursed energy was another form of energy that could be read and controlled.
Learning how powerful enemies used cursed energy was the entire purpose of seeking battle.
A Domain was an especially rare ultimate technique that he might not encounter again anytime soon.
Mayoru wanted to imitate Higuruma and glimpse the structure of cursed energy through the barrier built into this Domain.
Unfortunately, before he could examine it carefully, the distorted spirit opposite him had already regenerated half its body and regained its vicious confidence.
Its earlier despair had disappeared.
Although this human had nearly overturned the battle, victory now unquestionably belonged to the cursed spirit.
It was not intelligent, but it understood that Mayoru possessed some method of stopping its attacks.
Within the Domain, however, its technique carried a guaranteed-hit effect.
Before the technique acted upon Mayoru, it possessed no physical form.
Whether the boy had an invisible shield or some other strange defense no longer mattered.
There was nothing for him to detect or stop until the attack had already struck him.
The spirit laughed excitedly as the landscape of its innate Domain began taking shape.
Countless small weapons bloomed like flowers.
Every blade was soaked in blood and stained with an ominous crimson hue.
The cursed spirit lacked the intelligence to give its Domain a stylish name based on some ancient legend.
Even so, the completed innate Domain left Mayoru genuinely impressed.
Blade-like petals covered heaven and earth, watered by blood and carrying the sweet metallic scent of iron.
Their murderous aura seemed capable of seeping directly into the soul.
“As expected, Domains really are cool.” Who had never wanted to dramatically unleash a Domain Expansion?
Even people without one would surely think of a name in advance.
Before Mayoru could finish praising it, the crimson weapons erupted from the ground.
The cursed spirit had been born from the cursed energy of countless people who died throughout Tokyo in a single night.
Their hatred of death and resentment toward destruction had created this innate Domain—a field of countless weapons blooming upon the far shore.
Anyone touched by those petal-like blades would have their cursed energy ignored and their blood used as fuel to ignite them from within.
The sorcerer before it had no path to survival.
At the special grade’s command, crimson blades instantly appeared around Mayoru.
The guaranteed-hit, guaranteed-kill technique activated without a sound, attempting to ignite every drop of blood within his body.
The cursed spirit could already envision Mayoru’s ruined corpse.
The sorcerer who had destroyed half its body would die without even leaving proper remains.
That was how it should have ended.
Bang.
A strange sound came from the boy whose blood should have ignited as he died in agony.
Even if he possessed a technique that prevented anyone from approaching and reflected all damage, it should have been useless against a guaranteed hit.
That was how it should have worked.
Yet Mayoru remained completely unharmed.
Not even the hem of his clothing carried a speck of blood.
Rather than suffering, he began strolling casually through the Domain.
“Im…
possible…” The spirit’s most confident attack had failed.
In a daze, it forced out the hoarse words.
It stared at the approaching boy as though witnessing an impossible nightmare.
Mayoru walked slowly and lightly, almost as if he were sightseeing and admiring the Domain’s scenery.
As he approached, he sighed.
“I understand what you were thinking.” “Earlier, none of your attacks could reach me.
You probably assumed they were hitting some shield I had placed around myself, right?” “So once your technique gained a guaranteed hit, you believed it would bypass the shield and directly affect my body.” “But…” Tap.
Mayoru stopped directly before the cursed spirit.
Without the creature realizing it, the boy had already reached it.
No warmth could be found in his indifferent eyes.
He extended one hand and touched the cursed spirit.
An enormous impact instantly struck its half-regenerated body.
It flew across the Domain and crashed violently against the ground.
Before the spirit could recover, Mayoru had already appeared before it again.
He raised one foot and firmly planted it upon the cursed spirit’s face.
With a mocking smile, he looked down at it.
“What gave you the illusion that you could break through my technique?” He looked capable of crushing it to death at any moment.
However, he did not.
Mayoru appeared to like the Domain far too much to end the battle immediately.
He was willing to remain here longer, even if it meant allowing the cursed spirit to live.
Surrounded by blooming crimson blades, Mayoru mocked it with genuine delight.
“Consider yourself fortunate.” “I’d like to explore your Domain a little longer, so I’ll permit you to live for a while.” “Until then, attack me with everything you have.” “Try to entertain me, cursed spirit!” …