Perhaps Gen’s reputation as a god of death had already spread throughout the Sendai Barrier, or perhaps no Players had simply come anywhere near this place.
Either way, Gen slept soundly on the soft bed.
BOOM!
“Sukuna!!!”
BOOM!!
As the open Domain clash came to an end, Gen and Sukuna were locked in combat.
Slashes, lightning, and currents of water crossed endlessly between them, until finally…
BOOM!!!!!
Amid a deafening tremor, Gen opened his eyes.
“So damn loud!!!”
Gen, who had just been in the middle of an intense fight with Sukuna in his dream, shot up from the bed.
The heavy footsteps outside were clearly not sounds any normal creature could make.
As he sat up, the scent that marked a Shikigami, a bloody tang mixed with a trace of human presence, poured into his nose.
Gen gritted his teeth, recalled the resting Nue and Divine Dogs into the shadows, then pushed open the door and spread his wings.
Lightning flashed, and Gen was already several thousand meters above the ground, looking down from the sky.
Nue’s Cursed Technique was very simple: strengthen the body, enhance vision, and control lightning.
With Nue’s Cursed Technique strengthening him, Gen swept his gaze over the ground like a high-precision drone.
Very quickly, he spotted two massive Shikigami circling the gymnasium beside the place where he had been resting.
The Shikigami were nearly as tall as a dozen-story building, but compared with their enormous forms, Gen cared more about how they moved.
Along the paths left by their movements, Cursed Energy had condensed into something resembling a Domain Barrier.
Gen stared toward the gymnasium and locked onto a patch of ground where the Cursed Energy stood out from the rest.
One unlucky bird flew close to the Shikigami’s path and was instantly shredded as if it had crashed into a meat grinder, leaving only scattered feathers and a burst of blood.
With that alone, Gen could guess what the guy’s Cursed Technique was.
A Cursed Technique that expanded an innate Domain through the movement path of Shikigami.
This guy is in Sendai?
I don’t remember him.
Gen lowered his head and thought.
The Sendai Four Heavenly Kings should all be here by now: Yuta Okkotsu, Takako Uro, Ryu Ishigori, and Kurourushi.
Searching desperately through his memories, Gen dug out the name of the Shikigami’s owner from deep within his body.
Dhruv Lakdawalla.
Score: 91.
This guy…
wasn’t this his second incarnation?
For someone without real frontal combat ability to choose the body of an old man, it was hard not to call it the author’s bad taste.
Maybe it was Kenjaku’s idea.
Gen yawned, then flashed into the gymnasium like a bolt of lightning.
Purple lightning flickered before the elder who had once subjugated the Japanese archipelago, and the other man raised a hand toward Gen.
“…The strongest of Muromachi.”
“Oh?
You know me?”
“I’ve long heard of you.”
Gen took the hilt from his waist and held it in his palm.
Surging Cursed Energy formed shadows at both ends, stretching outward and turning into a short blade.
“Caduceus.”
“You recognize this too?
Looks like you know quite a bit about me.”
“Of course…
During my first incarnation, I heard of your fame.
Unfortunately, I never got to meet you in person.
I only heard of your death from Kenjaku.”
Gen played idly with his Cursed Tool.
What erupted from the old man before him was not hostile Cursed Energy, but something closer to a plea for mercy.
“I do not know how I angered you, young man.
I was merely following a Binding Vow and maintaining the balance Kenjaku required within this Sendai Barrier, where powerful fighters gather.”
Gen raised his head and considered the man before him.
A score of 91 meant the man in front of him did not only kill sorcerers.
But considering the nature of his Cursed Technique, there really was no way to stop ordinary people from running into his invisible Barrier.
“Old man.”
“My name is Dhruv.”
“Old Dhruv.”
“Then you may as well keep calling me old man…”
“Why did you choose to incarnate in a body as withered as dead wood?”
“Is there no Binding Vow between you and Kenjaku?”
“I regret to say that there is.”
Dhruv looked as though it were only natural.
His unnaturally positioned eyes also returned to normal, focusing directly on Gen.
“My Binding Vow with Kenjaku is that I must maintain this withered body in order to bring about a third incarnation.”
“So in the end, you still have to start over again.
Boring.”
Gen sat down beside Dhruv, and Dhruv also released his hand seal before turning to look at him.
“So…
how exactly did I offend you?”
“Our neighbor across the ocean has a good saying: you don’t strike a smiling face.
Originally, I wanted to do this.”
Gen swung the short blade in his hand.
As Cursed Energy moved, a slash shot out violently and carved a long, straight mark across the other side of the gymnasium.
“But you’ve got a decent temperament…
so I can spare your life for now.”
“What is the price?”
“Don’t harm ordinary people.”
“…I will do my best.”
“What I mean is, before I set a new rule that kicks ordinary people out of the Barrier, don’t use your Shikigami for Domain Expansion.”
“My Cursed Technique…
requires a great deal of time to activate.”
Dhruv looked troubled and fell silent for a moment.
“I need compensation.”
“What kind of compensation?”
Gen relaxed a little.
Having room to negotiate was better than having none at all.
The reason Okkotsu had killed this old man so cleanly in the first place was precisely because of his bottomless point farming.
If that issue could be removed, then as a member of the Sendai Barrier, he might be able to spark an even greater war.
When the time came, he could use The Well’s Unknown Abyss to watch.
Gen did not think the old man before him would make any unreasonable demands.
Not because Gen could do anything, but because the old man would not dare.
Looking at the mysterious smile on Gen’s face, Dhruv raised his hand.
“I have heard of your Cursed Technique.
When I incarnated, the faction I joined described your Cursed Technique as that of a celestial god.
A resilient body, extraordinary vitality, immunity to certain attacks, the Kamo clan’s Piercing Blood, slashing ability like Sukuna, the strongest of the Heian era, as well as lightning and flight.
You even possess every kind of control Cursed Technique…”
Dhruv spread his hand.
“I want to know what your Cursed Technique truly is.
Is it Copy, or are you a Shikigami Master?”
As a fellow Shikigami Master, Dhruv could naturally activate his Shikigami’s Cursed Technique by spending more Cursed Energy.
Had he incarnated in a younger body, he would probably have been a troublesome opponent for Okkotsu.
Unfortunately, the man before him was now thin and withered, with absolutely no close-quarters combat ability.
“What the hell?
So that’s all you wanted?”
“Yes.
After all…
I have my curiosity as well.
Please rest assured, even if I learn your Cursed Technique, there is absolutely no way I could defeat you.”
A fanatical expression appeared on Dhruv’s face, while Gen simply smiled.
“In the Muromachi era, three hundred people once took part in a siege against me…
And the people who forced me to get serious, thereby learning what my Cursed Technique was…
I suppose none of them survived, did they?”
“Was it the battle in the Muromachi era where the Gojo Clan’s Six Eyes fell?”
“What’s with you?
You know this stuff pretty well.
You sound like some fanatic fan.”
“Led by that generation’s Six Eyes, you, who had been accused of killing the Star Plasma Vessel, were surrounded and hunted by the Kamo clan, the Zenin clan, the Gojo clan, and a large number of Jujutsu Sorcerers lured in by the bounty.”
As Dhruv spoke, Gen seemed to look back into the past once more.
That generation’s Six Eyes did not possess the Limitless Technique, but rather a manipulation-type Jujutsu Sorcery.
How to put it?
It was similar to the Cursed Technique used by the strongest fighter in Organization Q, the one who briefly appeared in the Hidden Inventory arc.
With the aid of the Six Eyes, it could also be used in a way similar to the Limitless Technique.
And it was during that battle that Gen felt a passion for combat he had not experienced in a very long time.
Of course, most of the sorcerers who participated in the siege were not even speed bumps before Gen.
One rough use of Dismantle alone filtered out a large number of Jujutsu Sorcerers who failed to raise their Cursed Energy defenses in time, as well as clan disciples who could not react quickly enough.
After that first pass, the remaining Jujutsu Sorcerers also withdrew quickly in the face of Gen’s terrifying strength.
As if they were fleeing for their lives.
Under the joint assault of the Kamo clan head and the Gojo clan head, Gen fell into a difficult position for the first time.
The Limitless Technique was simply too troublesome.
Even when it was only a similar Cursed Technique, Gen had no way to deal with it.
In that predicament, Gen revealed Mahoraga’s ring before his opponents for the first time.
Then.
The Gojo clan head and Kamo clan head present recognized the Cursed Technique before them, but they no longer had any chance to tell anyone else.
As for the Zenin clan head, who had fallen early, he never even saw that scene.
Their ending was easy to imagine.
With six Shikigami possessing considerable attack power deployed all at once, and without Gen’s own restrictions on their use, it took barely three minutes for the remaining thirty sorcerers, all of whom possessed Grade 1 strength or above, to die.
As for who actually killed the Star Plasma Vessel?
That did not matter.
Gen had no way of knowing either.
It was simply that after such a battle, Gen’s desire to fight grew weaker and weaker.
The strongest in the world sat alone and lonely among the mountains and forests, waiting for that “Kenjaku.”
The next news that reached him was the announcement spread by Kenjaku at the time: the strongest had committed suicide.
No one suspected that anyone had killed him.
In the minds of the Jujutsu World at that time, the only one who could possibly kill him was probably the strongest King of Curses, Sukuna himself.
Some even believed that not even Sukuna could kill him.
“In the end, it was discovered that the Star Plasma Vessel had simply been killed by the Zenin clan head because he disliked the Gojo clan head.”
Just as Gen’s memories ended, Dhruv’s voice sounded beside his ear.
“Just as I thought.
The rotten and foolish Zenin clan…
No, rather, all three great families are the same.
They’re nothing but foolish, rotten old things huddling together for warmth.”
“Haha…
You are exactly right.
Those foolish old things still had to rely on Kenjaku incarnating me to handle their so-called war in the end…
Speaking of which, your Cursed Technique is?”
Dhruv was a good straight man, and Gen could indeed hear the “respect” for the strong in his words.
There was no harm in telling the person before him.
So.
“It feels pretty good to have someone care about what I think.
Listen closely.
My Cursed Technique is…”
The Ten Shadows Technique.