Gen stood not far away, watching Ryu Ishigori rapidly restore his body after landing Black Flash.
“Hah.
Didn’t expect you to pull off Black Flash.”
When he noticed the Barrier had become stable again, Gen formed the seal for Hollow Wicker Basket once more.
“Even with that, it’s still not enough for you to expand your Domain?
The Strongest?”
“Yeah.
Not enough.”
The moment Gen finished speaking, Ryu Ishigori, still in the Zone, instantly leaped backward.
A split second later, the street pavement where he had been standing was shredded by countless fine slashes, cut into tiny square chunks roughly one cubic centimeter each.
Gen lifted his gaze toward him.
“Nice dodge.
Listen, if you can keep this up for the next minute without releasing your Domain, I’ll let you see mine.”
“And what if I hit you, or beat you?”
A faint smile touched Gen’s face, and he spread his arms.
“As long as you hit me, I can consider letting you see my Domain.”
He had guts.
Gen looked at Ryu Ishigori with open appreciation.
“In return, I’ll use part of my abilities.”
“Gladly…”
Ever since he had fine-tuned Mahoraga, he had not used his Domain in a long time.
Around the age of sixteen, he had grasped Reverse Cursed Technique and Barrier Techniques.
The negative multiplied by a negative makes a positive principle behind Reverse Cursed Technique, and the three-dimensional geometry of Barrier Techniques, had posed almost no difficulty for Gen.
Once he understood the principles, mastering them came easily.
“[Granité Blast]”
Ryu Ishigori immediately sprang backward.
Along with the chant, pillars of light rose from all over Myriad Colors Pierce the Heavens like fireworks, blooming into bursts of light in the air like the fireworks of a summer festival.
A single pillar of light energy could scatter into hundreds of points, and inside Myriad Colors Pierce the Heavens, every point could become a light cannon.
Within Myriad Colors Pierce the Heavens, points of light appeared in at least three hundred places.
“Planning to carpet-bomb me?”
Gen raised his head and released the hand sign sustaining Hollow Wicker Basket.
“Cursed Technique Reversal: Light.”
Gen placed his left hand over the back of his right hand, his fingers interlacing.
A shadow is a phenomenon that appears when light is cast onto an object.
So long as he changed the Cursed Energy output of Ten Shadows Techniques into its opposite form, then, just as Satoru Gojo turned attraction into repulsion, a technique that controlled shadows became a technique that turned himself into light.
Literally, into light that could not be affected by any object.
Of course, there was a price.
Light could not harm its target.
Naturally, that restriction applied only to Gen himself.
The damage dealt by the Divine Dogs obviously did not count as damage dealt by Gen himself.
The instant Gen’s figure vanished, the overwhelming barrage of light cannons reached his former position.
The saturated, densely packed bombardment leveled the area in an instant.
The moment the pillars of light finished sweeping over the ground, Ryu Ishigori immediately redirected the remaining light cannons.
Too late.
Gen had already appeared behind him, pressing one palm against his back.
[Dog·Cleave]
The surging Cursed Energy turned into the claws of the Divine Dogs.
Though Ryu Ishigori instinctively gathered Cursed Energy to defend himself, dozens of gashes were still torn open across his back in an instant.
Blood sprayed out.
Ryu Ishigori grimaced in pain and swung back.
Another black flash erupted as a Black Flash punch slammed into Gen’s “light.”
“Hey.”
There was no sense of impact.
The light and shadow that looked like Gen’s body had already dispersed beneath the force of Black Flash.
Ryu Ishigori immediately looked up toward the voice.
The instant he raised his head, a fist wreathed in black light smashed into his face.
The roof beam beneath his feet broke with a crash, and the force dragged his body down into the house below.
BOOM!
The wooden house was smashed to pieces, but Gen’s attack was not over.
His right leg, wrapped in Cursed Energy, stomped hard against the ground, and the tremendous force sent Ryu Ishigori flying again.
Amid the rising dust, hundreds of ice-sand shockwaves that had been hanging high in the sky came crashing down, launching a predictive saturation strike along Gen’s path of movement.
[Dog·Dismantle]
Unlike those fine slashes, Gen brought his hands together and doubled the amount of Cursed Energy poured into the strike.
A single slash swept out, instantly “cutting open” the condensed energy.
The entire Domain seemed to be split in two from the middle.
Fortunately, the slash had not been aimed at Ryu Ishigori.
After dodging it, Ryu Ishigori lifted his head and drew his bow again.
“I was just about to say.”
The instant Ryu Ishigori began drawing the bow, Gen’s voice came from behind him.
At almost the same time, Gen’s hand clamped onto the back of his head.
“If you keep relying on your Cursed Technique, you’re never going to hit me.”
“Yeah, I know.”
A smile appeared on Ryu Ishigori’s face, and the strength in his grip on the “arrow” did not lessen at all.
“That trick is pretty basic.
There’s a Cursed Energy release point under my feet too, right?”
“…”
The smile on Ryu Ishigori’s face froze after only a few seconds.
He had deliberately hidden the Cursed Energy release point there for the sake of catching Gen off guard and landing this hit.
“I’ll give you a chance.
Let go.”
“Hah… Sure!”
Ryu Ishigori immediately released the “arrow.” With a muffled boom, Cursed Energy surged upward from beneath the ground.
The blue Cursed Energy formed a storm-like energy field, swallowing the entire section of ground beneath the two of them.
Viewed from above, one could see a black circular disk of Cursed Energy at the center of the storm, with Ryu Ishigori and Gen standing right on top of it.
The blue Cursed Energy storm raged for nearly fifteen seconds before finally dispersing.
As the blue Cursed Energy vanished, Ryu Ishigori was immediately kicked away by Gen.
His body rolled across the solid rooftop again and again before finally crashing into the river at the center of the Domain.
Gen appeared by the riverbank in the next instant.
By the time his body emerged from the dissolving shadows, Ryu Ishigori had already regained his footing, and his clenched fist came straight for Gen.
Gen raised a hand to block, catching the Cursed Energy-wrapped strike in his palm.
He casually lifted Ryu Ishigori’s fist and looked with faint surprise at the white smoke rising from Ryu Ishigori’s body.
The wounds that should have been there had vanished without a trace.
Rather than slow, natural healing, it looked more like Reverse Cursed Technique.
Before Ryu Ishigori could throw his next punch while his fist was still caught, Gen hit him in the side with a hook.
With his left hand pinned, Ryu Ishigori nearly lost his balance after taking the blow, but he still forced himself to kick out.
Bang!
Bang-bang-bang-bang!!
Gen raised his leg and blocked Ryu Ishigori’s kick.
Blue flames of Cursed Energy erupted violently at the point of impact.
Ryu Ishigori aimed his airplane head at Gen’s chest.
Gen immediately let go and sidestepped the cannon blast, then drove a heavy punch straight into Ryu Ishigori.
Boom!
Ryu Ishigori crossed his arms and barely blocked Gen’s Cursed Energy-wrapped strike.
His body was knocked back dozens of meters before he finally stopped sliding.
Then he stomped forward, raising his hand as he condensed Cursed Energy.
Another arrow?
As Gen thought this, he also stepped forward and charged.
But this time, the Cursed Energy cannon fired instantly.
Gen tilted his head at once, dodging the blast.
In that same moment, Ryu Ishigori had already arrived right in front of him.
His gesture was no longer drawing a bow and shooting an arrow.
It was a pistol.
Ryu Ishigori appeared right before Gen’s eyes.
On that peculiar airplane head of his, blue energy had already gathered into a sphere.
Then, with a point of Ryu Ishigori’s finger, it shot out.
Shing!
The beam pierced through Gen’s body.
Under Ryu Ishigori’s astonished gaze, Gen’s body seemed to melt into the ground.
Then.
“Time’s up.”
Time?
What time?
Before Ryu Ishigori could react, Gen’s voice came from behind him.
“[Domain Expansion]”
Pitch-black shadows, surging like ocean waves, erupted from behind Ryu Ishigori.
They wrapped him in darkness and rushed toward the edge of the Barrier.
A violent mass of Cursed Energy poured outward.
In less than half a second, right before Ryu Ishigori’s astonished eyes, it forced the Barrier of Myriad Colors Pierce the Heavens to crack open.
“[Dark Surge Eightfold Still Water]”