Gen swallowed the last piece of food he had just taken from the restaurant, crumpled the wrapper into a ball, and tossed it into the air.
The paper ball was sliced into scraps and vanished.
“Let me think…”
Gen’s hands quickly formed several gestures.
Bird, snake, toad, rabbit, elephant, deer, ox, tiger.
Then he raised both hands, clenched them into fists, and held one above the other.
“With this treasure, I summon…
Haha, kidding.”
Gen shook his hand.
To subdue Mahoraga, at the very least, Nue, Piercing Ox, Round Deer, and Tiger Funeral all had to be in place first.
He did want to spar with Mahoraga using Taijutsu, but that would inevitably have terrifying consequences for all of Sendai.
The damage to the terrain would not matter much, but harming ordinary people would be a different story.
Gen’s conscience had not sunk to Sukuna’s level yet.
After thinking it through, Gen more or less understood what he needed right now.
First, if he wanted to quickly earn 100 points and add a rule without hurting civilians, he needed high-speed mobility and extremely high output.
In other words, he had to subdue Nue first.
Gen took a deep breath, crossed his hands into the Flying Bird gesture, and poured in Cursed Energy.
Black shadows burst from the floor and formed the silhouette of a Shikigami in midair.
“That is way too big.”
The shadows intertwined and fused in the air.
Although Gen had prepared himself for it, the sight of the sky-blocking “Nue” still made the corner of his mouth twitch.
As the shadow peeled away from the orange-yellow bird-beast, Gen raised his hand and aimed at Nue’s neck.
[Dog·Dismantle]
A transparent blade swept across Nue’s neck in an instant, but Gen felt no sensation of a successful cut.
In his vision, only a trail of purple lightning remained in midair.
Nue had disappeared.
Gen’s gaze swept quickly across the sky and soon locked onto Nue, which had appeared a thousand meters overhead and was plummeting at high speed.
[Dog·Dismantle]
He raised his hand, formed a seal, and Dismantle once again sliced the lightning trail in two, but Nue disappeared again.
Gen’s expression darkened.
His nose twitched slightly as a dangerous presence appeared beneath his feet.
He looked up into the distance.
Nue, filled with an excessive amount of Cursed Energy, spread its wings and cast a vast number of buildings under their shadow.
“So the Ten Shadows Technique was this ridiculous all along?”
The more Cursed Energy one has, the stronger the Shikigami one can summon.
That is an iron rule for Jujutsu Sorcerers who use Shikigami.
With the Ten Shadows Technique, it is like how Megumi Fushiguro could summon a Nue at most the size of two people, while Sukuna could summon one nearly as huge as a skyscraper.
That said, apart from Sukuna, who had been forced into it, probably no one had ever tried to start subduing Shikigami after becoming the strongest.
Now, another person forced into it had to be added to the list.
Fortunately, the Nue he was subduing again did not have the tactics of his own bizarre giant bird.
Still, it made him think.
The Divine Dogs that did not require subjugation were the Divine Dogs from before.
Then after subduing Nue again, would it still be the Nue he knew?
Watching Nue charge toward him wrapped in lightning, Gen stopped thinking and raised his hand.
[Dog·Dismantle]
The charging Nue split into tens of thousands of long strips in midair, as if it had slammed into a taut fishing net.
Then, before those strips could hit the ground, they shattered into dust that filled the sky.
Subjugation complete.
In that case.
Gen formed the Flying Bird hand sign again, but this time he poured in only a little Cursed Energy.
Black shadows intertwined and fused in midair, finally revealing a Nue the size of an owl.
Nue flapped its wings, circled once in front of Gen, and landed on his shoulder.
It leaned close to Gen’s ear like a parrot, then opened its beak.
“You’re gay.”
“Oh, come on!”
Gen grabbed Nue by the neck, and Nue immediately put on a look like it was about to be strangled to death.
Although his own Shikigami had blindsided him right out of the gate, Gen could not help letting out a relieved breath.
It looked like the Shikigami all retained their original consciousness, and had even gained modern knowledge from the body he had incarnated into.
That was still better than ancient Nue shouting in his ear that he had a taste for men.
Gen released Nue’s neck.
Nue flapped its wings and settled back onto his shoulder.
“Nue, were you conscious during the subjugation ritual just now?”
“You bastard, couldn’t you have asked first?
You went straight for my head the moment I showed up?”
Nue’s sharp voice sounded like a noisy parrot, though it looked pretty much like one right now.
“So you were?”
“No.”
Gen nodded.
That made sense.
If Nue had retained even partial control of its body, it would never have used such a suicidal charge.
“You were pretty stupid just now.
Same as when you first started.”
“Caw, caw, caw, caw!”
To avoid listening to Nue curse him out, Gen crooked a finger and turned the parrot-like vocal organ inside Nue back into that of an ordinary bird.
Nue immediately slumped on Gen’s shoulder as if it had lost all meaning in life, then jabbed Gen’s shoulder hard with its beak.
After a while, Nue suddenly straightened.
“Caw!”
Sensing the clear change in Cursed Energy in the air, Gen crooked a finger and returned Nue’s vocal organ.
“I smell Cursed Spirits.
Bring out the deer.”
“The deer hasn’t been subdued yet.”
“For you right now, isn’t subduing the deer just a matter of lifting your hand?”
“There’s a cooldown.”
The Ten Shadows Technique had a forced built-in cooldown for subjugation.
It lasted roughly twenty-two hours.
After completing the subjugation of one Shikigami, he could not immediately begin subduing the next one.
For the sake of high-speed movement and Nue’s sharp perception of changes in the surrounding Cursed Energy, Gen had already used up one free subjugation attempt.
Of course, there were no paid attempts either.
“You never told me that!”
“Back then, I didn’t have the strength to subdue every Shikigami in one day, dumb bird.”
Gen tilted his head back and sniffed the strange smell in the air.
It was the smell of Cursed Spirits bundled around someone in clusters.
Was it Kenjaku?
Gen placed his hand over Nue, and Nue’s body turned into shadow and was drawn back into him.
At the same time, flickering arcs of electricity began to flash around Gen.
Swish!
In the blink of an eye, Gen appeared at the spot inside the Barrier where the abnormal Cursed Energy fluctuation was coming from.
The scent of Cursed Spirits filled the air.
Beneath the high black wall of the Barrier, Gen saw a black-haired young man in a monk’s robe.
Ah.
Just as expected.
“Good afternoon, Kenjaku.”
“You still haven’t changed, Gen Zenin.”
Kenjaku turned around with a smile and looked at Gen, who was now wreathed in lightning.
“Ah…
Could you not disgust me with that surname?”
“Of course, of course.
What was I thinking, strongest Lord Ten Shadows?
My mistake.”
“You’re going to call me by that surname next time too, aren’t you?”
Hearing the obvious hostility in Gen’s tone, Kenjaku shook his head with a smile.
“How could I?
I still need your help.”
“So what are you doing here now?”
Kenjaku looked at Gen and helplessly waved his hand, tossing out a black Cursed Spirit mass.
“There really is nothing I can do about that peculiar perception of yours.”
The Cursed Spirit mass landed on the ground, and the dormant Special Grade Cursed Spirit, Kurourushi, appeared atop the melting mass.
“This is the Cursed Spirit I use to keep the three powerful Jujutsu Sorcerers awakened here in check.
You know how it is.
If the strongest among them is allowed to slaughter freely, the Culling Game cannot keep going forever.
And what I want is a permanent Culling Game.”
“Even if that’s written in the rules, it’s still a lie, isn’t it, Kenjaku?”
Although he had not seen the later chapters of the manga, based on the manga itself and his brief past conversations with Kenjaku, Gen understood very well that when it came to being untrustworthy, the person before him was without question the least trustworthy Jujutsu Sorcerer of all.
“At the very least, I want the Culling Game to continue as much as possible during these nineteen days.
So, Gen.”
Kenjaku pulled a strangely shaped Cursed Tool from behind his back.
It had no offensive parts at all, only a dog-whistle-like handle that could fit in the palm of one’s hand.
“I’ll return this to you.
In exchange, please don’t completely kill Kurourushi.”
The golden Cursed Tool was tossed toward Gen and landed in the pool of shadows rising in front of him.
“Though this was mine to begin with.
Ha.
Still…
deal.”
The moment he sensed the Binding Vow take effect, Kenjaku immediately left the Barrier without staying a second longer.
Gen, meanwhile, studied Kurourushi in front of him and thought of a way to deal with the Cursed Spirit.