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BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion rolled across the already devastated battlefield as a terrifying shockwave tore outward in every direction.
The ruined forest finally reached its breaking point.
Under the collision between Black Flash and Mahoraga’s overwhelming power, even the thick tree stumps buried deep underground were ripped out by the roots and hurled into the air.
Dust, stones, and debris filled the sky.
“I learned that parry trick when I was pretty young.”
As the rolling cloud of dust slowly dispersed in the wind…
The first figure to emerge from the wreckage was Atsushi.
A breeze stirred his messy black curls.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked toward Mahoraga’s enormous silhouette in the distance, still obscured by dust.
Speaking as casually as though he were chatting with a friend, Atsushi flexed his right hand.
“But it worked surprisingly well.”
At that moment, Atsushi had entered a state unlike anything he had experienced before.
Countless insights into cursed energy and his technique flooded his mind.
Ever since I first gained true damage, I’ve wondered about something.
If true damage can ignore an opponent’s defenses and durability…
Then…
What exactly determines what counts as the “enemy”?
Back at the beginning of the Goodwill Event…
When I fought Miwa Kasumi, her katana was about to strike me.
I treated the blade itself as the target of my attack.
Because of that, Dragon-Bone sliced straight through it without resistance and without leaving even the slightest mark on its own edge.
Thinking back…
Miwa’s katana, and the cursed energy she had poured into it, existed to attack me.
They weren’t part of her defense.
And yet my true damage still cut straight through both.
So the answer was simple.
The way true damage determined its target wasn’t based on the objective laws of the physical world.
It depended entirely on me.
On what I recognized as part of the enemy.
Not on the inherent nature of whatever happened to be struck.
If I treated an enemy’s offense and defense as parts of the same whole, then true damage could pierce the attack itself as well.
That was why I had severed not only Miwa’s katana.
But also the cursed energy flowing through it.
The same thing had happened against Mahito.
Even though I couldn’t perceive his soul, I had still managed to damage a small portion of it.
Having sorted through everything in an instant, Atsushi slowly turned his gaze toward the enormous crater created by the collision of fists.
Mahoraga was climbing out of it.
But the massive pale body that had once seemed almost godlike was now missing nearly an entire side.
The huge right arm that had collided directly with Atsushi’s fist, along with most of the shoulder attached to it, had been completely obliterated by the violent spatial distortion and cursed energy released by Black Flash.
Seeing Mahoraga’s ruined body confirmed Atsushi’s theory.
Just as Ryomen Sukuna could use Mahoraga’s adaptation as a model and expand the target of his slash to space itself, allowing him to cut through Gojo Satoru’s [Limitless].
Atsushi could expand what his true damage recognized as part of a target.
Cursed energy.
Even a physical vector.
In that final instant between life and death…
Just before Atsushi’s seemingly insignificant fist collided head-on with Mahoraga’s massive pale one.
Atsushi remembered the concept of parrying.
And he made the most reckless gamble of his life.
At the exact moment before his Black Flash successfully triggered.
His mind seemed to break free from the limitations of his body.
For the first time, he truly touched the core of his own cursed energy.
Within that nearly frozen interval of 0.000001 seconds.
He changed the target of his attack.
Instead of merely penetrating Mahoraga’s body.
At the exact moment of impact, Atsushi also directed the Black Flash toward the cursed energy and physical force carried by Mahoraga’s punch.
“So if fifteen percent true damage can be applied that way.”
“Then under the right conditions, that same fifteen percent can effectively function as damage reduction.”
“And because the power produced by Black Flash increases explosively, even fifteen percent of that output was enough to cancel out an ordinary punch from Mahoraga.”
That was why…
Standing in the wind, Atsushi casually moved both of his completely intact arms.
A relaxed smile spread across his face.
“So this is…”
“Black Flash.”
His eyes, bloodshot from Flowing Red Scale: Stack only moments earlier, were now unnervingly clear.
“For that instant, I could clearly feel the core of my own cursed energy.”
Mahoraga was regenerating while advancing toward him one step at a time.
But Atsushi made no move to attack.
Instead, he stood quietly where he was.
He slowly raised his head, spread both arms, and opened himself to the world around him.
He knew he was becoming unusually talkative.
Still, he spoke.
“This feels incredible.”
“Right now, I don’t feel afraid.”
“I don’t feel any killing intent either.”
“The whole world just feels…
comfortable.”
Then Atsushi lowered his arms.
His clear gaze shifted toward Mahoraga, which was already drawing closer.
“If I had to complain about one thing…”
“It’s a little lonely that you can’t talk.”
I think I understand that feeling a little better now.
That loneliness people talk about when someone is born overwhelmingly strong…
Mahoraga was already close enough.
Its regeneration was nearly complete.
Atsushi continued murmuring strange thoughts to himself while remaining in the heightened state brought on by Black Flash.
But Mahoraga was still only a shikigami.
Its massive body had not yet completely regenerated, but its destructive instinct drove it forward without hesitation.
Its pillar-like legs slammed into the ground and shattered a wide section of earth beneath them.
Its mountain-sized body turned into a pale blur.
Mahoraga opened its undamaged left hand and reached straight for Atsushi’s head with enough force to rip through the air.
The speed and power of the attack were even more terrifying than before Mahoraga had been wounded.
Before this moment…
Throughout the entire battle, even after forcing himself to use Flowing Red Scale: Stack despite the strain on his body, Atsushi had only survived against Mahoraga because Todo Aoi was beside him.
He had relied on Boogie Woogie.
On Todo’s constant position swaps.
On the support of one of the strongest Grade 1 sorcerers.
Atsushi understood his own limits.
Whether it was the system improving his technique or the massive physical boost provided by Flowing Red Scale: Stack…
His body could only handle so much.
At best, he could temporarily push his physical abilities into the range of a Grade 1 sorcerer.
Before landing that Black Flash, his reaction speed and dynamic vision had been nowhere near enough to keep up with Mahoraga after three adaptations.
But now…
Everything was different.
Faced with Mahoraga’s enormous pale hand, one that could crush his entire body instantly.
Atsushi showed no panic whatsoever.
Instead, he made a movement so extreme that Todo and Nobara, watching from afar, felt their hearts stop.
He didn’t use any complicated footwork.
At the final possible instant, Atsushi simply bent his upper body backward.
Farther.
Lower.
Smoothly enough that it almost looked impossible.
WHOOSH!
Mahoraga’s massive hand swept past overhead.
The cursed energy surrounding it carried wind pressure sharp enough to cut like blades.
If Atsushi had misjudged the distance by even half a centimeter, a huge strip of flesh would have been torn from his upper body.
But instead…
His shirt was shredded into strips and scattered into the air.
The pale, lean skin of his chest remained completely untouched.
Even while leaning backward, Atsushi’s eyes remained locked in that same absolute state of focus.
“Blood Manipulation…”
“Convergence.”
At the same time, a highly compressed sphere of crimson blood appeared above Atsushi’s raised right palm.
Its cursed energy felt dangerously dense.
Blood Manipulation.
Because [Glass Cannon] had reduced Atsushi’s maximum health, he rarely used techniques like Convergence or Piercing Blood in ordinary combat.
They consumed too much blood and required him to release it outside his body.
But now…
After crossing the boundary between life and death and touching the core of cursed energy for himself…
Atsushi’s understanding and control of the Innate Technique engraved into his body had changed completely.
And in the brief instant it took the blood sphere to form.
Mahoraga’s right arm had fully regenerated.
Its first attack had missed.
Without hesitation, Mahoraga raised its newly restored arm high above its head.
The massive limb, packed with pale muscle, became like an enormous axe ready to split the earth apart.
With a violent shriek of displaced air, Mahoraga brought its right arm crashing down toward Atsushi.
A killing blow.
Yet Atsushi moved first.
Still operating at 120 percent of his potential after Black Flash, he had already reacted the instant Mahoraga’s shoulder muscles tightened.
His heightened perception had been pushed to its absolute limit.
Atsushi kicked off the ground like a crimson bullet and launched himself upward.
Instead of retreating…
He moved in.
With an almost impossible shift of balance, Atsushi landed directly on Mahoraga’s descending right arm.
Then he ran.
Following the shikigami’s massive limb upward, Atsushi moved like crimson lightning.
In an instant, he reached Mahoraga’s blank, featureless face.
“And then…”
Looking directly at the pale head in front of him, Atsushi awakened every bit of cursed energy packed into the compressed sphere of blood in his palm.
“Supernova!”
Standing firmly on Mahoraga’s right arm, Atsushi didn’t create distance and fire the technique from range.
Instead…
He did something completely insane.
He kept the blood sphere compressed in his palm, pushed beyond its limit by cursed energy.
Then, with every muscle in his right arm tightening…
Atsushi slammed the sphere directly against Mahoraga’s head.
Point-blank.
Like pressing a high-explosive charge against someone’s face.
BOOM!
SPLURT!
A blinding burst of high-pressure crimson blood detonated from the point where Atsushi’s palm touched Mahoraga’s head.
At zero range, the explosion resembled a blood-red supernova.
Countless razor-thin strands of blood carrying defense-ignoring true damage erupted in every direction like thousands of microscopic blades.
And Atsushi’s own right hand was caught directly in the blast.
The high-pressure blood tore through his flesh instantly.
Hundreds of tiny holes opened across his hand, spraying blood.
But compared to the damage Atsushi suffered…
Mahoraga took far worse.
At point-blank range, the blood carrying true damage tore through the shikigami’s pale head from the inside out.
Its skull was shredded apart.
Mahoraga staggered backward uncontrollably.
Its left hand immediately swept toward Atsushi, who was still standing on its right arm.
“So even without eyes…”
“Destroying your head still messes with your perception.”
Atsushi twisted into a nimble flip.
He dropped cleanly from Mahoraga’s enormous arm and landed on the ground.
At the same time, the shikigami’s second grab passed harmlessly through empty air, its accuracy ruined by the destruction of its head.
But after using so much blood for Supernova, Atsushi’s anemia worsened sharply.
He had no choice but to deactivate Flowing Red Scale: Stack.
“Looks like it’s about time to finish this…”
Atsushi slowly raised both hands.
Then he crossed them into a strange hand sign that neither Todo Aoi nor Kugisaki Nobara had ever seen before.
But at that exact moment…
CRACK!
The Curtain surrounding the entire Goodwill Event grounds shattered apart.
High above the battlefield…
A single figure stood in the sky.
Tall.
White-haired.
And with his black blindfold pulled down, revealing unmistakable brilliant blue eyes.
The strongest sorcerer of the modern era.
Gojo Satoru.