Near Death

Mahito's body surface was turning black, about to form a hard shell, when an abnormal sensation tore it all apart. He already knew...

The attack had already landed!

In that instant, he carefully assessed the injuries on his body: his limbs had been sliced into sections like chopped scallions; his heart, chest, and abdomen had been struck by seven cuts, diagonal and horizontal, exposing different cross-sections; his neck, along with the line from his left brow to his chin, had been cleanly split apart; and a bloody hole had pierced from his left eye through to the back of his head.

And all these wounds had appeared at once. Two unknown forces had also entered his body—one hindered the recovery of his flesh and blood, while the other was poison, seemingly affecting both his nerves and Cursed Energy...

Those three blades! Mahito looked at the young man, whose stance had shifted slightly. The order of the blades in his hands had changed as well, and... this technique lingering inside his body...

After activating his technique and entering the Timeless State, Shen Yuanyi threw Onikiri. It pierced Mahito's left eyeball, then passed through the splattering fluid and sank deeper until half the blade emerged from the back of his head, where it likewise froze in place.

Holding Dojigiri and Kumo-kiri, Shen Yuanyi appeared before Mahito in the blink of an eye. The black, hardened skin whose transformation had stopped short of completion was practically nonexistent before the two Cursed Blades. They easily tore through flesh, and a continuous storm of blade light severed all four of his limbs.

Seeing some unknown purple-black fluid, motionless within the torn skin and partly dragged out, Shen Yuanyi finally understood what Mahito had been planning.

There was no need to think about it. Those things could not possibly be anything good. Mahito had never intended to use his body to withstand the attack. He wanted to counterattack with what were most likely toxins hidden beneath his disguise.

"Unfortunately... it was still pointless. Let's see whether you can survive under the techniques of these three Cursed Blades..."

Kumo-kiri's blade, like a pool of autumn water, passed through Mahito's neck and then hovered in midair. Shen Yuanyi pulled Onikiri from Mahito's eye, then Dojigiri slashed diagonally without the slightest resistance, splitting his head into two uneven halves.

Dojigiri followed with another slash, dividing his upper body in two before hovering in the air. Onikiri came next, cutting from another angle and exposing Mahito's internal organs.

Shen Yuanyi gripped Kumo-kiri and drove it into Mahito's heart. The three Cursed Blades crisscrossed, reducing Mahito to scattered fragments. Only after sensing that their techniques had penetrated deep into Mahito's body did Shen Yuanyi release his technique.

Blood sprayed everywhere from Mahito's body, like a torn sack. Before it could hit the ground, rapidly proliferating "threads" connected the severed flesh and fragments. Mahito, sitting with one hand braced against the ground, had the two halves of his head fuse back together, while bulging flesh in his left eye grew another rotating eyeball.

He reached up and pressed the eyeball hanging outside its socket back in. The smile on Mahito's face grew even brighter. He opened his mouth and suddenly vomited several chunks of flesh, then brought his hands together amid unrestrained laughter and kneaded those chunks into one.

Multi-Soul Dismemberment

Mahito's technique was called "Idle Transfiguration." He could touch and alter other people's souls, thereby changing the victim's physical form. Naturally, he could also alter his own body to adapt to different battles or fulfill certain needs.

Those chunks of flesh were victims he had altered. These transfigured humans could only obey Mahito's commands and do all manner of things against their will. Moreover, the essence of this transformation was bodily deformation caused by changing their souls, something even Reverse Cursed Technique could do nothing about.

When Mahito fused several different souls into one and used the power unleashed by the rejection between them, that was Multi-Soul Dismemberment.

Mahito wore an incomparably delighted smile as his clasped hands suddenly spread apart. The struggling chunks of fused flesh abruptly swelled amid a violent reaction, then several tumors burst out from within in a frantic rush, covering most of Mahito's body in the blink of an eye.

Those tumors then rapidly grew heads filled with sharp teeth. These faceless things crowded together like a thicket of snake heads, carrying violent Cursed Energy as they bit indiscriminately in every direction.

Looking solely at the technique itself, Shen Yuanyi found it rather interesting. Souls that had once belonged to ordinary people, under Mahito's urging and fusion, had actually erupted with power that was not as simple as one plus one. It might only be a one-time thing, but Matsumoto Tadan, whom Mahito had transformed before, had also gained Cursed Energy he could never have possessed otherwise. In other words, Mahito's technique could not only alter other people's souls, but also change an ordinary person's Cursed Energy.

Looking at the bizarre heads that had stopped before him, even the saliva dripping from their mouths was frozen in midair. Across from him, Mahito's smile had likewise solidified into a painting.

Shen Yuanyi raised Onikiri and aimed it at that smile from afar. "One more round. Let's see if I can kill you this time."

Onikiri and Kumo-kiri danced in turn—Kesa Slash, Reverse Kesa Slash, then a spinning cleave. On the path leading to Mahito, chaotic blade light ground every obstacle into fragments. Amid the scattered chunks of floating flesh, Shen Yuanyi sensed something wrong with the air. A headache, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing struck him, as if his internal organs were beginning to fail.

"Poison gas?"

Then, in an instant, those sensations vanished. With Cursed Technique Reversal continuously activated, before the poison gas mixed into Mahito's transfigured creatures could cause Shen Yuanyi further harm, the reversal effect had already restored him to his previous state.

"You've gotten smarter. Since you couldn't get your poisonous blood on me, you switched to poison gas that could roughly cover the surrounding area?" Shen Yuanyi walked up to Mahito. His opponent's gaze was still focused in another direction. Shen Yuanyi raised Onikiri and slashed diagonally from Mahito's left shoulder to his right hip, then added another cut each with Kumo-kiri and Dojigiri.

When Mahito realized that his body had once again been shattered into pieces, the first thing he did was search for Shen Yuanyi. When he saw the figure standing there completely unharmed, a look of pure confusion appeared on his face.

"Even gas doesn't work? What exactly is his technique? It doesn't seem to be just speed... Could it be a long-range slash?"

As expected, the transfigured creatures he had released also fell to pieces. No matter what form he tried to assume—whether a hard shell for defense or a fluid body like water—Mahito had no ability to fight back under Shen Yuanyi's slashes.

Poison, poison gas, and spike-like attacks that covered the entire space all vanished without a trace, buying him nothing but another round of being cut to pieces. That ominous premonition grew increasingly intense. His opponent still looked as though he were at full strength, so Mahito naturally began considering escape.

Idle Transfiguration!

Mahito's body began splitting apart like an earthworm, and he vomited another handful of "meat strips" from his mouth. An instant later, transfigured humans all over the ground let out incomprehensible, twisted noises as they staggered toward Shen Yuanyi, while the several Mahitos began undergoing astonishing transformations. Their bodies nearly burst through the ceiling of the parking garage, and blade-like limbs impossible in nature grew from them.

"Is this all you have?"

Shen Yuanyi left those final words by Mahito's ear, then entered the Timeless State. Stepping on the transfigured creatures, he arrived behind him. The techniques of the three Cursed Blades allowed him to lock onto Mahito's "main body." After casually splitting apart a clone blocking his way, Shen Yuanyi pushed Dojigiri into Mahito's back. The blade tip broke through layers of flesh and emerged from his chest.

Then a tall phantom appeared above Mahito's body. A ferocious Demon Mask gazed down at him without emotion. Within that space where everything had stopped, the Asura-like phantom raised the decayed blade still stained with blood, then brought it down upon his head.

The gears of time returned to their normal course.

"How—"

Several lines of blood burst across Mahito's face, and his mutated body scattered apart as well. But this time, it was not merely physical damage. What he truly could not understand was that his soul seemed to have been cut open by a blade as well. That was not an injury he could heal immediately. More importantly, if this boy possessed a means of harming souls, then that meant he could die!

Feeling death's light kiss for the first time, Mahito's face, already split into several pieces, broke into uncontrollable laughter. His technique began operating frantically. Since his opponent had bared his fangs, what came next would be the true killing move.

"This feeling... it's so wonderful! Is this the boundary between life and death?"

Walking down a narrow path suspended alone in darkness, with death condensed from endless darkness on both sides, Mahito felt that one wrong step could send him falling into eternal damnation. Yet it was precisely this extreme stimulation that filled him with incomparable joy from the bottom of his heart.

In an instant, Mahito's technique was complete. Shen Yuanyi, having entered the Timeless State, saw that the bodies of the surrounding transfigured creatures had begun to burst apart, while the five transfigured humans Mahito had brought from the hospital underwent a mentally contaminating fusion, becoming a composite monster.

Mahito's body no longer resembled a human form. He began splitting himself apart, and from those small, insect-like forms, it was easy to guess that he had chosen to flee.

Only one path lay before Shen Yuanyi: gamble on being able to kill Mahito in the next attack. Otherwise, he could already imagine what would happen next: those transfigured creatures would explode, collapsing the parking garage, while Mahito, having changed form, would escape amid the chaos. Shen Yuanyi could even roughly guess his route—most likely the underground drainage system.

But Mahito's soul had an absurdly huge health bar. That last strike should normally have exorcised him, yet it appeared to have only seriously wounded him. Whether he could kill him in the next round of attacks was still uncertain.

"Whatever. I'll try first."

Repeating the same trick, Shen Yuanyi helped Mahito cut himself into even smaller pieces, then summoned the phantom of the Asura Demon Mask again. The instant he released the technique, Shen Yuanyi expanded the range of Cursed Technique Reversal, reverting every transfigured creature except Mahito.

The explosion did not happen, and Mahito suffered another devastating blow. Yet rather than falling into despair, he showed a look of understanding. Mahito, shattered into wriggling insects across the ground, treated the concrete floor as though it were nothing and burrowed downward, while the transfigured humans showed signs of exploding once more.

After entering the Timeless State again, Shen Yuanyi broke open the ground and sliced the insects about to burrow into the sewers into pure flesh and blood. After triggering the techniques on the Cursed Blades for the third time, Shen Yuanyi released his technique and saw that blurred mass of flesh suddenly accelerate against all reason, shooting into the sewage within the pipes.

"Still not enough."

Shen Yuanyi cursed helplessly. This guy's health bar was ridiculous—tougher than a cockroach and slipperier than a loach. There was no point in reverting him again, because doing so would only restore his condition as well. It was a shame Shen Yuanyi had no other means of damaging souls. Otherwise, how could he have let him escape this far?

Looking at the countless insects in the sewage, Shen Yuanyi could no longer distinguish which one was part of Mahito, since Mahito had deliberately manipulated his technique so that these little things all bore traces of Cursed Energy.

"Don't let me run into you again. Next time, I'll definitely kill you."

Shen Yuanyi said this to the flowing water. He was not making threats, merely stating a fact. Setting aside everything else, once Gen Naine woke up, with her technique, she could chop Mahito to death one slash at a time. And if he could find another means of dealing with souls, it would be even easier. As long as he encountered Mahito again and caught his trail, that would be his day of death.

"Besides Mahito, there's also Volcano Head and Tree Spirit. But Geto Suguru, who had been cooperating with them, has already been confirmed dead. These Special Grade Cursed Spirits are rather unusual. I should report this to Gojo-sensei later. For now, I need to call someone to handle the aftermath."

The moment Shen Yuanyi leaped up through the opening, he was met by a devastating explosion. Yet his expression did not change as he watched the flying stones return along their original paths. The damaged walls, pillars, and large hole in the ground were seamlessly restored by cement chunks and dust flying back like a rewinding recording.

To ordinary people, all this would likely have been no more than a flicker. The ruined surroundings returned to normal, while the transfigured creatures that had likewise been reverted collapsed to the ground in an instant, blood gushing from the bloody holes in their foreheads.

"Hello? Yeah, I'm at XX Hospital. I encountered an unidentified Special Grade Cursed Spirit and fought it in the parking garage here. It escaped after being seriously wounded. The situation's a little complicated. Send someone to deal with the aftermath."