"Blue Sky Horizon"

Uro Takako, a jujutsu sorcerer from the Heian era, had once been the captain of the Fujiwara Clan's direct assassination unit, the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad.

After one mission, she took the blame for someone in the Fujiwara family, was granted a name, and then executed.

Xuan could not help but feel puzzled as he looked at the exposed woman before him.

He had only taken one look. Was that really enough to provoke such a huge reaction?

As the warped space spread apart, Xuan finally saw Uro Takako's full body, along with the gloomy expression on her face.

"What is wrong with the sorcerers in this place...? Someone who could see me showed up just now, and now there's another one."

Seeing Uro Takako's expression, which clearly showed no intention of letting him leave, Xuan helplessly took up an attacking stance.

The woman before him had been considered one of the good guys in the manga from his previous life—and her technique was still somewhat troublesome for Xuan at the moment.

"We could be a little more peaceful. We don't have to fight."

"Even though you say that, the cursed energy on your body doesn't look 'peaceful' at all."

As Xuan assumed an attacking stance, Uro Takako also sensed the surging cursed energy within him. What a terrifying total amount of cursed energy...

Uro Takako could not help comparing the person before her to Sukuna.

Though Sukuna was clearly far more terrifying to her, the man before her had not even fully released his cursed energy. Yet with such control over it, perhaps his total cursed energy was not much less than Sukuna's.

And that meant...

"Hey... what era are you from?"

"Do people like you always ask that before fighting?"

"..."

Uro Takako had already warped the space on both sides, and Xuan naturally knew that a battle was indeed difficult to avoid now.

"Muromachi era. The strongest. Xuan."

"In return, you should state your name too."

"The strongest..."

When she had fought Ryu Ishigori, she had constantly heard him complain that she was inferior to his previous opponent, always dodging and evading.

This barrier was only so large. It was not difficult to guess that this young man before her was Ryu Ishigori's previous opponent.

"Come to think of it, did people in the Heian era not have clothes?"

"Huh?"

Uro Takako, who had originally wanted to avoid a fight, was momentarily stunned by the abrupt question.

"Think about it. According to the modern laws in your head, there's a definition for your current situation—you'd be an exhibitionist, right?"

Bang!

A sound like shattering glass rang out.

Xuan instantly noticed Uro Takako's movement. He clapped his hands together, and a bolt of thunder surged from his palms. Uro Takako, who had blasted forward with Uro's Bullet, instinctively twisted space to divert the incoming lightning, missing an opportunity to attack at the same time.

"Hey, hey, hey... I thought you had some self-awareness?"

"My technique can use 'surfaces' to grasp the 'sky'..."

Uro Takako pulled at space, then used Uro's Bullet once more. As she shattered the space behind her, she accelerated toward Xuan again.

"Explaining your technique?"

With only a slight turn of his body, Xuan neutralized her attack. Nue's technique allowed him to move dozens of meters through the air with only a slight burst of acceleration, granting near-omnidirectional instantaneous mobility without blind spots.

"Everyone knows that an information gap is extremely important, yet just like in manga, you expose your own information for a tiny boost. Don't you think that's absurd?"

"Heh... If I fail to kill an enemy in battle because I gave up that little boost, causing an assassination to fail, I'll be in serious trouble."

"Did you know? Among shikigami users, quite a few can make a binding vow and use their shikigami's techniques without summoning the shikigami."

Xuan raised his hand.

"Myriad Bolts."

As he lifted his hand, condensed lightning shot toward Uro Takako like a beam of light. Uro Takako grabbed the surface before her with both hands, intending to repeat what she had done before—but the lightning scattered just as it was about to reach her. Then, under Uro Takako's astonished gaze, it blasted toward her from all directions—

Even though she rapidly twisted the surrounding space in a full circle, some of the lightning still struck Uro Takako's body. Forcibly enduring the pain and numbness, Uro Takako hurled the lightning gathered in her hands toward Xuan.

"Catch this!!"

Whoosh!

As the lightning tore through the sky, Xuan's body vanished in an instant. Then, Uro Takako felt the rooftop of the building growing closer—

When?

Uro Takako could barely sense any leaking cursed energy. She had indeed sensed cursed energy being mobilized, but that had happened at the instant the lightning was fired. Judging by her own standards, she had assumed it was either a defensive technique or an attack meant to cancel hers out—

She had never expected him to completely overwhelm her with speed like this.

That kick sent Uro Takako crashing through over half the building like a cannonball. Even with cursed energy protecting her body, she was blasted out of the building in an instant amid an explosive burst of air—moments later, a lightning storm struck the building.

"Huff..."

As Uro Takako swiftly dodged aside, she could not help but look back—the building that had been smashed straight through the middle had nearly melted beneath the ravaging lightning storm.

If she had not fled immediately, she would have already lost the ability to fight—or perhaps died.

"Now you see the gap between us, right?"

Xuan's voice came from above.

"You really are incredibly strong..."

Uro Takako looked up at Xuan, and the hand she had raised to gather cursed energy slowly dropped.

"No—while I watched you slaughtering people from the air, I thought you were some brainless sorcerer who attacked anything you came across."

"I can't pretend I didn't hear that."

Uro Takako slowly rose into the sky, looking at the man before her, who did not seem particularly hostile.

Xuan stared at Uro Takako. The surging cursed energy emanating from the woman before him was practically sending him a message.

"You people really are hard to understand."

"What is it?"

"Someone who clearly can't beat me is standing right in front of me, yet you insist on deploying your domain—"

Uro Takako slowly raised her arms and crossed them before her chest.

"You're that confident... that you can beat me without deploying your domain?"

"Want to give it a try?"

Xuan raised his head.

"Domain Expansion."

Azure cursed energy spread in an instant, and a black barrier erupted outward in a surging torrent. Then—

"Blue Sky Horizon."

Strange... where was she?

The moment the domain expanded, Xuan had already formed the hand seal. Yet the instant Hollow Wicker Basket appeared, Uro Takako vanished from before him, replaced by an azure sky.

There were no points of reference. Above him was a sky veiled in ribbons, glowing with a faint, eerie light.

Below him was an unobstructed, boundless sky.

Xuan sniffed for the scent of "humans" in the air, but could not smell anything at all.

Then Xuan noticed what was strange.

It was not that he had lost his sense of smell. Rather—the airflow was rushing upward from below in an incredibly bizarre way.

He was falling.

Falling downward at extreme speed.

"Interesting..."