Gruesome Writhing

With Kana Shizumi's current level of cursed energy control and efficiency, he was nowhere near capable of compressing blood to an extreme degree.

But taking a step back posed no problem at all.

Simply compressing it to one-third its volume, without trying to break the sound barrier... measured against bullets, the blood arrows could fully achieve the destructive power of an automatic rifle within a hundred meters.

He struck without warning, and it was a ranged attack.

Mai Zenin, unable to dodge in time, was hit in the left shoulder.

The blood arrow pierced cleanly through her outer coat, skin, and muscle, then mingled with Mai Zenin's blood before bursting from the back of her shoulder in a spray of crimson.

His first blow landed.

But Kana Shizumi was somewhat surprised.

Why wasn't she using cursed energy to reinforce her body?

An automatic rifle round fired from ten meters away could indeed penetrate a human body, especially if it was large-caliber... but she was a jujutsu sorcerer. Reinforcing one's body with cursed energy was the most basic of techniques.

There was no way she had failed to learn it.

Kana Shizumi's thoughts churned. Taking advantage of Mai Zenin's pained pause, he lunged before her and threw a heavy punch at her face.

What did it matter if she was a woman?

I'd hit her anyway!

His cursed energy-reinforced fist shot out and struck the right side of Mai Zenin's face dead on.

She screamed, her whole body sent flying at an angle by the force... She spun once through the air and was flung away miserably, only stopping when she slammed into the edge of the corridor.

"Urgh..."

With half her face covered in blood, Mai Zenin tried to grab hold of something, but the submachine gun that had slipped from her pocket hit the floor, and she had no time to seize it.

Seeing her gruesome state—her cheekbone caved in, half her face already sunken—Kana Shizumi hesitated for a moment, all within 0.2 seconds.

Then he drew a breath and stepped forward.

He couldn't hold back now. They had already come to blows; was he supposed to hope they could understand each other afterward?

The Zenin Clan was full of lunatics. If this crazy bitch held a grudge against him afterward, there would be more trouble than he could count.

Though killing Mai might mean the Zenin twins' storyline could no longer be triggered... with one less violent, burn-scarred lunatic in the world, Kana Shizumi figured Okkotsu ought to thank him.

Hey... it's not that I want to hurt you. It's this world that's hurting you.

As his thoughts surged, Kana Shizumi suddenly saw her curl her lips and let out a "heh" of laughter.

"...?"

A strange premonition rose in his heart. Before Kana Shizumi could do anything, he watched Mai Zenin draw her right hand from where it hung at her waist...

A pistol?

The same one she had used earlier.

I hadn't even given her time to reload. That thing in Mai Zenin's hand should be nothing but a useless club now.

It should have been.

But the instant that thought surfaced, every piece of information he knew about her flashed through Kana Shizumi's mind.

Construction Technique.

Using one's own cursed energy as a foundation to construct matter from nothing.

Unlike other forms of materialization, matter created through the Construction Technique did not vanish after the technique ended. As a result, it placed a severe burden on the body. It not only consumed a massive amount of cursed energy, but also required the user to be in excellent physical condition.

"No cursed energy reinforcement, an empty gun, resisting..."

His thoughts linked together, forming a complete chain during that fleeting pause.

Mai Zenin had given up on reinforcing her body with cursed energy to resist, and instead used the Construction Technique to recreate a bullet and load it into the gun?!

As if she could read every thought on Kana Shizumi's face, Mai Zenin kept half her face slack with paralysis as she grinned and pulled the trigger.

"Die, trash."

Click.

The trigger snapped back, and a misshapen yellow flash bloomed in an instant.

Bang!!!

The bullet erupted from the barrel and shot straight toward Kana Shizumi's face.

As a Grade 3 sorcerer, Mai Zenin's cursed energy reserves and technique precision were both relatively low due to being a twin—her Construction Technique could only mass-produce one bullet per day.

So once she had finished preparing it, all her cursed energy had been poured into that shot.

Naturally, she had no room left to block an attack.

Block it with your life, trash.

The spiraling projectile tore through the air and stabbed viciously toward Kana Shizumi with overwhelming force!

Speed, power, accuracy...

All such parameters had undergone far more obvious changes under the pull of cursed energy reinforcement.

At normal speed, dodging was impossible.

Then should he take it head-on?

Without knowing the bullet's strength, Kana Shizumi had no desire to gamble on that uncertainty.

It was aimed at his head, after all. What if he couldn't block it and got his brains blown out?

The faint prickling pain on his forehead made Kana Shizumi focus completely. He widened his eyes until his entire field of vision turned red, veiled by a vivid wash of blood.

The half of his cursed energy that remained boiled and circulated around his body—while Kamo Noritoshi's back appeared in Kana Shizumi's mind.

Now, I should be able to do it.

Flowing Red Scale!

Thump...

His heartbeat suddenly trembled. Invisible power burst forth with each beat, rushing alongside his blood and making every organ in his body let out sharp, explosive cries.

His body became lighter, his thoughts sharper. In that state, Kana Shizumi stared wide-eyed, tipped his head slightly forward, and smoothly turned it to the left.

It was as though he had entered a black-and-white silent film slowed down fivefold.

The bullet spiraled and shrieked past, grazing Kana Shizumi's cheek.

It shredded flesh, carving a bloodstain as thick and long as a pinky finger along the side of his face before tearing through the air...

Then time resumed its flow.

Kana Shizumi broke free of Flowing Red Scale and dropped to his knees with a thud, gasping for breath as though he had just been dragged out of water.

"Cough, cough... gah, gah, gah..."

A breakthrough in the middle of battle was the sort of thing a protagonist might do.

But the burden it placed on the body was no small matter.

Flowing Red Scale was not an ability a Grade 3 sorcerer could use freely. Though he had only maintained it briefly, his cursed energy reserves were already critically low.

At the same time, every organ and muscle in his body reacted violently, making even breathing feel difficult.

In truth, that was not an exaggeration.

Kana Shizumi shut his eyes in pain, drenched in sweat.

The blood that had previously congealed beneath his skin had not even had time to disperse, and now he had pushed his body into overload.

It felt like someone who never exercised suddenly deciding to run a marathon, only to be carried off the course after five kilometers, half-dead...

Watching him struggle as though he could barely breathe, Mai Zenin immediately gritted her teeth and tried to sit up, attempting to retrieve the spare submachine gun nearby.

Kana Shizumi noticed her movement and forced himself to crawl over, trying to grab the gun before Mai Zenin could reach it.

"Why don't you... just die?!"

"Even if you die, I won't, crazy bitch!"

Things had reached this point, and both of them were at the end of their rope.

From afar, the two looked like a pair of maggots, writhing desperately across the ground...