Test

"Come on, Cursed Spirit. Round three. It's time to count your sins."

Suguru Geto, watching from afar, couldn't help laughing at Lin Yi's incredibly chuunibyou words. "Yi-chan really does love Kamen Rider. A partner of justice, huh..."

"Gah!"

Faced with Lin Yi's provocation, the greatly strengthened Special-Grade Cursed Spirit was furious. Back in the Cursed Womb Stage, it couldn't use Domain Expansion and lost to him. Now that it had evolved and could use Domain Expansion, was it still supposed to fail to kill him? Die!

The Special-Grade Cursed Spirit activated its domain's guaranteed-hit effect again. Countless cursed energy shells appeared around Lin Yi and bombarded him.

But what happened next left the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit completely baffled.

Not a single one of its precision-guided cursed energy shells struck Lin Yi. They all blasted toward the Kamen Rider Joker suit Lin Yi had shed.

The cannon fire roared, shaking the ground within the domain space, yet it did nothing to hinder Lin Yi's steps.

Lin Yi had completely severed his cursed energy, temporarily entering a Heavenly Tyrant state utterly devoid of cursed energy. The domain's guaranteed-hit lock-on simply could not target him. To hit Lin Yi in this state, the Cursed Spirit could only resort to the most primitive method: tracking and locking onto him with its naked eyes.

Predicting Lin Yi's path, the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit fired a cursed energy shell.

The instant the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit raised its hand to aim, Lin Yi sensed it. With a burst of speed, he vanished from the Cursed Spirit's sight. That ghostly speed gave it a fright. It looked in every direction but saw no sign of Lin Yi, only to hear his voice rise behind it.

"Why don't you look behind you?"

The Special-Grade Cursed Spirit spun around in panic and slashed with its clawed hand, but it hit nothing. Instead, a sharp pain shot through its elbow. Something spun through the air, scattering the Cursed Spirit's distinctive purple blood. Was that its own arm?

The Special-Grade Cursed Spirit stared at its right arm, severed cleanly at the elbow, and grew even more panicked.

It couldn't understand it. It had already evolved, yet neither its eyes nor its cursed energy senses could detect any trace of Lin Yi. Only the Kamen Rider Joker suit Lin Yi had left behind was enduring the frenzied bombardment of its cursed energy shells. Even so, those shells had failed to destroy the Kamen Rider Joker suit.

Cursed energy shells powerful enough to destroy an entire floor struck the Kamen Rider Joker suit as if they had no power at all. Aside from leaving scattered cracks across its surface, the damage was easily erased by the suit's built-in ability to absorb cursed energy and repair itself.

I don't understand!

If the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit could have formed a coherent sentence right then, it would definitely have said that. It simply could not comprehend what was happening inside its own domain.

This was the noble immunity and damage reduction mechanism against cursed energy damage, Cursed Spirit!

As the permanent Cursed Tool bound to Lin Yi's soul and body in his Heavenly Tyrant state, the Kamen Rider Joker suit shared Lin Yi's immunity and damage reduction against cursed energy damage in that state. Standing in the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit's blind spot, Lin Yi watched his Kamen Rider Joker suit take only this much damage under the bombardment of cursed energy shells and finally felt reassured.

"In other words, even if I ran into two-finger Sukuna now, I could take his slashes with almost no damage. Well, that's while wearing the suit. Forget trying it with my bare body. Heavenly Tyrant is a physique that caps the upper limit while securing the lower limit. Being able to withstand the damage of an ordinary Special-Grade Cursed Spirit doesn't mean I can withstand the slashes of two-finger Sukuna. Better not test that.

"Wait, this Heavenly Tyrant state of mine is fake. Its growth has no upper limit. Never mind, then."

Using this mature Special-Grade Cursed Spirit's attacks as a benchmark, Lin Yi gained a rough understanding of his current strength. His heart settled, and he picked up a stone before tossing it at the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit, which was still looking around.

Empowered by Lin Yi's strength, the pebble shot forth like a meteor and directly shattered the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit's shoulder. However, this attack without cursed energy caused it pain but no lethal damage.

With a pained cry, the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit looked toward the source of the attack and saw Lin Yi beckoning at it.

"Ah!"

Lin Yi's repeated provocations drove the already dim-witted Special-Grade Cursed Spirit mad. It sprang forward on both legs and pounced at Lin Yi, determined to tear this detestable human into pieces with its clawed hands.

The Cursed Spirit's pounce kicked up dust and shattered the ground, but it missed. The Cursed Spirit landed kneeling on all fours, while Lin Yi treated its back like a chair and sat down on it.

"You should have noticed the gap between us by now, Cursed Spirit."

The Cursed Spirit shot up at the sound of his voice. Lin Yi rose with the motion, easily dodging the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit's claws before driving a fist into its completely exposed chin.

"Uppercut!"

The Heavenly Tyrant's capped upper limit depended on the opponent. Lin Yi could not compare to Special-Grades like Satoru Gojo and Sukuna, but against an ordinary Special-Grade Cursed Spirit like this, the speed and strength of Lin Yi's current Heavenly Tyrant state were far beyond what it could reach. Not to mention that this Heavenly Tyrant state could still grow.

The uppercut sent the Cursed Spirit soaring like a rocket, smashing through the buildings in its path. Lin Yi yawned, glanced at Suguru Geto, who was still maintaining the Simple Domain, then casually shoved his hands into his pockets and walked through the boundary of the domain space to the outside.

Domain Expansion could only lock onto objects with cursed energy. In Lin Yi's current Heavenly Tyrant state, he had no cursed energy. To the domain's judgment, he was merely a freely moving nonliving object, and its restrictions had no effect on him.

Lin Yi easily stepped outside the Cursed Spirit's domain and looked at the round object before him, roughly four or five meters long. This was what a Domain Expansion looked like to the naked eye from outside, completely disproportionate to the vast space within.

"No wonder Jujutsu Kaisen says opening a domain consumes a massive amount of energy, and once it ends, you enter the Burnout Phenomenon, where you temporarily can't use cursed techniques and can only throw punches with cursed energy. A space this big really does consume a lot of cursed energy. Only freaks like Satoru Gojo and Sukuna can spam Domain Expansion like it's some low-cooldown skill. So if I learn Domain Expansion someday, should I choose a fully enclosed domain that pursues a guaranteed-hit effect, or give up the guaranteed-hit effect in exchange for a larger open domain?"

Lin Yi pondered what direction he should choose if he mastered Domain Expansion, utterly unconcerned about what was happening inside.

Because his body and soul were bound to the permanent Kamen Rider Joker suit Cursed Tool, Lin Yi could not control the suit remotely. However, this independently operating Cursed Tool suit would automatically counterattack the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit's attacks. It was practically another him. Through his connection with the suit, Lin Yi could freely switch between first-person and third-person perspectives to observe the situation inside the domain.

Meanwhile, while his Cursed Tool suit was inside the domain trading blows with the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit, he leisurely wandered into the lounge area of Akasaka Palace meant for ordinary visitors. He found a vending machine, inserted two hundred-yen coins, collected his change and money, then grabbed an ice-cold Coca-Cola before returning to complain.

Why complain?

Because in such a huge Akasaka Palace, the vending machines didn't even support online payment!