Twelve Authorities

Around his body, space began to shatter piece by piece like glass.

The resonance of twelve authorities. This was not simple addition. When twelve laws descended upon a mortal body at once, the qualitative change they produced was enough to rewrite everything.

"Twelvefold Astral Signs: Eternal Coordinates."

His voice became ethereal and vast.

Hajime Kashimo gripped his short staff tightly. Feeling the laws around him completely spiral out of control, unprecedented fear and exhilaration exploded wildly within his heart.

"Good. Only an opponent of this level is worth waiting four hundred years for!"

Blinding light instantly swallowed the entire ruin. Without the slightest hesitation, Hajime Kashimo transformed into a bolt of Thunderbolt and followed the path of positive charges gathered in the air, appearing at Shiyue Shuo's flank in an instant.

"Sure-hit—Thunderbolt."

The long-accumulated positive and negative charges completed their circuit in that instant. A white bolt of lightning capable of piercing heaven and earth descended from above, aimed directly at Shiyue Shuo.

Yet the expected explosion did not occur.

Activating the Twelve Talismans simultaneously had raised Shiyue Shuo's understanding of them to another level.

Tiger Talisman, balance. In that split second, the talisman etched with a vibrant tiger within his mindscape emitted a black-and-white glow. It was not that this light blocked the attack before him; rather, it "balanced out" that violent power of Thunderbolt on a physical level.

The raging lightning, upon touching the black-and-white halo, became as docile as flowing water and seeped straight through Shiyue Shuo's ankles into the earth.

Hajime Kashimo's pupils contracted sharply. He felt as if his lightning strike had slammed into a domain, its sure-hit effect instantly neutralized. Yet the domain of the person before him was clearly similar to Kinji Hakari's domain within the mind.

"Got you."

Shiyue Shuo's voice was hoarse, carrying a deep echo. His right hand twisted at an impossible angle and seized Hajime Kashimo's short staff in reverse.

The brute strength of the Ox Talisman and the extreme speed of the Rabbit Talisman.

"Boom!"

Hajime Kashimo felt as though he had collided head-on with a train moving at full speed from point-blank range. Every one of his ribs shattered in an instant, his chest caving in with a horrifying curve. The sheer force sent him flying nearly a hundred meters backward, carving a deep trench into the ground.

"Cough... urgh!"

Hajime Kashimo spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, but rather than showing pain, he smiled even more wildly.

"That's it! That feeling! Again!"

He braced himself against the ground with one hand as cursed energy poured out of his body like madness, forcibly using electric charges to draw together and hold his shattered bones in place.

Shiyue Shuo gave him no chance to catch his breath. He did not dare stop, and he could not stop. Even with the Horse Talisman constantly repairing and holding together this body that was nearly falling apart, he could feel his soul being worn down a little more beneath the crushing force of the twelvefold authorities with every second he held on.

This power did not belong to him yet. At present, he was merely a vessel carrying the talismans.

"Shadowy Snake makes me omnipresent."

"Agile Monkey makes me Myriad Transformations."

Shiyue Shuo's figure suddenly vanished into the air. Hajime Kashimo's senses instantly lost their target; even the faint electrical feedback he had spread through the surrounding air disappeared.

"Did he run? Or..."

Hajime Kashimo suddenly plunged his short staff into the ground. Within dozens of meters, the area instantly became a blue pool of lightning, where any substance would be charred in an instant.

Yet a massive claw covered in golden mane and brimming with beastly power suddenly emerged from the void without warning. It clamped down on the back of Hajime Kashimo's head and slammed him heavily into the shattered concrete.

"Blazing Boar makes my gaze burn."

"Sacred Dragon makes me fear nothing."

Shiyue Shuo's eyes opened once more. Two beams of pure white laser light, white from their overwhelming heat, instantly blasted into Hajime Kashimo's spine, followed by a chain of crimson explosions.

"Rumble!"

The ruins on both sides of the street were instantly turned into magma by the strike. The extreme heat even created a brief vacuum in the air.

Hajime Kashimo let out a pained roar. Half his back had been scorched black, and his charred spine was visible. But at the moment of impact, he forcibly gathered the current within his body at a single point in his heart. Through his short staff, he produced an extremely unstable reverse magnetic field, barely blasting himself several meters away at the final moment.

The two faced each other again. By now, the battlefield had become a hellscape, littered with melted asphalt, charred chunks of flesh, and twisted steel bars.

"Ha... ha..." Shiyue Shuo panted heavily, every breath of air he drew in carrying an extremely high temperature.

The wheel within his mindscape had begun to develop horrifying cracks. He could feel his consciousness leaking from those cracks like sand through fingers.

"Damn it. With all twelve powers existing at once, even with the Tiger Talisman's harmonization and the Horse Talisman's repair, my brain is about to burn through."

"I still can't control them all at once." His vision began to double, and sounds began to seem distant.

"It's not over yet, brat." Hajime Kashimo swayed as he straightened himself. Black smoke rose from his entire body, and his left arm had already carbonized, yet his eyes were brighter and crazier than ever. "I don't know how many trump cards you still have, but your body is about to give out, isn't it?"

"Dealing with you... is enough." Enduring the agonizing pain in his head, Shiyue Shuo forcibly activated the Rabbit Talisman once more.

"Cunning Mouse makes the false real."

"Free Chicken makes me soar to pluck the moon."

As his blood-covered palm pressed against the ground, the shattered fragments of nearby buildings seemed to suddenly gain life, transforming into several enormous serpents made of stone and concrete. As the earth's gravity surged in an instant, these giant serpents trapped Hajime Kashimo tightly at their center from every direction with the force of ten thousand tons.

At the same time, telekinesis lifted Shiyue Shuo high into the sky. Pale violet light began to whirl madly around his right fist.

"Mysterious Sheep makes my soul eternal."

Hajime Kashimo felt a threat to his life unlike anything he had known since birth. He realized that if he failed to withstand this punch, everything he possessed—including his cursed energy, his technique, even himself—would be completely erased from this world.

"So this is... the god you spoke of?" Hajime Kashimo murmured. An utterly satisfied smile unexpectedly appeared at the corner of his lips. In that moment, he felt a completion that transcended time. He pressed his remaining left hand tightly against his heart.

"I wanted to save this for the strongest... but since I encountered a miracle like you here." An aurora-like, brilliantly radiant yet deeply ominous blue glow began to emanate from his body. It was the sign that his life was being completely converted into electric charges at this moment.

"Technique Release—Mythical Beast Amber."

"Bzzzz!"

Hajime Kashimo's body disintegrated in an instant into a pure electrical phenomenon. His skin became like transparent amber, with ultimate radiance flowing within. At this moment, everything he was transformed into an energy state capable of freely manipulating electromagnetic waves.

This was not a technique. This was suicide.

"Come on, brat! Let me see whether you can withstand these four hundred years of obsession!"

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