Zero-Frame Opening Move

"What?!"

Everyone present knew their stuff.

Especially Naobito Zenin.

The Ten Shadows Technique was the Zenin Family's most important cursed technique.

Even though he had not inherited it, and the modern era's only inheritor of the Ten Shadows Technique had been sold off by Toji Zenin.

He was still the person present who understood the Ten Shadows Technique best.

Even better than Megumi Fushiguro himself.

That was precisely why he was so shocked.

He stared at Morien's right hand, coated in bluish-purple cursed energy and dotted with tiny dark-purple particles.

Naobito Zenin narrowed his eyes.

This had to be fake...

Morien paid no attention to their shock and patted Fortune-Collecting.

"All right, go look around somewhere else," he said gently. "Stay nearby. Don't go anywhere too dangerous."

Morien gave her a reminder.

Fortune-Collecting vibrated the air, producing a low hum.

Then, with a flap of her wings, she flew into the sky.

"All right, let's head in."

Holding the fluffy white rabbit in his arms, Morien stepped toward the subway stairs.

The others gave him complicated looks before following after him.

As they walked down the stairs, Maki Zenin could not help reminding him, "As a shikigami user, aren't you taking your shikigami with you?"

"Me?" Morien turned his head. "Didn't Ijichi tell you?"

"I'm not a shikigami user."

"He did mention it," Kento Nanami nodded.

"Then that's that." Morien answered brightly, "Fortune-Collecting is my child."

The sorcerers did not find that strange.

Quite a few people called themselves a pet's father or mother, let alone a shikigami that had likely been raised from infancy and fought alongside its owner countless times.

No matter how close their relationship was, it was understandable.

But Morien's next words shattered their worldview once again.

"She's biologically mine."

"What?!"

The sound of footsteps echoed through the stairwell.

They did not speak again until they reached the subway station.

Their minds were in turmoil.

Maki Zenin especially.

She thought of her classmate Yuta Okkotsu, who claimed to share pure love with a cursed spirit.

Could it be?

Could there really be a Champion greater than Yuta Okkotsu?!

"Ah, there it is." Morien stopped and looked toward a support pillar ahead.

The others snapped out of their mental spirals and went on guard as well.

Everyone could feel the fluctuations of cursed energy.

And they were extremely dense.

A red hand reached out from behind the pillar and grabbed it.

Then a head poked out from behind it.

It was a red octopus cursed spirit, only about the size of two or three basketballs. It looked like an octopus with arms and a white body resembling a silkworm cocoon.

Its eyes were huge, it wore a white hood, and childish whimpers came from its mouth.

He was Dagon, one of the Four Disaster Curses.

He embodied humanity's fear of the sea.

But before anyone else could react, a hand touched Dagon's back.

Crack!

Dagon's entire body froze in place, as if he had become a photograph pasted against glass.

"You people are a little slow." At some point, Naobito Zenin had already moved behind Dagon.

Dagon's tiny body could not move at all, and sweat seeped down his face.

Naobito Zenin laughed as he threw a punch into Dagon's face.

Bang!

With the sound of shattering glass, Dagon was sent flying into a distant wall.

That was the speed of the fastest jujutsu sorcerer in the modern era aside from Satoru Gojo.

That punch brought tears to his eyes.

Dagon's eyes brimmed with moisture. His stomach swelled, and he opened his mouth to retch.

He had been beaten until he vomited.

As he vomited, a huge number of human bones poured out, nearly forming a carpet five or six meters long.

"Just how many people have you eaten?" Naobito Zenin was still smiling, but his laugh had grown low.

"Jogo... Mahito... Hanami..." The tiny cursed spirit crawled across the carpet of human bones.

His childish voice trembled, and tears filled his huge eyes.

"Hanami..." His pupils suddenly contracted, and his eyes filled with bloodshot veins. "Hanami..."

His body began to shake violently.

"You actually... actually dared to kill Hanami!"

Perhaps because there were far more people present than in the original story, Dagon had no intention of testing them like before.

In an instant, the surrounding environment changed drastically.

Blue skies, white clouds, sunlight, a gentle breeze, a beach, and the ocean.

Everything looked so peaceful.

"Domain Expansion: Horizon of the Captivating Skandha." Only then did Dagon's voice reach them.

But this time, his voice was no longer childish. It was rough and heavy.

Normally, Domain Expansion required two prerequisites.

The first was forming the activation hand sign, and the second was declaring the domain's name.

But as one of the Four Disaster Curses, Dagon was underhanded to the extreme.

The effect came first, then the name.

A zero-frame opening move.

Even Naobito Zenin, known as the fastest jujutsu sorcerer beneath Satoru Gojo, failed to react.

"No wonder you were so weak. You were only a cursed womb just now." The old man was about to toss out a few more insults.

But in the very next instant.

Splat! Splat! Slash!

Wounds appeared on Megumi Fushiguro, Maki Zenin, and Kento Nanami respectively.

This was the domain's guaranteed-hit effect.

Within a domain, every living creature with cursed energy would be locked onto.

As the disaster of the sea, Dagon's cursed technique could not only control water, but also summon fish-like cursed spirits.

Under the guaranteed-hit effect, those cursed spirits could appear from nowhere and strike their enemies. They could not be dodged or defended against.

In fact, those cursed spirits might not even exist before they hit their targets, only coming into being at the instant of impact.

In contrast, Naobito Zenin was unharmed. Behind him lay the corpse of a green fish shikigami.

"Secret Art: Falling Blossom Emotion."

This was an anti-domain technique passed down among the Three Great Families. The instant a guaranteed hit struck its user, it automatically used cursed energy to repel the damage and protect them.

As the dependable adult, Kento Nanami swiftly swept his gaze across the battlefield and assessed the situation.

His shoulder was injured, Maki Zenin's waist was injured, Megumi Fushiguro's thigh was injured, Naobito Zenin had blocked the attack with Falling Blossom Emotion, and Morien...

He was not hurt?

Morien had not deployed a Simple Domain or Hollow Wicker Basket, nor had he used anything like Naobito Zenin's Falling Blossom Emotion.

He was simply standing there, yet he had not been injured or affected by the domain's sure-hit cursed technique.

"I only wanted to watch the show." Morien glanced at the suddenly transformed surroundings. "Why did you drag me in too?"

"Don't hurt my rabbit."

"I just got her." Morien held Rabbit Escape in his arms.

The cursed energy inside his body began to rapidly shrink the instant he entered the domain, until it became "none."

They converted all cursed energy into spirituality.

In the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, domains, as the ultimate techniques of jujutsu sorcerers and cursed spirits, possessed a guaranteed-hit effect.

But that guaranteed hit locked onto cursed energy.

Conversely, as long as one possessed no cursed energy whatsoever, one would be judged as a "building" and could not be targeted.

The cursed spirits that could not strike him directly had no choice but to appear around him first before attacking.

Yet he easily caught them and crushed them in one grip.

Morien's eyes beneath his mask were full of curiosity as he carefully examined the domain with the Eyes of Mystery Prying.

Once everyone realized they had been pulled into the domain, they each reacted.

"Domain Expansion: Chimera Shadow Garden!"

Megumi Fushiguro immediately deployed his domain to oppose Dagon's, neutralizing its guaranteed-hit effect.

A black circular platform less than three meters in radius spread out beneath Megumi Fushiguro's feet.

That was his domain, and also his shadow.

Although his domain appeared far weaker than Dagon's, that was indeed the case.

But a domain was still a domain. When another domain appeared within one, no matter how small or weak it was, the original guaranteed-hit effect would be neutralized.

This domain...

Morien turned back, looked at the domain Megumi Fushiguro had deployed, and rubbed his chin.

If Sukuna saw this domain, he'd be scared to death.

No guaranteed hit, no guaranteed kill, such a tiny range, and it's an open domain. Enemies can come and go as they please, with absolutely no restrictions.

How much debt did this take on...

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