Half-Finished Domain Expansion

After landing a punch on Impermanence Heron, Mo Bai couldn't help looking at his fist.

He felt as though he'd almost grasped something just then. It was a strange feeling...

But a moment later, Mo Bai pushed the thought aside and gave Feathered Serpent an order in his mind.

Roar!

The massive Shikigami charged toward Impermanence Heron as soon as it received the command.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Feathered Serpent's enormous body battered Impermanence Heron relentlessly, but then a purple beam swept upward through the holographic space.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

There was more than one. The purple beams stopped Feathered Serpent's assault and knocked its huge body back.

"Everyone, come back!"

At Mo Bai's shout, Feathered Serpent and the Divine Dogs all dissolved into pools of shadow.

Now Mo Bai understood why so few people had managed to pass Holographic Strategy Five.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

After driving back its enemies, Impermanence Heron beat its enormous wings and rose into the air. Several wormhole-like openings appeared around it.

Mo Bai knew the earlier lasers had come from those openings.

And now every one of them was aimed at him.

"Gulp."

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The moment Mo Bai swallowed, countless laser beams poured out of the wormholes.

Mo Bai watched, his mind racing.

What should I do...?

Summon Great Serpent to take the hits, then send Nue in when there's an opening? No. Too risky. And Nue alone doesn't have nearly enough attack power.

Slip into the shadows? That won't work either. There's no oxygen in there. I can't outlast the enemy in this enclosed space.

Wait. An enclosed space?

The thought made Mo Bai grin.

Then I can take a gamble. This isn't reality, after all. Trying won't cost me anything.

Clap!

Mo Bai interlaced his fingers and focused all his attention on the shadow beneath his feet.

He paid no heed to Impermanence Heron overhead or the attack bearing down on him.

Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!

As Mo Bai poured in his Cursed Energy, the shadow beneath his feet spread outward like a rising tide.

While he concentrated on gathering Cursed Energy, something in the holographic space quietly changed.

Just outside Mo Bai's field of view, the panel displaying holographic information suddenly glitched.

Then the "Holographic Five" data panel changed itself to "Holographic Six."

Mo Bai was still in the middle of a challenge. By all rights, that should have been impossible.

But Mo Bai knew nothing about what had happened.

"Domain Expansion!"

Once his shadow covered the entire holographic space, Mo Bai shouted.

His emotions had reached a peak.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

By then, every one of Impermanence Heron's attacks had closed in on him.

"Chimera Shadow Garden."

But as soon as Mo Bai spoke the name of his domain, he sank into the shadows and evaded the attacks.

Plop!

Mo Bai vanished, and the energy beams Impermanence Heron had fired sank into his shadow domain as well.

[Domain Expansion.]

It was an ultimate move a sorcerer could grasp after gaining a certain understanding of their technique, a display of technical mastery at its peak.

This skill, hailed as a sorcerer's ultimate move, generally had two effects.

A guaranteed hit and a guaranteed kill.

In principle, though, only a sorcerer who understood Barrier Technique and possessed an inborn Innate Technique could use it.

To put it simply, Barrier Technique was the "cup" enclosing the enemy, and the technique was the "water" filling that cup.

Once the domain's owner trapped an enemy with Barrier Technique and filled the barrier with their technique, the enemy inside was surrounded by that technique at every moment.

That was how the "guaranteed hit" and "guaranteed kill" effects arose.

Mo Bai's Innate Technique was, without question, the Ten Shadows Technique the goddess had imprinted on him earlier.

But Mo Bai knew nothing about Barrier Technique.

Ordinarily, he could not have used Domain Expansion.

As it happened, though, he was inside the enclosed space of Holographic Strategy.

So he skipped the Barrier Technique step. All he had to do was fill the enclosed space with his technique.

This shortcut had a drawback: without Barrier Technique, the guaranteed-hit effect was missing.

In short, Mo Bai's Domain Expansion was only half-finished.

Plop! Plop! Plop!

As Mo Bai's shadows absorbed Impermanence Heron's attacks, ripples appeared in the shadow covering his domain's ceiling.

Whoosh!

It was Impermanence Heron's own attack.

After Mo Bai's shadows swallowed the laser beams she had fired, they quickly expelled them from the shadows above, sending them straight back at her.

The rule that Mo Bai had to bear the weight of anything inside his shadows still applied.

If Impermanence Heron's attacks became dense enough, the weight could force him out of the challenge.

To avoid that while turning her attacks against her, Mo Bai expelled the beams through the ceiling as quickly as he absorbed them.

Because they emerged from below the ceiling and shot upward, Mo Bai didn't have to bear the weight of "lifting" them.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Ah!"

Impermanence Heron cried out as her own attacks struck her.

Her assault faltered.

"Nue."

Screech! Screech! Screech!

Mo Bai seized the opening and summoned three Nues, sending them at Impermanence Heron wrapped in lightning.

This, too, was an effect of Mo Bai's domain.

He could summon multiple copies of the same Shikigami without weakening them, and killing one did not destroy it for good.

In other words...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He could use his Shikigami as outright suicide bombers.

Since they wouldn't be destroyed for good, Mo Bai had no reason to feel bad about it.

This could work...

If I keep bombarding her like this, I can clear Holographic Five.

I can win. If I keep this up, I can definitely...

Whoosh!

Just as Mo Bai was about to declare victory, he noticed that every shadow in the holographic space had vanished.

?

He wasn't the only one stunned. Impermanence Heron, still in midair with her arms raised to defend herself, hadn't reacted either.

I still have plenty of Cursed Energy. Someone—or something—broke my domain by force from the outside.

Clap!

Mo Bai brought his hands together and formed the sign again, but no Shikigami appeared.

"Cursed Technique Burnout, huh..." Mo Bai grimaced.

[Cursed Technique Burnout.]

After a sorcerer used Domain Expansion, their technique became unavailable for a while.

In other words, using the ultimate move put every other skill on cooldown.

I'll have to fight hand-to-hand. But I had this in the bag. Something messed with me.

As he thought that, Mo Bai noticed that his holographic panel now read "Holographic Six."

No wonder Impermanence Heron went so wild at the end...

Whoosh!

Seeing that Mo Bai wasn't moving, Impermanence Heron charged down at him with her scythe.

Clang!

The sound of two blades colliding rang through the space.

But Mo Bai was not the one who had met Impermanence Heron's strike.

The last thing Mo Bai saw was a pink-haired girl with a single ponytail standing in front of him, a lightsaber in her hand.

"No, you can't do that. Interfering from outside isn't fair to a student taking on Holographic Strategy~"