The sure-hit rule

Bone spikes tore through the air like a torrential downpour, letting out a teeth-grating shriek.

Though the small, thin figure moved nimbly through the rain, he still could not escape unscathed from the dense, fan-shaped barrage that covered almost the entire sky overhead.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Several muffled sounds of flesh being pierced erupted through the rainy night in rapid succession.

Thick white bone spikes easily tore through his thin, pale back, piercing his slender shoulders and thighs.

The tremendous force sent his body, no bigger than that of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old, flying before it slammed into the mud several meters away.

"Cough, cough... I still couldn't dodge it? Idle Transfiguration is far too overpowered as a Cursed Technique."

Muddy water splashed everywhere. The shirtless figure lay twisted in the standing water, half of his ragged trouser legs submerged in mud.

No crimson blood flowed from the punctures. Instead, the wounds rippled like transparent water.

As though drawn by some invisible force, the surrounding rainwater and puddles slowly converged on those holes, filling them in, struggling to reconstruct his broken body.

Everything inside this domain is a product of my Cursed Energy. If I can control water... then I can control the water formed inside the domain, too!

Just as his dark red eyes fixed on the depths of the downpour and his body struggled to move in the muddy water, the rain across this entire space abruptly froze for an instant.

The rain had not stopped. Rather, the droplets suspended in midair and the puddles on the ground all defied gravity and the laws of physics at that moment.

Within microseconds, the crystalline liquid stretched and compressed, becoming hundreds upon thousands of razor-sharp, transparent water blades.

"Whoosh-!"

Without warning, the water blades filling the sky seemed to acquire minds of their own, converging on Mahito from every direction in a full three hundred and sixty degrees, leaving no blind spots.

The cruel smile had yet to fade from Mahito's face when he immediately sensed the deadly change in his surroundings.

The muscles in his legs swelled instantly, and he sprang backward into the air. At the same time, he crossed his arms before him, his grayish-white flesh rapidly hardening as he tried to form an indestructible shield of bone and flesh to block the sudden counterattack.

"Too naive. An attack covering this much ground has such obvious trajectories-"

Mahito's words cut off abruptly.

The transparent water blades he had dodged, which should have flown harmlessly past, all turned back in midair at bizarre angles that completely defied inertia.

No matter how Mahito twisted his body in the air or covered his vitals with his bone shield, the water blades slipped into the gaps in his defense as though they were weapons of causality with their outcome already predetermined.

"Shhk, shhk, shhk-!"

The water blades sliced through Mahito's flesh without fail, stabbing deep into his back, flank, and thighs.

Though they did not penetrate far, the powerful "neutralizing" property carried by the rainwater immediately made copious white smoke from his black Cursed Energy rise from his wounds, as though they were being scorched by fire.

"Argh!"

Mahito groaned and fell heavily from the air, plowing a deep furrow through the muddy ground.

He seized the water blade lodged in his shoulder and used Idle Transfiguration to forcibly maintain the shape of his soul, brutally squeezing the water out of his body.

"I can't dodge it... and physical defenses are meaningless. I see. This is the rain curtain's 'sure-hit' rule!"

Mahito's expression twisted from the burning sensation in his soul, yet the excitement in his mismatched eyes blazed to its peak.

As he endured the agony of his Cursed Energy being violently neutralized, he rapidly assessed the situation through the depth of his wounds.

"Inside this domain you control, every drop of rain is your blade, and hitting your target is an absolute truth!

"What terrifying potential..."

Mahito abruptly rose to his feet, allowing the next wave of water blades to mercilessly slice his cheeks again.

He no longer attempted any futile dodging. Instead, he unleashed his Cursed Energy without regard for the cost.

His entire upper body began to swell violently, transforming into a monstrous form of thick, ugly layers of fat interwoven with bone armor.

Since he could not evade the sure-hit attacks, he chose to withstand them through sheer thickness.

The attacks are working... It seems my ability suppresses his Idle Transfiguration to some extent. Feng kept thinking as his body reconstructed itself.

"But! Your domain hasn't formed a closed barrier at all, and its output still has a limit!

"Cuts of this strength are nowhere near enough to wear me down completely when I have Idle Transfiguration!"

The enormous monster pushed through the water blades slicing wildly through the air, leaving a deep footprint with every step.

The bone armor covering his body was constantly cut apart by the sure-hit water blades, his Cursed Energy evaporating, only to be instantly reshaped through his soul with the support of Idle Transfiguration.

Braving the sure-hit downpour like an unstoppable chariot of flesh, he stomped through the mud, advancing step by step to crush the thin figure lying ahead.

"Is this guy even human? Pah! He wasn't human to begin with..."

As that breathless curse rang out through the cold, rainy night, the monster of flesh launched a devastating charge like a heavy war chariot.

Mahito's right arm, transformed into a gigantic spiked hammer, slammed viciously toward the mud with an air-rending roar.

Idle Transfiguration is far too overpowered. I have no advantage in a direct clash.

But it looks like Mahito still can't expand his domain, while I have one! That's my advantage!

At the last possible moment, the thin body sprawled on the ground dragged its incompletely reconstructed torso into a perilous sideways roll through the standing water.

"Boom-!"

Mud and gravel blasted skyward. A pit half a meter deep appeared where he had just been, and the splashing muddy water even punched through a nearby dead tree trunk.

If I can create water and control water... then I should be able to return to that fundamental state and become water!

Yet the moment he rolled away from the fatal strike, the body of that twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy made no attempt to stand. Looking down from above, Mahito saw violent ripples suddenly spread across Feng's pale skin.

Then the edges of his body collapsed and melted like a bubble that had lost its surface tension. Along with his ragged clothes, he disintegrated into a puddle of transparent liquid in the blink of an eye, merging seamlessly with the standing water on the ground.

At the same time, the dense black cloud that had covered the entire Nursing Home seemed to receive some invisible command, rapidly shifting toward the outer iron fence at a speed that completely defied meteorological principles.

The torrential sure-hit rain curtain shifted with it, taking a swath of oppressive dampness along.

Mahito abruptly halted his enormous body. The gigantic flesh hammer of his right arm rapidly contracted, reverting to its original shape.

He watched the water on the ground spread and flow swiftly toward the outer puddles, his mismatched pupils contracting sharply.

"Completely erasing the physical concept of flesh and turning into a flowing natural phenomenon?"

Rather than blindly setting off after the receding black cloud overhead, Mahito calmly lowered himself into a half crouch and plunged both hands into the water beneath his feet before it could fully retreat.

"But since this water forms your 'body,' the outline of your soul must be hidden within this liquid!"

Deep within his palms, eerie, violent black Cursed Energy erupted-[Idle Transfiguration]!

By touching this water that belonged to the "rainfall," Mahito tried to make direct contact with his opponent's soul and alter it.

However, the instant that warped Cursed Energy entered the water, the surrounding raindrops hissed sharply as though they had encountered a red-hot branding iron.

The pure rainwater and the malice-filled Cursed Energy violently repelled each other.

Copious white steam rose around Mahito's palms.

As though possessing the instinct to shed its tail to survive, the puddle on the ground instantly severed its connection to the portion touched by his Cursed Energy.

It allowed that portion to be eroded and evaporated by the black Cursed Energy, while the remaining water vanished even faster into the dark soil and grass, following the moving rain cloud overhead as it flowed away.

Mahito slowly stood up. Looking at the red marks scalded into his palms by the rainwater's "neutralizing" property, he casually flicked the water from his hands.

The heavy bone armor covering him receded as well, restoring his original appearance as a young man in a loose tunic to conserve the Cursed Energy the rainwater kept draining.

"He can even sever the connection to the part being touched within microseconds. Even if I touch the water, I can't catch that flowing soul.

"What an escape method. There's no way to get a grip on it."

He tilted his head up, letting the lingering rain at the edge fall onto his face as he watched the rain curtain swiftly cross the abandoned iron fence and head toward the distant mountain forest.

The fervor in Mahito's eyes did not fade with his prey's escape. Instead, his calm analysis made it settle into something even deeper.

"A mobile domain... with powerful self-preservation and severing mechanisms, too.

"But moving through the night sky with such a conspicuous 'black cloud' is practically as obvious as carrying a torch in the dark."

Mahito turned to look at the discarded remains of the ragged trousers on the ground, his mouth spreading into a chilling grin.

His prey had escaped this enclosed hunting ground, but this was merely the beginning of an even grander game of pursuit.