Sendai Colony 2

Then.

The archer closed his eyes.

He drew his bow again, and an Eight-Headed Arrow gradually took shape.

"Now my blood's pumping!"

Cursed energy began surging through Kinji Hakari, and the grin on his face grew increasingly excited.

At the sight.

The samurai slowly drew his katana.

He converted his cursed energy into ultra-high-frequency vibrations and coated the blade with them.

This way.

The katana gained several properties, including [cutting] and [penetration].

He took his stance.

As the archer fired an Eight-Headed Arrow at Kinji Hakari, the samurai swung his blade down as well.

He leaped off the building.

And slashed straight at Kinji Hakari.

Kinji Hakari swept both hands sideways, conjuring two doors out of thin air to obstruct the samurai's advance.

Facing the incoming Eight-Headed Arrow.

Kinji Hakari clamped his right hand around its shaft.

He turned his left hand into a blade and chopped the arrow in half the instant it pierced his body!

He had barely finished.

When he saw the woman who seemed to be Fushiguro's sister form a finger gun with one hand.

"Bang!"

Cursed energy left her body, transforming into a spike in midflight as it shot toward him.

No!

This wasn't [Construction Technique]!

He had no time to puzzle over what cursed technique it was. The samurai's katana was already coming down at him.

Before it even reached him.

Kinji Hakari could feel the ultra-high-frequency vibrations coming from the blade.

I couldn't block that head-on!

The thought flashed through his mind.

He didn't dare open his domain, either. Quite a few others were still watching from a distance.

Kinji Hakari darted aside.

In response.

The samurai seemed well accustomed to this. A smile crossed his face as he continued launching fierce attacks with measured precision.

That was right.

Close combat was his greatest strength!

Long-range attacks like the ones he had used earlier consumed a great deal of his energy and required a windup.

Using too many would take a toll on him as well.

Seeing that the samurai couldn't finish Kinji Hakari off anytime soon, Yuriko called out, "Mulong!"

"Move!"

"If we don't kill him now, his companions will get here!"

With that.

She aimed all ten fingers at Kinji Hakari and fired ten spikes from her fingertips.

Her cursed technique was called [Cursed Energy Shaping].

It allowed her to mold cursed energy into simple solid forms.

Once the shaped cursed energy left her body, it could only last for a short time.

As her words fell.

Dwarf charged at Kinji Hakari first, cackling viciously.

"Got it."

A burly man built much like Todo raised a finger to his temple.

His enormous eyes stared fixedly at Kinji Hakari.

He activated his cursed technique, [Near at Hand and Far Away], which altered the subjective perception of distance.

It had two modes of attack: [Near at Hand] and [Far Away].

[Far Away]: made the people in the target's field of vision seem impossibly distant while the sorcerer watched the target.

[Near at Hand]: did the opposite.

The familiar sensation of being locked onto swept through him.

The next second!

Kinji Hakari's pupils contracted sharply, and every hair on his body stood on end.

The samurai, who had still been some distance away a moment earlier, was suddenly right in his face.

And that wasn't all.

The ten spikes Yuriko had fired were also right in front of his face.

Teleportation?!

Kinji Hakari didn't understand.

But his instincts still drove him to retreat, trying to evade them.

Then a piercing agony shot through his left arm.

"One-Sword Style: Void-Cleaving Slash!"

An intense sense of danger surged through him.

Kinji Hakari instinctively conjured doors from cursed energy, trying to block the attack.

But the samurai sliced through them effortlessly.

His blade cut open Hakari's cursed-energy-protected abdomen, spilling blood and severed intestines.

"How lucky!"

The samurai marveled.

Even under Mulong's [Near at Hand and Far Away], Hakari had managed to avoid a fatal wound through sheer luck.

It was also luck.

That Yuriko's spikes had obstructed him, preventing him from cutting off Hakari's head and forcing him to aim for the abdomen instead.

What a shame.

This man hadn't died by his hand.

Kinji Hakari was still in danger. Wearing Special Metal Claws, Dwarf dodged the spikes and swiped at his heart.

Even if the strike couldn't kill him.

As long as Dwarf could obtain Kinji Hakari's blood.

He could inflict [Blood Curse], gradually coagulating the blood inside Hakari's body until he died.

Even.

Someone highly proficient in Reverse Cursed Technique would struggle to remove his [Blood Curse] during combat.

Let alone someone with Kinji Hakari's rudimentary level of Reverse Cursed Technique, who couldn't possibly resist the erosion of his curse.

At the same time.

The archer's Eight-Headed Arrow was also on its way.

This time, he had locked onto Kinji Hakari's head!

Once he fired, the Eight-Headed Arrow would strike only Kinji Hakari's head.

His cursed technique.

Allowed him to fire an [Eight-Headed Arrow] that was guaranteed to hit.

To activate it, he had to look directly at his target for three seconds to lock on, then fire with his eyes closed or his vision obscured.

After each shot, he had to lock on again.

The Eight-Headed Arrow.

Would only stop once it hit its target.

It was extremely fast and had tremendous penetrating power, but the arrow itself was fragile.

Any reasonably strong sorcerer could destroy it.

As long as they could strike the Eight-Headed Arrow before it hit, they could shatter it.

But.

Few could accomplish that.

Still under the effects of [Near at Hand], Kinji Hakari couldn't defend against the two attackers.

He couldn't tell how far their attacks were from him.

His abdomen had been sliced open.

Losing blood and organs, he had only one option left: open his domain!

So.

The instant he was injured, he formed the hand sign to release his domain.

"Domain Expansion-Idle Death..."

Before he could deploy his domain.

He heard an enormous crash, and all he could see was a handsome, white-haired youth.

The newcomer.

Was none other than Ken Kaneki, using an advanced application of [Blue] for the first time to compress the distance between his starting point and destination, achieving something close to teleportation!

This application generated tremendous impact force.

For an ordinary person, it was like being hit by a heavy truck with its accelerator floored.

Before Dwarf even sensed the danger, the impact sent him flying. He was now on death's doorstep.

"Made it in time..."

Kaneki ignored Dwarf, who was coughing up blood nonstop after being knocked away.

As he spoke, he reached out and crushed the Eight-Headed Arrow that couldn't get near him.

"You all right?"

After crushing it, Kaneki asked, "Hakari?"

"I'm not dying yet."

Kinji Hakari replied with a grin.

As he finished speaking, he felt his vision return to normal. His face was rather pale from blood loss.

"Limitless?"

After seeing the cursed technique Ken Kaneki had used, the samurai quickly retreated, displeasure crossing his face:

"That bastard Kenjaku actually hid information this important."

They knew about Ken Kaneki's cursed technique.

But they hadn't known that Ken Kaneki had also acquired [Limitless].

Kaneki didn't stop him from leaving.

Instead, he switched to [Ten Shadows Technique] and summoned Round Deer to heal Kinji Hakari.

At the sight of Round Deer.

Hana Kurusu, who shared her body with Angel, froze on the spot.

Megumi Fushiguro's face surfaced in her mind.

This was...

His cursed technique.

The instant Kaneki formed the hand sign to summon Round Deer, the samurai stopped retreating and charged at him with his blade.

He knew perfectly well.

That Ken Kaneki needed time to switch cursed techniques.

Now that Kaneki had acquired [Limitless], aside from a domain, the only chance to kill him was the instant he switched techniques!

The other four also launched attacks at Ken Kaneki in unison.

"Be careful!"

Kinji Hakari warned him, "One of the sorcerers can alter your perception of distance."

He hadn't seen which sorcerer had activated the technique.

But.

He had deduced that the enemy's cursed technique could only affect one person at a time.