Cursed Womb Must Die

Whether it was [Incarnation Rebirth] or the rebirth technique Guixu Ying had used...

Neither method of resurrection could restore Hajime Kashimo's new body to the peak he had reached in life in such a short time.

And right now, the power this new body could unleash...

Was not even a tenth of what he had possessed in old age...

But that was enough for Hajime Kashimo as he was now.

The slanted metal edge, wrapped in electricity-aspected cursed energy, pierced the cursed spirit's skin. That skin had remained unscathed beneath the slashes of ordinary cursed tools, yet now Hajime Kashimo's wild lightning cursed energy blasted it into chunks of flesh with a crackling roar-

Even the faintest infusion of cursed energy could be amplified without limit under absolute physical laws!

"Hah-!!!"

Cursed Womb Must Die let out an indistinct, shrill, trembling cry of pain. Driven by the agony, he desperately grabbed the arcing restraint fork with his left hand to stop Hajime Kashimo from driving it farther into his body.

At the same time, his right hand, wrapped in dark cursed energy, swiftly formed a blade and chopped down on the middle of the restraint fork...

An immense amount of cursed energy gathered in Cursed Womb Must Die's mouth:

It was a cannon of pure golden light, formed solely from cursed energy without any cursed technique-

Despite his grievous wounds, Cursed Womb Must Die's instinctive will to survive let him seize an opening to attack even as he defended himself. The fully charged cursed energy cannon shot straight toward Hajime Kashimo's face!!!

"That kind of cursed energy output..."

"Not bad!!!"

Just as the golden cursed energy beam was about to erupt, and even Cursed Womb Must Die himself had begun to think, I've got him...

A bolt of cyan-blue lightning wreathed in purple abruptly appeared in Cursed Womb Must Die's vision.

"But I've already hit you twice."

Hajime Kashimo's icy voice poured into Cursed Womb Must Die's abdomen along with his triggered lightning technique. In an instant, Cursed Womb Must Die completely lost control of his body.

Dazzling lightning flashed inside him, its raging currents surging upward in every direction and spraying into the air-

In the blink of an eye, a wound even larger and more horrific than the earlier low-grade cursed spirit's opened across Cursed Womb Must Die's body:

A massive, penetrating tear ran from his abdomen through his heart and all the way to the left side of his brain, radiating lightning cursed energy in a gruesome display. Flesh formed from cursed energy churned and seethed as it tried to regenerate, but the moment it gathered and fused, the residual charge from Hajime Kashimo's electric shock technique annihilated it again...

And the cursed energy cannon that had originally been aimed at Hajime Kashimo's face?

His bloody face had been mangled and distorted by the lightning's savage bite-

The forcibly torn jaw let air escape and diverted the cursed energy beam. The golden light grazed Hajime Kashimo's right cheek without even leaving a scratch...

"Let's get this over with."

Sensing that his new body's cursed energy was nearly depleted, Kashimo lamented its weakness as he impatiently pulled the bent, deformed restraint fork out of Cursed Womb Must Die.

The lingering power of the lightning still left Cursed Womb Must Die paralyzed and unable to move. Although his body was slowly regenerating, in his current state, he had no way to defend against Kashimo's next attack.

I still have a trump card I haven't used! I still have plenty of ways to defeat this boy!!

But it was all too late.

And reality was moving in the direction he least wanted to accept-

The metal restraint fork snapped into two pieces in Hajime Kashimo's hands-

Pouring his remaining cursed energy into the two broken halves of the restraint fork, Hajime Kashimo unleashed his final strike.

Squelch-!!!

Purple blood and purple flames appeared almost simultaneously, burning away the domain of the old, split-level attic.

Once the smoke cleared, a pointed, shriveled finger carrying a powerful aura of cursed energy appeared on the ground before Hajime Kashimo...

"This is... Sukuna's Finger, isn't it?"

Hajime Kashimo did not rashly pick up the special grade cursed object radiating a cursed aura from the ground.

If the memories he had received from Guixu Ying were correct, in about two hours, [Sukuna's vessel], Yuji Itadori, would arrive here with his companions and engage Cursed Womb Must Die in a one-sided battle...

During that battle, Yuji Itadori would mature mentally, while "Sukuna's incarnated vessel," [Megumi Fushiguro], would lose a shikigami and gain a deeper understanding of the [Ten Shadows Technique].

As for their other female companion?

Hajime Kashimo barely remembered her at all.

Kicking Sukuna's Finger into a corner, Hajime Kashimo sensed the concentration of cursed energy within the juvenile detention center and ultimately decided not to interfere too much with this special grade cursed object.

Three hours.

In only about three hours, the unattended Sukuna's Finger could draw on the detention center's cursed energy to hatch another Cursed Womb Must Die, leaving the original timeline undisturbed.

Granted, the newly born Cursed Womb Must Die would certainly be weaker than the formidable one Hajime Kashimo had defeated.

But the gap between special grade and other grades of cursed spirits was an unbridgeable chasm to begin with, especially when his opponents were greenhorns like Itadori and Fushiguro.

At that thought, Hajime Kashimo gave a snort, unable to hide his amusement.

"In a sense, I suppose I've made things easier for them?"

In the corners, scattered low-grade cursed spirits kept crawling out of the nooks and crannies-

Clearly, with the special grade cursed spirit no longer suppressing them, many low-grade cursed spirits had begun to act on their own...

But Hajime Kashimo could not be bothered with any of that.

His reserves of cursed spirits were now exhausted. His immediate priority was to leave the area and recover his cursed energy while bringing his soul and new body into alignment...

Although his reborn body could not adapt and synchronize as quickly as an incarnated vessel, Hajime Kashimo had discovered during its gradual recovery that its greatest advantage was the absence of another soul to restrain him and pull against him.

In other words, given enough time to recover, this new body would become Hajime Kashimo's true body, and even attacks capable of reaching the soul would no longer pose much of a threat to him.

"Too bad I don't have a weapon that suits me..."

Walking out of the district blanketed in dark clouds, Kashimo surveyed the city he had not previously had time to explore and considered his next objective...

Almost the very next instant after that thought arose, the mysterious vortex from Guixu Ying suddenly surged up beneath his feet and dragged him into the endless void...