"Womb Treasury, Barrier Break, Reverse Causality, Corridor of Reality and Illusion-Concept Bestowal." A deep voice rang out at that moment, resonant as a great bell.
As Dio and Suguru Geto looked on in surprise, the rat tide received the Elephant God's enhancement. Not only did the rats swell in size and gain cursed energy, they also displayed terrifying tactical coordination.
The rats attacking Incarnate Taira no Masakado suddenly gathered into an enormous "rat ball," countless bodies tightly entwined.
They precisely seized the fleeting gap in Taira no Masakado's swing of its massive blade, when the force of one stroke was spent but the next had yet to begin, and sprang up, rolling down.
The instant it passed the crook of its arm, the rat ball abruptly broke apart, scattering into a dense rain of black arrows. Rather than aiming for its torso, they all slammed into its knees and ankles, gnawing at the joints.
The attack actually broke through the special grade cursed spirit's cursed energy reinforcement, leaving more than a dozen tears and bite marks across its huge joints and making Taira no Masakado's massive body visibly stagger!
Meanwhile, the rats attacking Incarnate Tamamo-no-Mae rapidly dug several tunnels, bursting out simultaneously from directly beneath the ground over which it hovered.
Fortunately, Tamamo-no-Mae's Simple Domain was practically a specialized weapon against creatures that swarmed like this.
Every rat that emerged looked as though it had been tossed into a dehydrator. Their bodies shriveled and contracted at a visible rate as their cursed energy and bodily fluids were forcibly extracted, reducing them to piles of lightweight "dried rats" in an instant.
Suguru Geto himself had been relying on his cursed energy-reinforced defenses to withstand the swarm's attacks. Caught off guard by their suddenly strengthened bites, he suffered several bloody wounds.
He abruptly drove his long staff into the ground and used it as an axis to spin through the air like a top, pouring cursed energy into his legs as they hacked down in turn like battle-axes.
Every kick sent several rats flying or crushed them underfoot.
Finally, he landed with a violent jolt, throwing off the rats clinging to his body.
These minor flesh wounds were hardly worth mentioning. What truly sent a chill through Suguru Geto was the sudden, drastic change in the battlefield's exchange ratio.
Through the cursed technique linking him to his cursed spirits, he could clearly sense the low-grade cursed spirits he had released dying in droves at an unprecedented rate.
Just half a minute earlier, a Grade 3 centipede cursed spirit could still rampage through the rat tide.
Hundreds of rats had needed to throw themselves at its iron-hard carapace, repeatedly gnawing at the same spot, before they could laboriously breach its defenses. Only then could the antlike swarm exhaust its cursed energy, tear it apart, and devour it.
But now-
The same cursed spirit, with the same thick carapace capable of stopping ordinary bullets, seemed to have become a crisp, thin wafer before the rats!
Each bite was no longer a futile scrape. Like a hot knife through butter, their teeth easily pierced the carapace and reached the soft tissue beneath, leaving holes with blackened edges that looked as though acid had eaten through them!
Dozens of rats-only dozens-could divide their tasks and coordinate efficiently, opening holes across a centipede cursed spirit's body, ripping apart its joints, and severing its nerves, dismantling it completely in mere seconds.
Even if the Gnawing Rat Duke could inject its own cursed energy into ordinary rats to strengthen and mutate them, the current situation could no longer be explained by a mere "the rats got stronger."
It was more as though some rule had been rewritten!
Suguru Geto's gaze sharpened, and he instantly saw the cause of the drastic shift in the battle.
It was the Elephant God! It had bestowed the additional concepts of "Gigantification" and "Cursed Energy Defense Negation" on these already mutated rats!
Anything endowed with a concept would have its very existence continuously subjected to that concept's compulsory effects!
"Watch out! Don't let them hurt you!"
Suguru Geto shouted sharply, his voice cutting through the rats' screeches and the cursed spirits' roars to reach Dio clearly.
"The Elephant God bestowed the concept of 'Cursed Energy Defense Negation' on the rats the Rat King strengthened! When they bite you, your cursed energy reinforcement won't work at all!"
Dio whirled the Greatsword in his hands into an impenetrable wheel of silver light, quickly scanning the battlefield.
Seeing the cursed spirits' hard carapaces torn apart as easily as paper by the rats, he grew a little more serious and called back, "Got it! Special grade cursed spirits can work together too?!"
"Special grade cursed spirits are already as intelligent as ordinary people! They probably felt threatened and banded together for protection!"
As Suguru Geto manipulated his cursed spirits into a new formation, trying to curb the rats' increasingly deadly assault, he decisively moved toward Dio.
The distance between them rapidly shrank amid the clamor of the battlefield.
Just then, it was as though an invisible veil that had always shrouded the edge of the battlefield had quietly been lifted. Space rippled like water, and the dim light subtly warped and refracted.
The enormous mass of cursed energy finally revealed itself. It was the Elephant God!
No, it hadn't revealed itself!
Alarm bells clamored in Suguru Geto's mind as a conjecture flashed through his thoughts:
Perhaps it had been lurking nearby all along, calmly watching the battle!
Not only did these two special grade cursed spirits know how to assess the situation and cooperate, one of them even possessed such troublesome support abilities. He immediately felt a headache coming on at the difficulty they posed.
In stark contrast to Geto, Dio showed not a trace of concern. Instead, he beamed like a collector who had discovered a priceless treasure.
In his eyes, as long as he could ultimately subdue them, the stronger and more unusual these "Pokémon" were, the better.
Without the slightest fear, he turned his head and intently examined the special grade cursed spirit that had just appeared.
Ganesh's form combined solemn grandeur with the grotesque. It was immense; even with all six limbs on the ground, it towered far above ordinary buildings. Its back rose like a small hill, while its overall silhouette retained an elephant's ponderous bulk.
A huge cross-shaped slit lay between its eyes. Its trunk had a distinctly segmented structure, seemingly composed of multiple plump sections resembling grilles or air bladders, giving it a look that was both inflated and armored.
Flat structures extended diagonally upward from either side of its head. They resembled an elephant's ears, but their shapes were harder and sharper.
Dark bands draped the Elephant God's torso, looking like decorative sashes used in some religious ceremony.
They wound in overlapping layers around its thick muscles, rising and falling slightly with the breathlike fluctuations of its cursed energy.
Its six limbs were extraordinarily thick and powerful. Beneath its dark skin, the contours of its muscles resembled tangled ancient roots, exuding an overwhelming sense of strength.
Yet the extremities touching the ground were not the broad elephant feet one might expect, but human hands with five distinct fingers and clearly defined joints.
Huge strings of black prayer beads were conspicuously wrapped around those enormous wrists.
After its bestowed concepts made the surprise attack a success, Ganesh raised its two front limbs, formed the Brahma Mudra, and solemnly intoned in a voice like bells and chimes:
"Domain Expansion: Sea of All-Phenomena Wisdom!"
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