Collapsed

Asakura Yuki stared at that broad back, and the tears she had held in for so long finally burst free.

"I'm sorry... I couldn't protect Junpei..."

"Shut up. What are you crying for?"

Without turning around, Yagami Jue tossed her a bottle filled with ointment.

"That's a miracle healing medicine for your training. A bottle costs five million, so use it sparingly."

He turned his head and glanced at Junpei, who lay on the ground, badly injured but still breathing steadily.

"This kid won't die. He's got a thick hide."

"Oh dear, that hurts."

Mahito's body writhed amid the rubble.

That mass of sludge gradually took on the shape of a boy again.

He rubbed his face, his eyes glittering with utterly sick excitement.

"Yagami, you finally came."

"You know, I used up the souls of several Special Grade Sorcerers just to lure you out."

"Lure me out?"

Yagami Jue slowly walked onto the lake, his toes touching down lightly as he strode across the water as though it were solid ground.

"You really went all out just to lure me out."

"But now that I'm here, don't even think about leaving today."

"Perfect timing. I just opened three gates, and I need a decent punching bag to practice on."

"Three gates?"

Mahito tilted his head, clearly not understanding what that meant.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but inside my domain, your flesh is nothing more than my plaything..."

"Domain Expansion!"

Mahito slammed his palms together, an intensely sinister purple light shooting from his eyes.

"Self-Embodiment of Perfection!!!"

In an instant.

Countless enormous hands reached out from beneath the lake and from the sky, enclosing Yagami Jue and Mahito.

It was a space filled with deathly silence and despair.

Here, Mahito's Cursed Technique was guaranteed to hit.

He could touch the soul of anyone who entered at will.

"Here, that strength and speed you're so proud of mean nothing."

Mahito floated in midair, extending his long tongue to lick the corner of his mouth.

"Yagami Jue, let me see just how delicious your soul is!"

Thousands of soul tendrils surged madly toward Yagami Jue from every direction.

"A domain?"

Trapped in a lethal situation, Yagami Jue showed no panic. Instead, an utterly crazed sneer curled his lips.

"So this is your so-called sure-hit Cursed Technique?"

"It looks... pretty damn worthless."

He commanded silently, System! Burn all 130 million!

Maintain the Gate of Life! Push it to maximum output!

[Ding! 130 million Japanese Yen converted into berserk blood and qi!]

[Gate of Life fully opened! As the host's constitution has exceeded 100,000, the hidden effect "Flesh Suppresses Domain" has been activated!]

BOOM!!!!!

At that very instant.

Yagami Jue's body erupted with green light more blinding than the sun!

That light was not energy.

It was a fluctuation of life so utterly pure that it forcibly interfered with reality!

"What?! What is this?!"

Mahito discovered, to his horror.

When his supposedly sure-hit soul tendrils came within three meters of Yagami Jue's body.

An unimaginably terrifying heat wave burned them straight to ash!

No.

They were not burning.

The space around Yagami Jue was collapsing because it could not withstand that terrifying physical pressure!

A human body was forcibly bursting his domain apart!

"Fucking... break!!!"

Yagami Jue roared and raised his right fist high.

At that moment, his 25,000 points of strength combined with the Gate of Life's doubling effect.

It was a destructive strike exceeding 50,000 points!

BANG!!!!!

His fist came crashing down.

The enormous soul hands around him were like fragile blocks of ice.

They shattered in an instant!

Under that single punch, the dark, eerie domain shattered like a mirror, its fragments clattering to the ground.

"Gah!"

With his domain forcibly demolished, Mahito suffered an unprecedented backlash.

He collapsed onto the lake's surface, his Cursed Energy so depleted that even maintaining his form became difficult.

He stared in horror at the green-glowing demon god slowly emerging from the smoke and dust.

"This... this is impossible..."

"How could... a physical body shatter a domain?!"

"This isn't fair! This isn't fair at all!"

Mahito screamed in despair.

Yagami Jue walked up to him and seized him by the throat.

"Fair?"

Yagami Jue looked down at him coldly, without a trace of pity in his eyes.

"In this world where the strong devour the weak, money is fairness."

"A fist is truth."

"Mahito, even your parents couldn't save you today."

"W-wait!"

Something suddenly occurred to Mahito, and an utterly twisted smile spread across his face.

"Yagami Jue, do you think you've won?"

"Look over there..."

Yagami Jue's expression shifted slightly as he turned toward a distant cliff.

There stood Kenjaku, the man wearing Buddhist robes with a line of stitches across his forehead.

He held the unconscious Nobara Kugisaki and Kasumi Miwa, smiling as he watched them.

"Oh dear, Yagami."

Kenjaku's voice was clear and gentle.

"I would hate to part with Mahito, my experimental subject."

"But if I offered these two lovely girls in exchange, perhaps you could be a little generous?"

"Choose."

"Will you kill Mahito, or save them?"

The ropes of Cursed Energy in Kenjaku's hands were cinched tightly around the two girls' necks.

Fuck, it's you again, you two-faced bastard!

Yagami Jue cursed inwardly.

Is this asshole a fucking fly? Why does he always show up halfway through a fight to cause trouble?!

He looked at Mahito, worth three hundred million, in his hand, then at the two girls, who were annoying but still counted as his colleagues.

Yagami Jue's gaze turned utterly dark.

"Kenjaku."

Yagami Jue spoke, his voice so calm that Kenjaku felt an inexplicable pang of dread.

"Do you think holding two deadweights lets you bargain with me?"

"What... what are you trying to do?"

The smile slowly faded from Kenjaku's face.

"I'll tell you right now."

Yagami Jue abruptly crushed Mahito's throat, then casually tossed him aside like a dead dog.

The green light covering his body surged to its peak in an instant!

"What I fucking hate most in this life is being threatened!"

"Especially with women's lives!"

"Since you want to play so badly, I'll play for real today!"

"Gate of Life-maximum output! Evening Elephant!!!"

BOOM!!!

Above the lake, the colossal phantom of a war elephant formed from air pressure appeared.

The entire forest.

At that moment.

Was seized by a devastating tremor.

Above the lake's surface, the air crackled and exploded as though it were being scorched.

Kenjaku stood at the cliff's edge, holding the unconscious Nobara Kugisaki and Kasumi Miwa.