Overwhelming pressure

His foxlike eyes narrowed slightly, fixed on the monster radiating green light in the middle of the lake.

Though he had lived for over a thousand years and witnessed countless extraordinarily gifted jujutsu sorcerers,

this was his first time seeing someone like Yagami Jue, who could forcibly rupture a domain with physical pressure alone.

"Yagami, your bloodlust is far too strong."

Kenjaku's voice remained steady, even carrying a hint of an elder's admonishment.

"These two frail young ladies are precious assets of your Jujutsu High."

"If you bring that attack down, they'll be reduced to ashes, you know."

With that, the cursed energy ropes in Kenjaku's hands tightened again, and Kugisaki's face instantly turned blue-purple.

"You're threatening me?"

Yagami Jue stood on the water. For one moment, the wild green waves of pressure around him eerily subsided.

But immediately afterward, an even more despair-inducing pressure, heavy as the abyss, poured wildly from his body.

"I'm saying this one last fucking time."

"Let go."

"Otherwise, I'll squeeze the brains out of that head of yours, drop by drop, and feed them to the dogs."

"Tsk, tsk. What a bad-tempered little fellow."

Kenjaku smiled and shook his head, abruptly raising his right hand.

"It seems you won't understand the need for restraint when hostages are involved unless I teach you a little lesson..."

Just as Kenjaku prepared to activate his jujutsu and cripple one of Kugisaki's legs first,

BOOM!!!

An eardrum-shattering blast erupted above the lake!

Yagami Jue vanished.

It wasn't teleportation. He was simply moving so fast that even sound couldn't catch up.

In an instant, his footfall blasted a hundred-meter-wide vacuum crater into the lake beneath him.

Countless tons of lake water were swept skyward by the pressure, turning into a torrential downpour.

"So fast...!"

Kenjaku's pupils contracted sharply.

Within the perception of his imitation "Six Eyes," Yagami Jue's path of movement was nothing but a void.

That was because his opponent had completely broken through spatial resistance!

"Maximum: Meteor!"

Kenjaku instinctively tried to unleash a wide-area attack to protect himself.

But he was too late.

Yagami Jue had abruptly appeared right in front of Kenjaku's nose.

The suffocating pressure at such close range made even the stitches on Kenjaku's forehead tremble slightly with fear.

"I told you. I fucking hate being threatened."

Yagami Jue's cold voice was like the whisper of death.

"Evening Elephant: First Step!"

Yagami Jue thrust his right fist forward, the motion looking deceptively slow.

But the instant he threw that punch, the air across dozens of meters ahead was forcibly compressed into a transparent column visible to the naked eye!

BOOM!!!

The shock wave carried by that column was a hundred times more terrifying than any heavy artillery.

Kenjaku didn't even have time to scream.

All he felt was an irresistible force smashing head-on into his cursed energy shield.

CRACK!

A shield capable of withstanding a special grade cursed spirit's full-power strike became as fragile as soaked toilet paper in that instant.

Like a fired cannonball, Kenjaku was blasted away by the force of the punch, along with the two girls in his hands!

Fuck, shit! I put too much into that!

Yagami Jue cursed inwardly.

Although he had used "Fine Control" to direct the pressure away from Kugisaki and Miwa,

the recoil was still more than the two girls could withstand.

WHOOSH!

Yagami Jue moved again.

In midair, he first darted aside and reached out to catch Nobara Kugisaki as she flew away.

"Off you go!"

He casually tossed her behind him.

On the grass dozens of meters away, Junpei had only just regained consciousness. Before he could react, something heavy slammed into his arms.

"Oof! Mr. Yagami, be gentler!"

Junpei's face flushed from the impact. In his arms, Nobara Kugisaki was still mumbling groggily, "Sushi... I want the most expensive kind... damn white-haired bastard..."

With one girl safely out of the way, Yagami Jue doubled back in midair.

"The second one!"

He appeared behind Kasumi Miwa and scooped her up by the back of her collar.

By now, Kasumi Miwa had been frightened fully awake.

Her innocent, water-blue eyes widened as she stared at the man glowing green before her.

"Um... you're Yagami, right? Was that just... an earthquake?"

Kasumi Miwa's voice trembled. She looked both pitiful and adorable, like a cat being held by the scruff.

"Earthquake, my ass. I'm fucking cleaning house."

Yagami Jue tossed her onto the ground irritably.

Kasumi Miwa rolled several times across the grass. When she looked up, she saw Yagami Jue charging back toward the distant cloud of dust.

"So... so cool..."

Clutching her broken sword, Kasumi Miwa blushed so fiercely that her face looked ready to drip.

"He's scary, but he's seriously so much cooler than that principal who only knows how to play guitar!"

"Kenjaku, quit fucking playing dead!"

Yagami Jue landed amid the ruins, with devastation beneath his feet.

That single "Evening Elephant" had blasted away more than half the cliff.

Kenjaku crawled out of the rubble in a sorry state, his robes shredded into strips.

His left shoulder was a bloody mess, with stark white fragments of bone exposed.

"Hah... hah..."

Kenjaku gasped for breath, all trace of his former nonchalance gone from his eyes.

In its place was a wariness that reached deep into his bones.

"I really miscalculated."

"So this is the power of the Eight Gates Formation? An attack that can even alter atmospheric pressure..."

"Yagami Jue, just how much money have you spent on this system?"

"None of your fucking business!"

Yagami Jue spat.

"System, with this bastard's health this low, how much can I get for killing him?"

[Ding! Target detected to possess exceptionally strong soul compatibility due to occupying 'Suguru Geto's' body.]

[Current kill success rate: 60%.]

[Estimated kill reward: 1 billion Japanese yen!]

"A billion?!"

Yagami Jue's heart gave a sudden jolt.

Fuck, if I finish this job, I'll have most of the money I need to open the fourth gate!

"A billion yen is calling my name. Kenjaku, sorry, but today's your day."

Yagami Jue clenched his fists. In his extreme excitement, the green light around his body actually began taking on a faint blood-red tint.

It was a sign that he was approaching the threshold of the "Gate of Death."

Although he hadn't yet opened the subsequent gates, he had already pushed his body's potential to its limit.

"You want my life? Let's see if you've got what it takes to claim it!"

Kenjaku went all out as well.

He slapped his own forehead, and the stitches split apart in an instant!

"Domain Expansion: Womb Profusion!!!"

RUMBLE!

The earth shook violently once more as countless twisted, infant-shaped lumps of flesh emerged from underground.

These lumps released purple-black smoke with an unbearable stench, instantly engulfing everything within a kilometer.

This was Kenjaku's final trump card.

Within this incomplete domain, he could forcibly interfere with the gravity acting on any object.

"Gravity interference? Another one of these dime-a-dozen tricks."

Yagami Jue felt his body grow at least a thousand times heavier.

An ordinary special grade sorcerer would probably have been crushed into a meat patty by now.

But his constitution stat had already surpassed a hundred and ten thousand!

"Playing with gravity in front of me? Have you forgotten what they call me?"

"The Heavenly Tyrant... was born to shatter all these rules!"

"Evening Elephant: Second Step!!!"

Yagami Jue roared and took another step forward against the terrifying gravity.

BANG!

Another white column of air erupted.

This time, its power was twice as great as before!

Wherever the shock wave passed, those disgusting lumps of flesh were instantly pulverized.

"Urgh!"

His domain violently shaken once again, Kenjaku spewed blood.

He had never imagined anyone could be this overwhelmingly powerful.

Someone who could smash even the laws of gravity in space through sheer muscle alone!

He's a lunatic! A complete and utter lunatic!

For the first time, Kenjaku felt an emotion called "regret."

Why did I have to provoke this freak?

"Again! Evening Elephant: Third Step!!!"

Yagami Jue had found his rhythm.

He felt as though his blood vessels would burst if he didn't release the surging power inside him.

Just as he prepared to throw his third punch,

"Stop!"

An immensely authoritative voice, tinged with a casual irreverence, echoed through the sky.

Then,

the sky shrouded in purple-black smoke was torn open as though by a massive hand.