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CHAPTER START---
"No," Taiyo shrouds himself in Domain Amplification, breaking free from the noose around his neck and catching his breath as he lands on the blood-drenched dirt. "What the hell?"
He takes a few deep breaths, raising a hand to feel the rapidly healing bruise on his neck as the sea of reanimated corpses charges him.
In the distance, he sees the Cursed Spirit atop the hill, unmoving.
'What is your trick?' Taiyo wonders as he rushes forward, shattering and breaking corpses with each strike.
He punches through a man's head before throwing him aside, knocking over a few more corpses before charging forward and shoulder bashing a dead woman.
He shatters her into rotten meat and wood, staining his clothes, much to his annoyance, then continues charging.
A dozen meters more, and he's tearing through more and more reanimated corpses, but as he closes the distance, they begin to surround him.
With each step forward, he leaves more corpses at his back, and to his annoyance, the broken bodies pull themselves together.
Mixing and matching parts as flesh grows wood and reaches out, stitching themselves together to reform into combat-ready bodies.
He fights over the length of a football field with barely any hindrance, until they use the quality he couldn't counter without his Innate Technique.
Quantity.
They charge and swarm him, working together to stab at him, and eventually their slashes begin to land.
Their wooden claws shatter against his reinforced skin, but then they tackle and grab him, attempting to dogpile him and stab him to death under their bodies, piercing each other to reach him.
"Get off me!" Taiyo leaps toward the red moon with all his might, causing the dozens of corpses dogpiling him to erupt and be blown apart as he's in the air.
He sees the Cursed Spirit in front of him and kicks off the air toward it.
"Using swarm tactics, really?" he accelerates through the air. "I would have loved to play around here, but you're too bo—"
A swarm of corpses below him explodes into a collection of bloodied roots and reaches up to grab Taiyo.
His Simple Domain alerts him to this, and he easily avoids it.
Then another attempts to grab him, causing him to spin around in the air.
And arrive back in the noose over a mile from the Cursed Spirit.
"Gah!" he takes a deep breath after using Domain Amplification to break himself free, observing the army of corpses instantly change course and rush him.
In the dozen seconds it takes for the corpses to reach him, Taiyo organizes and analyzes all the information he has.
'The Cursed Spirit doesn't move, but the corpses do. Breaking the corpses doesn't matter, and Immolation doesn't work because of the Domain Expansion's high refinement.
Then there's the noose. If I look away from the Cursed Spirit, I get transported to this tree, in a noose. And without Domain Amplification, I wouldn't be able to break out of it. Dangerous.
I can use my Domain Expansion to end this now, or use Immolation to destroy it from range. But really, this is such a good competitor,' Taiyo unveils his most vicious smile. 'Let's play around with life and death…'
Taiyo stomps on the ground, burying his foot ankle deep and sending a surge of Cursed Energy through the earth.
As the corpses get within spitting distance, he pulls his foot out of the ground and kicks forward.
The Cursed Energy he flowed through the ground solidifies for a moment, causing the earth to be launched forward.
'It's no Earth Manipulation, but it'll do,' Taiyo thinks as he clasps his hands together.
"Hollow Wicker Basket."
A blue sphere of Cursed Energy forms around him, with a pattern reminiscent of the lattice of a woven straw basket.
Taiyo then turns his head away from the Cursed Spirit, satisfying the requirement for the Sure Hit effect of the noose.
And nothing happens.
'Huh, so this works.' He thinks as corpses trample those stuck in the excavated earth to get to him.
'Hollow Wicker Basket is the precursor to Simple Domain, but it has a big advantage. Simple Domain amplifies the user and diminishes all others, including the Sure Hit effect of a Domain Expansion.
But Hollow Wicker basket will completely block it within this tiny sphere. But the trade is your hands must stay clasped together and you cannot lift your feet from the ground. So it gives no option to counterattack.
I see why Simple Domain is used, and this is effectively forgotten. This doesn't give a chance of victory, only a slow defeat. It depends on outside factors like allies to save you. And Jujutsu is always a solo game, so that's worthless.
But I should also take this chance to try the other one…'
Taiyo separates his hands and enters a combat stance, shrouding himself in pale blue Cursed Energy as the horde reaches him.
"Falling Blossom Emotion," he chants, not yet experienced enough to forgo this part of the Binding Vow.
The horde attacks him with kicks, punches, tackles, teeth, and claws.
But his flowing Cursed Energy shroud forms bursts of power or spikes of force on his body to counterattack, destroying their bodies.
An amplified version of what he and Gojo have passively due to their Flowing and Crashing Cursed Energy combination.
'This technique would be useless against a Domain Expansion like mine or Gojo's. But for something like that Cursed Spirit I fought against with Nanami, Ino, and Kusakabe…this is perfect. If the Sure Hit effect is something physical like falling rocks, or if the attack is just something plainly physical, this is better.
But I need more practice. Kenjaku can use this one while she's moving. I need to get on that level, regardless of her thousand-year experience difference. Not to mention the real Barriers I have to learn.'
Taiyo smiles, excited at the notion of having so much more to learn. Even as the horde piles up around him and pulls itself together again and again, he maintains Falling Blossom Emotion to defend himself automatically.
Then, after collecting enough information, he lowers his stance and charges forward.
He bulldozes through everything in his path. Even as a collection of corpses fuse to create mass of bloody roots and rush to ensnare him, he leaps above the battlefield and kicks off the air.
The roots give chase to grab him in the air, but he merely spins to kick them away, shattering them.
And at the moment he turned away from the Cursed Spirit, he coated himself in Domain Amplification before he turned to face it again.
Kicking off the air and repeating the process, he quickly arrived atop the hill, cratering the ground at his feet when he landed next to the Cursed Spirits.
"I'm not done with you yet," Taiyo rears back his fist and punches the Cursed Spirit in the bark, shaking the entire Domain Expansion and shattering it in one hit.
The Cursed Spirit almost splits in two, so Taiyo stops attacking and allows it to fall to the ground, writhing in pain while healing at a visible rate.
"I have two more things to test on you," Taiyo says as he stomps on it, breaking it in half but keeping the head intact.
The lower half with the root-like legs goes limp while the top slowly begins to regenerate.
Taiyo steps on its face, and both arms reach up to attack him.
He easily reads the attacks and narrows his eyes at them.
Beside his left shoulder, a blood-red sphere of Cursed Energy appears and fires a Heat Beam through one of the hands, disintegrating it.
But the orb is too slow, and he's forced to block the second strike with his hand.
He slaps the attack away and grabs its hand, breaking the fingers and palm while sinking his fingers into the rotted hand of wood and flesh.
'Still too slow. And the condensation step is too obvious. I need to practice a lot more with that. Copying Missile Fists really is a pain in the ass. But materializing attacks in the space around me for an instant strike will be worth it.'
He tears off the hand, causing immense pain to the Cursed Spirit, then reaches down and digs his fingers into where its face should be, still hidden beneath the bark.
He then pours Positive Energy, which would normally be used to heal himself or others, into its head, causing the entire upper half of the Cursed Spirit to explode, instantly exorcising it.
"At least my output with that is better," Taiyo mutters as he rises to his full height, wiping the red blood off his face and taking in the peaceful green forest around him.
"Maybe this place isn't so bad after all…"
END CHAPTER---
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pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
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