Chapter 177: Copying the Impossible
Ren froze, eyes wide.
Sutoku's body—pulled from Rika's cursed storage—was no longer the broken corpse he remembered. The head, which had been severed, was reattached neatly to the shoulders.
For an instant, Ren's instincts screamed. His finger twitched, Red Stitch threads ready to lash out. But something in his gut told him to stop.
Slowly, carefully, he stepped closer to Rika, who loomed silently over the corpse, still cradling it in her claws.
Ren extended a hand, lowering his finger until it hovered just above Sutoku's nose. He waited, breath shallow.
Nothing.
No warmth. No air. No rise or fall of breath.
Ren blinked, his chest tightening with disbelief.
He's dead. He's not breathing… But then how the hell is his head back on his body? Ugh… he still doesn't have the hand Rika ate from him. So… the Hour of Undoing happened, huh? Holy shit…
His teeth clenched.
But maybe because he was inside Rika, the instant his head was restored, he suffocated? Or died instantly? Possible. Still… this is terrifying. He really is fucking scary. With so many tricks, a godlike cursed technique, a domain, and even a maximum technique… no doubt. He was my greatest opponent yet.
Ren exhaled sharply, forcing himself to relax.
Thank god I told Rika to store him. Otherwise… he might be alive right now.
Without another moment wasted, he spoke aloud: "Eat his leg. Then store him back inside."
Rika obeyed instantly, lowering her head and tearing into Sutoku's leg with one decisive bite. Flesh crunched. Then, with inhuman efficiency, she pulled the body back into her cursed chest storage, the shadows swallowing him whole.
Ren closed his eyes, a small smile creeping across his lips.
Yup. Exactly how I expected it to work. My understanding of Sutoku's cursed technique just got sharper, though only by a little. Not much improvement beyond that. Still… there's no point in making Rika devour the whole corpse. Keeping him in pieces, stored away… that's far more useful.
He let the thought sink in before his mind turned to something else. Something that had gnawed at him for months.
Anyway… now to test a theory I had long ago. Honestly, it's stupid. Reckless. Breaks the very idea of limits… But what if? Ren's hand tightened into a fist. His eyes narrowed, gleaming with a dangerous kind of curiosity.
Can I copy my own cursed technique? Red Stitch. If I feed Rika a part of me… will she trigger the copy in return? Could I copy my own cursed technique, in turn giving me more understanding of red stitch? and improving my own foundation of my cursed technique?
He smirked faintly.
Time to learn the answer to my dumbest theory yet. Without hesitation, Ren reached up, plucked a long strand of his own hair, and handed it to Rika.
"Eat it."
For a second, Rika hesitated, her monstrous eyes fixating on him, searching. Then, wordlessly, she obeyed, swallowing the hair down.
The instant she did, Ren's mind jolted. A strange pulse, alien yet familiar, surged through his cursed energy pathways. He staggered slightly, blinking as his vision flashed with something new.
He grinned, teeth bared.
"Good…"
Not waiting, he lifted his right hand and drew quickly in the air with cursed energy.
裂— "Cut."
The kanji shimmered for a second, then dissolved into smoke. A burning sting exploded in his hand. He gritted his teeth, looking down—two of his own fingers were now sliced apart, blood spurting.
Rika lurched forward, devouring them instantly without hesitation.
Ren gripped his wrist with his other hand, blood manipulation activating to stop the bleeding. His breath came ragged, but his eyes—his eyes were alight with discovery.
Every question he'd had… answered.
He smiled, despite the pain.
Ugh… so there is a limit, huh? I didn't just hit some infinite glitch of understanding. But I did gain something new. Something I didn't know before. Haha… how wonderful. The Copying cursed techniques can be used like this too… Haha…
His laughter echoed softly through the woods, half-crazed, half-exhilarated.