Kashimo took a violent step forward, lunging straight toward Sukuna, who was still beckoning him with one hand.
His movements were as swift as a flash of lightning, closing the distance between them in a mere fraction of a second. As he swung his staff forward, the weapon tore through the air like a raging gale.
Yet in the face of such a terrifying attack, Sukuna did not dodge. He simply raised his hand and reached for the staff.
Strictly speaking, he did not actually catch it. Between Sukuna's palm and the staff were countless tiny slashes. They were like an endless wall of blades, preventing the metal staff from moving any farther.
This was Sukuna's other use of Dismantle, an almost "Infinity-like" technique made of slashes that he used specifically to deal with close-range weapons.
Bang!
In the next instant, the very staff that Kashimo had used to tear through the entirety of the Tokyo No. 2 Colony was hacked into splinters by the slashes. Simultaneously, Sukuna's other hand was already swinging toward him, with a powerful slash ready to be unleashed.
There was only a brief flicker of surprise on Kashimo's face before it was replaced by excitement. "Amazing!"
He could feel his blood boiling. Every beat of his heart felt unusually powerful. Without hesitation, he raised one hand and grabbed Sukuna's other hand from below as it swung out to release the slash.
However, the moment he sensed the overwhelming force behind it, he immediately let go and dropped to his knees in a low crouch.
The slash swept over his head, carrying terrifying cursed energy as it tore through the skyscrapers behind him. The buildings were cut cleanly in half.
The upper floors began to groan and collapse.
Taking advantage of the opening, Kashimo spun around and swept his leg toward Sukuna, trying to knock him off his feet. But how could Sukuna be brought down by such a simple attack? He lightly tapped the ground with his toes and leaped high into the air before Kashimo's attack could reach him.
Sukuna reached out his hand and was about to launch another slash at his opponent below when his eyes suddenly widened in surprise.
The crackling lightning cursed energy Kashimo had been tightly containing suddenly erupted, electric currents bursting wildly from his body as if they were out of control.
At the same time, his body began undergoing a drastic transformation.
"Technique Release: Mythical Beast Amber!"
Kashimo did not hesitate for even a second. He had already confirmed that the person standing before him was the strongest person he had ever seen.
Bang!
Before Sukuna could fully react, Kashimo disappeared from below. In his place was a fist rapidly growing larger in Sukuna's field of vision, striking him squarely across the face.
The King of Curses was knocked out of the air and sent crashing toward the ground like a streak of light. He slammed into the earth with such force that the ground around him was thrown upward.
The immense impact and the violent recoil of the blow forced him to grit his teeth, though a trickle of blood still seeped from between his lips.
* * *
"He hit him! Kashimo actually made Sukuna bleed!"
The Jujutsu High students watching the livestream nearby became excited.
That attack had undoubtedly given them a strong start. The gloom brought by Sukuna's title as the "strongest in history" seemed to be gradually fading. After all, they still had Gojo-sensei on their side, and he was even stronger than Kashimo!
However, the Jujutsu High teachers led by Satoru were the only ones who did not feel happy or excited by this astonishing attack.
As seasoned fighters, they knew that it was far too early to draw any conclusions.
* * *
On the battlefield, Kashimo remained airborne, his body continuing to transform.
He took a sharp breath, and his mouth vanished entirely, replacing itself with a barrel resembling an electromagnetic railgun.
Exhaling violently downward, a giant beam of electricity blasted from the barrel, surging directly toward Sukuna, who was still cratered in the ground.
Boom!
A deafening explosion rocked Shinjuku. A massive mushroom cloud of dust and debris billowed into the sky, reducing visibility within a dozens-of-meters radius to absolutely zero.
"Haah... haah..."
Kashimo touched down on the cracked pavement, heavy breaths rattling through the terrifying cannon barrel on his face.
This was the true nature of Mythical Beast Amber. The technique utilized electrical signals to forcefully rewrite and reconstruct Kashimo's flesh, converting his body into a medium that could manifest any phenomena formed from his lightning-like cursed energy.
Under the hyper-activation of his brain's electrical signals, his agility spiked exponentially, allowing him to optimize his form to match the inherent vibrational frequencies of matter itself. He could produce synchronized sound waves, or generate electromagnetic waves capable of vaporizing anything they touched.
Kashimo's body had already surpassed the limits of humanity in order to make all of this possible.
And the process was irreversible. Therefore, once the technique ended, his body would completely collapse.
Of course, a physical transformation of this level could not be maintained for long either. The moment Kashimo activated his technique, it meant that he had only a very short time left before his death.
But he did not feel unhappy about it. Instead, he could hardly wait to convey his feelings to the other person, to pass on the emotions he had carried alone for four hundred years.
He firmly believed that a technique he could only use once in his life existed precisely for this moment.
"What a loud voice you have~"
Yet when the smoke finally cleared, Sukuna was standing outside the attack's range. He didn't even bother using Reverse Cursed Technique to heal the wounds on his face.
His relaxed and mocking tone made it obvious that the attack had not hit him.
'Still not enough...'
That thought appeared in Kashimo's mind.
His hands began to transform as well, the fingers lengthening into vicious, beastly talons. At the same time, a wide, staring third eye split open across his forehead.
He used X-rays to analyze Sukuna's body while increasing his dynamic tracking frequency. Dropping his knees, he braced his body to launch another assault.
One more time would be enough. His unique "guaranteed-hit" attack was almost fully charged.
Kashimo charged forward.
Before even the blink of an eye had passed, his sharp claws had already reached Sukuna. But he seemed to have forgotten whose body this was.
Unlike the first time, when he had been caught off guard by the unexpected increase in speed, Sukuna had no intention of dodging now.
Because…
"Don't move."
The Cursed Speech markings, the snake eyes and fangs, manifested across the sides of Sukuna's mouth and onto his tongue.
When a sorcerer of his caliber utilized Cursed Speech, the binding force was absolute. Even with the immense kinetic energy driving Kashimo forward, his body was forcefully pinned to the spot.
"Dismantle."
Sukuna's palm then followed the movement and pressed against Kashimo's abdomen.
However, the expected scene did not occur.
Against an opponent whose agility had already been raised to another level by the Mythical Beast, Cursed Speech's restraining power was not very strong.
On top of that, while in the Mythical Beast state, Kashimo's physical modifications and the flow of cursed energy throughout his body had become extraordinarily fast.
In that split second, his abdomen was reinforced as a large amount of cursed energy gathered there to resist the attack.
Sukuna's slash failed to completely pierce through his body. It only left several deep wounds that were almost deep enough to reveal his internal organs.
Yet a fierce grin appeared on Kashimo's face.
"Now it's my turn."
Enduring Sukuna's slashes, he grabbed both of Sukuna's arms with his claws. Then he opened the cannon-like muzzle.
At such an extremely close distance, the electromagnetic cannon fired!
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