"The range of your technique... it's roughly twenty meters."
"That last burst likely exhausted your current output. I'd wager your maximum temperature ceiling sits somewhere around seven hundred degrees Celsius."
Kenjaku spoke with a chilling, academic calm, his composure unshaken. He stood amidst the rubble like a lecturer dissecting a student's thesis.
"Tch!"
Riko Amanai's pulse hammered against her ribs. Her eyes darted, searching for an opening, but her heart sank. To have her technique completely analyzed after a single exchange... the pressure was suffocating. It felt as if she were sparring with Yuki Tsukumo herself.
"Since that's the case..." Kenjaku offered a thin, needle-like smile. "I simply need to dismantle you from beyond twenty meters."
"I prefer close-quarters combat, but my ranged game isn't exactly lacking." Kenjaku clapped his hands together. "Piercing Blood!"
A needle-thin bolt of blood shrieked through the air, aimed directly at Riko's throat.
"Star's Lament: Thermal Breath!"
Riko flared her cursed energy. The pocket of air in front of her superheated instantly, vaporizing the incoming blood into a harmless red mist before it could touch her.
"Ah, right. Blood boils at roughly a hundred degrees. Blood Manipulation is a poor match for you, isn't it?" Kenjaku mused, his expression shifting into something far more malicious.
He slammed a heel into the concrete. The road shattered into a dozen jagged chunks of stone. Then, with the grace of a professional striker, Kenjaku began to kick the rubble.
The stones whistled through the air, carrying the kinetic energy of a cannonball. Because concrete has an incredibly high melting point, Riko's thermal barrier was useless against the physical mass. She was forced into a desperate dance of evasion, weaving through the projectiles while trying to close the gap.
She only needed to get within twenty meters. One touch, and she could end him.
But Kenjaku was a ghost. He kept his distance with surgical precision, "kiting" her like a veteran hunter, slowly whittling away her stamina with a barrage of debris.
THUD!
Exhausted and gasping for air, Riko missed a beat. A jagged slab of concrete caught her square in the solar plexus. Despite her reinforcement, the sheer force sent her spiraling backward. She slammed into a parked sedan, the metal crumpling around her like tinfoil.
"Puh—!"
Riko coughed up a spray of crimson and slumped against the wreck, her eyes rolling back as she drifted into unconsciousness.
Kenjaku chuckled, strolling toward her. After a few steps, he paused, his head tilting to the side. "Such a devious little girl. Are you waiting for me to step into your range before you wake up?"
"Tch!"
The "unconscious" Riko snapped her eyes open. She launched herself off the car like a spring, closing the distance in a desperate, final sprint.
"Haha!"
Kenjaku didn't retreat this time. He flared his cursed energy, coating his skin in a barrier of near-impenetrable density. So what if her temperature shifted? He wanted to see her hope shatter against the reality of his power.
But suddenly, Kenjaku's pupils contracted. A bone-chilling sensation of absolute lethality raced up his spine. Even the brain hidden within his skull seemed to shiver.
"Star's Lament: Absolute Zero!"
Riko lunged, her hand outstretched. This was her trump card—a technique that required physical contact and lasted only a single millisecond.
In that millisecond, she could drop the target's temperature to Absolute Zero. At that point, atomic motion ceases. Thought, movement, and energy are frozen in an instant of cosmic stasis. If she could land one punch on his flash-frozen, brittle skull, she would win.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Anti-Gravity!"
The sudden, crushing surge of gravity pinned Riko to the earth. Her arm felt like it was made of lead, her fingertips brushing Kenjaku's robes but failing to make contact.
Despair flooded her heart. So close. Just an inch more.
Kenjaku leaped back, gasping for air, his eyes wide with genuine wariness. For a split second, he had looked into the abyss. This girl... she had actually threatened his life.
His shock curdled into a manic, triumphant laugh. "Hahaha! Magnificent! You were a hair's breadth away from killing me! How tragic for you!"
"To think someone as weak as you possessed such a terrifying hidden edge. Simply incredible! I'll be sure to thank you for your sacrifice—I'll have to be more careful in the future, lest I actually have an 'accident' one of these days!"
He stepped toward her, his hand raised like an executioner's blade. He couldn't let her live. A Grade 1 with this kind of potential would become a nightmare if she ever reached the Special Grade.
Just as he prepared to strike, a white sphere tore through the air with a sonic boom.
Kenjaku crossed his arms to block, but the sheer mass of the projectile sent him skidding through a brick wall.
"Such immense weight..." Kenjaku muttered, climbing out of the dust and staring at his trembling hands.
"Riko, are you okay?"
Yuki Tsukumo stepped forward, lifting Riko from the ground. Behind her stood the three students—they had successfully brought the cavalry.
"I'm fine, Master," Riko wheezed, offering a weak, defiant smile.
"That's my girl." Yuki patted Riko's head before turning a gaze of pure ice toward Kenjaku. "So, you're the ancient relic who thinks it's okay to bully my student?"
The white sphere uncoiled, transforming into a bizarre, bone-like creature—Yuki's shikigami, Garuda.
"Tch." Kenjaku wiped a smear of blood from his lip. "Just another Special Grade."
"Oh? How about another one?"
Yuta Okkotsu stepped out of the shadows, his blade, Dojigiri Yasutsuna, dripping with the ichor of a dozen lesser curses.
"And maybe me too?"
Toji Fushiguro sauntered into the light, his eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger for combat.
Kenjaku: "..."
"Need a hand, Kenjaku?"
Uraume appeared at the edge of the clearing, frost already beginning to coat the pavement.
"Perfect timing," Kenjaku exhaled. "Hold off the woman. I'll deal with the other two."
Yuki didn't look back. "Riko, take the kids and get out of here. The next part is for Special Grades. You can't help here."
"Understood!" Riko grabbed the three students and vanished into the night.
The atmosphere grew heavy enough to crack the asphalt. Uraume and Yuki squared off, moving to a separate block.
"Star Rage: Colossal Might!"
"Cursed Technique: Frost Calm!"
Kenjaku turned back to Yuta and Toji. "Now then, shall we—"
BOOM!
As a former sorcerer-killer, Toji Fushiguro had zero interest in monologues. Before Kenjaku could finish his sentence, Toji was in his personal space. The Soul Liberation Blade hummed, carving deep, bloody gashes into Kenjaku's frame with blinding speed.
Kenjaku: "..." Are you seriously not going to let me speak?
"Maximum Gravity!"
Toji's movements hitched as the weight of the world slammed onto his shoulders. Adaptable as ever, he snarled through the pressure. Kenjaku aimed a heavy punch at Toji's jaw.
"Plummet!"
Yuta's voice rang out, his tongue bearing the cursed sigils of the Inumaki clan.
The command hit Kenjaku like a physical blow. His own gravity seemed to double, his face sagging toward the ground in a grotesque, distorted mask of confusion.
CRUNCH!
Kenjaku slammed into the pavement, his limbs snapping like dry twigs under the combined pressure. Toji and Yuta moved in perfect, lethal synchronicity. The Dojigiri and the Soul Liberation Blade descended like twin guillotines, hacking into the ancient sorcerer with savage efficiency.
"Blood Manipulation: Supernova!"
A burst of explosive blood forced the two men back. Kenjaku rose from the gore, his shattered body knitting itself back together with terrifying speed.
"Reverse Cursed Technique? Again with that disgusting stuff?" Toji spat, his eyes twitching with an old annoyance.
Yuta reset his stance, his aura flaring. "We have to end him here. Today."
"Kill me? Hahaha!" Kenjaku threw his head back and laughed, a sound of pure, arrogant delusion.
"You insects think you can kill me? You filthy sorcerers see only what is in front of you—greed, stupidity, short-sightedness! You cannot begin to fathom the magnitude of what I am creating!"
"I am a god! A prophet! The architect of the new world! You commoners—"
He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes widened. The Breaking Vajra... it's shattered?
That meant the three monsters were on their way back.
Kenjaku's manic grin vanished, replaced by his usual mask of cold calculation. "Uraume, that's enough. We're leaving!"
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