Chapter 84: Near Death, Desperate Crisis, the System's Roar
"Gravity Amplification. Twentyfold."
The moment the Gravity Curse roared, the air stopped feeling like air.
It became weight.
Solid, suffocating weight that crushed down from every direction at once.
Yami coughed up a mouthful of blood.
This time, it was no longer as simple as his body becoming heavy.
His organs had shifted.
It felt as though invisible hands had reached into his torso and begun tearing everything apart from within. His knees slammed into the concrete hard enough to shatter it, twin craters blooming beneath them.
He tried to rise.
He could not.
Even lifting a finger had become difficult.
And in that single fatal moment of stiffness, the Space Curse, which had been lurking in the distortions all along, finally revealed its true malice.
No sound.
No warning.
No visible killing intent.
The folding of space hid everything perfectly.
Then it struck.
Squelch.
A black bone spike punched through Yami's back and burst from his abdomen.
Blood splashed across his vision.
For a second, the whole world turned red.
He lowered his head slowly and stared at the spike protruding from his stomach.
A strange blankness flickered through his eyes.
Pain?
He could barely feel it now.
Too much blood had already been lost. Cold was spreading through him faster than agony. His fingertips were going numb. His vision was dimming at the edges.
Around him, the corpse sea erupted into shrieks.
The stitched abominations howled and writhed in celebration. The three Special Grades let out grating sounds, something between laughter and the grinding of broken teeth. They could not speak, but their mockery was obvious enough.
The great human swordsman had fallen.
Even he could bleed.
Even he could break.
In the monitoring room, the Higher Ups were already raising their glasses.
One old man laughed so hard wine spilled down his sleeve.
"Good."
"Excellent."
"This is how it should be."
"As long as he dies here, dealing with Gojo Satoru afterward will be easy."
"We will call it an accident during the mission. A Special Grade rampage. Nothing left of the body."
Another elder smiled so widely his face looked rotten.
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect."
Inside the triple layered Domain, death seemed certain.
And yet, in that endless darkness, a weak voice rose.
Soft.
Hoarse.
But unbroken.
"Who said…"
Yami lifted his head.
Blood ran down his chin.
His face was pale.
His body should already have collapsed.
But there was no fear in his eyes.
No pleading.
No resignation.
Only silence.
The terrible, hair raising silence that came before a storm.
"System," he said inwardly.
His consciousness was sinking, but he forced the thought through the dark.
"You're not planning to let me die here, are you?"
For the first time in what felt like ages, the system responded.
[Alert. Alert.]
[Host vital signs have fallen to critical levels.]
[Lethal damage confirmed.]
[Survival instinct detected.]
[Willpower check passed.]
[Forced breakthrough of synchronization initiated.]
Then heat exploded inside him.
Not the raging heat of flame.
Something deeper.
Something more violent.
The black spike that had pierced through his abdomen suddenly glowed red, then melted apart under the pressure surging from within his body. Liquid metal and black ash sprayed outward as the three Special Grades recoiled in instinctive terror.
They felt it immediately.
The human they had driven to the brink of death was changing.
The aura around him shifted.
The scorching, domineering presence of Sun Breathing began to recede. In its place came something colder. Sharper. More lonely. A killing intent drenched in stillness, like moonlight falling over a field of corpses.
The system's voice rang again.
[Ding. Forced synchronization breakthrough complete. Thirty percent.]
[New Breathing branch unlocked.]
[Moon Breathing.]
Yami slowly rose to his feet.
Blood still poured from the wound in his abdomen, but beneath that eerie lunar aura, the torn flesh had already begun knitting together at a visible pace.
He opened his eyes fully.
In his red pupils, a broken crescent moon now reflected faintly.
This was not Yoriichi's blazing path.
This was the sword that had chased that light all its life.
The blade of Kokushibo.
Tsugikuni Michikatsu.
Moon Breathing.
It did not possess the broad, overwhelming brilliance of Sun Breathing.
But in slaughter, in range, in the omnipresent terror of death blooming from every angle, Moon Breathing was something far more terrifying.
It was not sunrise.
It was the reaper's moon.
Yami tightened his grip on Shiranui.
The black blade no longer burned with golden fire.
Instead, countless tiny purple black crescents spiraled around it like fragments of broken moonlight, each one trembling with razor sharp intent.
He looked up.
The three Special Grades that had been so certain of victory were shivering now.
Just a little.
But enough.
Yami smiled.
There was no warmth in it.
"If the sea of corpses is endless…"
His voice was low, and the Domain seemed to freeze just listening to it.
"Then let the moon cover the earth."
He angled the blade toward them.
The countless stitched monsters around him began to slow, as though some ancient instinct buried inside their cursed flesh was screaming at them to run.
Moments ago, these creatures had surrounded a dying man.
Now they faced something else entirely.
"You had fun attacking me, didn't you?"
Purple black crescent winds coiled tighter around the blade.
A pressure colder than death spread through the Sea of Ten Thousand Cursed Corpses.
"Now…"
Yami lowered his stance.
Moonlight seemed to gather around him, though no moon existed in this place.
The air itself became thin.
Sharp.
Silent.
"It's my turn."
The entire Domain stopped breathing.
.....
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