"Even a cursed spirit would care about having its arm cut off, right?"
Yuji raised his hand to wipe the blood from his cheek. He turned sideways and looked at the shocked Jogo.
Cold sweat rolled down the forehead of the volcano-headed curse.
Its defensive capabilities could not be considered strong among curses. The reason it was the strongest existence among the four Special Grade curses was due to its massive cursed energy reserves and powerful output capabilities, as well as its unparalleled speed. Its base state alone could rival Naoya Zenin with stacked Projection Sorcery—and the high temperatures it released could deal fatal blows to carbon-based lifeforms.
However, in contrast, its defense was inferior to Hanami's. Yuji's attacks could easily deal fatal damage to it.
"So fast..."
His cursed energy reserves were clearly still not much. Not even a fifth of its own. So why was he able to undergo such an earth-shattering change in such a short time?
Was all of this purely because of Quality?
Yuji's cursed energy utilization efficiency was comparable to a fierce god. In this field, he had already reached the level of Ryomen Sukuna and Satoru Gojo.
Because he had only started practicing jujutsu for less than five days—coupled with his inherently thin cursed energy reserves—his terrifying strength had been greatly restricted.
Now that he had obtained Sukuna's assistance... even if he only received the cursed energy of one finger, the terrifying aspect of Yuji was completely displayed before Jogo's eyes. Just like the instant a beast imprisoned in a cage for years is finally released.
"...Gulp."
Jogo's Adam's apple bobbed.
Regardless, in the ensuing time, it could not take another attack from Yuji Itadori.
Jogo's focus became highly concentrated.
Because it knew that if it didn't do this, it was highly likely to die.
"Hah... Hah... Hah..."
The volcano-headed curse's breathing couldn't help but grow heavy.
Focus... I must focus...
Cursed energy had regenerated its arm in an instant. Jogo gathered all the cursed energy in its body into these newly formed arms—
Maximum output!
I'll burn you to ashes!
Crimson pillars of fire erupted from Jogo's palms, expanding the moment they left its hands.
With Jogo as the starting point, the monstrous flames spread out into a fan-shaped sea of fire directly in front of it. The color of the flames changed from crimson to orange-yellow—and the outermost edges even began to turn blue! It was as if it wanted to devour everything.
The ground beneath their feet began to melt, but Yuji unhurriedly raised his hand, converting his cursed energy into blood.
A scarlet sea of blood unfurled in front of Yuji, forming a towering wall.
HISS—!
The flames crashed against the sea of blood, but this time, the wall made of blood was no longer suppressed. As the waves of fire rose higher and higher, the sea of blood stacked up layer by layer until the two completely canceled each other out.
Steam engulfed the entire riverbank.
The white mist was so thick that even the ground beneath their feet couldn't be seen. Using the steam as cover, Jogo once again summoned countless Ember Insects to fly toward Yuji. Over a dozen small volcanoes also burst from the ground, aiming at Yuji in the mist.
I'll use this to stall you!
The swarm of Ember Insects rushed into the mist from all directions. The volcanoes erupted with flames.
While stalling Yuji, Jogo channeled cursed energy into its legs and leaped high into the distant sky.
Below were the intersecting pillars of fire and the shockwaves from the Ember Insects' explosions.
It raised its arms and roared at Yuji below:
"Even if you used Sukuna's power, there's no way you can take this move!"
A meteor was forming.
The outer shell of the meteor was covered in raging flames. Orange-yellow light leaked from the cracks, as if magma was rolling inside.
The immense pressure seemed to suck away the surrounding air, parting the mist beneath it. At the same time, Yuji had already cleared out all the Ember Insects. He looked up, staring expressionlessly at the blinding meteor above.
"Maximum Meteor!"
By the time Jogo called out the name of the technique, the meteor's radius had reached nearly a hundred meters.
The flames were left behind by the meteor, dragging into a long tail. Looking up from the ground, it looked like a real shooting star crossing the sky.
"..."
Yuji didn't dodge or evade. He raised his right arm. Blood seeped out from his pores, quickly solidifying on the boy's arm.
Relying solely on Dismantle and Cleave would probably not be enough to deal with such a massive object—not to mention that the density and power of this meteor were far higher than it appeared on the surface.
However, Shrine was not Yuji's most powerful output method.
The blood, highly compressed to its absolute limit, gradually enveloped Yuji's arm completely.
To deal with this thing, he had to use his maximum output Blood Armor combined with Black Flash.
At the same time, Jogo swung its arms, violently hurling the meteor above its head toward Yuji below—
Black Flash. A special strike that can only occur when the delay between a physical hit and the impact of cursed energy is within 0.000001 seconds. If the thickness of the Blood Armor was added as an obstacle, the difficulty of landing a Black Flash would undoubtedly multiply.
But Yuji was confident he could land a Black Flash.
He absolutely could—and easily at that!
When the meteor completely obscured Jogo's figure and was mere inches away from Yuji, the pink-haired boy bent his knees, lowering his entire body.
Then, he punched upward—
BOOM—!
"Black Flash!"
With the surface of Yuji's fist as the center, spiderweb-like cracks instantly spread across the entire surface of the meteor. Violent cursed energy passed through the Blood Armor and was injected into the interior of this meteor by Yuji.
RUMBLE—!
At this very moment, the entire meteor was sliced into countless irregular fragments. The fragments were shattered again by the intense impact the moment they disintegrated—finally turning into a sky full of debris flying into the air!
Jogo's eye widened abruptly.
How... is this possible?
Jogo, who was confident it could deal with Satoru Gojo, simply did not believe that there was truly a human in this world capable of doing this!
But it knew it had no time to be shocked. The volcano-headed curse's gaze rapidly swept its surroundings, searching for Yuji!
Is this guy hiding in the rubble? Below? Behind? Or to the side? No, none of those...
Above!
However, Yuji was one step faster. Using the debris as cover, before Jogo could lock onto his position, the boy had already arrived above the volcano-headed curse's head.
Jogo wanted to dodge, but it was too late.
BANG!
Yuji kicked it heavily in the face. Jogo's body flew straight toward the ground like a missile!
BOOM!
The ground caved in under the tyrannical impact, forming a circular crater over five meters in diameter, scattering dust and smoke.
Yuji looked down at the rising dust and gracefully landed on the ground from the air. Because he used the highly compressed Blood Armor to strike a Black Flash earlier, this caused an error of less than a few milliseconds in his judgment of the cursed energy impact. Coupled with the fact that executing a Black Flash with a leg is harder than with a dominant hand, his kick just now failed to trigger a Black Flash.
However, taking that blow must have been very unpleasant for Jogo.
"..."
Geto, you are a fucking bastard. I'm definitely going to settle the score with you when I get back...
Jogo lay flat on its back in the large crater Yuji had smashed it into, cursing furiously in its heart.
Saying Sukuna and Yuji were just playing around, and that Yuji wasn't stronger than it yet.
This guy is clearly absurdly strong, okay!
"Damn it!"
The dust and smoke were gradually clearing. Jogo staggered to its feet from the bottom of the crater.
Even its maximum output technique, Maximum Meteor, couldn't do anything to Yuji Itadori. At this point, there was nothing left to say!
Right now, Jogo only had one path to choose, and that was...
"..."
Yuji had clearly sensed Jogo's intention. The curse and the boy raised their hands and formed hand signs simultaneously.
"Domain Expansion—"
"Domain Expansion!"
The ground beneath Yuji's feet seemed to turn into a swamp. Black cursed energy spread outward from where he stood like a spring. Countless animal skulls rose from beneath his feet, followed immediately by the emergence of a giant shrine.
A pitch-black barrier condensed above Jogo's head, then formed a hemisphere, completely enveloping everything around the two of them.
"Malevolent Shrine!"
"Coffin of the Iron Mountain!"
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