Chapter 312: Kotoamatsukami: Radiance
"What?!" The woman couldn't help but gasp in shock as Shisui vanished.
The manner of his disappearance was identical to what she had seen in the genjutsu earlier. This meant that she had unknowingly fallen into his trap again... Indignant, she tried to disrupt her internal chakra flow while mentally replaying everything that had just happened.
But no matter how hard she thought, she couldn't pinpoint when she had fallen under Shisui's genjutsu. In the end, she decided that as soon as she broke out, she would close her eyes and rely on the Byakugan's penetrative vision to continue fighting.
However, no matter how hard she tried, the scene before her remained unchanged, as if she weren't in a genjutsu space at all.
"How can this be? Could it be that I'm not in a genjutsu? Was that some special ability of that kid?" She considered various possibilities, her focus intensely fixed on her surroundings.
Though she wouldn't admit it, her gradually quickening breath and the sweat trickling down her forehead betrayed her growing panic.
After waiting for what felt like an eternity with no sign of Shisui, the battle-hardened woman abandoned her passive defense. She decided to exploit his weakness to force him out.
That weakness was obvious: the boy with the severed arm. If she attacked him, Shisui would have no choice but to appear... With the situation turning unfavorable, she completely discarded her earlier facade of a superior warrior, feeling no shame whatsoever.
Moving with incredible speed, she grabbed "Yamato" by the throat. Just as she was about to sneer and speak, a sharp blade abruptly pierced through her chest. The wielder was none other than "Yamato," whom she had assumed was incapacitated.
Suffering such a grievous wound so suddenly, blood flowed uncontrollably from the corner of her mouth. But in this critical moment, she disregarded everything else.
A savage grin twisted her face. Ignoring the blade still lodged in her chest, she raised her palm and slammed it down onto "Yamato's" head with all her might.
"Die!"
Bang!
Watching the head shatter like a watermelon, she was about to shout in celebration when another blade stabbed into her body from behind.
"Damn it! Why won't you die?!" She spun around and struck out again. Enraged, her formidable strength exploded instantly. "Shisui," unable to dodge in time, was sent flying by the solid blow.
But his figure vanished once more in a distortion of space, reappearing behind her almost instantly, slashing at her again with the blade in his hand.
After experiencing these repeated shifts, the woman finally regained a semblance of calm. She realized she must still be inside the genjutsu space. Whether it was the "Yamato" just now or the "Shisui" she had struck, they were all illusions created by her mind.
As for when she had fallen into the genjutsu, she had a rough guess. No, to be precise, she had been trapped in the illusion from the moment she saw Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan.
In other words, she had never broken free from the genjutsu in the first place. Everything had been a false impression created by Shisui to disturb her mind.
Clearly, Shisui had succeeded. She had believed she was free, so she hadn't used her spiritual energy to attack the space. Shisui had used this opportunity to continuously reinforce the genjutsu. By now, unless his spiritual energy was exhausted, it was absolutely impossible for her to wake up.
Understanding this, the woman gave up struggling. A playful expression returned to her face. "Not bad, little guy. Your scheming and strength are top-notch. But... it's not enough to bridge the immense gap in power between us."
Seeing that the enemy had seen through his ploy, Shisui revealed himself decisively. His crimson eyes stared at her coldly as the surrounding street transformed into a desolate wasteland, with only a dark red sun emitting an ominous glow in the sky.
Too weary to waste words on the enemy, Shisui restrained her body, and the Mangekyo in his right eye suddenly brightened.
"Inside this genjutsu space, I control everything. No matter how powerful you are, you cannot contend with this illusion."
"Until your spirit is destroyed, you can never escape this place."
"Die!"
"Kotoamatsukami: Radiance."
As the cold words fell, the massive sun in the sky crashed down like a meteor. The mere shockwave it generated destroyed the woman's spirit once.
Although the sun looked like it was about to fall immediately, its descent was surprisingly slow. Under its oppression, the woman's spirit was subjected to a continuous cycle of destruction and rebirth.
"Ha-ha, ha, you, under, estimate, me." It took the woman nearly a minute to struggle through this short sentence, demonstrating just how fast her spirit was regenerating.
"A hundred, years, of slumber, my spirit, has been, growing, constantly. You, alone, are not, qualified." She finished speaking haltingly, then quietly waited for the sun to fall, preparing to settle the score with Shisui on a spiritual level.
Although her words seemed arrogant, Shisui, as the controller of the space, knew she probably wasn't lying. While her spiritual energy was constantly decreasing, it was still far from total destruction. Even now, Shisui couldn't guarantee he could kill her.
"No, I can't think like that. To protect Yamato, to... avenge Anko, even if I die, I cannot let her escape."
With his resolve hardened, Shisui poured all his dōjutsu power into the space. Simultaneously, he attached his own spiritual energy to the falling sun, intending to use the spatial pressure to accelerate the enemy's destruction.
Three minutes passed quickly. The massive dark red sun finally crashed into the ground. The impact, thousands of times stronger than before, instantly hit the woman's spirit, eliciting a shrill scream.
Bang!
The massive impact not only swallowed the enemy's body but also obliterated the genjutsu space itself. Shisui and the woman returned to the real world.
Ignoring the splitting headache, Shisui moved without thinking, thrusting his sword at the enemy.
He reasoned that even if the genjutsu hadn't completely destroyed her spirit, it must have caused significant damage. He intended to exploit this moment, while she was still disoriented, to deliver a fatal physical blow.
Squelch.
Blood sprayed. Shisui successfully hit the enemy, but there was no joy on his face.
In the nick of time, the enemy had used her hand to block the short sword aimed at her heart.
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