The Dragon soared high into the sky, maintaining its Dragon's Breath from the air.
The massive amount of Cursed Energy triggered a celestial anomaly; the sky seemed to darken.
The Dragon flew through the gloomy sky, the breath from its mouth chasing after Kinji Hakari.
Sensing the Dragon in the air with his Cursed Energy perception, Kinji Hakari, undeterred by the danger of a direct hit, charged directly beneath it.
If this continued, he would surely be chased to death by the Dragon's Breath.
Kinji Hakari understood this point, so he had to counterattack.
He couldn't just keep stalling for time!
While running, Kinji Hakari precisely controlled the flow of his Cursed Energy, strengthening his leg power to the limit.
His running speed grew faster and faster.
When breathing fire, the Dragon only needed to turn its head.
Naturally, its turning speed far exceeded the speed at which Kinji Hakari could run in circles.
Yet, during Kinji Hakari's run, the Dragon's head-tracking actually failed to keep up with him.
5 seconds passed. 8 seconds remaining.
Kinji Hakari finally arrived directly beneath the Dragon.
The Dragon also ceased its breath at that very instant.
A thunderous roar finally erupted as the breath stopped.
A chasm trailed behind Kinji Hakari.
In those brief two seconds, the Dragon's Breath had altered the terrain, creating a serpentine deep pit over three hundred meters long.
The expanding shockwaves still hadn't settled.
Fierce winds mixed with Cursed Energy, shooting gravel and dust into the air and almost forming a sandstorm.
Amidst the gale and dust, Kinji Hakari suddenly sprang up.
He was going to counterattack!
The Dragon was at least two hundred meters from the ground, yet with a single leap, Kinji Hakari managed to close that distance to zero.
The Dragon's eyes followed Kinji Hakari, then it suddenly flew past him from the outside.
Kinji Hakari's leap left him with no foothold in the sky, making him a perfect target for the Dragon.
The Dragon's tail swung fiercely toward Kinji Hakari.
Kinji Hakari crossed his arms in front of his face to block.
The dragon tail collided with his arms, producing a tremendous sound.
The impact shockwave spread outward limitlessly.
Kinji Hakari's body was like a tennis ball perfectly struck by a racket, plummeting violently downward.
He crashed to the ground with a deafening explosion.
Kinji Hakari took a heavy blow.
Even though he had prepared Cursed Energy defense this time, he could still feel his bones dislocating and his internal organs rupturing.
He couldn't help but open his mouth, spitting out blood mixed with bits of flesh and viscera.
Miscalculation!
He thought he had reached directly beneath the Dragon's body.
His sudden leap was meant to be a sneak attack; the Dragon shouldn't have been able to react in time.
He hadn't accounted for the Dragon's dynamic vision being so excellent, nor its body being so agile.
It was simply unlike a creature of its unimaginable size.
Whether it was dynamic vision, reaction speed, strength, explosive power, or agility, the Dragon was flawless.
Kinji Hakari deeply understood what a "higher-level being" meant.
6 seconds passed. 7 seconds remaining.
Pressure like a falling meteor descended from the sky.
High above, the Dragon suddenly dove downward.
It didn't use its breath again.
After its actions in the previous seconds, the Dragon had judged that long-range breath alone could never hit Kinji Hakari.
It had to close the distance, even using its breath at point-blank range to achieve a one-hit kill.
The giant dragon dove!
Kinji Hakari endured the pain and immediately tried to get up and dodge.
But before he could stand, he suddenly staggered.
Although theoretically not needed in battle, he still felt the sensation in his mouth disappear.
He had a foreign object in his mouth and spat it out, discovering it was a piece of internal organ.
But he couldn't taste anything; it was as if his tongue had become useless.
After sight, hearing, and smell, his "taste" had also been sealed.
Suddenly, the massive body arrived.
He hadn't seized the final opportunity to escape the Dragon's impact zone.
The Dragon emitted a deep, resonant cry like that of a whale shark, akin to an ancient bell toll.
Its immense sound was nearly tangible, the sound waves pressing down on him limitlessly.
For a moment, he couldn't even stand up, forced to let the Dragon's horns strike the ground, directly impacting his body.
Dragon's Roar!
For a moment, the world fell silent.
The next instant, an explosion!
The massive blast's area of effect exceeded a hundred meters.
A Cursed Energy storm formed a semicircular spiral.
Inside the semicircle, Cursed Energy flew chaotically.
The entire multi-story parking lot plaza was shattered by the shockwave.
The asphalt floor of the plaza flew upward like a rainstorm falling from the ground.
Rubble in mid-air was blasted apart by the Cursed Energy explosion, then continued to shatter until it became powder invisible to the naked eye.
The ground continuously sank downward.
Amidst the flying earth and stones, the effects continued to expand.
The entire multi-story parking lot began to shake.
Half of the building gradually crumbled and collapsed during the shaking.
Finally, the semicircular Cursed Energy storm lost its restraint, spreading outward with the immense shockwave, seemingly reaching the ends of the world.
In the end, an abyss-like giant crater appeared in the landscape.
The Dragon let out a tremendous roar from within the crater.
The immense bell-like sound spread limitlessly.
The Cursed Energy storm scattered all the ash and rubble.
The Dragon hovered above the crater, its head deeply lowered, its heterochromatic eyes glowing like lamps, gazing down at the crater's bottom like a deity.
7 seconds passed. 6 seconds remaining.
At the bottom of the crater, Kinji Hakari, barely keeping his body intact, gasped for breath.
Although he had used his full Cursed Energy defense, his body was almost completely burnt out.
The Cursed Energy burns and the death storm whipped up by the blast left him covered in scars, with wounds reaching to the bone.
He didn't know how many bones were broken.
His spine no longer responded; it seemed even his spine had been pierced.
His mind was a muddled mess; the terror of death accompanied him every moment.
Although he was gasping for breath as if panting, he had lost all external perception.
He was covered in wounds, yet he couldn't feel his own body, as if submerged in the deep sea, his entire body squeezed by some immense pressure.
He struggled and sank in a pitch-black abyss.
Now, his only remaining perception of the outside world was his Cursed Energy perception.
His sense of touch had disappeared.
"Body" sealed!
A misjudgment, he thought.
He should have abandoned full-body defense and, at the cost of an arm, established a Binding Vow to maximize his own reinforcement to withstand this attack.
In the original work, during battle, Kinji Hakari had sacrificed an arm to strengthen his own defense, surviving an underwater explosion with almost no injuries besides the severed arm.
If he had truly judged accurately this time, he probably could have endured this attack again.
But that was impossible.
In the original work, he made the most accurate judgment because, before the opponent's attack was released, Kinji Hakari had already assessed its intensity.
But now, all his five senses had failed; he was relying solely on Cursed Energy perception.
Given more time to adapt, he might have been able to display a certain level of strength.
But he didn't have that time.
8 seconds passed. 5 seconds remaining.
He struggled, trying to stand up.
Suddenly, he stopped struggling.
Now, with all five senses lost, he viewed the world only through Cursed Energy perception.
In this world, a giant claw descended from the sky.
He wanted to get up and dodge, but because he had lost his sense of touch, he couldn't even stand.
He could only watch the terrifying claw fall from the heavens.
It was the Dragon's claw.
The claw reached down and lightly touched Kinji Hakari's forehead, like an Mahito gently stroking a Mortal's head.
Kinji Hakari collapsed to the ground with the touch.
"Sight," "hearing," "taste," "body."
Finally, "mind."
This is the Purification of the Six Senses!
9 seconds passed. 4 seconds remaining.
Kinji Hakari, falling into the abyss.