The temperature inside the crater was intense. If anyone had been wearing rubber-soled shoes, they would have melted the instant they stepped onto the scorched earth.
Psionic energy coated the blade; the moment it made contact with the surrounding waves of malevolent Cursed Energy, the air hissed like red-hot iron plunged into cold water, sending up plumes of white steam as the curses gradually dissipated.
Lying before him was a charred slab of flesh just over a meter long, breathing faintly and blending into the blackened colors of the crater floor. This was all that remained of the Grade 1 Cursed Spirit, left in this pathetic state by Mr. Ishihara's Innate Technique, [Skyfire].
Severely injured and immobile as it was, the vitality of a Cursed Spirit was beyond imagination; given enough time, it would eventually regenerate to its original form.
This was why the "finishing blow" was crucial.
After locating the target, Kenmyo Isayama's gaze sharpened. He flipped his grip on the sword and drove it downward with a violent thrust.
The hard exoskeleton had already been torn apart by Mr. Iwata and the others, so the blackened mass offered no resistance. The enchanted blade pierced straight into the meat with clinical precision.
Kenmyo began funreling a high concentration of Psionic energy—which was indistinguishable from pure poison to a Cursed Spirit—down the hilt and through the blade. The spirit, which had been in a semi-comatose state of self-repair, reacted as if a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid had been poured over it. It jolted awake, letting out a chorus of bone-chilling, overlapping shrieks.
"Still not dead?"
Kenmyo frowned. The resilience of a Grade 1 was far beyond his expectations. The Psionic energy he had just injected would have been enough to kill nearly 4,000 low-level spirits, yet it seemed to lack the finishing lethality for this one.
It even had enough strength left to resist.
A mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth split open across its pitch-black surface, aimed directly at Kenmyo. He was suddenly bathed in a flickering black-and-white light. Deep within its gullet, a small orb of swirling black-and-white motes was forming.
Directly facing such a high-energy reaction made Kenmyo's scalp tingle with dread.
"Damn it."
Kenmyo immediately realized its intent. It wanted to use its remaining Cursed Energy to condense a zero-range Cursed Energy blast.
"Are you insane?"
Reality wasn't a video game; there was no "friendly fire disabled" here. At this distance, if he was hit, the spirit itself would be caught in the blast.
With time running out, Kenmyo decisively cut off the Psionic supply to the sword and pulled it out. Instead, he rapidly gathered a sphere of glowing blue Psionic matter in his right palm.
Ignoring the revolting slime, Kenmyo jammed the Psionic orb into the spirit's open maw, shoving it as deep as he possibly could.
The movement was incredibly rough.
Was it his imagination? As he reached down, Kenmyo thought he heard the spirit let out a gagging "Guh" sound.
He didn't care; now wasn't the time for niceties. Without a moment's hesitation, Kenmyo turned and sprinted away, taking the slope of the crater in a few frantic leaps.
When Ishihara saw Kenmyo scrambling out of the pit in a hurry, he assumed the job was done.
"Yo, finished?"
To Ishihara's surprise, Kenmyo just shouted with an expression of pure urgency:
"Run!"
"Run? Why run?"
Ishihara was still confused. However, when Mr. Akutagawa heard Kenmyo's warning, his expression darkened as if he had sensed something ominous. He grabbed Kiyono and Iwata—one in each hand—and turned to bolt.
"Hey, hey, hey, you're joking, right?"
Ishihara finally panicked. He didn't know what the danger was, but seeing everyone running away while he was stuck unable to move was terrifying.
"Look behind you!" Kenmyo shouted as he ran.
Ishihara strained to turn his neck. With one look, his back was instantly drenched in sweat. He realized the cost of his Cursed Energy exhaustion: he couldn't even use basic "Cursed Sensing."
The scene inside the crater was disastrous. After swallowing Kenmyo's Psionic orb, the spirit had undergone an unknown mutation. Its form was warping, turning from a rectangle into a sphere of flesh, and it had already undergone three rounds of expansion.
It grew larger each time.
As the first white cracks appeared on its surface, more and more followed, with a horrific, searing energy brewing inside. Ishihara was horrified; the energy contained in that black sphere was far more terrifying than his own Cursed Energy at full power. If it exploded this close, he was done for.
"Holy crap! I'm wounded! I can't move!"
"Don't forget me!"
Fortunately, Kenmyo's conscience won out. He doubled back and hoisted the screaming, desperate redhead over his shoulder.
"Wait, Ken! My hammer! I haven't grabbed my hammer!"
"Forget the damn hammer!"
Kenmyo carrying Ishihara was already the peak of his kindness; there was no way he was lugging a giant hammer too. "Big bro, it's about to blow!"
A Cursed Energy blast requires a stable structure to form a focused beam of death. But Psionic energy is anything but stable. It acts as a suppressant to Cursed Energy. By mixing a concentrated Psionic orb into an unformed Cursed attack, Kenmyo had essentially dropped a chunk of pure sodium into a quiet river. It was a recipe for catastrophe.
As fate would have it, a ball of light descended from the sky at incredible speed, landing right near the ground zero of the explosion.
Arriving fashionably late—it wasn't hard to guess—this was the reinforcement called in by their earlier distress signal.
"Utahime, stop stepping on my face!"
There seemed to be many people inside the light, and it was noisy. First came a frustrated boy's voice, followed by a girl's sharp retort.
"It's because your technique is trash, Gojo!"
"Can't you make the space a bit bigger? It's too cramped!"
"I can't help it, it's an emergency! Besides, I designed this technique for one person!"
"Enough, Satoru, just release the technique. I'm suffocating." Another boy's voice was gentle but currently filled with resentment.
"Fine, fine, I got it, Suguru. Don't push."
The white film of light dissipated, revealing a group of teenagers who looked like students standing in the center of the crater. It was a lively mix of boys and girls.
"A measly Grade 1 Spirit."
The leader was a white-haired youth wearing small sunglasses. He struck a cool pose, pushing his shades up his nose. Even the faint shoe print on his face didn't dampen his arrogant, confident smile.
He declared loudly, "The great Satoru is here to—"
And then, almost immediately, not just the white-haired youth, but everyone with him froze.
They found the spirit, alright. But seeing its body expanded to the limit, covered in cracks, and feeling that horrific, unstable energy...
They could all tell. The spirit was currently a ticking time bomb that had reached its critical mass.
As Kenmyo sprinted away with Ishihara on his back, he suddenly heard a dual-layered, piercing shriek—a mix of a woman and an infant—drifting from the distance. He knew the spirit had reached its breaking point!
Sure enough.
In the next instant, a massive pillar of fire shot into the sky, displaying a suffocating and terrifying power. The circular shockwave from the blast ripped outward in all directions.
Though they had escaped the immediate vicinity, Kenmyo and the others were still caught by the wave. They were swept off their feet like dolls in a washing machine, tumbling several times.
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but Kenmyo thought he heard a voice screaming:
"Gojo, you bastard!"