Zen'in Naobito turned and ran.
—Projection Sorcery.
Zen'in Naobito exerted all his strength. He was currently in the state of Black Flash, and everything around him seemed to become his aid. His perception expanded to the limit; he could even perceive the screams in the Zen'in Family's underground training ground from here. That was originally supposed to be an absolutely safe place where nothing on the surface could trouble the elderly and weak underground, but now the vibration of the earth had triggered a chain reaction, and the underground training ground was teetering on the edge of collapse.
We can't fight here.
Zen'in Naobito realized this.
His feet were like the wind, his Projection Sorcery seemingly advancing to a new level. As he ran, he kept his body extremely low, his forehead almost touching the ground. The air currents kicked up by his swinging hands were like a storm; he had never run so fast before, moving like a bolt of lightning.
Sure enough, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, followed by the rumbling of thunder.
A dragon appeared above him.
The dragon's lower body pulled itself out from underground. This mythical creature ascended into the sky in a gravity-defying manner, casting a deeper shadow over the dark night. The lightning flash should have illuminated all things in the night, but at this moment, the divine dragon's shadow blocked the light of the lightning, making the night sky even darker, the abyss deeper, and returning the world to a state of absolute darkness.
The divine dragon's claws lightly touched the ground, and with a roar that echoed through heaven and earth, the entire ground seemed to heave. The originally flat Zen'in Family compound behind Zen'in Naobito was now a ruin. Massive stones flew randomly through the sky, and the decorative rockeries and trees were swept up like rags. A water feature chimed gently in midair due to changes in air pressure, but its elegant sound could never be heard, for heaven and earth were howling with the divine dragon's wrath.
The King of Curses of the millennium, born of the soul, reigned over the world with a natural, majestic posture.
Zen'in Naobito ran with all his might, faster and faster, faster still.
In the past, whenever his speed exceeded a certain limit, he would stop his Projection Sorcery because his reflexes and calculation power could no longer keep up with the acceleration. But now, he mastered it with ease. The transcendent state granted to him after Black Flash pushed his Projection Sorcery to a peak he had never before reached.
He was like a lonely runner; natural disasters followed in his wake, yet they could never keep up with his speed. In an instant, he was far away from the Zen'in residence.
Now, Zen'in Naobito was worried about only one thing—
—at my current speed, even if the King of Curses turns into a divine dragon, he won't be able to reach me. Will he change his strategy and use the underground training ground...
...to threaten me with the weak and elderly, forcing me to hold back my hands and feet while fighting him?
Carrying such concerns, he specifically added a backward-turning motion to his Projection Sorcery presets to judge the divine dragon's actions, preventing a situation where he couldn't follow in time due to his preset movements if the dragon turned back.
Then, he saw a pair of massive heterochromatic eyes flickering in the nighttime rainstorm.
Those heterochromatic eyes stared fixedly at him.
Inside the dragon's mouth, a high-concentration aggregate of Cursed Energy was gathering—it was a breath. Although light was already flashing deep in its throat, the dragon did not fire. The dragon was predicting his preset movements; as soon as the dragon figured them out, the breath would surely descend from the sky, killing him in one hit with wide-area destructive power.
There was no weakness in those heterochromatic eyes.
Threatening him with the weak and elderly to make him hold back? Don't be ridiculous.
What those heterochromatic eyes spoke of was dominance—the dominance of one who rules heaven and earth and looks down upon the world. The word "threat" didn't even exist in its heart, for to such a great creature, the very idea of a "threat" was a form of weakness.
Yes, how could such a great creature have such weak thoughts?
Zen'in Naobito's Cursed Energy and blood boiled simultaneously.
Was the reason the dragon came here simply to exterminate the Zen'in Family?
No.
This was a trial, a declaration.
A trial to overcome oneself, and a declaration of its emergence into the world; born of the soul, it should naturally overawe everything under heaven.
In no other moment had Zen'in Naobito understood the dragon so well—understood its thoughts and pride, its solemnity and holiness.
Zen'in Naobito's heart suddenly throbbed violently. He unconsciously exhaled, and surprisingly, a wave of heat came out.
No, that wasn't a heatwave; it was Cursed Energy.
Because Cursed Energy was circulating at high speed through his limbs and bones, his body heated up, almost igniting visible flames. His blood and Cursed Energy burned together.
Good, excellent, that's how it should be, it must be this way.
Zen'in Naobito thought, "This... is intense enough."
Wait?
Did I... say that out loud?
Suddenly, a majestic light flashed in the dark night—
—the dragon's breath.
A high-concentration Cursed Energy shell was spat out from deep within the dragon's throat. The rain between heaven and earth evaporated instantly upon contact with the light. The flash of lightning paled in comparison to this light.
The massive light fell before Zen'in Naobito and crashed down.
"——"
In that single instant, sound vanished.
Boundless light filled the entire world.
The impact force formed by the light spread outward endlessly. A semicircular dome of light slowly rose from the ground. Due to its excessive power, another layer of gaseous rings exploded above the rising dome, looking like a halo on an angel's head descending to earth, bestowing holiness upon heaven and earth.
The dragon had predicted the direction of Zen'in Naobito's Projection Sorcery and spat out the breath it had been charging without hesitation.
This breath far exceeded the one used against Kinji Hakari.
Over two kilometers of terrain were permanently destroyed, and the destructive power reached a distance of ten kilometers.
It was as if a thousand suns had risen on the earth, making all things bow their heads.
But the dragon did not believe Zen'in Naobito had died just like that.
The dragon believed more than Zen'in Naobito himself that he wasn't dead.
How could a man who had used Black Flash four times in a row die here?
How could the man known as the fastest in the world besides Gojo Satoru fail to dodge?
So, where was he?
Where was Zen'in Naobito?
"Right here!"
A roar exploded in the sky higher than the dragon.
The dragon looked up; right among the clouds, Zen'in Naobito was there.
He was descending through the clouds, accompanied by wind, rain, lightning, and massive Cursed Energy.
He had actually jumped with great force before the breath hit, reaching a height of over a hundred meters.
Normally, he could never have done this, but now he didn't even judge whether he could; his Projection Sorcery had already completed the preset movements. He completed the action as naturally as breathing, and he was already high in the air above a hundred meters.
Then, a dive.
—Projection Sorcery.
Even with the dragon's eyes, he was almost invisible.
This wasn't the speed of falling due to gravity, but an action completed within one second by Projection Sorcery.
The multiple stacked applications of the technique were now so fast they seemed like a beam of light—a meteor of Cursed Energy smashing down.
The dragon whipped its body and swung its tail.
The massive wind pressure swept up all the rainwater, like a moving waterspout destroying everything at high speed.
But Zen'in Naobito, while falling, pulled his fist to his waist.
Just before the dragon's tail could hit him, the fist at his waist struck out—
—naturally, it was a Black Flash.
The fifth one.
Bang.
The Black Flash fist pierced a ten-meter-diameter tunnel through the waterspout.
At the end of the tunnel was the dragon's tail.
The Black Flash collided head-on with the tail.
Amidst the massive force, black lightning flashed between heaven and earth—the manifestation of distorted space.
The sound of their immense strength spread outward, layer upon layer of sonic waves shattering the rain, circle after circle of sound waves expanding.
The dragon's tail wasn't actually crushed.
Dragon scales fell like rain, and dragon blood sprayed onto Zen'in Naobito's half-naked body, staining the other half of his kimono through the gaps in his muscles.
His eyes were bloodshot because he saw new scales rapidly growing on the muscle exposed beneath the missing scales.
He had only knocked off the scales; he hadn't truly managed to harm the dragon's body.
Without any hesitation, he activated Projection Sorcery again.
The dragon danced wildly in the sky, and the man ran along the dragon's body.
Zen'in Naobito was gambling with his life.
The principle of Projection Sorcery was preset and action, but there was a prerequisite: he had to perform the exact movement he had preset.
Once he failed to perform the preset action, he would be frozen for one second due to the technique's backlash.
In this high-speed battle, one second was enough to die a hundred times.
But every one of his judgments was correct.
His brain seemed to be burning as well.
Five consecutive Black Flashes had put him into an unprecedented state of omnipotence.
He could perceive every breath of the dragon, every muscle movement, every flow of blood, every circulation of Cursed Energy, and every undulation of its scales.
He immediately understood why the dragon's scales could withstand a Black Flash.
It was because there was actually an invisible Cursed Energy-filled space between the dragon's scales and its body.
The scales were not tightly attached like those of a fish, but rather like an insect's carapace, with a buffer layer.
This design had another benefit: if it encountered an attack that couldn't be resisted or buffered, the scales could automatically detach.
Even with the destructive power of Black Flash, after breaking through the scale buffer layer, it couldn't apply a more lethal attack to the dragon's body.
It could only cause a wound; it couldn't sever the tail.
But even with a buffer layer, the scales weren't without limits.
Didn't the Black Flash break the buffer layer as well?
It was just that the power of that Black Flash still hadn't exceeded the upper limit of its damage absorption capacity.
Seeing through this, Zen'in Naobito immediately abandoned the idea of continuing to strike the dragon's body.
With the dragon's regenerative power, it didn't matter how many times he injured the body.
The speed of scale growth and the dragon's regeneration meant that no matter how many Black Flashes he threw, it would be useless.
If this continued, he would be the one to be worn down and die first.
He had to accurately predict the Cursed Energy amounts of both sides, minimizing his own consumption while maximizing the dragon's, so he could wear down this great creature according to the original plan.
A fatal wound.
Only a fatal wound would do.
Don't strike the areas covered by scales.
Only the places where scales cannot cover are the dragon's true vital points.
But the dragon's entire body was covered in scales; only the eyes and nostrils were not.
However, both the eyes and nostrils were surely points the dragon protected heavily and wouldn't be easy to approach.
No, with such a clever design for the scales, it was hard to believe the dragon's eyes and nostrils didn't have other protections.
Perhaps those were specifically decoy organs intended to lure in self-righteous hunters.
But besides the eyes and nose, wasn't there another place where one could directly attack the dragon's interior?
Zen'in Naobito was startled by his own crazy idea, but before his reason could stop him, his body acted first.
Don't be ridiculous.
Having fought to this point, do I, as the Head of the Zen'in Family, have any other way out?
Kill the King of Curses, wash away the Zen'in Family's shame—
transcending myself happens right now, right here.
(T/N: Go Beyond Plus Ultraaaa!)
Zen'in Naobito couldn't help but roar at the top of his lungs due to the hot blood in his chest.
He began to preset his next actions using his field of vision.
In his state of constant acceleration, he seemed to surpass everything in the world.
His brain began to suffer damage from over-calculation.
He didn't know Reverse Cursed Technique; if this continued, he would likely suffer permanent brain damage.
But he didn't care at all.
Driven by a frenzied will, he had never felt such exhilaration.
The final Projection Sorcery.
Time seemed to slow down, dozens of times slower.
The dragon was still dancing wildly, its scales standing on end like a series of sharp blades.
Zen'in Naobito's preset actions were complete.
Now, he began his final sprint.
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