Splat!
Amidst the dull sound of flesh and some non-human material shattering, the upper body of Samael's puppet exploded, like a watermelon crushed by immense force. Fragments and dark liquid splattered in all directions.
Tsukasa maintained his finishing side-kick pose, a grin plastered on his face, as he retracted his leg.
In that fleeting moment just now—
Behind him, the Red that had been cleverly redirected toward the sky drew an arc through the air, calculated with millimeter precision, and struck back at Samael from behind with even more violent repulsive force.
In front, there was Tsukasa's close-range kick, continuously exerting terrifying pressure and piercing through the air defense.
Attacked from front and back, there was no way to dodge.
Yet, in that instant, Samael made a near-insane choice—He twisted his body, completely exposing his relatively fragile back to Tsukasa's lethal kick, while pouring all his focus and remaining mana into controlling the trajectory of Red in the air.
Utilizing precise manipulation of air density and flow, he managed to force the destructive crimson orb of repulsive force to deviate slightly in its trajectory at the very last moment before it hit him, brushing past the edge of his ruined body and continuing to fly diagonally upward.
The price was that his upper body was squarely hit and blown apart by Tsukasa's kick.
The broken lower half of the puppet stumbled backward.
Tsukasa didn't even spare a glance at the exploded remains. His right hand was already raised, five fingers curled into a void.
Blue instantly formed above his palm. Without even looking, he swung his arm backward.
Blue was launched like a projectile from a catapult, carving a low arc as it smashed head-on into the torrent of all the Invisible Hands surged by Petelgeuse from behind.
A terrifying gravitational field erupted with Blue at its center. Wherever it passed, the ground was plowed open, and rubble, broken wood, and even debris were mercilessly sucked in and pulverized.
Those dozens of Invisible Hands were disrupted and ultimately annihilated the moment they touched the distorted gravity of Blue.
The trajectory of Blue did not falter, and with the momentum to crush everything, it smashed fiercely into Petelgeuse's skeletal body.
"Aaaaaah!!!"
Petelgeuse let out an inhuman wail as his arms and lower body were swallowed by that terrifying gravitational field the moment they made contact.
His remaining upper body was flung away like a tattered sack, rolling a long distance across the ground.
Tsukasa's eyes were cold, and just as he was about to press his advantage and move toward Petelgeuse—
A sudden change occurred.
The air around the remains of Samael's puppet, whose upper body he had kicked to pieces, leaving only the broken lower half, suddenly became incredibly heavy.
The remains themselves began to rapidly collapse and twist, and in the blink of an eye, together with the surrounding air that had been forcibly compressed to the extreme, they formed a compression point only the size of a flowerpot, yet radiating a terrifyingly dangerous aura.
Tsukasa's pupils constricted. It was too late to use Red to interfere or disperse it from the outside. The compression point had formed too quickly and was too close.
Without the slightest hesitation, he halted his movement toward Petelgeuse, while his mind raced.
Red in the air was forcibly fixed in place, no longer flying away, but hovering above the battlefield.
The next moment—
Whoosh!
A screeching sound erupted from that flowerpot-sized compression point.
Wherever the terrifying invisible shockwave passed, the ground was overturned as if by a giant invisible plow, layer after layer. Dust, rubble, and fragments of vegetation were swept up, forming a destructive ring-shaped wave that scoured the entire battlefield.
Even Petelgeuse, who had just struggled to climb to his feet in the distance, was blown away again by this sudden shockwave, letting out a pained whimper.
The center of the thickest dust was exactly where Tsukasa was.
A moment later, the dust slowly dissipated.
Tsukasa's figure was still standing there. He lowered his arms, which had been crossed in defense. His black tight-fitting combat suit was undamaged, and not even a scratch appeared on his exposed skin.
He tilted his head slightly, an excited expression appearing on his face. "So, the attack you're so proud of can't break through my Infinity at all."
As soon as he finished speaking, his gaze sharpened, and he was about to charge toward Petelgeuse, who was flying horizontally in the distance, once again.
"Since half a body cannot reach the threshold to penetrate your defense..."
Samael's voice rang out from all directions simultaneously. "Then what about ten?"
Tsukasa's figure halted abruptly. The Six Eyes captured it in an instant—A full ten figures, wearing ferocious expressions and identical in appearance to Samael's original body, smashed into the ground around him from different directions in the high sky, like meteors.
The impact of their descent was intense. Some of the puppets even broke their legs or arms, emitting teeth-grinding cracking sounds. But the positions where they landed cleverly surrounded Tsukasa within a relatively fixed range.
What a pain. Was that the other guy's doing just now?
Tsukasa's thoughts raced, mana surging beneath his feet, preparing to activate Blue to perform a high-speed displacement and escape this encirclement.
Countless Invisible Hands emerged and converged madly from every angle and every gap around his body without warning. In an instant, they wove into an airtight prison, completely enveloping Tsukasa within.
Even though he couldn't see them, Tsukasa could clearly "feel" those Invisible Hands frantically striking his Infinity.
"How diligent! Diligent! Diligent!!!"
Petelgeuse's voice, twisted to the point of insanity, was right in his ear.
Tsukasa turned his head sharply to see the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, who had only his upper body left and both arms shattered, yet was bursting with an unprecedentedly insane grin, using his remaining Invisible Hands as a "catapult" to launch his own broken upper body like a cannonball to a spot extremely close to Tsukasa.
"How insane."
Looking at Petelgeuse, who was right in front of him, and Samael in the air, Tsukasa's face once again displayed that signature, effortlessly arrogant grin.
"But to detonate ten puppets of that caliber at the same time... it requires a bit of preparation time, right?"
"Of course."
Samael's calm voice sounded from the sky. "But it's already enough."
The torrent of Invisible Hands that had been frantically assaulting Infinity suddenly split apart.
Dozens of Invisible Hands, as if possessing a will of their own, grabbed the ten mangled puppets nearby and then hurled them toward Tsukasa, who was pinned at the center by the atmospheric pressure created by Samael in the air.
"Sloth, Sloth, Sloth!!!"
Petelgeuse screamed with the last of his strength.
Facing this combined attack from within and without, the smile on Tsukasa's face grew even more brilliant, even taking on an unprecedented, almost feverish madness.
"Yeah! That's right!"
He laughed loudly, his voice drowning out Petelgeuse's screams.
"Perhaps my defense really would be broken by this all-out combined attack, and I might even get hurt!"
"But..."
He tilted his head back slightly, his eyes looking directly at Samael, his lips curling into a heart-stopping arc.
"You have to realize..."
"You guys are the challengers!"
Samael's eyes, calm and calculating, suddenly widened. He stared fixedly at the smile on Tsukasa's face—one that was definitely not despairing, but rather filled with madness—and a bone-chilling thought struck him.
Could it be...?!
He abruptly looked up at the sky.
There, the Red that Tsukasa had previously fixed in place, suspended above the battlefield, was now emitting a dazzling, blazing red light.
And what made his heart stop even more was—the Blue that should have dissipated or moved away after crushing the Invisible Hands and heavily wounding Petelgeuse had now silently appeared right next to Red.
The two were only a few feet apart, their deep blue and crimson glows reflecting off each other, attracting one another.
'When did it move?! How did he do it?' Samael's mind instantly roared.
He understood! He understood everything!
The activation conditions for that devastating purple strike from before!
The 'trigger' for that final blow had already been quietly pulled the moment he kicked through the first puppet, threw out Blue, and fixed Red in place.
Tsukasa spread his arms as if to embrace the approaching finale. The mad smile on his face now carried a fanatical glow.
Unlimited Hollow Technique: Purple!