"Clang—!"
It was a sword's hum, crisp to the extreme, sounding as if it could pierce straight through the soul.
At the very moment Kento Nanami closed his eyes in despair, bracing for death, the sound exploded in his ears without warning.
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
No blinding light.
Nanami only felt that the terrifying wind pressure, which had been moments away from crushing him, had suddenly vanished.
It felt as if a violent hurricane had instantly slammed into an invisible wall of absolute stillness.
"Water Breathing, Eleventh Form..."
A cold, low, yet absolutely commanding voice echoed slowly through the ruins.
"Dead Calm."
Hum!
As the words fell.
Centered less than half a meter in front of Nanami and Yu Haibara, ripples visible to the naked eye suddenly surged through the air like waves on water.
A second later.
A miracle occurred!
The massive bone spears—laden with all the malice of a semi-Special Grade cursed spirit and powerful enough to pierce mountains—stopped just centimeters from Nanami's forehead.
The moment they touched that invisible ripple, it was like snow falling into boiling water!
Without a shred of resistance or even a sound.
Those incredibly hard bone spears, along with the thick, poisonous miasma surrounding them, crumbled instantly into fine dust drifting in the air!
The violent battlefield fell into a suffocating, absolute silence!
Every cursed attack that entered that invisible domain was completely nullified!
"This..."
Kento Nanami slowly opened his eyes.
His blood-shot eyes were filled with a shock beyond words.
He wasn't dead.
The gates of hell had been forcibly slammed shut in front of him.
And standing before him and Haibara, at some unknown point, a figure had appeared—not particularly broad, yet seemingly capable of propping up the entire sky.
It was Yoru!
At this moment, Yoru looked to be in terrible shape.
His black Jujutsu High uniform had been torn to shreds by the violent winds and the heat of high-speed friction, with embers still smoldering at the edges.
He didn't look back, only gasping for breath, his chest heaving like a bellows working at full tilt.
Astonishing amounts of white steam rose continuously from his body—a physiological reaction from his body temperature skyrocketing after pushing his physical potential to 200%.
Even his right hand, gripping the blade, was trembling slightly from the massive tearing of muscle fibers.
A two-hundred-kilometer sprint at the limit.
At the very last second before the Reaper swung his scythe, he had truly shattered the gears of fate and arrived!
"Sorry..."
Yoru's voice was hoarse from extreme dehydration and exhaustion.
But the conviction in his tone instantly soothed all the fear in the two boys' hearts.
"I'm late."
Hearing that familiar voice.
Yu Haibara—who had faced certain death while trying to comfort his companion with a smile, refusing to retreat—could finally hold it in no longer.
"Instructor... Instructor Yoru..."
Haibara dropped the broken half of his blade, his eyes instantly turning red.
Large tears mixed with the blood and grime on his face, pouring out like a dam breaking.
It wasn't out of fear, but because in the endless darkness, he had finally seen the ray of sunlight capable of dispersing everything!
It was the relief of surviving a disaster, and even more, the unreserved admiration for the man before him!
"Clang."
The blunt blade in Nanami's hand, infused with the last of his cursed energy, slipped uselessly to the ground.
He collapsed into the pool of blood as if all his strength had left him, staring blankly at Yoru's steam-shrouded back.
Minutes ago, he had been loathing this shitty jujutsu world and the high-and-mighty rotten oranges.
He felt that this world had no so-called saviors, and that all sorcerers were nothing more than cursed consumables.
But now.
Looking at the man who had defied orders and pushed his body to the brink of collapse just to save them.
The cold wall of despair and numbness Nanami had just built in his heart came crashing down.
For the first time, a light of hope flickered in his usually indifferent eyes.
'As long as this person is here... the sky will not fall.'
Nanami whispered to himself in his heart.
"Roar—!!!"
Just then, a roar filled with extreme rage and irritation shattered the silence of the ruins.
The mutated Land Deity stared fixedly at the suddenly appeared Yoru.
It couldn't understand why its killing blow had vanished into thin air!
But it could feel an aura emanating from this human intruder that it utterly detested.
Those were its prey!
It would never allow anyone to steal its prey in its own territory!
Rumble!
The entire mountain began to shake violently.
The mutated Land Deity's massive body reared up, and all the negative emotions and cursed energy within a several-kilometer radius began to converge wildly into its body!
It was going to launch an even more terrifying, indiscriminate attack, completely erasing these three humans along with the mountain peak!
However, faced with this terrifying pressure that would make any Grade 1 sorcerer despair.
Yoru only slowly straightened his body.
He raised his left hand, casually wiping a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth.
In the next second.
The Water Breathing aura, as calm as a lake's surface, vanished without a trace.
In its place was a destructive heat that felt as if it could set the entire world ablaze!
Sizzle—!
The moss and soil beneath Yoru's feet were charred black the moment they contacted this heat.
The flame-like Slayer Mark on his left forehead burst into an unprecedentedly brilliant red light in his extreme rage!
"You... touched my students."
Yoru turned his head slightly, his deep red eyes devoid of any human emotion.
That gaze was cold and majestic, like a god sitting atop the nine heavens, looking down at a crawling insect about to be crushed!
He slowly tightened his grip on the pitch-black Special Grade Cursed Tool, Shiranui.
At that exact moment.
In his mind, the cold and majestic system notification suddenly drowned out all the surrounding noise!
[SYSTEM: DING! EXTREME WILL TO PROTECT AND PHYSICAL STRAIN DETECTED. YORIICHI TSUGIKUNI TEMPLATE SYNCHRONIZATION RATE BREAKTHROUGH!]
[SYSTEM: CURRENT SYNCHRONIZATION RATE: 46%!]
[SYSTEM: REWARD: STAMINA SLIGHTLY RECOVERED, TOTAL CONCENTRATION BREATHING EFFICIENCY INCREASED!]
Hum—!
As the system's voice faded.
A warm current suddenly surged through Yoru's muscles, which had already reached their limit and even begun to tear.
The white steam produced by the high heat didn't dissipate; instead, it seemed to be guided by some force, spinning and contracting wildly.
Finally, it formed a faint golden glow over Yoru's body.
His previously trembling right hand became as steady as a rock.
In that moment.
The previously overbearing semi-Special Grade mutated Land Deity's massive body suddenly froze.
In its emerald-green eyes, a clear emotion it had never experienced in its hundreds of years of existence suddenly surfaced.
It was pure fear, stemming from the depths of its soul!
The identities of predator and prey had completely reversed the moment the aura changed.
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