Julius's POV
The entrance to the hospital exploded, waves of green fire, acid, and ice intertwining unnaturally and colliding with a cursed-energy-reinforced bone wall that sprang up from my Cursed Inventory. The strange mix of pressure, heat, and frost ate away at the wall with frightening speed.
George vanished, appearing dozens of feet above us, and twisted his hands with a small grunt. The fire abruptly cut off as three heads pitched to the side of my shield, which was promptly dismissed. Immediately, we went on the offensive against the demon the cultists had unleashed.
It was a three-headed monstrosity that could have been a very distant cousin of a dragon.
It had the body of a drake, three serpentine necks, and flayed, dehydrated faces with stretched muscles and ligaments. Its engorged reptilian eyes drilled down on us, and it began gathering energy in its throats in preparation for another attack.
My Dismantle took off the fire-breathing head. A bolt of lightning exploded the acid-spitting one, and space warped around the final head, popping it.
The demon's body unceremoniously fell forward, shaking the earth violently.
"Well… that was easy?" Nathan muttered.
Shelim thwacked him on the head before I could.
"Fucking newbie. You just jinxed us."
No sooner had the words left Shelim's lips than my body locked up on me. Fine lines woven from darkness and blood magic stretched through the empty air, shimmering lightly. An involuntary grunt escaped me, but everybody else was screaming. They too had lines leading back to the same spot. It hovered just above the ruined stairs leading into what remained of the mental hospital lobby. A melodious laugh trickled out.
"It's hardly the boy's fault that you failed."
The air rippled again like waves traveling across the surface of a pond, revealing an army of red hoods carrying blades, wands, and staves. Massive demons stood behind them, all advanced-looking versions of the beasts we had casually cut down on our way here.
At their head stood a woman wielding a gemmed staff. She looked somewhere in her early thirties and had a figure that would have driven most men mad.
"You were always going to fail. It is the will of our lord, Trigon."
"Nah, fuck that!" George spat, his fingers entwining into a hand sign I recognized immediately. He looked at me and barked an order. "Get them touching me now!"
I didn't need to be told twice. Blood exploded from my skin, consolidating into dense tentacles maintained by Blood Manipulation and Body Control.
The priestess leading the congregation recovered quickly, raising her staff and flexing her spell, while some of the demons started loping forward. One particularly fast priest charged directly at me, his entire body suffused with the black-and-red magical signature I had spotted earlier.
My blood tentacle compressed and shot out like a half-formed Piercing Blood, punting him into a line of startled practitioners.
The demons were running now, and the spell holding us had grown exponentially stronger. I heard muscles tear, and the screams around me rose to a new crescendo, but it was too late.
George's Domain expanded the moment my blood tentacle touched him and the others.
Cursed Energy exploded out of him, washing over reality and reshaping the space within the blood cultists' dome into the interior of George's innate domain.
It was a monochrome city mirroring the slums of Johannesburg viewed through a fisheye lens. Everything was warped, and our sense of distance was unreliable at best, but the view was still breathtaking.
It was my third time inside a Domain Expansion, and it gave me the closest look I had ever gotten at the technique.
Despite my prodding, Shelim had never manifested his. And the other ones I had experienced were, let's just say, hostile. I had hardly had the time to study the technique in depth.
But here, now, while everybody either lay in agony or reeled in surprise, I learned more about Jujutsu than I had in months. It rivaled the high of a Black Flash.
George wasted no time going on the offensive. The monochrome world around us looped endlessly. Millions upon millions of images and memories crossed my eyes but never reached my mind, George's Infinity affording us separation and safety from the informational onslaught.
The magic holding us snapped like a twig, and their eyes all glazed over—the demons, the sorcerers, nobody was spared.
I felt most of their minds collapse through my budding psychokinetic senses. Dozens upon dozens of human minds snuffed out in an instant. Only their leader and the demons survived.
For a long moment, I expected her to pull some kind of reversal—a magical counterspell to undo the damage the Domain Expansion had done—but she didn't. It seemed I had overestimated her. Or rather, underestimated just how lethal a Domain could be to a non-sorcerer.
Nathan was the first to speak after regaining control of his body.
"What's wrong with them?"
"Their minds are mush. Gone," Shelim said with a groan as he burned positive energy, healing hundreds of microtears. "Behold, young Padawan, the difference between a mundane sorcerer and a real Special Grade. A Domain Expansion."
The last bit had obviously been meant as a jab at me.
Shelim was an ass through and through, and he never let me forget it. Despite his vow to teach me, he never showed me his Domain. I remembered the exact words he used to circumvent the wording of our agreement.
"I've told you everything Artisan and the twins told me about Domain Expansions. You technically have everything you need to do it yourself. The rest is up to you."
"You won't be showing me yours, will you?"
The bastard had the stones to smirk at me.
"Gotta keep one card up my sleeve, eh?"
I would have been more upset if I hadn't been doing the same. He still didn't know I had mastered Electricity Manipulation, Ratio, and Cursed Energy Discharge. And he hadn't even seen half of what I could do with Blood Manipulation now that my Body Control was pushing level nine.
Still, a vindictive part of me wanted to show him up—and net more XP for myself—and that's exactly what I did while the others were still recovering.
Summoning a bone blade into my hand, I channeled Sword Aura and swung, sending out a Dismantle. It split the mental hospital in half and wiped out the mostly brain-dead horde who had so helpfully lined themselves up in a mostly straight line.
The priestess wasn't spared either.
A notification flashed across my vision.
Congratulations: You've reached Level 51. You are now a Special Grade Sorcerer.
You've been rewarded with a fourth and final Technique. Select it at your earliest convenience.
You've earned the Title: Special Grade Sorcerer
Special Grade Sorcerer: Whether by natural talent, luck, or hard work, you've reached the zenith of power in Jujutsu Society. You've become an anomaly of such strength and power that your destructive potential is immeasurable.
You no longer have a level limit.
Every level from this point onward requires three times the experience of the previous level, but the stat gains are commensurate.
+40 free points and +60 CE per level.
Cursed Energy Output increased by 30%.
Cursed Energy stores increased by 50%.
Energy rioted through me, suffusing every fiber of my being with strength and knowledge. I had certainly expected something big for my promotion to Special Grade, but definitely not this.
And not in such a public setting.
Every eye naturally turned toward me. George stared particularly intensely, but asked no direct questions, likely because he knew my answer would be: Fuck you.
And however much we hated each other, we weren't quite ready to risk everything while the world was still in danger.
"Did your Domain get their leader?"
George took a moment to find his words.
"Yes," he answered. "It interrupted the ritual, but he's already recovering."
"Then let's put an end to this before he pulls something else out of his ass."
Read up to Chapter 166 on Patreon.com/artandcreativewriting