Inside the domain, the space seemed filled with an infinitely expanding grid of absolutely precise coordinates, shimmering with a pale golden light. Every line of the grid was straight and even, radiating a cold beauty, like a mathematical theorem. Between these grid lines, countless points of light, clearly marked with the "7:3" ratio, flickered and flowed like stars. They weren't static but constantly appeared, pulsed, and marked.
The entire domain resembled a giant, living set of scales and dividers, incorporating everything within into its ruthless measurement and judgment.
Kento Nanami stood at the center of the domain, yet he seemed to be everywhere. His figure no longer followed ordinary movement trajectories, but flashed and shifted between the grid nodes marked by the "golden ratio," almost ignoring the continuity of space. A moment ago, he was swinging his blade at a grid node ten meters to the left; the next, the blade would appear out of nowhere from another faint 7:3 mark behind Mahito!
This wasn't the afterimage of high-speed movement, but a short-range spatial leap granted by the domain within the "measurement" of its own rules!
Initially, Mahito also tried to observe and adapt to this domain. His heterochromatic pupils spun rapidly, sensing the grid's veins and the flickering patterns. But he soon realized the attempt was futile. Not because he wasn't fast enough or smart enough. But in this domain, the initiation of an "attack" often preceded the "perception of threat."
Thud!
Without warning, a pale golden marker that had just appeared on Mahito's left chest suddenly caved in and twisted inward, then was pierced from within by an invisible, sharp blade, and a hole the size of a bowl burst open! Gray flesh and blood, mixed with strange, flickering soul-light fragments, erupted!
"Ungh—!!!"
Mahito let out a pained grunt. This pain was far greater than a physical injury, striking directly at the structure of his soul! He had no idea where Nanami's attack came from, didn't even feel the preliminary condensation of cursed energy! The attack seemed to burst forth directly from the marked "weakness" on his body!
This was the embodiment of the domain's rules—within the domain, the marked "weakness" became the "coordinates" and "triggers" for the attack! Rather than swinging a blade through space, Nanami could inflict damage by simply applying the domain's division rules, "allowing" or "directing" them towards the marked points!
He instinctively wanted to activate Idle Transfiguration to heal the wound, but the healing speed was far slower than usual!
Can't stop! Never stay in one place longer than an instant!
Mahito's pupils contracted, every survival instinct exploding. He no longer observed or tried to understand; he simply frantically and erratically spurred his horse hooves, making a mad, unaesthetic, catapulting bounce within the limited vertical and horizontal space of the sewer! Walls, pipes, sewage surfaces, and even the grid phantoms above his head became footholds for him to change direction. His figure became a blurred gray line, darting left and right within the pale golden grid, drawing countless chaotic trajectories.
However, this desperate dodging seemed pale and powerless against a sorcerer's ultimate domain control.
Thud! The marker on his left elbow burst, the forearm bending unnaturally.
Whoosh! The marked point on his right waist and abdomen was torn by an invisible force, gray internal organs faintly visible.
Bang! The marker on his left knee, as he tried to push off a wall to change direction, suddenly caved in, causing him to stumble and nearly fall into the sewage.
The attacks didn't come from Nanami himself, but from the entire domain. Those flickering 7:3 markers were like countless pairs of cold eyes, and like fuses already laid. As long as Mahito's existence passed by, or lingered slightly in any position, the corresponding marker point would "detonate," imposing the rules of division and destruction directly upon his soul and body!
Nanami himself was more like a calm commander, only occasionally, when there were obvious patterns or flaws in Mahito's trajectory, would he personally flash in, adding a more threatening knife strike, forcing him into more obvious deadly traps.
Within the domain, Mahito was at an absolute disadvantage. He was like a frenzied rat caught in a precise mousetrap; every struggle triggered a new mechanism and left new scars. His cursed energy was being frantically consumed, his soul structure was constantly being "divided" and beginning to tremble unstably, and his body's regeneration was increasingly unable to keep up with the speed of destruction.
Kento Nanami was like the most patient hunter, calmly controlling the domain, compressing Mahito's movement space, and "pushing" more and more lethal markers into his path.
He could see that this cursed spirit was already at the end of its rope. If this continued, he wouldn't even need to deliver the final blow himself—the enemy would be tortured by the domain's endless "division," its soul collapsing, or it would be forced to reveal even greater weaknesses.
Now. A cold light flashed in Nanami's eyes, spotting an excellent opportunity—Mahito, constantly taking damage, used the force to push off a wall, and his figure paused for an extremely brief moment—less than 0.1 seconds. The 7:3 marks on several key points like his neck, back, heart, and head were exceptionally bright at this moment.
Now.
Nanami's figure flickered and disappeared from a complex grid node. The next time he appeared, he was diagonally above Mahito. The blunt blade in his hand, assimilated with the domain, with a will akin to ruling, silently and lethally slashed at the brightest marked point on the back of Mahito's head!
This strike gathered the domain's bonus and aimed at a key node of Mahito's soul structure. Even if it didn't kill him outright, it would be enough to cripple him, creating excellent conditions for subsequent "capture."
The blade cut through the air, filled with the pale golden grid. It was about to touch the gray skin and the flickering soul mark—
BANG!!!!
Suddenly, a terrifying loud noise erupted from outside the domain's barrier, as if space itself had been punched through! The pale golden grid, which had been uniformly traversing the entire domain, suddenly underwent violent, abnormal distortion and impact! It was like a boulder thrown into still water! The grid lines at the edge of the domain began to break and dissipate, and the internal rules and regulations momentarily stagnated and became disordered!
The knife Nanami swung at Mahito also experienced an incomprehensible deviation due to this sudden shock to the domain's foundation, grazing the back of Mahito's head, leaving only traces of blood and soul fragments, failing to achieve a decisive kill.
"What?!" Nanami's heart shook. He forcibly stabilized his figure and the domain, his sharp gaze instantly locking onto the direction from which the impact had come—a certain area at the edge of the domain where the grid was dimming and breaking at an alarming rate!
The inside of a domain is usually very strong, preventing enemies from escaping. But the price for that is the other side of the domain—the "outside." Its outer wall is often a relatively weak point. At this moment, a powerful, condensed, and destructive aura of cursed energy was precisely and violently crashing against the weak points of his domain's outer wall from the outside!
Crack—!
A sound like breaking glass. The perfect pale golden grid of "Yin-Yang Interrupted Twilight" was centered at the impact point, rapidly covered in black, spiderweb-like cracks! The domain's stability plummeted!
In Mahito's heterochromatic pupils, which had been nearly despairing, a sudden burst of ecstasy and ruthless determination in a desperate situation flared up! He didn't even think about who was attacking, and he didn't care about the consequences of the attack that made his soul tremble.
An opportunity! A unique chance to escape!
"Hah—!!!"
Mahito let out a strange cry, seizing the moment when Nanami's domain was damaged, its rules disrupted, and its suppressive power significantly reduced. He pushed "Idle Transfiguration" to an unprecedented limit! His body was like porcelain smashed by force, like a ball of dough forcibly torn and ripped apart! Instead of transforming into pieces of flesh and blood, he split into hundreds of "little Mahitos," all different in shape but all with the iconic heterochromatic pupils of Mahito!
Some looked like mice, some like beetles, some like twisted infants, emitting piercing, incomprehensible hissing sounds, heading towards the cracks, pipe openings, and sewer depths along the entire edge... in all directions, fleeing desperately without any pattern!
This was his most extreme life-saving method—splitting his soul, cursed energy, and consciousness into countless tiny "clones." As long as one of them successfully escaped, he would have a chance to reassemble and recover. The cost was enormous, and most of his power and memory would be lost, but it was better than dying here!
"Trying to run?!" Nanami's face darkened. He immediately tried to mobilize the remaining power of his domain to block the fleeing "little Mahitos," while also swinging his blade to cut down several of the most conspicuous clones.
Thud, thud, thud! Several "little Mahitos" were cut down by the blade light, turning into green smoke. But more, like a swarm of rats breaking through a dam, disappeared into the complex underground darkness along the cracks in the domain and the gaps in the pipes. The shock of the domain breaking and the terrifying sense of threat from the external attacker seriously hampered his pursuit.
Almost the next second after the last "little Mahito" disappeared—
Bang!
The outer wall of the domain was finally shattered under the continuous external assault! The pale golden grid, like a spent firework display, rapidly dimmed and dissipated. The sewer returned to its original dimness and foul smell.
Kento Nanami stood with his blade, amidst the chaos, his chest rising and falling slightly. The backlash from the forcibly shattered domain made his breathing somewhat unsteady, but the escape of his target weighed even heavier on his mind, and...
He sharply looked up, his vigilant gaze like a hawk's, sliding towards the direction from which the attack had come—the deeper, darker part of the sewer. There, the cursed energy fluctuations that had shattered his domain in one blow, filled with a sinister and destructive aura, were slowly receding, but the residual coercion still made his skin prickle.
Who was it? A companion of Mahito? Or something else?
The enemy was hidden, his own target was scattered into fragments and had fled, making recovery difficult. Lingering longer would likely mean falling into a trap set by the unknown enemy.
Kento Nanami took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the surging blood and internal turmoil. He bent down and picked up several strands of gray flesh and tissue fragments from the ground that Mahito hadn't been able to take when he shattered, remnants that still held a faint soul breath. He quickly sealed them with a cursed technique and placed them in a special container. This might be one of the few "samples" of this dangerous cursed spirit and its technique.
Then, without hesitation, he turned, picked up his briefcase, and quickly moved away from the direction of the dangerous aura, towards where Itadori and Junpei's family were. His figure quickly dissolved into the sewer's shadows.