Such a bloated body would be extremely difficult to move.
Looking at the giant "baby" in the distance, Kento Nanami calmly deduced.
If it were Yuji—who could output the Reverse Cursed Technique—dealing with it would be unexpectedly easy.
For cursed spirits, the positive energy brought by the Reverse Cursed Technique could easily destroy their bodies. The only difficulty in injecting the Reverse Cursed Technique into a cursed spirit's body was finding an "opportunity" to render it temporarily immobile.
The giant baby—tens of meters long in front of him—did not look like the agile type from any angle.
Therefore, Kento Nanami believed that Yuji should be able to exorcise it effortlessly.
"Nanami-san, you go regroup with Yoshino and Fushiguro."
"Leave this to me," Yuji said without looking back.
"...I never thought that one day I would hear these words from a junior."
Kento Nanami felt a bit emotional.
"Itadori, do not let your guard down. If you find it difficult, call for us."
"I understand."
Yuji glanced at Kento Nanami, who was walking away quickly, and then turned his gaze to the baby in the distance.
The baby still hadn't shown any aggressiveness, maintaining its posture with four limbs facing the sky, continuously waving them around aimlessly.
During the battle with Dagon, Yuji noticed that he had been tagged with this curse's cursed technique mark. He didn't know what impact this would have on the upcoming battle.
"Still no reaction...? Then I'll initiate the attack from my side."
Now he could fight without holding back. Even if he was hit by that guy's cursed technique, Nanami-san and Choso—who were on standby—could rescue him in time.
Yuji's right foot stomped hard on the ground, making a huge leap high into the air above the campus. Solid blood seeped from the surface of his right fist.
I can't use the Maximum Technique right now.
This guy's cursed technique can drag people into illusions, and the Maximum Technique consumes too much cursed energy. If I'm caught off guard, dragged into an illusion, and unable to break out, all my previous preparations will go down the drain.
Speaking of which, what kind of Innate Technique does this guy actually have? The yin-yang reversal Mechamaru mentioned hasn't been demonstrated at all.
Yuji plummeted from the sky toward the underground area where the baby curse was located. The young man raised his right fist, and right at the moment he was about to land on the curse's abdomen, he threw a punch!
BOOM—!
"Black Flash!"
The fist sank into the bloated flesh, indenting the curse's fat belly. The baby's massive body began to violently shudder from the punch, and purple blood spewed out of its mouthparts, spraying around like a small fountain.
"Ugh... Wuu wuu wuu... Aaaahhhh..."
The curse still showed no tendency to resist, only waving its limbs around wildly a few times, making muffled sobbing sounds from its mouth—like a beetle flipped on its back.
The feedback feels strange...
Yuji was still standing on the curse's abdomen. He had been observing the giant baby's movements since earlier, but the opponent still showed no intention to attack.
"In that case..."
As Yuji muttered to himself, a massive amount of blood surged from his back. Heaps of blood dispersed into the air, transforming into several slender blood ropes that wrapped around the baby's head and torso, firmly fixing its body to the ground.
"Crimson Binding."
The process was unexpectedly easy. Yuji felt that the opponent didn't even move much. Although the punch earlier caused a certain amount of damage, this guy's body was too bloated, and the skin had already rebounded.
Yuji bent his knees again, crouched down, and pressed his palm against the curse's abdomen.
Reverse Cursed Technique.
Positive energy surged into the curse's body like a tide, but after a few breaths, Yuji suddenly felt something was wrong.
Even though this guy's body covered a large area, it shouldn't have been able to resist the Reverse Cursed Technique. Combining this with the feedback from his punch earlier, Yuji frowned.
Is this... a physical body?
The reason cursed spirits cannot be seen by ordinary people and are severely damaged by the Reverse Cursed Technique is that their bodies are composed of cursed energy.
If it were an incarnated entity like Choso, they would not be harmed by the Reverse Cursed Technique.
Yuji's palm was still pressed against the giant baby's abdomen. Just at the moment he realized this, the young man caught sight of countless white protrusions emerging on the surface of the giant baby's body from the corner of his eye—like something was squirming under its skin.
SQUELCH—SQUELCH—
"...The main body cannot move, so it chose to split?"
Yuji narrowed his eyes.
Several pale, robust, humanoid clones burst out of those flesh spheres. They had no faces, only a vertical mouthpart extending from the forehead down to the jaw, filled with densely packed sharp teeth. The ends of their fingers had sharp, claw-like structures.
Yuji's gaze swept over the chest of one of the clones, finding two entirely brown Sukuna's fingers hidden in the hole inside.
"This guy was actually fed two of Sukuna's fingers by Kenjaku? No wonder it can go this far..."
The several clones did not give Yuji time to think, swarming forward simultaneously. One of the clones raised a fist and punched toward Yuji—
BANG!
Yuji raised his arm to block, then threw a punch that knocked it back several steps. But at the same time, two more clones arrived right in front of him. There were too many opponents. Yuji would struggle to fend them off in a short amount of time.
BOOM—!
The young man was punched in the abdomen by the clone possessing two Sukuna fingers. Yuji coughed up a mouthful of sour bile, then flew backward. Just as he was about to smash into the school building in the distance, Megumi—who had been on standby the whole time—had already raised his hands and formed a hand sign.
"Nue!"
A beast-faced bird shikigami appeared behind Yuji, its talons pressing against his shoulders.
"...It seems it won't end so simply."
Nue dragged Yuji by the shoulders, gliding for a distance before letting go over the roof of the school building. Yuji landed back on his feet.
The young man wiped the corner of his mouth, analyzing the situation calmly.
This curse not only possessed a physical body but also had the ability to split. Each split clone had at least Special Grade strength—especially the one that swallowed two of Sukuna's fingers. Judging from the physical sensation just now, it was at least on par with Dagon when not using Domain Expansion.
Strange. How could it possess such formidable strength?
What Yuji didn't know was that this curse was a test subject deliberately created by Kenjaku to show off to him. In exchange for the strength of its cursed technique, the curse's lifespan had been drained to the point where it would naturally die off by the end of the day. Because of this Binding Vow, it was so overwhelmingly powerful.
As for why this curse didn't use its splitting ability earlier—it was probably because splitting required paying some sort of price.
Yuji looked down from his high vantage point at the giant baby located underground, noticing that its size had shrunk by about half.
"Yuji! We'll help pin down some of the clones! You take the opportunity to get close to the main body! Finish it off in one go!"
Yuji turned his head and found Choso shouting at him from below.
The pink-haired young man nodded upon hearing this.
"Let's go!"
Choso and Kento Nanami were the first to charge toward the nearby ruins. A crimson blood arrow shot out from Choso's clasped fingertips, flying toward one of the clones and directly piercing its arm. The several clones, noticing their movements, quickly rushed toward the four of them as well.
"Great Serpent!"
Megumi raised his hands and formed a hand sign. A giant python drilled out from under one of the clones, opening its bloody mouth and swallowing it into its belly. Although it would quickly break free, he needed to buy time for Yuji.
Kento Nanami, wielding his blunt blade, also charged forward, hacking his blade onto the arm of the leading clone, ending up in a deadlock with it.
"Now's the time, Itadori!"
Hearing this, Yuji didn't hesitate. He leaped down from the roof of the school building. This time, he would change his strategy and directly blast this Special Grade curse to smithereens.
After landing from the air, Yuji passed through countless pieces of collapsed building debris, charging straight toward the Special Grade curse lying underground.
However, right at that moment, an eyeball silently floated out from the building wreckage beside the young man.
Yuji initially wanted to ignore this eyeball, brush past it, and find the giant baby—
POP!
But the activation condition didn't seem to be as simple as making eye contact. The moment the eyeball exploded, Yuji's vision went white, and he instantly lost consciousness.
The world collapsed and overturned in Yuji's vision.
In less than a breath's time, Yuji found himself inside a dormitory room. He turned his head and, through the window, saw a boy standing in front of the window on the opposite floor. The afternoon sunlight shone on him, making his bruised and battered face exceptionally clear.
The boy was very fat, wearing glasses, with heavy dark circles under his eyes. His school uniform was wrinkled and still bore unstained blood.
"Hahahaha, hahahahahaha!"
A burst of manic laughter entered Yuji's ears.
"Itadori!"
Megumi noticed Yuji's condition and called out anxiously. But right in the moment he was distracted, the sound of tearing flesh reached the black-haired boy's ears.
SQUELCH!
Megumi turned his head, realizing that his Great Serpent had been destroyed, and the white Divine Dog was grabbed in the hand of a clone. The Divine Dog let out a pained whimper but was still crushed to death in the clone's hand.
"...Damn it!"
Did this guy's cursed technique really have no limits?
Megumi gritted his teeth, his face covered in cold sweat.
No. It shouldn't be limitless.
The sea urchin-haired boy's brain worked rapidly.
Earlier, when he and Junpei were searching the dormitory building, they had also found that eyeball. At that time, they fell into an illusion because the eyeball exploded, but Yuji—who was right next to them—was completely unaffected. Megumi deduced that Yuji had now fallen into the illusion because he had been tagged with the "cursed technique mark."
Before this guy's cursed technique could be activated, it probably needed to pass some sort of "judgment." Once the "cursed technique mark" was applied, it could plunge the opponent into an illusion at will.
If the opponent's strength was far weaker than its own, it would only take one or two applications of the technique to apply the "mark." But for an opponent like Yuji—whose strength was not far off from its own—it would require multiple, perhaps even dozens of applications, to successfully apply the "mark."
Originally, the prerequisite for this cursed technique was rather harsh, but because Yuji had previously gone through the battle with Dagon, this prerequisite had been met—resulting in the current situation.
This is bad... With just the few of us, there's no way we can handle these clones.
Megumi cursed inwardly.
Just as the group was exhausted from running for their lives, one of the clones took a step, charging toward the pink-haired young man standing rigidly in place. The clone raised its fist, aiming squarely at Yuji's head.
"Itadori!"
The clone's fist smashed down, but right at the moment its fist was about to connect—
Pitch-black patterns suddenly surfaced on Yuji's face. The cursed patterns crawled across his cheekbones, finally extending to his jaw, and a terrifying wave of cursed energy surged from the young man's body.
BANG!
The pink-haired young man raised his hand, steadily catching the incoming fist.
The young man's pupils turned from amber to crimson, and a new pair of eyes appeared below his own.
"How annoying."
Ryomen Sukuna lifted his head, looking expressionlessly at the clone in front of him.
"So noisy. How dare you interrupt my rest."
The moment the man spoke—
Countless grid-like cuts appeared on the clone's body.
Cleave: a slashing attack adjusted depending on the target's toughness and cursed energy level to cut them down in one swoop.
SQUELCH!
The clone—over two meters tall—instantly turned into countless chunks of meat scattered on the ground the moment Sukuna let go. Sukuna casually raised his hand and unhurriedly stretched his back.
"Haaa—"
Just ten seconds earlier, inside Sukuna's Innate Domain.
"Sorry, Sukuna. I might temporarily lose control of my body. Could you please take over for a bit?"
Yuji spoke to Sukuna earnestly, then patted him on the shoulder.
"...Hah?"
"You brat, what are you plotting again?"
Sukuna rolled his eyes.
"I'm not doing it."
"Please! I'll treat you to ice cream later, okay?"
Yuji clasped his hands together, pleading with Sukuna.
"My cursed energy was already depleted by about fifty percent because of Dagon. Although the remaining cursed energy is enough, that curse's technique is too troublesome. I want to first try and see if there's a way to crack this technique and find a safe way to resolve this battle."
"..."
In reality, Yuji also wanted to use this opportunity to test Sukuna.
Because he had never let Sukuna control his body, there was a possibility that Sukuna might take Megumi and the others hostage to blackmail him while he was distracted dealing with the curse.
But Yuji felt that Sukuna was unlikely to threaten him with this, so he was relatively relieved.
"...Fine. You better keep your word."
Although Sukuna was somewhat dissatisfied, he eventually nodded in agreement.
"Thank you so much, Sukuna!"
<><><><><><>
Read Advanced Chapters on : patreon.com/Kaizo247
~ Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]