"So this is the ability of this cursed spirit?"
Watching the scene before her, Seele immediately came to a conclusion—this had to be the power of the Special Grade cursed spirit.
It relied on the hearts embedded within its body to resurrect itself. Thirteen hearts in total. In other words, the cursed spirit before her could revive thirteen times.
Moreover, considering the circumstances of its birth, it might even possess the ability to seize the organs of others to replenish its own hearts.
An impressive ability, but to Seele, it wasn't troublesome in the slightest. After all, at the end of the day, it just meant killing it a few more times.
Abilities like this—ones that didn't directly enhance combat power—were utterly meaningless against someone who completely outclassed their opponent in every aspect. They offered no chance at turning the tables.
However, just as Seele was about to make her next move, she noticed several of the cursed spirit's arms suddenly forming a peculiar hand seal.
That gesture was—
Buzz!
A strange fluctuation of cursed energy spread outward from the cursed spirit at its center.
In the next instant, the scenery before Seele abruptly changed.
The abandoned hospital vanished, replaced by a world pieced together from blood-red walls of flesh. Dense clusters of organs covered the pulsating walls, exuding a nauseating stench.
"Ahhhhh—!!!"
At the very center of this world, the cursed spirit let out an excited howl, its five heads all turning toward Seele with malicious intent.
Clearly, this move was one of the defining hallmarks of a Special Grade—
Domain Expansion.
In the shadows, far away at a hidden observation point, Kenjaku revealed a faint smile as he watched the battlefield through special means.
Everything unfolding now was his handiwork.
The cursed spirit that had originally been born within this abandoned hospital had only barely reached the level of Special Grade. It might have sufficed against ordinary sorcerers, but against other Special Grades, it stood no chance whatsoever.
To ensure it wouldn't be defeated too easily, Kenjaku had deliberately "enhanced" it—boosting its power significantly and, with his assistance, enabling it to master Domain Expansion.
With this level of strength, Kenjaku still harbored no expectation that it could defeat the newly promoted Special Grade. But at the very least, it should be able to probe out some useful information.
The opponent's cursed technique, their domain, even intelligence about the cursed spirit residing within them—so long as he could uncover even one of these, the resources spent cultivating this cursed spirit would have been well worth it.
A Special Grade cursed spirit capable of Domain Expansion was not something Kenjaku was eager to discard, especially now that he occupied Geto Suguru's body.
But in order to test the new Special Grade, he ultimately chose to sacrifice it.
The effect of this cursed spirit's domain was simple yet vicious: during Domain Expansion, it integrated its innate technique—the ability to seize the organs of others—directly into the domain. Through the domain's guaranteed-hit effect, it could temporarily remove all internal organs from everyone inside the domain except itself.
After their organs were removed, the victims' bodily functions would not immediately cease, but would continuously deteriorate.
If the domain could be broken or the cursed spirit maintaining it completely slain within a short time, the body would recover. But if the battle dragged on, the organs would be permanently removed.
Combined with the cursed spirit's multiple resurrections, any ordinary sorcerer who encountered such a monster would find it exceptionally difficult to deal with.
So how would this newly promoted Special Grade respond? Would she deploy her own domain to cancel out the effect? Or use her technique to swiftly kill the cursed spirit?
Under Kenjaku's watchful gaze, and amid the cursed spirit's excited howling, Seele—enshrouded by the domain—
Did nothing in particular.
At this sight, Kenjaku immediately frowned.
As someone capable of defeating Gojo Satoru, there was no way she hadn't noticed the abnormality in her body by now. So why was there no change in her expression at all?
Was she simply disregarding the domain's effect, or did she possess some other hidden method?
Unaware of Kenjaku's shifting thoughts in the shadows, Seele genuinely hadn't noticed anything wrong with her body.
Because from the very instant the cursed spirit deployed its domain, Seele had already entered a quantumized state. Though she appeared to be standing within the domain, in reality, through quantumization, the cursed spirit's Domain Expansion had been evaded from the very beginning—it never affected her at all.
As for the domain's guaranteed-hit effect?
To Seele, who could freely enter the quantum realm to evade damage once quantumization was activated, she and this cursed spirit might as well have existed in entirely different dimensions.
If you weren't even inside the domain, what "guaranteed hit" was there to speak of?
Naturally, Seele felt absolutely nothing from the domain's effect.
Realizing that the domain she was in didn't seem to provide the cursed spirit with any significant enhancement, Seele immediately took action.
Slash!
The power of creation, belonging to the Herrscher of Life and Death, enveloped her scythe. Coupled with the defense-ignoring effects of quantumization, Seele's figure flashed forward, appearing instantly before the cursed spirit. With a casual swing, its body was effortlessly torn apart once more.
The formidable physique of a Special Grade cursed spirit seemed to simply not exist at that moment.
"Ahhhhh—!!!"
As it was torn apart, the Special Grade cursed spirit howled and resurrected again, raising several thick arms to counterattack. Yet its all-out assault passed straight through Seele's body like striking a phantom, failing to hinder her movements in the slightest.
As Seele lifted her scythe once more, the cursed spirit's body was split cleanly in two yet again.
And so it continued—each time the cursed spirit resurrected, Seele killed it once more. Its body was cleaved apart, revived, then cleaved apart again. Every desperate attack it launched struck nothing but empty air, completely incapable of affecting Seele.
Watching this scene, Kenjaku initially held onto a sliver of hope, thinking that perhaps a bit more information could still be gleaned.
But before long, he turned away and proactively severed his connection with the cursed spirit.
There was no point in watching further—it would only be a waste of time.
"It seems the subsequent plans will have to be handled with far more caution."
A Special Grade cursed spirit capable of Domain Expansion had ultimately only managed to test out a single piece of information: a technique that appeared to ignore all attacks while also allowing spatial movement. Even then, the specifics of the technique—whether it possessed additional derived abilities—remained completely unclear.
One Gojo Satoru had already been troublesome enough. But this Seele made Kenjaku feel even more uneasy.
A cursed technique that, conservatively speaking, simultaneously granted immunity to attacks and spatial movement—and from its performance, could even evade domain effects.
Unless a weakness could be discovered, such a technique was virtually impossible to counter. And when paired with strength capable of casually one-shotting Special Grade cursed spirits…
"…Sigh."
To be honest, Kenjaku was already starting to feel like giving up on this era altogether. But for the sake of his plan, he could only continue pushing forward—for now.
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