"Die! Die along with me!!!"
Haruta Shigemo's sharp, frantic roar echoed through the narrow ruins.
The already unstable cursed energy inside him was expanding exponentially, threatening to turn everything into ash in an instant.
Megumi Fushiguro stared fixedly at the madman pinned beneath Max Elephant, a thin layer of cold sweat forming on his forehead.
They were too close.
With his body pushed to its absolute limit, there was no way he could escape the blast radius before Haruta self-destructed.
Furthermore, forcibly summoning Max Elephant had drained his last reserves of cursed energy; summoning another shikigami for defense was a pipe dream.
"Do I just... have to risk it all?"
Megumi bit his lip, the sharp pain forcing his exhausted mind to maintain a sliver of clarity.
Under the threat of death, the image of the black-haired, red-eyed boy swinging a wooden sword at him on the training grounds resurfaced in his mind.
'Megumi, don't be limited by the superficial appearance of the technique.'
'The Ten Shadows Technique shouldn't be about simple summoning and commanding.'
'Shadows have no fixed form. As long as your imagination is sufficient, they can become any weapon or shield you need.'
"Shadows..."
Megumi's pupils suddenly constricted.
He looked down at his feet, into the shadow cast by the massive body of Max Elephant.
Though his cursed energy was depleted, the blood-bound connection between him and the Ten Shadows Technique became clearer than ever before at this moment!
"That's right... I don't need to re-summon them."
"Because they have always been here."
Megumi took a deep breath, his hands rapidly shifting through hand signs.
"Release... Max Elephant!"
With a soft thud, the giant pink elephant pinned atop Haruta Shigemo instantly dissolved into a pool of black shadow, merging into the debris on the ground.
"Hahaha! You're finally out of strength?!"
Freed from the pressure of Max Elephant, Haruta Shigemo bounded up from the deep pit like a spring.
Violent cursed energy erupted from every part of his body. His malicious eyes glared at Megumi, his expression twisted to the extreme.
"Since you've given up struggling, then just go to hell with me!"
BOOM—!
The cursed energy inside Haruta finally reached its critical point. A blinding white light flared from his chest, and a destructive energy storm was about to sweep outward!
Yet, facing this fatal self-destruction...
Megumi didn't even spare him a glance, his gaze fixed quietly on the shadow at his feet.
"Who said I gave up?"
Megumi held his hand sign. A confident, cold smirk suddenly appeared on his face, which was pale from exhaustion.
"Since you like these little guys so much, I'll let you see as many as you want."
"Using the residual cursed energy from releasing Max Elephant to perform a shape transformation..."
"Rabbit Escape!"
Megumi's low shout was bone-chillingly cold.
Swoosh—!
The massive black shadow on the ground that once belonged to Max Elephant suddenly began to boil violently, like a pot of water over high heat!
Immediately following, thousands upon thousands of black rabbits made of pure cursed energy erupted from the shadow like a dark fountain!
This time, the number of rabbits was far greater and denser than any previous manifestation!
"What?!"
The crazed smile on Haruta Shigemo's face instantly froze.
Before he could react, the overwhelming tide of black rabbits submerged him like a tsunami!
One black rabbit after another scrambled onto him, using their soft bodies composed of cursed energy to wrap him tightly in layer after layer!
"Get off! Get away from me!"
Haruta flailed his arms desperately, trying to shake off the annoying rabbits.
But there were simply too many, and under Megumi's precise control, they formed a dense black sphere.
They completely sealed Haruta's impending destructive energy within!
BOOM—!!!
A dull, heavy explosion thundered inside the black sphere formed by Rabbit Escape!
The blinding white light tried to tear through the bonds of darkness, and the violent energy storm raged madly within the cramped space!
Screech—!
Hundreds of rabbits in the inner layers were torn to shreds by the terrifying heat and shockwave the instant the explosion occurred.
But the outer rabbits surged forward without hesitation, using their bodies to fill the gaps.
Layer upon layer, an endless cycle.
Megumi stood less than ten meters away from the black sphere, his hands locked in the hand sign. Blood continuously leaked from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes shone with frightening intensity.
He was using a crude but effective method—leveraging the sheer numerical advantage of Rabbit Escape to consume and neutralize the energy of Haruta's self-destruction!
"Hold... it... back!"
Megumi roared.
Bang!
The massive black sphere bulged momentarily before quickly deflating.
The blinding white light was completely extinguished, and the violent energy storm was finally reduced to a faint wisp of green smoke drifting from the gaps in the shadows.
The self-destruction had been successfully stopped.
Rustle...
Having fulfilled their purpose, the swarm of rabbits collapsed instantly like falling blocks, dissolving into the ground as black shadows.
A night breeze blew, kicking up dust from the ground.
Where the black sphere had once been...
Haruta Shigemo's mangled corpse lay silently in a scorched, shallow crater.
His body had been blown beyond recognition by his own compressed explosion; there wasn't a single trace of life left in him.
That peculiar long sword was also snapped in two, lying powerlessly in the nearby rubble.
"Huff... huff..."
Megumi's hands dropped limply. He collapsed onto the ground, completely drained.
He gasped for air, greedily inhaling the oxygen that was now tinged with the scent of blood.
Though his entire body screamed in agony from overexertion, a satisfied smirk couldn't help but tug at the corner of his mouth.
"I did it..."
Megumi looked at his blood-stained but still steady hands, his eyes sparkling with a newfound confidence.
In that life-or-death battle, he hadn't just successfully killed a troublesome curse user; more importantly, he had finally touched the threshold of a deeper level of the Ten Shadows Technique.
At this point, he was no longer rigidly summoning shikigami to fight; he had learned how to perform shape transformations between different shikigami and utilize the properties of shadows for absolute defense.
This precise control over his technique allowed him to complete a desperate counter-kill without expanding his domain or summoning Mahoraga.
As the timelines gradually merged, a clear memory belonging to 2006 began to surface in Megumi's mind.
In that memory, the black-haired boy he addressed as senior always used basic breathing techniques to execute magnificent swordsmanship that left him in awe.
"Senior... Yoru..."
Megumi murmured the name that had profoundly influenced him in both timelines, struggling to pull himself up from the ground.
"If I could show you that just now, I might actually get a word of praise, wouldn't I?"
Even though he had successfully dealt with Haruta Shigemo, he knew that this terrifying incident sweeping through Shibuya was far from over.
Kento Nanami, Maki Zenin, and... Yoru.
They were all still fighting desperately on their respective battlefields. He couldn't afford to fall here.
However, just as Megumi had steadied himself and was about to find a relatively safe place to recover some strength...
BOOM—!!!
A violent explosion suddenly erupted from a street not far away!
Accompanying it was a wild, terrifying surge of cursed energy filled with pure destructive intent!
"This cursed energy..."
Megumi's face instantly turned deathly pale. He whipped his head toward the direction of the explosion.
The fatal sense of threat—like being targeted by an ancient beast—was hundreds of times stronger than anything he had felt even when facing Special Grade Cursed Spirits!
"That's... the direction Senior Ino is responsible for!"
Megumi's heart sank.
Without hesitation, he squeezed out the last bit of his potential and ran toward the explosion with heavy, stumbling steps.
Intuition told him that something much more terrifying than Haruta Shigemo, or even those Special Grade Cursed Spirits, had appeared on that street!
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