Chapter 20 — Shift
This was another cursed-energy control technique Ren had mastered recently.
By circulating cursed energy throughout his entire body and exploiting its property of physical enhancement, he could do more than simply strengthen his fists and legs—
his senses were sharpened as well. Sight, hearing, even smell were amplified to an extreme degree.
A blade of cursed energy condensed once more in his palm.
Shhk—
The cursed spirit moved again.
Shhk! Shhk-shhk!
The white figure flickered violently through the darkness, changing positions three times in rapid succession. And yet—
Clang—!
The final slash was blocked with effortless precision.
The cursed spirit retreated.
Shhk! Shhk-shhk! Shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk!
Its figure streaked through the surrounding space again, flashing from point to point at terrifying speed.
Ren slowly turned his head, calmly tracking its movement.
Then, a smile suddenly spread across his face.
To his eyes, the cursed spirit was no longer vanishing and reappearing without warning.
Instead, it left behind a chain of overlapping afterimages in the air.
Which meant—
This wasn't teleportation.
It was pure, high-speed movement.
To be honest, even now, fully keeping up with that speed was still difficult for him. But this level of perception was already enough.
Because he had found the flaw.
Among the evenly distributed afterimages, every dozen or so, one appeared heavier—more solid, lingering a fraction of a second longer than the rest.
That was the gap.
Its high-speed movement wasn't perfectly continuous.
Between each burst, there was a brief recovery window—a moment of stiffness, or charge time.
If he seized that instant—
Shhk—
Silver light flashed again.
Cursed energy surged through Ren's entire body as he launched himself forward, choosing—
for the first time—to attack proactively.
He didn't wait for the cursed spirit's recovery window.
Instead, he struck the moment it initiated movement.
He had completely deciphered its pattern.
The direction of his leap wasn't toward the cursed spirit's current position—
it was toward the endpoint of its next "shift."
When Ren arrived, the cursed spirit would arrive as well.
In other words—
That was precisely its recovery moment.
Just as expected.
While still midair, Ren caught sight of the cursed spirit's form reappearing several feet below him.
The pale face lifted—
and for the first time, confusion flickered across its expression.
"My turn!"
Ren raised his hand high. Cursed energy roared toward his palm, and a brilliant blue blade extended with a sharp cry, poised to cleave straight down—
And then—
The cursed spirit's lips, closed since the beginning of the battle, parted for the first time.
It spoke a single word.
"Shift."
Shhk!
Shhk-shhk-shhk!!
Shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk!!!!!!
Shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk—
"Ren!"
A heart-rending scream tore through the pitch-black sky.
Ren crashed to the ground in a sorry state.
The brilliant blue cursed-energy blade in his hand hadn't even had time to fall when it vanished outright.
In the next instant—
Sssshk—!
A chorus of tearing sounds erupted from every part of his body.
All of his clothing was shredded in a heartbeat, reduced to drifting powder. Immediately afterward, countless gashes burst open across his skin, blood surging out in rivulets. In the blink of an eye, he was drenched head to toe, a figure soaked in crimson.
"Tch…"
He raised his head and looked at the sword-type cursed spirit before him. Blood glued his lips together as he spoke, confusion thick in his voice.
"You… why do you have two techniques?"
The sword spirit did not answer.
It simply raised its blade once more.
Cold steel gleamed beneath the moonlight.
A killing pressure surged forward.
"Ren!"
In the distance, Nishimiya Momo stared at the blood-soaked figure swallowed by blade light, grief crashing over her like a wave.
"That's not right!" Ren roared.
He exploded forward and threw a punch—
a single blow that sent the sword spirit flying more than ten meters, smashing through multiple walls before it finally stopped.
"R-Ren…?" Momo rubbed at her reddened eyes, tears trembling at the corners.
"Answer me!" Ren barked, voice furious—and still powerful.
"Why does a cursed spirit have two techniques?!"
The moment before had been unimaginably dangerous.
Ren had treated the cursed spirit's invisible blade attacks as basic strikes. Fine.
Then the high-speed movement—something close to instantaneous relocation—had clearly been its technique.
But just as Ren thought he had deciphered that technique, just as he launched his counterattack with confidence—
The cursed spirit unleashed a third ability.
In that instant, the air screamed.
Shhk—shhk—shhk—
Razor-sharp cutting sounds erupted from every direction at once, as though countless blades were slashing down on him simultaneously—from the front, the back, above, below.
It was impossible to block.
Completely impossible.
No one could defend against an attack like that. Even if you stopped one direction, one blade, you would still be cut apart by the others—by the endless swarm of slashes.
At the critical moment, only Ren's superior skill saved him—
He activated his innate technique, Limitless Probability Technique, forcibly altering probability so that every invisible blade deflected and canceled one another out.
But the attack had come too fast, and he had been completely unprepared.
His technique activated a fraction of a second too late.
That delay was enough for his body to be grazed by dozens of slashes.
Had he reacted even a moment later, he would have been carved into pieces.
Breathing hard, Ren watched as the cursed spirit rose from the settling dust, crouching slightly, one hand resting on the hilt of its sword.
How could this be?
By all logic, each sorcerer possessed only one innate technique.
Cursed spirits should follow the same rule.
Yet here was an exception—one wielded directly against him.
Shock and anger churned together inside his chest. A bitter sense of injustice welled up:
a rule that should bind everyone, casually broken and used to kill him.
No more holding back.
Ren spread both hands wide. Ten fingers flared with blade-light as ten streams of sword energy spun and launched outward at once.
"Sever — Ten-Finger Blade Manipulation!"
"Shift."
The cursed spirit parted its lips and spoke a single word.
In the next instant—
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sword energy crisscrossed the air, explosions of force ripping through space as dust and debris erupted everywhere.
When the dust finally settled, the cursed spirit stood amid shattered stone and rubble.
Unwounded.
Only its body swayed slightly, betraying the strain.
…It used that technique to neutralize the attack?
Of course.
That ability unleashed indiscriminate slashes across the surrounding space.
Naturally, it could also cut apart Ren's cursed-energy blades.
Yet Ren himself remained completely unharmed.
He glanced down at the spherical crater beneath his feet, then at the similarly sized pit where the cursed spirit stood. Both bore the same scars—marks left by omnidirectional cutting.
Judging from this, the effective range of that attack was about two meters around the user.
…This technique.
It's eerily similar to Miwa's Simple Domain.
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