Choso and Yuji possessed a special constitution that allowed them to convert cursed energy into blood. Therefore, their Blood Manipulation was much more convenient than ordinary Blood Manipulation.
They could continuously compress their blood to the absolute limit without having to worry about anemia.
Piercing Blood was already the most powerful skill in Blood Manipulation, and Choso's fully compressed Piercing Blood could reach a scale and power of over 150% of the usual.
SQUELCH!
A blood arrow—expanded several times its original size—shot out and accurately pierced through the clone's neck—
THUD—
As the clone's head and torso fell to the ground together, Kento Nanami rushed forward quickly. The blond man crouched beside the clone's corpse and extracted the two Sukuna fingers from the hole in its chest.
Kento Nanami then tossed them to Yuji not far away.
"Itadori, you should have a use for these, right!"
"Thanks! Nanami-san!"
Yuji caught the two fingers Kento Nanami threw to him, then tossed them into his mouth one by one and swallowed them.
Gulp, gulp.
The sixth and seventh fingers. And also...
Yuji reached into his pocket again, took out the other finger he got when he defeated the Special Grade cursed spirit earlier, and repeated the previous action.
The eighth finger!
After swallowing three fingers consecutively, Sukuna's patterns faintly appeared and disappeared on Yuji's body, eventually vanishing completely. The cursed energy consumed during the previous battles with several Special Grade curses had been replenished to a certain extent.
The reason he hadn't immediately swallowed Sukuna's finger earlier was that Yuji intended to use it as a cursed energy reserve.
And now, Yuji had finally figured out the method to crack this giant baby's cursed technique. He could finally fight without holding back.
"Wahhh—Wahhh—Wahhh—!"
As the group dealt with the clone, the baby's cry echoed.
Yuji looked up at the Special Grade curse in the distance, which was rolling back and forth underground like a real baby. The young man then raised his arms and tore off the tattered fabric on his body.
RIIIP—
His school uniform had been completely destroyed. With the last bit of fabric torn away, the young man's robust upper body was fully exposed to the air.
Meanwhile, in the ruins in the distance, many more clones climbed out from the surface of the baby's body and slowly walked toward the group.
"Itadori, we..."
"Nanami-san, please take care of the unconscious Fushiguro and Junpei with Choso."
Yuji interrupted Kento Nanami, who had hurried to his side to discuss their next tactics.
"I will deal with this curse alone."
"...?"
A look of surprise appeared on Kento Nanami's face.
In his eyes, Yuji was a calm and collected young man. Although there were times when he acted impulsively and disobeyed orders, he didn't seem like the type to say such things.
"Itadori, what foolish things are you saying?"
"I'm sorry, Nanami-san. This is my personal selfishness. Please do not interfere."
A flash of resolve appeared in Yuji's eyes.
Because he had promised Kenjaku that he wouldn't run away, but would defeat this curse head-on.
However, this wasn't because he was foolish enough to keep a promise to an enemy.
Since the Shinjuku Showdown in his past life, Yuji had never tasted defeat.
This curse shaped like a giant baby angered Yuji. Therefore, he wanted to prove something—just like when he fought Mahito back then, wanting to defeat him entirely, both mentally and in combat.
He was going to prove that he would absolutely not lose to this giant baby.
"Yuji, you..."
Choso stepped forward, looking like he also wanted to persuade him.
"Choso, no need to persuade me."
Yuji turned to look at Choso, but the latter shook his head at him.
"No, Yuji. I'm asking how confident you are. If you can't do it, big brother will back you up."
Choso smiled at Yuji.
Yuji stared at Choso for a moment, then the corners of his mouth curled up, revealing an equally bright smile.
The young man repeated the words he had said to Megumi earlier.
"One hundred percent."
"Choso, I am one hundred percent confident."
"..."
Choso was taken aback. Seeing Yuji's unwavering resolve, he didn't ask further—simply entrusting his faith to his blood-connected, most outstanding younger brother in the world.
"Alright. I believe in you, Yuji."
However, Kento Nanami beside them still felt puzzled and wanted to speak up again to persuade him.
"This is not the time to act on emotions, you two..."
Before he could finish speaking, Choso had already stepped forward and placed a hand on Kento Nanami's shoulder.
"Believe in him."
"He is my biological younger brother—the most outstanding jujutsu sorcerer in this world."
"..."
Kento Nanami was truly at a loss with these two. Besides, the unconscious Junpei and Megumi also needed someone to take care of them, so he had no choice but to follow Choso and leave, clearing the area for Yuji.
Yuji watched the two gradually walk away to carry Megumi and Junpei off. Then he turned back to face the battlefield and let out a long breath.
"Phew—"
The flesh baby's Innate Technique was named Eighty-Eight Valleys.
Initially, it needed to sense the enemy's location through its eyeballs, ascertain the opponent's cursed energy strength, and then drag the opponent into a brief dream.
If the opponent's strength was roughly equal, they wouldn't be affected by the cursed technique's effects at first. But as the number of eyeball explosions stacked up, the cursed technique mark would be engraved on them.
The effects of the cursed technique on a sorcerer engraved with the mark would be amplified. A dream that originally only had a single-use effect—causing only a brief pause in consciousness—would be strengthened, and the target would directly fall into an eighty-eight-layered dream.
If everyone's memory were likened to a maze, then Eighty-Eight Valleys could replicate the maze itself.
Each layer of the dream would recreate the target's past memories—for instance, times they were hurt, moments of pain, or unresolved regrets.
Only by breaking through one's lingering attachments at the time could one escape from the dream.
But breaking through just one layer of the dream wasn't enough. There were eighty-eight layers in total, and it could even imitate the environment in reality, giving the target the illusion that they had already returned to reality.
The key was the sheer quantity.
With a total of eighty-eight layers, plus the fact that the dream's contents could be adjusted, it was incredibly easy for the target to get lost within the dream.
However, this cursed technique didn't fool Yuji's eyes. The young man calmly found the loophole in this cursed technique, figured out the number of dream layers, and ultimately forcefully broke free from the shackles of the eighty-eight-layered dream through the method of rapid suicide.
Although using suicide to break free from the dream was a clever trick, the pain of suicide would stack and magnify layer by layer in the dream. The pain resulting from eighty-eight suicides was something ordinary people could hardly withstand.
Unfortunately for the curse, Yuji had already experienced countless pains through the tempering of his past life.
So he didn't care about it at all.
"Wahhh—Wahhh—Wahhh—!"
The baby's crying continued, seemingly dissatisfied that Yuji had broken free from the dream.
"GYAAAAH—!"
The final cry came to an abrupt halt, replaced by a deafening roar.
A pitch-black fissure split open right down the center of that bloated, tens-of-meters-long body. A giant flesh sphere burst through its surface. The flesh sphere quickly opened to both sides like a torn cocoon, revealing a writhing mass of dark red flesh underneath.
Rows of stark white, razor-sharp teeth interlocked, densely packed together, stretching that mouth all the way to the base of its ears.
Then came the sharp claws extending from both sides, and finally, a pair of completely disproportionate crimson eyeballs, crookedly embedded above the fangs.
A Tyrannosaurus-like clone over six meters tall stood up from the giant baby's shell just like that.
Its entire body was covered in hard black scales, and a thick tail dragged behind it.
"ROAR—!!!"
The Tyrannosaurus opened its massive mouth—which seemed to split all the way to the back of its head—and let out a heaven-shaking roar at Yuji. The sound waves, feeling almost tangible, directly blasted away the surrounding rubble and debris.
Yuji stood in place.
"Just as I suspected. You haven't used that dream cursed technique on me again since earlier."
"This proves that your cursed technique has a cooldown period, and right now, you've started to panic."
Yuji sensed that most of the cursed energy within the baby's body had been transferred into this Tyrannosaurus. In other words, this was the flesh baby's desperate, all-in gamble.
"But right now, you're just a beast that only knows how to bite and tear with claws and teeth."
"ROAR—!"
The Tyrannosaurus seemed to understand his words. The sound of its roar echoed through the campus once again, but Yuji ignored it entirely.
The young man closed his eyes.
He was no longer like before. Yuji could now completely let loose and fight.
Therefore, he was going to use the move he used to defeat Dagon earlier.
For a thousand years, no user of Blood Manipulation had ever reached his level.
"Maximum: Blood Manipulation."
A massive amount of blood manifested around Yuji. The scarlet liquid gushed out from his body like a burst dam. The sea of blood quickly covered the school grounds, the water level rising up and surging toward the sky.
"...What is this?!"
In the distance, Kento Nanami—who was carrying Megumi on his back and standing behind a building—was startled. In just a breath's time, the surging sea of blood had already rushed to the edge of the barrier where they were located.
"Don't panic. Yuji won't hurt us."
Choso, dragging Junpei along, urged Kento Nanami to stay calm. The towering sea of blood covered their silhouettes. The impact from the sea of blood nearly knocked Kento Nanami over, and it eventually even crashed against the edge of the Curtain.
Immediately after, this blood began to flow back, centering on Yuji.
All the blood rushed rapidly toward Yuji's body as if pulled by a black hole.
Layer after layer of blood covered his skin, solidified, hardened, and finally compressed continuously until it turned into a pitch-black substance.
Eventually, a full-body armor took shape.
It was entirely pitch-black. The helmet and chest plate were multi-faceted designs. The armor plating on the shoulders and chest overlapped layer by layer, with sharp edges—some angles jutting up like spikes. On each arm, there was a curved, pitch-black blade.
Maximum: Blood Manipulation.
Yuji had previously been troubled by the weakness of Blood Manipulation.
Although this cursed technique was effective at both long and close range, as soon as it came into contact with water, the blood could no longer maintain its normal form, and compressed blood orbs would explode instantly.
After reading the Kamo clan's secret manual given to him by Satoru Gojo, Yuji began to think of a solution to this type of weakness.
At that time, what came to Yuji's mind was Mahito using the "Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing" in front of him.
Thus, the Maximum technique for Blood Manipulation was born.
In this state, Yuji converted a massive amount of cursed energy into blood, and then compressed the blood to its absolute limit—allowing the strength of this armor to exceed 200% of ordinary blood armor.
Manipulating blood in a solid state was several times harder than manipulating it in a liquid state. Ordinary Blood Manipulation users would never even consider incorporating it into their combat strategies.
But when using the Maximum technique, Yuji used "losing the ability to manipulate liquid blood" as a Binding Vow in exchange for an enhanced ability to manipulate solid blood. The solid blood—normally difficult to control—could now be manipulated as freely as breathing.
Even though this meant Yuji would lose ranged attack skills like Piercing Blood.
But for the duration of the Maximum technique—
Yuji would gain the most ferocious enhancement to his close-combat capabilities.
If he threw a Black Flash elbow strike with these fists...
It might hurt quite a bit.
"..."
"This is... manipulating solid blood? And this armor..."
Not far away, cold sweat slid down Choso's face.
He originally wanted to say, "This is impossible to do."
But the person in front of him was his younger brother! So it was absolutely possible!
"ROAR—!"
The Tyrannosaurus didn't give Yuji any preparation time. It violently opened its massive, fang-filled mouth, and crimson cursed energy began to gather within it.
Because the flesh baby's cursed technique was a control-type, this clone's offensive method was pure cursed energy output.
However, with the flesh baby's total cursed energy pool being comparable to Jogo's, even the simplest cursed energy discharge was powerful enough to raze this school to the ground.
The violent cursed energy gathered in the clone's mouth, then transformed into a crimson energy blast over two meters in diameter, surging toward Yuji.
Wherever the energy blast passed, the air was scorched and distorted. The rubble and debris on the ground evaporated into gas the instant they touched its edge.
Yuji remained standing in place.
The moment this shockwave arrived before the young man, Yuji raised the blade on his wrist and slashed upward.
SWISH—!
An unadorned, simple slash forcefully split the clone's full-power cursed energy discharge right down the middle into two halves.
BOOM—!
The cleaved energy blast split into two torrents, sweeping past both sides of Yuji's body and smashing into the ruins behind him.
Towering flames rose into the night sky, incinerating all the building wreckage, blasting two scorched craters tens of meters in diameter into the ground.
Yuji lightly flicked his arm.
BOOM—!
The shockwave emitted by the wrist blade directly slashed a long, narrow fissure into the surface of a nearby building.
"Come. Let's begin."
The young man's voice transmitted through the armor.
I will prove it to you, Kenjaku.
I will make it experience the most brutal defeat.
_________________________________________________
Read Advanced Chapters on : patreon.com/Kaizo247
~ Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]