{With this treasure, I summon Readers Attendance...}
Ethan was blasted across the island by the force of the impact, hurtling through the air until he slammed into the opposite shoreline.
Through Mahito, Jogo had learned everything about the sorcerer known as Atlas Orion. He knew Ethan's arsenal consisted of nine shadows: the Divine Dogs, the rabbits, the lightning-infused bird, the great serpent, the water-bearing mammoth, the toad, the piercing ox, the deer capable of Reverse Cursed Technique, the Funeral tiger and their Chimeras.
Jogo also knew that for the next twenty-four minutes, his heat was so intense he could simultaneously combust all of those shadows the moment they manifested—even from a distance.
Ethan Park should have had no counter for these flames.
A moment later, Jogo appeared high in the sky above Ethan's landing zone, his hands glowing as he charged a devastating follow-up.
"I will incinerate you, brat! ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE!"
As he chanted, dozens of gargantuan meteors manifested in the sky, consuming the island's mountainous rock to fuel their mass.
"MAXIMUM METEOR!"
The projectiles thundered down, obliterating the ground where Ethan stood.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The environment reddened and The sheer spike in atmospheric temperature caused the island's crustal layer to turn to liquid.
Moments later, Jogo descended, landing on the smoldering surface of one of his meteors. He scanned the devastation with his single eye.
His cursed energy signature has vanished, Jogo thought, but that could be a trick, just like last time.
Suddenly, Ethan landed softly on an adjacent meteor, the wings of Nue dissolving back into his shadow.
The last attack was strong, but it wouldn't matter if it didn't hit.
Even with a tenfold increase in defensive reinforcement, Nue's wings were taking passive damage just existing in this environment, Ethan realized.
I can't summon any of my regular shikigami. None of them, not even the Round deer, could survive these temperatures. Even The Aegis Tortoise would be killed by a direct hit. My only options now are Mahoraga... and probably Abaddon.
"What have you done to yourself?" Ethan asked, his voice steady as he squinted at the volcano-headed spirit through the roiling smoke. Nobody has pushed him this far before.
At that moment, Tora reached out through their mental link. "Ethan... his cursed energy level."
"Yeah, I noticed," Ethan replied. "It hasn't depleted a bit, even after those high-output attacks. And his output... it's beyond ridiculous."
"I suspect he is drawing from the island itself—some kind of reserve bank," Tora suggested.
"Hmm... I knew something was odd with this island the moment I stepped here. Gauntlets
, Tora," Ethan commanded through their Mental link.
"Making excuses, are we?" Jogo mocked. He felt he could unleash a hundred more such attacks without a hint of exhaustion. "I will kill you today, Ethan Park. It doesn't have to be me smiling in the end, so long as Curses emerge as the true hum—"
"Monologuing? In the middle of a fight?" Ethan's voice didn't come from the meteor where Jogo was looking; it came from directly behind him.
Instantaneous movement? How? Jogo's mind raced as he felt the air shift.
Ethan had activated ECLIPSE. His hands were already encased in gauntlets forged from Destroyer metal—a product of Metallurgy spells within the Mystic Arts—and infused with Tora's essence.
You will make a great addition to Po's arsenal...so Im not gonna kill you, Ethan thought.
Ethan landed a hit, then another, and another.
He maintained a relentless barrage for thirty seconds, a blur of motion that culminated in a final strike that sent Jogo hurtling back to the center of their initial battlefield.
Every single blow resulted in a space-distorting Black Flash, amplified by the density of Tora's gauntlets.
Jogo was wheezing, coughing up thick, purple blood.
Consecutive Black Flashes? And why did it feel like the brat hadn't taken a single scratch from the previous 50,000°C explosion? Jogo knew that if he had taken that barrage at his standard 100% output, he would have been exorcised instantly.
He looked up, bracing his dislocated jaw with one hand. Ethan Park stood there calmly, staring out at the horizon that had turned a bruised red from the sheer violence of their clash.
Ethan gave him a side-glance. "You hold ideals to kill me... they're fascinating. Is this all your conviction amounts to?" he asked mockingly, gesturing to the scorched ruins of the island.
Volcanic steam hissed violently from Jogo's ears and head. "DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME, BRAT! THERE WON'T EVEN BE ASHES LEFT OF YOU WHEN I AM DONE!"
Just then, Jogo felt it—a presence manifesting from within his own shadow. A massive, terrifying Shikigami emerged, a heavy stone wheel hovering atop its head.
A chimera? It doesn't matter! Jogo thought frantically. He leaped backward, launching a swarm of Ember Insects at the new threat.
But Mahoraga didn't flinch. The Divine General outran the exploding insects, closing the distance instantly to invade Jogo's personal space.
He brought his right arm down in a crushing arc, wielding the Sword of Extermination, a blade that pulsates with concentrated Reverse Cursed Technique (RCT).
What?! Jogo barely had time to process the danger before his right arm was severed clean. Mahoraga didn't stop, pivoting to kick the Disaster Spirit back toward Ethan. Ethan was already waiting. As Jogo entered his reach, he delivered another devastating Black Flash.
Jogo was launched horizontally into the ridges, his physical form carving jagged craters into the rapidly cooling rock.
That sword... that sword is a cursed tool that outputs pure RCT, that is no Chimera, a 10th shikigami? Jogo realized with mounting dread.
He struggled to regenerate the severed limb, but the positive energy left behind by the blade acted like an acid, stalling his healing factor.
It could kill me instantly if it hits my core mass. This isn't good... this isn't good at all. He thought. Even with his nigh-limitless reserves and 1,000% output, a direct infusion of Reverse Cursed Technique would mean a total erasure.
Just then, a single arrow whistled through the steam, appearing directly in front of him.
Another cursed tool? I don't sense any RCT from it... Useless, Jogo thought, reflexively swinging his left hand to swat the projectile aside.
To his shock, his left arm was obliterated upon impact, the momentum arrow carrying the essence of Piercing Ox, defied its small size.
Immediately, he felt an immense build-up of cursed energy radiating from the arrow's origin. Jogo forced his left arm to regrow—though his right remained a cauterized stump from Mahoraga's assault—and braced himself to dodge a follow-up. But the blast never came.
Instead, two swords—one with a black hilt and one with white—shot out from his own shadow, pinning his robes and flesh to the rock and immobilizing him.
A year ago, these blades imbued with the Divine Dogs would have melted just by being in his presence; now, forged from Destroyer Metal, they withstood the 50,000°C heat without softening.
While Jogo was pinned, a billion-volt lightning strike descended from the heavens. Though the current wasn't compressed, like when Ethan used it against Mahoraga, it was still a billion volts lighting strike using Nue's Spear, effectively Scorching the Disaster Curse despite his bottomless reserves.
Ethan blurred into existence directly in front of him. In his hand was a three-sectioned staff imbued with Max Elephant, its edges serrated and gleaming.
He drove one end through Jogo's single eye and delivered a brutal kick to the back of the weapon, forcing the serrated destroyer metal to tunnel completely through the spirit's skull until it emerged from the back.
Before Jogo could even scream, Ethan retrieved an RCT Disk imbued with the Round Deer from his shadow. He slammed it onto the ruin of Jogo's eye socket and activated it, flooding the spirit's head with lethal positive energy.
To top it all off, Ethan landed a haymaker Black Flash hook that launched the volcano curse into the stratosphere.
Mahoraga appeared mid-air, meeting the rising spirit with a reinforced cursed energy kick that sent Jogo screaming back down toward the heart of the island in an instant creating a crater from impact.
Ethan landed gracefully at the edge of the crater, looking down at Jogo's battered form.
The Disaster Curse was a mess of scorched earth and purple ichor, still struggling to regenerate despite the absolute thrashing it had just endured. Ethan channeled Reverse Cursed Technique through Funeral Tiger and summoned forth it's Reversal: "Po."
Po emerged from the darkness, glancing first at the crater and then back at Ethan.
The shikigami required no further instructions. He immediately leaped down beside the weakened Jogo and began condensing the spirit's essence into a dense, swirling sphere using his core technique: Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
The Disaster Curse, Jogo, was forcibly compressed into a glowing, golden-red orb, which Po consumed without hesitation. With a silent, respectful nod to his master, the shikigami sank back into the depths of the shadow.
Throughout the entire duration of the engagement, the wheel hovering above Mahoraga had not spun a single time. It was unnecessary; the Divine General had already adapted to the heat long ago, having been exposed to temperatures reaching 65,000°C during training sessions within Ethan's own arsenal.
Ethan had intentionally withheld his "one-shot" attacks, specifically commanding Mahoraga to refrain from delivering a killing blow with the Sword of Extermination.
He needed Jogo neutralized but intact, ensuring Po could successfully observe and absorb the spirit's power.
Then as if remembering something, Ethan reached into a specialized Mirror Dimension seal—a localized pocket of folded space—and retrieved his Stark-designed smartphone.
He flicked the screen to life, his Destroyer-metal gauntlets dissolving back into his shadow.
His notifications were a chaotic flood of alerts from his network of reconnaissance agents stationed throughout New York in preparation for the invasion.
Though the messages were frantic and fragmented, the core was undeniable:
A massive wormhole had stabilized in the sky directly above Midtown Manhattan, and an armada of extraterrestrial invaders was currently laying waste to the city.
He scrolled through the timestamps.
The initial reports dated back fifteen minutes; he had been engaged with Jogo on this desolate rock for nearly twenty.
The realization hit him with clarity. It seemed the Prince of Lies had successfully brokered a deal with the Cursed Spirits of Earth.
But what could Loki have possibly offered a Disaster Grade curse in exchange for what was essentially a suicide mission?
Jogo was many things, but he was no fool. Ethan realized he didn't have the luxury of time to drag the truth out of the absorbed cursed spirit right now; those questions would have to wait until after he had dealt with Loki.
With a sharp mental command, Tora manifested and sparked a shimmering sling-ring portal, the gateway opening onto the chaos of New York.
If it was truly Loki, then this was a masterstroke of manipulation—luring one of Earth's primary defenders to a remote volcanic island for the sole purpose of clearing the board for his invasion.
Loki had clearly employed a similar tactic with the Avengers aboard the Helicarrier, attempting to dismantle the team from within by striking them where they felt most secure—their own home ground, The Helicarrier.
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A/N: So how was the chapter?
I have tried integrating Ethan fighting style with his cursed tools.
Here. If you like it.
Here. If you don't.
And I think loki using his silver tongue
To convince Jogo to coordinate their attack is accurate for his character, Maybe he offered him Tessarct?
And Jogo himself being half convinced he could "kill" Ethan in those 24 minutes also helped.
Similar to cannon where Jogo asked for Prison Realm in exchange for killing Gojo Satrou from Kenjaku, but he really just wanted to kill the so called strongest sorcerer.
Let me know what you think.
If you enjoy the story, please leave a Review and Power stones!
Please let me know what you think.
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