"What's taking so long?"
"What the hell are you lot doing? Slacking off?"
Nobuaki Zenin's voice carried over the courtyard wall before he stepped through the gate. He froze. The stench of iron and the sight of a literal charnel house made his stomach do a violent somersault.
Blood, brain matter, viscera, and splintered bone.
The vast courtyard was painted in them. Maki Zenin stood in the center of the carnage, her long blade held aloft, a tattered corpse dangling from its tip like a macabre trophy.
The Kukuru Unit—the clan's front line—had been annihilated.
Nobuaki's knees turned to water. It had been less than two minutes. How could a failure... how could a monkey...
BOOM!!!
The earth shuddered. The ground beneath Maki's feet shattered as two massive hands of solid rock erupted from the soil, clapping together with bone-crushing force, trapping her within their stony palms.
"Master Chojuro! It's Master Chojuro's technique!"
"The 'Hei' have arrived!"
The Hei—the true elite of the Zenin clan, comprised entirely of sorcerers at semi-grade 1 or higher. Seeing Maki restrained, Nobuaki finally exhaled a shaky breath of relief.
CRACK—
A second later, the rock shattered like glass. Maki's silhouette flickered, appearing before Nobuaki like a vengeful ghost.
"Wait—"
Schlick!
Nobuaki was sheared in half before he could even raise a hand.
Maki turned her head, her gaze locking onto a distant figure. She kicked off the ground, her body launching like a bolt from a heavy crossbow.
CRASH!!!
She slammed Chojuro through a stone wall, her boot crushing his chest into the dirt. The sheer force caved in his torso, liquefying his lungs and heart into a gory pulp.
Suddenly, a pair of gargantuan, spectral eyes manifested behind Maki. Under their oppressive gaze, her body stiffened, her muscles locking up as if held by invisible pincers.
This was Rantai Zenin's technique.
Maki let out a jagged, feral grin. She twisted her neck with a sickening series of pops, reached back, and grabbed the spectral eyes with her bare hands. Then, she ripped.
Rip!
"AAAAAAAHHHH—!"
Rantai let out a soul-shredding scream. Despite the agony, he clutched his bleeding sockets, funneling every drop of his remaining cursed energy into restraining her.
"Ignore me!" Rantai shrieked, his face a mask of blood and madness. "Jinichi! Do it now! Kill her!"
To Rantai, Maki's silhouette had completely merged with that of Toji Fushiguro.
"The Zenin clan fell to this state because of Toji Fushiguro's whims! Can't you see it? She's become exactly like him! Kill her!"
Jinichi Zenin seized the opening. He leaped into the air, his fists blurring into a rhythmic frenzy. Massive, spectral fists materialized above Maki, raining down like a localized meteor shower.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The earth groaned, and the surrounding buildings collapsed into a heap of rubble. Rantai's eyes were pouring blood, but a look of ecstatic relief crossed his face.
"No one survives Jinichi's technique... we did it... we won..."
But as the dust settled, Maki stood amidst the wreckage. In one hand, she held her blade. In the other, she gripped the severed head of Jinichi Zenin, whose eyes were still wide with shock.
Rantai couldn't see it. He had already succumbed to exhaustion and blood loss, dying with a hollow smile on his face.
Maki tossed both corpses into a nearby pond.
"Only one left..."
She walked onto the wooden bridge. Waiting for her on the other side was Naoya Zenin, clad in his black haori, watching her with a mocking, playful glint.
Naoya Zenin. The head of the Hei. A man whose talent was said to surpass even his father, Naobito.
"How heartless," Naoya mused. "Do you even have a heart left in there?"
"Of course I do," Maki replied flatly. "I just slaughtered a pack of beasts. When you step on an ant, do you ask yourself if you have a heart?"
"Tch." Naoya's smile didn't reach his eyes. Sharp-tongued brat.
He shed his playful demeanor, his gaze turning frigid. "You don't actually think I'll lose to you like I did last time, do you? A failure with no cursed energy could never understand how fast a real sorcerer can improve."
Naoya began to unroll his sleeves. He reached down and unstrapped two heavy slabs of metal from his wrists. Then, two more from his ankles. Finally, he shed his outer robe, revealing a thick belt of leaden weights around his waist.
THUD!!!
The weights hit the floor with a heavy, metallic boom. Naoya grinned, and then—
Flash!
He vanished. When he reappeared, he was already behind Maki.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A series of twenty-four thunderous cracks echoed in a single second. Naoya's speed had reached a terrifying threshold.
"To defeat you, I underwent the most brutal training in the history of this clan!" Naoya's voice was a manic whisper. "To wash away the shame of losing to you, I hunted Special Grade curses alone! I risked everything!"
"Projection Sorcery can accelerate a user to subsonic speeds. But I... I can chain two instances of the technique simultaneously, pushing myself into the supersonic!"
"And to make my body survive the g-force of breaking the sound barrier, I wore hundreds of kilograms of metal every second of the day—even while I slept! I am not the man I was!"
"Hahahaha!"
Naoya's laughter was drowned out by a sonic boom that cracked the windows of the estate. He hit Mach 3, a blur of pure kinetic energy. He pivoted mid-air, a flying kick aimed directly at Maki's midsection. At that velocity, he would shear her in half like a hot wire through butter.
"DIE!"
Throughout Naoya's grand speech and his lethal approach, Maki remained preternaturally calm. As he closed the final meters, she tossed True Steel Hou into the air.
Then, she moved. Her speed didn't just match his; it eclipsed it.
"Wha—"
Naoya's scream was cut short by Maki's fist slamming into his jaw.
BANG!!!
The impact shattered his facial bones and sent teeth flying. The speed at which he had approached was matched by the violence with which he was repelled. He skipped across the courtyard like a stone on water before crashing through a building and disappearing into the debris.
Maki pulled back her fist and casually reached up, catching the falling True Steel Hou by its hilt.
"Too much flash. Not enough substance."
The words were soft, but they shattered Naoya's spirit more than the punch had shattered his jaw. He had bled and sweated for this moment. He had dreamed of this vindication. To have it dismissed as "flashy"?
"Raaaaagh...!"
Naoya clawed his way out of the rubble like a wounded animal. His face was unrecognizable, blood spraying from his mouth as he screamed.
"Yoo... yoo... fai-yure!"
"Yoo dare... look down on me...!"
He swayed on his feet, his eyes burning with a crimson, hateful light.
"Yoo... how... how can yoo..."
"Yoo are not... NOT TOJI!"
Naoya Zenin had been born with the worship of strength in his marrow. As a child, he had gone to see the "cursed failure" everyone talked about, expecting to laugh. But when Toji had walked past him, that single, indifferent glance from the Heavenly Tyrant had paralyzed him with awe.
The sin of the weak is their ignorance of true power.
From that day on, Toji Fushiguro became the god Naoya chased. Then came the "Strongest Trio," the Special Grades, the geniuses... they occupied the peak he coveted.
And now, Maki—the stain of the clan, the girl he had bullied since infancy—had reached that peak before him.
Jealousy. It was a poison that rotted his mind, a wildfire fueled by pure spite.
"You are not him! The one meant to stand at that height..."
"IS ME!"
Naoya, driven to the brink of madness, laced his fingers into a complex seal.
"Domain Expansion: Time Cell Moon Palace!"
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