Chapter 175 - Two Instant Kills

Toji flicked at his ear.

"You're weak."

"The only useless one is him."

The tattooed woman clicked forward on her high heels, a cold laugh escaping her lips.

Shura clutched his chest and exploded: "You stupid bitch, what the hell do you know? This guy's strength—"

"Enough."

Ashiya, seated on the car roof, cut the argument short. His gaze was locked hard on Toji's muscles. That was no ordinary brute force. The firing frequency of those muscles, the surge of vital energy underneath, it defied all common sense. This man's mastery of physical combat was absurdly high.

"Momiji, go help."

Ashiya spoke coldly. The tattooed woman called Momiji curled a lip. Two Special Grades joining hands just to deal with one musclebound idiot with no Cursed Energy? Had the leader been asleep so long his nerve had shrunk with him? But Momiji didn't dare disobey.

Violet Cursed Energy detonated at Momiji's feet. The entire figure blurred into a streak of purple afterimage and reappeared at Toji's right side in an instant.

"Die, you green-skinned freak!"

Momiji raised one long leg, the shoe tip saturated with a lethal cursed poison capable of dissolving bone and blood, and drove it straight down at Toji's neck. At the same moment, Shura came roaring in from the front, both massive palms slamming shut, aiming to crush Toji's skull like a watermelon.

"A pincer attack? Now that's some real spirit!"

Toji let out a loud laugh and drove his left foot hard into the ground. The concrete bridge surface collapsed with a thunderous crack. He didn't even glance at Momiji. His right foot tore off the ground with a piercing sonic boom and rose straight to meet the descending heel.

CRACK!

Momiji's right leg snapped into a grotesque angle. Before the body could even register it, Toji's left elbow had already driven hard into the solar plexus. He spun without stopping, and the momentum carried a roundhouse kick clean into Shura's freshly healed jaw.

BANG! BANG!

Two figures flew backward at twice the speed they'd arrived, crashing into a heap of wrecked cars. The overpass went silent for a moment. The swordsman who had been wiping down a blade stopped moving. The pair of crimson eyes lurking in the shadows suddenly went wide.

If Shura getting sent flying the first time could be chalked up to carelessness, then both of them being instantly overwhelmed together was no coincidence at all.

"Something is wrong with this guy!" Shura crawled out from the twisted wreckage, spitting blood furiously, Reverse Cursed Technique straining at full capacity. "His speed and strength are beyond what any normal person can reach!"

Momiji pressed a hand to the caved-in chest, face drained of all color, unable to speak. Ashiya narrowed his eyes. Brushed the dust off the hunting robe and stood up from the car roof. The remaining three said nothing. They shared a wordless look and fanned out, encircling Toji from all sides. Shura and Momiji stumbled upright and sealed off the rear. Five Special Grades.

A syndicate of monsters from a thousand years ago. Toji stood surrounded in the center, not a trace of tension on his face.

"Now this is what it should be! On the field of youth, only giving everything you have can honor the sweat you've shed!"

Toji raised a thumbs-up. "To answer your enthusiasm, I've got to bring out my own drive too! But I still need to save some energy to find that one called 'Angel' and rescue my precious daughter — so I can only go this far for now!"

He drew a deep breath. He couldn't open the Seventh Gate. Push through the Seventh and the body would be driven to the edge of collapse, the barrier crisis ahead would be impossible to handle. The Fifth Gate was exactly right.

"Eight Gates Released Formation: Fifth Gate — Gate of Limit, open!"

BOOM!

The raging green steam expanded again. This time, even the surrounding air began to warp from the heat. The concrete beneath Toji's feet cracked inch by inch. Shattered stone rose off the ground on its own, floating without control.

Momiji gritted teeth. "It's all bluster! Without Cursed Energy, no matter how much you reinforce your body, you're still just a target!"

All five moved at once. Shura's heavy fist. Momiji's leg. The swordsman's tachi. Ashiya's cursed talisman seals. And black barbed spikes thrusting out from the shadows at an unknown moment, every line of retreat was sealed off. Their calculation was precise. No Cursed Energy meant no way to defend against Cursed Technique damage. A single hit would be enough to reduce this green-skinned monkey to pulp.

Toji smiled. Chimera poked its head out from his shoulder and spat out a blade. A Special Grade Cursed Tool, the Split Soul Katana.

"What is that?"

The swordsman charging at the front felt a chill crawl across his scalp. Toji seized the handle. In midair, his body forcibly twisted into an impossible angle, evading the lethal talisman and the shadow spikes at the same time, and brought the blade around in a reverse-grip slash straight across Shura's fist. Thwick.

The flesh Shura had prided as invincible parted before the Split Soul Katana like butter under a hot knife. The entire right arm spun up into the air.

"AAAAAAGH!" Shura screamed and stumbled back.

Toji didn't pause. He followed through with a kick into the swordsman's tachi, the force cracking the swordsman's grip open, nearly sending the blade flying. One exchange. All five members of the syndicate had eaten another loss.

"That blade ignores defensive cursed techniques!"

Ashiya's voice dropped low. "Don't clash head-on — pull back and wear him down with techniques!"

Five killers from the Heian era. Their combat discipline was exceptional. Shura retreated immediately, white mist rising off the body as the Reverse Cursed Technique forcibly reattached the severed arm. The swordsman pulled back and let wind-attribute cutting Cursed Energy coil around the blade. The most infuriating one was the figure hidden in the shadows.

Every time Toji tried to press the attack, black barbed spears thrust up from the shadows beneath his feet, forcing him to abort the movement each time. The five worked in seamless coordination. Shura acted as the meat shield, continuously eating Toji's blows through the Reverse Cursed Technique, and miraculously, the line held.

The swordsman wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of the mouth, glanced at the Split Soul Katana in Toji's hand, and let a cold smile curl there. Understood.

Nothing but an upstart, good body, Special Grade Cursed Tool, hacking around wildly. As long as they kept clear of that blade, as long as they kept him from closing the distance, a monkey with no ranged attack would eventually be ground down and finished.

"Found your weakness, green-skin."

The swordsman gripped the blade with both hands, eyes burning with excitement. This was the fun part. Slicing apart a body that powerful piece by piece, watching the despair set in, that was the finest entertainment. The swordsman drew a deep breath. Every trace of Cursed Energy across the body contracted violently onto the blade.

"Secret Sword: Absolute Shadow!"

The swordsman's form vanished in an instant, leaving only a single afterimage hanging in the air. The next second, directly behind Toji. The blade tip let out a piercing shriek and drove with perfect precision toward his heart. There was no dodging this strike. Toji had just thrown a punch. He had no time to turn around. Thwick! The muffled sound of a blade piercing flesh.

Ecstasy broke across the swordsman's face. A hit! Heart run through. No matter how powerful the body, death was certain. But the smile froze solid. The feel was wrong. No hot blood came spraying out. The resistance through the blade felt nothing like bone and flesh, it felt more like... wood?

BANG!

A cloud of white smoke burst open.

The "Toji" that had just been run through turned into a wooden post dragged in from somewhere.

The swordsman stood completely dumbfounded. What on earth was that? An illusion? No, there was no Cursed Energy fluctuation whatsoever. This was just a plain, ordinary piece of wood. How did he do that?

"Where are you looking, kid?"

A thunderous roar from directly overhead. The swordsman snapped upward, and saw nothing but a mass of green steam crashing down like a meteor. Toji, head-down, right foot raised high, driving down with terrifying air pressure.

"Youth Dropkick!"

BOOM!

The swordsman had no chance to raise the blade. Toji's heel drove the entire head straight down into the chest cavity. The savage physical force traveled down the spine and through the whole body. The bridge surface exploded beneath the swordsman's feet, and the whole body was hammered into the bridge pillar like a lump of wet clay. Dead beyond any doubt. The remaining four froze.

Ashiya's hand, still clutching the talisman, was trembling. Momiji was so shaken that stumbling back two steps came involuntarily. What just happened? Was that a spatial transfer technique? Impossible. That monkey had not a single trace of Cursed Energy. How could it use something that made absolutely no sense? Toji landed cleanly and brushed the dust off his form-fitting suit.

These old fossils had never even seen a Body Replacement Technique before. They were so easy to fool. He raised his head and looked at the four who remained.

"Losing a comrade doesn't feel good, does it? But this is exactly the cruelty of youth!"

His hands flew through hand seals in front of his chest.

BANG! BANG!

Two clouds of white smoke burst open. In the faces of Ashiya and the others, horror written across every one, three identical Toji Fushiguros appeared on the bridge. Same green form-fitting suits. Same gleaming white teeth.

"What kind of monster is this..." Momiji's voice cracked completely.

It wasn't powerful enemies that frightened Momiji. It was things like this, things that utterly defied common sense. Creating clones with no Cursed Energy? This broke every rule of the Jujutsu World. Panic set in. The instinct came to turn and pull back. In a fight to the death, showing your back to the enemy was the same as dying.

"Second one!"

The Toji clone on the left stamped off the ground, so fast there wasn't even an afterimage, and appeared in front of Momiji in an instant. Momiji screamed and raised a leg to kick. Toji paid no attention to it. The Split Soul Katana became a black bolt of lightning, driving up through the jaw and straight through the brain.

Momiji's eyes went blank in an instant. The violet Cursed Energy deflated like a punctured balloon, and the body crumpled softly to the ground.

"Momiji!"

Shura let out a furious roar and moved to help, only to take a flying kick from the clone on the right square in the face and go flying again. Three left on the overpass. Ashiya looked at Momiji collapsed in a pool of blood and the swordsman hammered into the bridge pillar, and that face, always pale and grim, finally twisted completely.

The proud leader of the Heian era Five Traitors, toyed with like a punching bag by a modern monkey with no Cursed Energy. Two Special Grades. Barely 2 minutes. Dead without dignity. Without even having used a Maximum Technique.

"You really think these few cheap parlor tricks are enough to beat me?"

Ashiya's hands slammed together, and blinding black light erupted from between the interlaced fingers. No more probing. The malice and Cursed Energy accumulated across a thousand years detonated like a tidal wave.

➤ Next: The Strongest Thunder God