It was already well past midnight. Sōjun Minamoto had just taken a short nap and was now feeling fully refreshed.
He'd figured out the gist of the curse.
The target was indeed a Special Grade Cursed Spirit with a Cursed Technique. From what he could tell, the Technique likely involved manipulating other people's dreams. Just how far that "manipulation" could go, though, was still unclear.
But one thing was certain—the spirit could forcibly impose dreams on others.
Sōjun Minamoto rarely dreamed. He always knew whether he was dreaming or not. Just now, he knew he hadn't been dreaming—yet he had. That could only mean the dream had been forcibly inserted by the curse.
Suguru Geto hadn't slept since he was on night watch, so naturally, he was unaffected. The village chief and his wife were protected by the spirits of their parents, and the curse hadn't specifically targeted them, so they were also fine.
Only Sōjun Minamoto, who had been sleeping soundly, was forcefully dragged into a dream—and it had been a terrible experience.
He wasn't in the best mood.
Suguru Geto was busy clearing the villagers' corpses.
These were already considered semi-cursed beings. After death, they wouldn't naturally dissipate like ordinary curses. Instead, their bodies would decay slowly over time. And if left piled up together, they could easily give rise to new curses.
That's why a sorcerer was needed to exorcise the cursed elements before handling the remains.
Sōjun Minamoto leaned against the wall, watching as Suguru Geto used Cursed Energy to carefully purify the curses bit by bit. He felt a subtle unease. The curse's Domain had fully formed—and they were already inside it.
He'd tried smashing the divine statue, but it didn't do much. Once a Domain had taken shape, the statue only held symbolic meaning and no longer served a real function.
That meant they'd have to fight inside the enemy's Domain.
Hah!
Excitement surged in Sōjun Minamoto's chest.
Long ago, he'd believed that things like Black Flash and Reverse Cursed Technique were the kind of advanced skills you either got immediately—or never at all.
Domain Expansion was the same. For some, it was a high hurdle, but for others, once they understood it, they could master it easily.
Domains were a kind of barrier, and that brought it right into his area of expertise. Cursed Energy + Technique + Innate Domain, all wrapped in a barrier—that's what formed a Domain Expansion.
A Domain guaranteed the effect of a Technique, massively boosted the user's stats, but also came with major drawbacks: high Cursed Energy consumption and increased difficulty using Techniques afterward.
That's why timing was everything.
In battle, activating a Domain usually signaled that the fight was reaching its climax. It's why Domains were considered the pinnacle of Jujutsu combat.
For Sōjun Minamoto, though, issues like energy drain, Technique difficulty, or timing weren't that big of a deal.
Back during the Locust Cursed Womb incident, he had already used Domain Amplification—a technique using only Cursed Energy and the Innate Domain to wrap around himself. Because it lacked a Technique, it could accept and neutralize others' Techniques. That was Domain Amplification.
He had used it again during his investigation in the shrine earlier that day. It seemed the enemy hadn't even noticed.
Your Domain is only just taking shape, and you're already smug about it.
But mine? I've already found new ways to play with it.
Sōjun Minamoto had never truly clashed with a Curse inside Domains before.
He was getting excited.
"I'm heading to the shrine," he suddenly said to Suguru Geto.
Suguru paused what he was doing and turned. "Need me to do anything?"
"Send out all the Cursed Spirits. Gather up every Aragami statue and anything that resembles an Aragami figure—bring them all to one place."
Suguru nodded thoughtfully.
Then the two split up to begin their respective tasks.
Suguru summoned a massive number of Cursed Spirits—far more than the number of villagers—and scattered them throughout every corner of the village. At the same time, he controlled the spirits patrolling the outskirts to meticulously search each household, every single building in the village...
Some of the Cursed Spirits had already retrieved the statues and scrolls they'd found and were beginning to converge on the village chief's house.
Sōjun Minamoto's figure flickered, reappearing inside the shrine.
Aragami sat on the throne. When it saw him, its expression showed a hint of surprise, then quickly shifted to a smile. "■■■■."
It didn't speak in human language, but Sōjun Minamoto understood.
"You're here."
He wasn't interested in conversation. His right index and middle fingers pressed together at his lips, and with a focused thought—
Domain Expansion.
There were no stars in tonight's sky.
Now there were.
A blanket of stars descended, pressing down over the vortex of curses above the village. Brilliant starlight pierced the black miasma, parting the thick clouds and bathing the entire village in serenity.
Among them, one star stood out—far brighter, denser than the others. It hovered directly above the shrine, drawing ever closer.
Aragami was pinned down by a force... divine might.
Dragging a star from the heavens to strike—if that wasn't divine, what was?
Its knees buckled under the pressure.
It struggled to rise, resisting with all its strength.
It was a god too!
Its face twisted in frustration as it stared up, eyes locked on the descending star.
For a moment, it thought it saw a crude drawing on the star's surface—like a square paper box head, one eye marked with a circle, the other with an X, a short stitched line for a mouth. The lines were rough, childlike—like a kid's scribble.
Its knees bent further, the cursed spirit nearly collapsing to the ground.
It was so hot!
Sweat beaded across its green, fang-filled face as intense heat bore down.
But it didn't have time to wipe it away.
The looming threat of death screamed through its nerves.
It had to gamble everything. It poured all its Cursed Energy into activating its technique.
There was enough.
This was energy refined from the villagers' emotions, collected bit by bit. It still had plenty left.
It hadn't planned to drain the well dry. This place was its birthplace—it didn't want to leave. It fulfilled their wishes, and they fed it with emotion. Wasn't that a perfect arrangement?
But things had come to this.
Humans were never worth trusting. Next time, it should extract all their value from the start...
Not wait until after things went wrong.
That stray thought crossed its mind.
It funneled all of its Cursed Energy into the spell, eyes blazing as it stared down its opponent.
It would force a dream upon him while he was still conscious—and rewrite reality.
"That's enough." A faint whisper came first.
Then, the star abruptly accelerated, engulfed in flames as it crashed down, matching the size of the shrine perfectly. It obliterated the towering structure, then slammed into Aragami as well—crushing both shrine and spirit into nothing.
Boom—Boom—
In its final moment, Aragami seemed to see... a pupil?
The collapse of the shrine signaled the shattering of the Domain—and with it, the disintegration of the technique.
Aragami had been calculating the star's descent, convinced it had enough time to cast its spell. But the speed was an illusion—Sōjun Minamoto's deception.
Within a Domain, speed has no limit.
Battle is an art—timing, rhythm, psychological warfare, momentum—everything but sheer luck. And Sōjun Minamoto excelled at all of it.
The power to rewrite dreams was indeed formidable, but it required preparation and stealth. Faced head-on, caught off guard—it lacked the force to respond.
The meteor fell. The shrine collapsed. The grand structure vanished, revealing the dilapidated old temple beneath.
Sōjun Minamoto remained untouched. In fact, everything outside the shrine was largely unaffected.
That was the nature of his Domain—control beyond perfection.
Though incomplete, and even the lone star lacked true celestial might...
The essence of the Domain had already revealed itself.
Within it, he was omniscient and omnipotent—
A godlike man.
(40 Chapters Ahead)
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