Chapter 89: Domain Expansion—Coffin of the Iron Mountain!!!
Crack—Crack—Crack!
Following the first crisp sound, one after another came from inside the Holy Sword, and even the originally perfect blade slowly became covered with cracks.
"Wha... what is going on?!"
For a moment, Jogo seriously considered whether it had done something wrong.
How could this magnificent and powerful Cursed Tool, this sword, break so easily?
Jogo, who had a collection obsession, simply could not resist such a unique Cursed Tool or object. This might stem from the characteristic of the Earth to bury history, or it might be a habit it developed during its growth.
In any case, it completely refused to abandon such a sun-shining blade, and the intense flames within it, which had nearly incinerated itself, fascinated it even more.
Could such a sword suddenly shatter on its own?
Jogo even pondered if Emiya had swapped the blade before throwing it, but its eyes and intuition told it that this sword was genuine.
Instead of discarding it, Jogo used its remaining hand to try to gather the blade close to itself, attempting to slow down its disintegration.
Then—
"Broken Phantasm."
Emiya uttered the extremely cold words.
Not only did Jogo fail to salvage the Holy Sword from breaking, but the blade emitted an even louder, unbearable sound in its embrace, and in the next moment, it completely shattered, flashing with dazzling light.
BOOM!
The sudden burst of fire enveloped the entire rock wall where Jogo stood, even causing a violent tremor throughout the large cavern. Countless broken rocks fell from the ceiling, plunging into the magma lake and disappearing without a sound.
Emiya clearly knew that a Broken Phantasm, detonating a Noble Phantasm already on the verge of dissolution, couldn't completely destroy this Cursed Spirit, but every bit of exhaustion counted.
It was not like Mahito, possessing the special Idle Transfiguration; repairing its body would absolutely consume a significant amount of Cursed Energy.
"You're playing games with me again, you bastard!!!!!!"
The term 'eye-splitting fury' was no longer just an idiom for Jogo at this moment but a highly accurate descriptor.
In the close-range explosion just now, it failed to protect its other arm, and the even more ridiculous thing was that it was the one who hugged the source of the explosion.
But just when it was utterly convinced that the opponent had deliberately thrown a fake sword at it, Emiya suddenly spoke—
"Excalibur Galatine is the Holy Sword of the Sun, held by the legendary Knight of the Round Table, with a pseudo-sun sealed inside. The human glorification of history and myth crystallized this Noble Phantasm.
And Broken Phantasm means trading the destruction of the Noble Phantasm itself for a momentary burst of power. It's a very practical technique."
The words Emiya spoke were all true, without a shred of falsehood.
Although Jogo didn't understand the difference between a Noble Phantasm and a Cursed Tool, and had barely read any of those 'false' human myths and legends, it could understand the meaning of Broken Phantasm.
A car that could still drive for hundreds of thousands of kilometers is instead detonated as a one-time bomb—such a thing can certainly be done, but its purpose is completely mismatched.
The first reaction of someone who cherishes cars upon seeing this scene would, of course, be total disbelief and outrage.
Yes, this was the emotion that Jogo now felt.
"What kind of joke are you playing, you bastard! Is a treasure like this meant to be used like that!!
Unforgivable! Unforgivable! Unforgivable!
Humans as a species should indeed be immediately exterminated!!!"
Curses and Cursed Energy are generated based on human negative emotions. During combat, Sorcerers can also temporarily gain excessive Cursed Energy by stimulating their own emotions.
So, when a Cursed Spirit, which is itself a life form, possesses clear emotions, will their negative emotions also generate more and stronger Cursed Energy?
The answer is yes, because that was precisely the situation unfolding before Emiya.
It is also possible that the environment of this volcanic lava is providing it with a territorial boost, just as Heroic Spirits gain a correction when fighting on their native land.
If the Heroic Spirit Gawain were summoned on the land of Great Britain, the amount of magical power he would acquire there would naturally be several times higher than when he was in a foreign country.
Almost instantly, the flesh at the severed arms on both sides of Jogo's body began to writhe, finally growing back two gray arms.
Even for a creature like a Cursed Spirit, the inability to use its Cursed Technique without hands is an ironclad rule in the Jujutsu world.
"You brat! Let me show you what true hell is!"
Jogo stretched out its two newly grown hands, but the direction they pointed was not Emiya himself, but the churning magma lake below.
"Make ignorant humans remember the horror of natural disaster!!!"
Yes, this was the insane plan formulated by Geto Suguru.
Have Jogo detonate this unsealed active volcano, thereby creating a natural disaster to attract the attention of all Sorcerers and even humanity.
As for how many people would be sacrificed in the process? That was not within his consideration.
On the contrary, the more people who died, the better—because the fear generated in this process would be completely absorbed by Jogo, allowing its power to swell to the maximum extent in a short time.
In Geto's own conception, even if Jogo succeeded in triggering the natural disaster, if it could hold off Satoru Gojo for ten minutes without dying, it would be a success—although he hadn't yet disclosed this point to Jogo.
However, Jogo's readiness to detonate the entire volcano immediately was genuinely unexpected by Emiya.
With a distance still separating them, he had no way to instantly stop the opponent. For Jogo, born from this fear and curse, triggering a natural disaster could very likely be a very easy thing.
At the very least, the magma lake Emiya saw could completely ignite the entire mountain range, thereby closing in on the city dozens of kilometers away.
"I must stop this guy immediately!"
"Trace On!"
Emiya was projecting his blades and launching attacks at the fastest speed possible, yet it was still a fraction slower than Jogo's reckless action.
Could it be that he wouldn't make it in time?!
Emiya even started to frantically consider whether there was any Noble Phantasm that could reverse a natural disaster, even if it cost him half his life as the price for the projection.
—Clap!
But at this crucial moment, a sharp, loud clap suddenly echoed from the night sky outside the large cavern.
The smug look of success still lingered on Jogo's face, and the attack in its hands successfully fell—
However, the target of this attack was not the restlessly moving magma lake, but a sparse patch of forest on the hillside.
"What?!"
Jogo twisted its head in astonishment, only to realize that it had somehow been moved from inside the mountain to the mid-air. Its body began to free-fall.
"Did you forget, Cursed Spirit?
My Cursed Technique, Boogie Woogie, allows me to swap the positions of two objects containing Cursed Energy with a clap. How careless of you; why did you stand within my activation range again?"
Appearing near the hole from the dark night was Aoi Todo, whose entire body was still covered in scorch marks and wounds.
It was because of this spatial Cursed Technique that he was able to stall Jogo for so long despite the massive difference in strength.
If Jogo hadn't lost its temper in the end and covered every corner within sight with a massive explosive flame, he could have held on much longer without falling.
While keeping a close eye on Jogo falling through the air, Todo slowly walked behind Emiya and clapped him on the shoulder.
"You must be the Sorcerer sent from Tokyo High to assist, huh, kid?
Well, before we fight side-by-side, there's one question that must be asked—you...
What kind of women do you like?"
"...Huh?"
Emiya was seriously anticipating what question the other person would ask, but was asking what kind of girl he liked really appropriate during a battle?
Oddly enough, when asked this question, the first person Emiya thought of was not Miko, nor Sakura, but Miyu, whose whereabouts were unknown at this moment.
'That's not 'liking'; that's just an expression of longing and care!'
"Oh, it looks like you have a very firm answer in your heart. Tell me out loud right now!"
Faced with such a bizarre question, Emiya's only choice was speechless silence.
Before he could figure out how to handle the situation in front of him, the recently awakened Aoi Todo suddenly had his eyes roll back, and he fell straight backward.
Emiya was too stunned to react, and Todo rolled several meters down the hillside before crashing into a tree trunk and stopping, lying face down, motionless.
"He was fine just now; a bump like this shouldn't hurt him... probably."
Emiya wanted to check on the other person's condition, but the prerequisite for that was resolving the formidable enemy in front of him.
Thanks to the momentarily revived Aoi Todo, Emiya was now guarding the volcano's opening, while Jogo was swapped to the periphery.
"That Sorcerer is truly persistent, like a dog clinging on.
It seems I must kill both of you first to trigger the natural disaster and fully slaughter the remaining humans... Then!"
Jogo suddenly clapped its two hands together, forming a hand sign where the thumbs were linked below and only the index fingers touched above.
Domain Expansion... Unlike Mahito, who was recently born and still just a Cursed Womb, this Cursed Spirit had clearly mastered this technique.
Using the Fragarach could easily prevent the opponent from expanding their Domain, but an attack that reverses causality might not achieve a one-hit victory—and the opponent, realizing it couldn't even expand its Domain, would definitely try to trigger the natural disaster again.
Aoi Todo had fallen into unconsciousness again after using his Cursed Technique once. If he were alone, Emiya wasn't sure he could stop Jogo, who was focused on igniting the volcano.
The best way to stop the opponent was indeed to lure it away from the crater.
It would be difficult for Emiya to do this himself, but isn't the space after a Domain Expansion a completely separate, independent Barrier space from the outside world?
If he could completely defeat the Cursed Spirit within its Domain, the volcano problem would be solved easily.
Alternatively, he could try to deploy his Reality Marble within the opponent's Domain, completely dragging the Cursed Spirit to the other side of the world, and finishing the fight there.
'I've decided. I'll defeat him within his Domain!'
Emiya immediately made this decision.
Jogo was unaware that Emiya had made such an arrogant decision. It simply obeyed its inner rage, maximizing its Cursed Energy.
A Domain deployed in this environment would be even stronger than elsewhere and would absolutely incinerate this overconfident brat into ashes.
"Domain Expansion—"
"Coffin of the Iron Mountain!!!"
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