The monster let out layers of sharp roars, its fat torso twisting toward Amamiya Rin in an attempt to crush him with its sheer weight.
Amamiya Rin had long anticipated this movement. He kicked off the monster's fat torso, a slimy and resilient sensation transmitting through the soles of his shoes.
Borrowing the recoil force, Amamiya Rin vaulted backward into the air. He fluidly tucked and flipped, ultimately landing steadily.
At the very moment he landed, the monster twisted its body and chased after him. Amamiya Rin's feet remained firmly planted, the tip of his blade pointing toward the ground. A gaze that could only be described as tranquil enveloped the monster's entire body.
Three meters, two meters, one meter, half a meter... At the exact moment the two sides were about to collide head-on, Amamiya Rin finally moved.
He slightly turned his body and thrust out the Wooden sword. Accompanied by the crisp sound of bone cracking, in the instant his figure blurred, he vanished from the monster's line of sight as if turning invisible.
From an observer's perspective, it was silky-smooth footwork akin to a magic trick. Attacking weak points, creating blind spots, escaping through a path of survival, and using the monster's own fat, complex body to blind it.
Taking advantage of the monster's inability to change its attack in time, Amamiya Rin swung his blade down again, shattering the elbow joint of one of its arms.
Amamiya Rin fought as he moved.
His footsteps became agile, weaving around the monster.
The monster's lunges were ferocious and direct, but Amamiya Rin could always sidestep, slide, and duck at a hair's breadth. He constantly swapped positions, narrowly dodging attack after attack.
Compared to the very beginning of the battle, he was handling it with much greater ease.
Only one enemy remained, so his tactics could change accordingly. He no longer needed to worry about attacks from different directions, and his space for movement had become spacious.
By concentrating entirely on observing the target through his Simple Domain, he could even avoid getting injured altogether.
Amamiya Rin anticipated the monster's movements, sometimes thrusting straight, sometimes slashing horizontally.
Every strike accurately hit the monster's limb joints or Tomie's faces, leaving behind wounds of varying depths.
Dark red blood quickly soaked the floor, and a heavy scent of rust filled the air.
Gradually, the monster's movements slowed down.
Its stamina—or perhaps its energy—was limited; it couldn't sustain its frenzied attacks for long.
Amamiya Rin knew the time had come.
He evaded another sluggish lunge, his gaze suddenly turning sharp.
His breathing changed.
It was no longer the steady and long breaths of the basic mode, but incredibly deep and slow, as if trying to draw all the surrounding air into his lungs.
His mind was highly focused, his consciousness sinking into that domain of cutting intent, polished through countless slaughters and Dhyana.
Mind and breath fading together, entering Dhyana.
"Peerless Swordsmanship: Sword and Zen as One!"
From stillness to motion, it all happened in a single thought.
Amamiya Rin's sympathetic nervous system was actively stimulated to its limit. Adrenaline surged into his blood vessels like an erupting volcano, and an overloaded power roared and galloped through his body.
He didn't give it the slightest chance to react; there was only a thrust that was fast to the absolute extreme!
His airborne body delivered the blade, thrusting forward like an arrow released from a bowstring.
A blurred brown trajectory traveled along the sole opening observed by the Simple Domain, piercing straight into the monster's temple until the sword guard pressed against its skin.
The powerful impact knocked the monster's body to the ground. Amamiya Rin's feet stomped heavily on its neck, his wrist twisted, and the blade churned inside the skull, mercilessly destroying the monster's brain.
Dark red blood mixed with grayish-white brain matter splattered from the wound, splashing onto Amamiya Rin's cold, merciless cheek.
"Please become a Buddha. The world of the dead, I imagine, is not as cruel as the world of the living."
Slowly pulling out the Wooden sword and looking at the two massive, distorted bodies, Amamiya Rin sincerely prayed for the two victims from the bottom of his heart.
Before humanity attempted to exploit the energy of the underworld, compared to the world of the living, the world of the dead should be the only place of peace, right?
Blazing firelight illuminated the pitch-black room. Amamiya Rin tossed the lighter aside, turned, and walked out, shutting the smoke and flames behind the door.
In the next room, Amamiya Rin found a black notebook recording Takagi's research on Tomie.
[Gamma rays can enhance Tomie's regenerative abilities. Based on observations, Tomie's cells can absorb any energy, including that of gamma rays...]
[Strong acids can effectively inhibit Tomie's regenerative abilities... Tomie's regenerative abilities can resist strong acid because she is constantly regenerating? Does she offset it through even stronger regeneration? Or did she evolve a resistance in an extremely short period of time...]
[I always feel like there's an invisible hand controlling all of this. The process has been too smooth. Ever since I escaped the sanatorium and found Tomie, everything has gone smoothly except for the research on Tomie...]
[Where does the energy for regeneration come from? Even without providing any energy, Tomie's body can regenerate, albeit slowly. Creating something out of nothing?]
[Can Tomie control her own regeneration speed? Sometimes she can grow a complete body within a single day, and sometimes it only takes a few minutes. Can she freely adjust her regeneration efficiency? Could it be that she can store energy and use it for growth when needed?]
[Alchemy? Immortality? Do such things really exist in the world? Oh! Tomie is immortal!]
[What kind of immortality is merely shedding skin? It's ridiculous!]
[Under unstable mental conditions, Tomie's body will undergo a splitting phenomenon, splitting another Tomie from the head. Is it the effect of brainwaves? I don't quite understand.]
[If Tomie is willing, can she control her own splitting? Not just the head; if her arm is cut off, will it grow multiple arms... It seems not. The split Tomies always start from the head. They mutually consider each other imposters and cannot be controlled...]
...
Takagi's research findings on Kawakami Tomie were basically all information Amamiya Rin already knew.
However, some of his hypotheses inspired Amamiya Rin.
When mentally unstable, Kawakami Tomie's body would split. Could this splitting be controlled?
And... alchemy? Immortality? Shedding skin?
"Is this talking about Flesh-Colored Horror? The contents of the story don't even match... Uh, I can't say they don't match at all. So Takagi's human skin mask is a product of that kind of alchemy?"
Amamiya Rin remembered what the alchemy mentioned in the diary was.
The Junji Ito manga, Flesh-Colored Horror.
The villain's deceased husband was an alchemist who researched an elixir of immortality, but accidentally obtained a byproduct that could separate skin and flesh while keeping them alive. The villain, obsessed with the charm of muscles, not only peeled off her own skin but also wanted to peel off her son's skin, failing only because the younger sister kept intervening.
"Completely meaningless stuff. An alternative form of immortality, but it can only be used as a human skin mask."
Amamiya Rin shook his head slightly. If the shed skin was properly maintained, one could indeed obtain an ageless appearance, but what use was that? The internal organs would still age all the same.
____
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