Sento melted into the wooden debris lying beneath Mang Jian's feet.
With the sound of a drop of water landing in the ocean, and with the speed of a star going supernova, a blackness exploded out, seemingly engulfing the entire Cursed Vault of Fear.
Cersei was the first to cease to exist, instantly returning to the Book, which was forced back to Kai's Inventory as well.
Uxie, who had already been on the verge of vanishing, disappeared even faster.
The corrupt Eon Soul Dew had been washing the Vault in a filthy yellow.
Now, that blackness swallowed it too, shadowing all sky and land.
Calling it blackness was an understatement, though.
It was nothing like black. It was nothing like any color. And it was nothing that could be named.
If there was something that could remotely describe this blackness, then it was the word —
Experience!
The moment Mang Jian unleashed his Bankai, it was like the world had closed its eyes.
And those who were more perceptive than others could have easily noticed that it was never truly black when one couldn't see.
Ad Infinitum had gone blank.
Lucky Intuitions, which had become Kai's mysteries, had gone blank.
Neither Conqueror Haki nor Advanced Observation Haki surfaced, letting him perceive.
As if that wasn't enough, the pool of blood he had been standing on, letting him pile buffs over himself like peaks of mountains, had disappeared as well.
Forget emotions and senses—Kai couldn't even feel strength, his appearance returning to normal.
If he had just lost Venom and Murasame's Buffs, then he would have been fine, no matter how ridiculous that situation had been.
However, not only the Buffs of Magical Creatures and Items, but Kai also lost the Buffs from Blood Essences.
And that was shocking beyond extreme!
Nothing… absolutely nothing had prevented Kai from accessing his Glitch ever before.
Even the Systems had repeatedly told him that Blood Devour was his Individuality. Neither could it be blocked nor could it be copied, as it would defy the underlying rules of the Multiverse and the Primordial Tower itself.
Yet, Kai, wearing white clothes, hung in limbo, lacking strength.
Motes of weird-colored lights were dancing in his eyes, and phantom flashes kept popping here and there like images from the distant past.
Kai felt as if he had gone to sleep and then woke up, but hadn't opened his eyes yet.
"… Is that how it feels…" he asked, unable to hear himself, "… to be blind?"
"Thousand Paths… Realm Without Eyes…" Mang Jian's strained voice entered his Source, bypassing all restraints. "It takes the form of… Blind Domain. It's not like… you have lost all your strength and abilities, but…"
"I can't see them anymore…" Kai drawled.
"Hmm…" Mang Jian accepted. "Only Standalone Titles and their Skills work… Otherwise… you should have already died…"
There was no skipping of heartbeat.
There was no shock or other reaction.
Kai, standing or levitating or lying or walking within the Blind Domain, knew that Mang Jian hadn't lied to him. "So, not only senses…" he said, now knowing the reason behind Buffs' disappearances. "… but spacetime too…"
Mang Jian grunted in reply. "Five minutes have already passed…" he replied. "You must have a Standalone Title that… activates by itself when your HP is near zero…"
It was the Standalone Title—Fiend, Kai recalled. Whenever his HP fell below 10 HP, it refueled it to 200% of his Max HP.
"Now…" Mang Jian said, his voice fainting even more. "It's just a battle between your Regeneration and my Blind Domain. Whoever survives longer than the other… victory is his…"
Releasing Bankai didn't purify the corrupt-cursed poison killing Mang Jian from within, as clear by his voice that kept thinning out the more he spoke.
But Mang Jian had described the situation quite clearly.
Kai didn't know how the Blind Domain was attacking him or how it was keeping him from accessing his Items, Venom, and even his Glitch, letting him only use Standalone Titles.
But he did know that even Biokinesis had a limit — His HP and stored Calorific Value!
Kai always kept corpses of Pokémon in his Inventory to keep the Caloric Value he could store near the limit. However, now that he couldn't access those corpses, once his Biokinesis ran out…
"… how much time…" Kai asked.
"10 minutes… have already… passed…" Mang Jian replied.
Kai realized there was no definite linkage between his sense of time and the actual time. If he were to cease to exist in the next moment, and Mang Jian were to say he had already died, then even that wouldn't surprise him now.
Kai had already accepted that Mang Jian held the power to kill a Glitched Contestant one floor above himself.
At their levels, one floor above meant the difference between heaven and earth.
Now, tasting Mang Jian's Bankai for the first time, Kai felt like he had underestimated the Blind Executioner.
The poison he had concocted using Orochimaru and Mayuri's help was strong, but it wasn't enough to kill a 12th Floor Contestant outright. At least, not in time, it seemed.
The Order's Seal restricted Mang Jian's strength to somewhere around the 11th Floor, but he still had the Stats of a true Top-level 12th Floor Contestant.
In a drawn-out battle, Kai's Stats would pale in comparison.
And the worst thing was… he couldn't even feel the time ticking away…
One step at a time… Now that he was so close to death, Kai suddenly smiled, remembering his mother's teachings as his AI failed to bombard his mind with millions of scenarios. If I can't see the road ahead, I must… walk one step at a time…
Kai thought for a moment, gambling with his life.
When he opened his mouth, it held no panic, but pure curiosity.
"Does your Domain… lack a Boundary?" Kai asked.
"No…" Mang Jian replied. "… But it's not within the Vault of Fear…"
The Blind Executioner was too near death to even show shock at Red's calmness. It did feel a touch odd to him, though. It was like he and Red were two old friends… blind friends… just chatting before drawing their last breaths.
What's he up to… Mang Jian thought—
—the fifteenth minute ticking away noiselessly in the Blind Domain.
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