Ren was sitting on the broken floor… breathing fast as he saw Sutoku yap something about the peak of sorcery. Ren did not hear; he just thought, "Fucking hell… I was wondering why he was not using his cursed technique; he must have had burnout after he made that huge explosion…
Not only that, he played me… The whole fight he barely used his cursed technique. Now that I think about it, he was only defending and only attacked with his cursed technique directly 2 times… If I am not wrong, I have his cursed technique figured out… Every time he uses a kanji, there is a cooldown on that kanji of maybe 30 or 60 seconds? And from the way he uses his kanji, they must take huge amounts of cursed energy, or overuse might just lead to cursed energy burnout… for him…
His cursed technique is so different… And I'm guessing these rules don't matter in his domain; that's why when he used his domain, he did not even need to write a kanji; it just came up. But the downside of his domain is that sure, his technique makes him godlike, but with the downside of not having a sure-hit effect…
He needs to know where I am to use his cursed technique directly on me… More than that, his cursed technique is even more broken than cursed speech since it affects the world and everyone without any direct backlash on him… There must be some sort of downside or rule I don't know about his cursed technique, which would explain more on how and why he uses his cursed technique the way he does…
Ugh, but that does not matter… anymore… I win even if he has gotten out of cursed energy burnout; he thinks I am right now in cursed energy burnout… which I am not; in fact, I wasted the past 40 seconds using only Magnetic Decree: Iron Rule and Foxflame Mirage:Foxflame, there is a reason for why I only used these 2 cursed techniques in a weakened way…
I was trying to give him a false sense of victory, which he seems to have, laughing like that. Ugh, so arrogant… He is just like Sukuna; he did not even heal his arm, which got bitten off by Rika… Is he mocking me?by not healing his arm and still beating me in hand-to-hand haha…
I should end this now. He did not even notice that while he was beating me up, I was chanting… This should kill him. If it does not, I have another card up my sleeve…
And Ren smiles and pushes himself, and out of nowhere, Ren's cursed energy bursts out once again, shocking Sutoku!
He speaks, "What?"
Ren's voice came out thin and forced—cursed speech leaves strain. Blood flecked the corner of his mouth. Still, the power under his words roared through the air.
"Ah, my soul finds form—bloom… Now with the chant complete, die! Maximum Output: Foxflame Bloom," he murmured, then laughed—an ugly, hollow sound that became something like triumph.
Ren smiled. No, Ren laughed!
The scattered foxfire from earlier, the careless little fireballs, answered like moths drawn home. They rushed back toward Ren as if called, braided together into one colossal orb of hungry flame. The thing hung above Sutoku like a second sun.
Sutoku's finger moved instinctively, trying to trace a kanji. Too late.
BOOOOMMMM!!!!
The fireball exploded with cataclysmic force, engulfing everything. Flames swallowed the battlefield whole.
Ren shielded his eyes, panting, coughing through the smoke. 'That… that should've caught him off guard. He has to be done after that—'
A sound cut through the inferno.
Laughter.
The flames bent outward, pushed away by sheer will. Sutoku stepped forward, body charred; his right arm, which was already bitten off by Rika, was now nothing but blackened bone and ash. His skin peeled, his robes shredded—but his eyes shone with madness.
"Hahahahahahaha! You had a maximum output hidden? Hahaha! You tricked me again! Pretended to be tired? Hahahahaha! WONDERFUL! Magnificent, Ren Sato! You've shown me more than I ever dreamed! I will—"
"Shut the hell up, old man. Don't act like you won; you lost."
Sutoku blinked. Then froze. Because suddenly, Ren wasn't alone.
Two… four… six… twelve… twenty… forty… The battlefield was flooded with copies of him. Dozens. Hundreds. All burning, laughing while looking at Sutoku...
Sutoku turned slowly, realization dawning. "Illusions?! No… mirages… hundreds of them…!"
Maximum Output: Foxflame Bloom is not that; it just makes a big fireball. No, it fucks up the sense of the person who was hit and also makes a wide field of mirages. It saturates the field with false images. He won't be able to tell which one is real. This effect should last for 15 seconds at the least…'
Sutoku's burned lips curled into a grin of his own, and quickly a white glow surged from his arm—his reverse cursed technique healing the charred limb back to flesh. His hands moved to form the mudra.
"Hahaha… you—! You keep shocking me! HA! Fine then—let's truly end this. Domain Expa—"
But before Sutoku could clasp his hands…
"DON'T MOVE!"
The cursed speech hit like a hammer. Sutoku's body locked. His hands, frozen mid-formation. His tongue, still. He couldn't move.
Ren, on the other hand, had tattoos burned dark across his cheeks and tongue—Snake Eyes and Fangs—appearing on his face as he used cursed speech again… and he vomited blood, his body trembling under the backlash, but he smiled through crimson teeth. He raised a finger toward the Emperor.
"…r…ika…"
From behind him, the shadows split. Rika emerged, fully healed, her monstrous eyes blazing. She screamed, her aura shaking the world.
Ren whispered, voice low, hoarse, yet filled with cruel delight.
"Love Cannon."
Rika opened her maw, cursed energy surging, a storm of annihilation building at her throat…
Ren smiled…
'It will take 7 seconds for the love cannon to charge up and launch… and it will take 5 seconds for Sutoku to break out of the cursed speech; that means he would have 2 seconds to do something… Anything he does will not matter. I win…"
On the other hand, Sutoku smiled as the effect of the cursed speech faded away… and he was about to cast his domain, but Sutoku realized something…
'There were hundreds of illusions of him, but that's not the problem. The problem is that every illusion of him has that cursed spirit behind them too! Even if I cast my domain, I won't be able to tell what attack is real and what's fake!
My domain is useless right now because I couldn't tell which attack is real. My domain relies on sorting reality by options; here the options are all identical and all lethal. I cannot pick the real target. The domain becomes noise. He might even be somewhere behind; he might not even be between all of these illusions!'
Sutoku glares in front of him; his hands don't clasp into his domain expansion hand sign.
"No"—they cross?…
Sutoku crossed his arms while his fingers made half of the sign of his domain expansion…
'MaximumTechnique: Scripture Binding Edict'