One Force Breaks Ten Thousand Methods

The gap between them filled Ross with despair.

Chen Guan stepped sideways, putting himself between Ross and the enemy.

Baobao also sprang over from the side, a threatening growl rumbling in its throat as violet arcs of electricity crackled through its fur.

“It seems this little cat is quite interesting as well.”

Kakusei closed his folding fan and leisurely tapped its ribs against his palm.

“That concludes the warm-up.”

The instant he finished speaking, the shadows throughout the forest came alive and began to surge violently.

The decaying leaves and damp mud on the ground gathered of their own accord. The branches of the dead trees twisted and warped, letting out a grating creak that made one’s teeth ache.

In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen monsters cobbled together from muck and dead bones crawled out of the earth. Pale green ghostfire burned in their hollow eye sockets as they locked onto every living thing in the clearing.

“What the hell are those things?”

Ross’s voice had gone completely shrill. The chilling aura radiating from these monsters was more terrifying than that of all the previous enemies combined.

With a smile, Kakusei traced an intricate rune in the air with his folding fan.

“This is the true hospitality of Kamitani Academy.”

“Onmyōdō: Withered Wood Rebirth.”

A swamp giant roared as it swung a massive arm wrapped in tangled tree roots, smashing it down toward the two men.

“Chen! My ability won’t work on something like this!” Ross’s pupils contracted violently as he stared at the descending arm.

Chen Guan ignored him. He simply reversed his grip on the scythe and slammed the butt of its handle into the ground.

“Cover me.”

Ross shoved both arms forward with all his strength. The air before his palms warped violently as an invisible disintegration field spread outward, crashing head-on into the enormous arm that blotted out the sky.

The instant the swamp giant’s arm touched the field, its tip began to silently disintegrate.

The soil, dead roots, and white bones that made up the limb lost all cohesion in an instant, crumbling into their most basic particles and drifting down like dust.

For the first time, the gentle smile on Kakusei’s face tightened ever so slightly.

“Oh? An ability that directly interferes with atomic structure.”

His folding fan paused for the briefest moment as he assessed it with interest. “A savage and straightforward method. Completely devoid of beauty.”

“To hell with your beauty, you sissy!”

Ross clenched his back teeth so hard they ached. The veins in his temples throbbed, and every muscle in his body spasmed.

Though the massive arm was constantly disintegrating, its downward momentum did not lessen in the slightest. The terrifying pressure nearly crushed his bones into powder on the spot.

Ross felt that his force field had reached its limit. The world spun before his eyes.

“Art is creation, not mere destruction.”

Kakusei’s voice drifted leisurely over. He gave his folding fan a light wave.

All the dead trees and swamp monsters in the forest responded in unison. The ghostfire in their eye sockets flared violently, and streams of rotting energy flowed along the ground, pouring continuously into the arm that was disintegrating.

The rate of disintegration was instantly counterbalanced by the speed of regeneration—and was even beginning to fall behind.

Ross’s throat tightened. Scalding blood sprayed from the corner of his mouth, and he was forced down onto one knee. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across his atomic disintegration field.

“It’s over.”

Kakusei pronounced his verdict softly.

And at that very moment, Chen Guan finally moved.

He summoned the power he had just exchanged for. The muscles in his arms bulged as he drove the end of the scythe’s handle heavily into the ground. His entire body sank half an inch into the earth, like a great bow drawn to its absolute limit.

The black scythe was the arrow about to pierce through everything.

There was no unnecessary technique—only the most primitive compression of power. The ground beneath his feet could not withstand the pressure, and cracks spread wildly outward like a web.

The smile at the corners of Kakusei’s mouth grew even gentler. He slowly waved his folding fan, as though offering the final applause for this ridiculous farce.

“What a struggle devoid of beauty,” he sighed softly.

Before his voice had even faded, Chen Guan pivoted on his heel and twisted his waist and abdomen, pouring all the power he had stored into both arms. The enormous scythe swept upward from below, carving out a black arc that seemed to swallow the light!

There was no thunderous explosion—only a muffled hiss, like a blade slicing through a high-pressure stream of water. It was so swift that the sound stabbed painfully at the eardrums.

Starting from the point where the blade made contact, a perfectly smooth cut silently traveled up the swamp giant’s arm.

A moment later, the entire limb’s structure was detonated from within by that unstoppable force, blasted apart into the most basic particles on the spot.

A powerful shock wave swept outward like a steel plate, flattening the surrounding trees in swathes and filling the forest with a continuous chorus of splintering wood.

The pressure hurled Ross into the air. He rolled several times across the ground before finally coming to a stop, coughing up a mouthful of blood mixed with dirt as he stared blankly at the clearing.

When the dust settled, Chen Guan stood exactly where he was, frozen in the posture of his swing.

The tip of the scythe pointed diagonally toward the sky. Not a speck of mud stained its blade. Beneath Chen Guan’s feet, the ground had collapsed into a massive crater.

The swamp giant’s arm—and the monster’s body behind it—had vanished completely.

Good God… I beat this kid last year?

Ross stopped thinking altogether.

The smile on Kakusei’s face froze, and the folding fan in his hand hung motionless in midair.

“You…”

He had barely uttered a single word when Chen Guan vanished from his original position. Carrying an unstoppable, savage momentum, he swept the enormous scythe horizontally across his body, its blade aimed straight at Kakusei’s throat.

“Art?”

Chen Guan’s mocking voice came from amid his high-speed charge. “Let me show you what it means to overcome every technique with sheer force.”

In Kakusei’s pupils, the black gleam of the blade rapidly expanded as the shadow of death descended over him.

At last, he could no longer maintain his composure. His kariginu burst apart, and his entire body transformed into a flurry of yellow paper, allowing him to narrowly evade the fatal strike.

The scythe’s blade swept past the spot where he had been standing, leaving a slash in the ground so deep its bottom could not be seen.

“Good. Very good!”

Kakusei’s form reassembled a short distance away. His face twitched, all traces of elegance gone. In their place was only the dark, sinister fury of a man who had been provoked.

“Since you barbarians have no appreciation for subtle beauty, then witness what a true Night Parade of One Hundred Demons looks like!”

He folded the fan shut and struck its ribs hard against his palm.

“Come forth, my servants!”

Countless yellow paper talismans flew from his sleeves. Mixing with the dead branches and fallen leaves on the ground, they rapidly folded themselves into shape.

This time, what appeared were paper fox demons wielding razor-sharp claws, along with paper cranes circling through the air, frost gathering in their mouths. They were so numerous that they nearly blotted out the already-dim light filtering through the forest.

“Chen! Watch out—those things are fast!” Ross shouted as he struggled to his feet. He had expended a tremendous amount of energy and could now barely protect himself.

Chen Guan did not look back. Ross had no strength left to spare. At last, Chen Guan no longer had to worry about being stabbed in the back.

He set the enormous scythe upright at his side.

Baobao darted out from behind him, violet lightning coursing over its body. It stared at the fluttering paper creatures, a hungry whine rising in its throat—as if the things flying overhead were not deadly shikigami, but plates of moving food from an all-you-can-eat buffet.