Curse Returns, a gamble from the start, I awaken dual spells

Gojo Satoru leaned against a tree trunk ten meters away, his arms crossed.

The morning light filtered through the layers of leaves, casting a few golden fragments onto his shoulder.

From the moment Rito was sent flying by the first claw, his stance remained unchanged, with an expression as if he were waiting for dessert to be served.

But the gaze beneath the blindfold never left the boy.

Six eyes can see another picture.

The curse power within the rational body was constantly flowing, even when being attacked.

It was a restrained flow, with its rhythm forcibly suppressed.

Every time it is repelled, every time its heart is disturbed and its magical power is interrupted, that magical power will regain its course in the shortest possible time.

Now, that cursed power is changing.

It split into two branches at the chest of the young man and began to circulate along a path never seen before on this boy.

One cold, one hot, like two intertwined snakes, chasing and avoiding each other, drawing an irregular circle in the circuit of magical power.

He was certain that no one had ever taught him how to use reason.

Upon seeing this, Gojo Satoru's lips curled up slightly.

"Pretty good, even faster than when Hisahito was learning the Tsubasa style."

His voice was so soft, like a leaf falling onto another leaf, that neither of the two creatures present heard it.

Ahead, Rito's eyes are closed.

His right hand was still trembling, and there was still a trace of blood foam hanging from the corner of his mouth.

The spot in my chest where the cursed spirit had interfered was still throbbing with pain. Each heartbeat would trigger that lingering dull ache, like a thorn stuck in my flesh.

The area on my back where I hit the tree trunk started to feel numb, and the pain climbed up my spine all the way to the back of my head.

Although it hurts, my mind is calmer than ever.

That time at the steel mill, the ice froze Tanaka's right arm.

The ice covered the bone spurs on the skin's surface, but newly grown bone spurs from the inside pierced through the ice.

Why?

Because bone spurs grow from flesh at room temperature.

The ice only froze the surface; the inside was still warm.

Bones pierced through the warm flesh, and ice cracked from the outside.

The temperature difference isn't big enough, the cold isn't deep enough, and it doesn't get fast enough.

The same thing happened when dealing with the real person. Zero Coffin's frost covered the real person's skin, but the real person's regeneration speed was too fast. The newly grown flesh still carried body temperature and directly pushed the ice layer open from the inside.

It's not that the ice isn't cold enough, it's that the direction of the cold is wrong.

Freezing from the outside in is always a step slower than freezing from the inside out.

That one slap was enough for the cursed spirit to regenerate and retaliate, sending him flying.

As the cursed spirit drew closer, Rito's heart skipped a beat, but his mind continued to race.

Simply freezing isn't enough, because it's unidirectional, working from the outside in, like pushing something in with one hand.

Simply generating heat isn't enough, because it's also unidirectional, erupting from the palm outwards and ultimately blocked by the skin, preventing the heat energy from penetrating.

What if they happen at the same time?

Freeze from the inside out, and heat from the outside in.

Or conversely, let cold and heat collide at the same point.

It erupts in an instant, with extreme contraction and extreme expansion occurring at the same moment.

What will happen?

This thought pierced through the fog that Rito had never been aware of, like a lightning bolt.

His eyes finally cleared, and he murmured to himself:

"The essence of zero coffins is never freezing or exploding; it is the control of heat."

"Freezing is removing heat, while heating is injecting heat. I've always been doing two things with two hands, never thinking of doing them at the same time."

Thinking about it, he raised his right hand.

Gojo Satoru saw the dot right in the center of Rito's palm.

It was an object the size of a glass marble, formed from pure magical energy.

Inside that thing, flames and frost intertwined, canceling each other out yet reinforcing each other, spinning unstablely and emitting an extremely faint hum.

Rihito's magical power was rushing toward that point at an astonishing speed, flowing into that tiny vortex, and being released from the other side of the vortex.

As time went on, the buzzing sound grew louder and louder.

From a point to a line, from a line to a vibrating mass of air.

The fallen leaves around Rihito's palm began to vibrate, first trembling slightly, then floating up from the ground one by one, quivering gently in mid-air.

"Giggle giggle giggle—" The cursed spirit's scream pierced through the forest.

The deep green light core on his chest throbbed wildly, and the two wisps of black smoke burst into two dark green flames in his eye sockets.

It sensed danger!

In an instant, the soil exploded, and the cursed spirit, more than three meters tall, charged forward, each step leaving a crater the size of a washbasin in the ground.

The hard soil collapsed underfoot like wet cardboard, and fallen leaves were swept up by the strong wind, swirling in the air to form a black curtain.

At ten meters, the light core began to pulsate, and Li Ren's heart skipped a beat.

Eight meters, and my heart clenched again, even harder than before.

Six meters high, the giant claws rose, five black fingernails slicing through the air with a piercing shriek.

The next moment, Rito opened his eyes.

"The coffin—disintegrates!"

The marble-sized bead flew silently out of Rito's palm.

It was too small, as small as a speck of dust in front of the enormous body of the cursed spirit.

But where it flew, the air was torn into a transparent ripple, and the fallen leaves turned into powder the moment they touched the edge of the ripple.

Then, it struck the spirit's chest, right in the center of the pulsating dark green light core.

Extreme cold and extreme heat erupt simultaneously from the same point in the same instant.

The cursed spirit's chest neither burned nor froze; it simply... disintegrated silently.

The wooden trunk, like a tree stump crushed from the inside, silently turned into powder, starting from the core of light.

The powder was then drawn into the airflow generated by the clash of hot and cold air, swirling into a fist-sized cavity in front of the cursed spirit's chest.

Immediately afterwards, the cavity expanded.

The fist became a washbasin, and the washbasin became a wheel.

The cursed spirit lowered its head, and the two dark green flames in its eye sockets trembled wildly. Several human faces embedded in the bark texture emitted piercing howls in unison.

All sounds ceased abruptly.

boom!

The torso snapped at the chest, the upper body fell backward, crashing to the ground and sending up a flurry of falling leaves.

The wreckage continued to collapse, dust falling like a silent gray snowfall.

Rito stood still, his right hand still in the pushing posture.

At this moment, the buzzing sound had dissipated, and the leaves that had been suspended in the air fell back to the ground one after another.

He slowly withdrew his hand, looked down at his slightly reddened palm, and a smile involuntarily crept onto his lips.

"Riri-kun, what do you think should be called?"

Gojo Satoru straightened up from the tree trunk, and with a light leap, came to Rito's side.

He glanced at the pile of remains on the ground that was turning to dust, then at Rito's still-raised right hand, and smiled slightly.

"Zero Coffin - Disintegration!" Rihito repeated.

"Disintegration—" Gojo Satoru chewed on the word, his smile deepening.

"Not bad, pretty cool."