Chapter 84 : Ten Shadows Technique
As Ryomen Sukuna's cursed energy ignited flames were thrown, Jiang Lai noticed keenly beyond his shock that cursed energy was leaking from the backs of those people's necks.
......Would normal people be like this when they died?
He frowned slightly, his mind cooling down as his gaze swept across the scene.
Currently, neither Jiang Lai nor Ryomen Sukuna had initially sensed anything wrong with the people in front of them. The surrounding villagers seemed to be ordinary people—but precisely because of this, the current situation raised suspicions.
This was the Heian-kyo when demons, onmyoji, cursed spirits, curse users, and jujutsu sorcerers still existed. Common people should have deep understanding of these concepts.
The bodies of ordinary mortals and the tools of farming and hunting could never truly harm the aforementioned characters.
Throwing eggs at rocks was meaningless. Common people weren't foolish; they wouldn't really do such things.
Moreover, even if they were angry about the fire casualties around them, they wouldn't stay furious for two or three days without calming down, even risking their own lives to this extent.
Even if neighborly relationships were good, it wouldn't reach the point where the entire village would risk their lives, going crazy to this degree.
These thoughts flowed through his mind. Jiang Lai narrowed his eyes slightly, temporarily not intervening to stop Ryomen Sukuna's slaughter, but instead focused his gaze on those people who were wailing yet not fleeing.
There was a problem.
He concentrated, beginning to observe the cursed energy trails leaking from the necks of the dead villagers.
The location and manner of the leakage immediately reminded him of things like parasitic insects.
Cursed energy parasites? Jiang Lai speculated. If so, there should be a controller behind them.
He made what seemed like an action to save people, pulling out a villager who still showed signs of life from the crowd, using this opportunity to sense closely and attempt to use his individual time reversal ability.
—The technique revealed results during the operation, with the injured villager's body gradually recovering.
But some inexplicable intuition told him that only the body was being restored—it didn't include memories and other aspects.
Reversing the villager's individual time now felt like repairing a tool.
Jiang Lai narrowed his eyes, following his instinct to reach a conclusion.
That is to say, the villager in his hands was actually already dead, had been dead for some time, leaving only a shell controlled to breathe, have a heartbeat, and speak like a normal person.
The original soul had already left the body and entered the river of reincarnation.
With souls having entered reincarnation, Jiang Lai couldn't truly reverse things by manipulating individual space-time scope. In such situations, only restarting the world could achieve true resurrection of the dead.
No wonder there was a sense of incongruity before. He thought. These villagers were no longer the original villagers, but shells controlled by someone behind the scenes using parasites to do various things, which is why they appeared so crazed and fearless of death.
......There really were all kinds of demonic techniques these days.
So the purpose of the mastermind controlling ordinary villagers was to lower target vigilance while consuming stamina and cursed energy? Jiang Lai coldly analyzed internally.
Diagonally behind, Ryomen Sukuna laughed heartily as he slaughtered everyone on scene, casually throwing ignited cursed energy flames mixed with crisscrossing slashes, instantly destroying human bodies while also demolishing buildings.
"Delightful, delightful!!" He showed no intention of conserving energy, appearing to be an explosive release after being restrained for so long.
Just as Ryomen Sukuna had his violent outburst, the so-called "jujutsu sorcerer" the villagers mentioned also arrived.
He had the most common Heian-kyo male hairstyle and dress, holding a long sword cursed tool, with a stern square face as he leaped from behind to the front, waving his hand:
"I know you, Ryomen Sukuna—today you will be exorcised by me!"
Though Ryomen Sukuna was human, because he stood in opposition, he would be referred to as "exorcised" like a cursed spirit.
Most people who came to deal with Ryomen Sukuna with this mentality did so to gain a resounding demon-slaying reputation.
In this era, having such a reputation proved one's strength, making it easier to be favored by nobles and subsequently recruited to live in great wealth.
The mastermind behind this situation probably had the same thoughts.
People of this era didn't care about commoners' lives. Using commoners as stepping stones to cross the threshold into noble gates was a common tactic.
Jiang Lai's gaze fell on the arriving jujutsu sorcerer for a moment, with words floating in his mind: Is this person the suspected controller behind the cursed energy parasites?
No. The controller shouldn't appear at this moment. Jiang Lai quickly judged. This so-called jujutsu sorcerer was probably also a controlled dead person, while the real mastermind was still hiding somewhere unknown.
On the battlefield, hearing the jujutsu sorcerer's words about "exorcism," Ryomen Sukuna pulled up his mouth corners with a wild smile: "Given my good mood today, I'll play with you—just don't die too quickly!"
He put away his cursed blades and flames, simply going up to use physical combat to bully the weak. It really did look like "playing around."
Near the burned buildings, Jiang Lai was now at the edge position.
It was nighttime, plus the flames created smoke that obscured vision, making it somewhat difficult to observe cursed energy fluctuations in the air.
Jiang Lai calmed his mind, withdrawing his thoughts from the chaotic scene beside him, focusing his gaze on those abrupt cursed energy trails—
Because the crowd was dense, these trails crossed chaotically, but tracing back to their source, they seemed to all converge toward the same direction.
They were gradually drifting toward the position of that righteous jujutsu sorcerer in the air, like small raindrops flowing into a larger flood.
The mastermind definitely knew that simple villagers plus one jujutsu sorcerer couldn't handle Ryomen Sukuna.
So the meaning of this operation was...... gathering sand into a tower, accumulating power then exploding all at once?
If those villagers and the jujutsu sorcerer were all controlled dead people, then in a sense they were equivalent to cursed tools!
The operation method was somewhat like accumulating power during Ryomen Sukuna's attacks, then storing it in the jujutsu sorcerer who was fighting Sukuna at close range, finally when full, creating a tremendous explosion—
Jiang Lai's mind rapidly generated smooth speculation, completing the reasoning in moments. He opened his mouth slightly, but hesitated and paused just before speaking out.
Wait a moment, should he remind Ryomen Sukuna?
If he didn't remind him, wouldn't this be a good opportunity to eliminate the other party without bearing karmic burden himself?
The other was an extremely evil person whose lifestyle was carefree indulgence. Basically every day he lived would bring death to innocents.
But they were currently somewhat brothers in concept, and more importantly...... what if the other really died but because the cursed energy killing wasn't thorough, he didn't enter reincarnation but transformed into a curse early?
—Special grade cursed spirit Ryomen Sukuna would definitely be much harder to handle than his current human youth state.
In this brief moment, thoughts flowed through his mind. After struggling, Jiang Lai finally exhaled and raised his eyes, calling out in his usual voice:
"Sukuna."
He didn't specifically raise his voice or say much more. Just this simple call.
After calling out, Jiang Lai had actually prepared for his voice to be ignored, then wait to witness how fate would decide Ryomen Sukuna's future.
But what he didn't expect was that Ryomen Sukuna actually glanced at him during the battle.
At this moment, one of the cherry pink-haired youth's arms happened to be entangled by the jujutsu sorcerer's strange rope.
The rope couldn't be cut by cursed blades or burned by flames. Ryomen Sukuna had originally planned to grab the rope and pull the jujutsu sorcerer close to tear him apart.
In the instant their eyes met as he glanced over, time seemed to slow to some leisurely pace.
"......" Those crimson eyes narrowed slightly.
The next second, Ryomen Sukuna changed his action, using his foot to forcefully kick away the jujutsu sorcerer he had planned to pull closer!
Moreover, he directly severed his own arm on the spot, as if feeling no pain, cutting off and throwing away the hand entangled by the strange rope!
He retreated without hesitation, just as the kicked-away jujutsu sorcerer's body suddenly exploded in the next moment!
"BOOM—!!"
Tremendous cursed energy erupted in an instant, with the generated shockwave tearing apart and flinging away ground-level buildings. Jiang Lai used spatial techniques to block in front of him but still inevitably slid backward for some distance.
After a moment of ringing ears, Jiang Lai returned to his usual composure and looked forward—
Residual cursed energy rippled outward in circles through the air, with smoke and dust everywhere and debris flying.
At the end of a huge sliding groove in the ground was a half-crouched cherry pink-haired figure.
After breathing, Ryomen Sukuna patted the dust off his body and straightened up. His reverse cursed technique activated, regenerating and growing back that severed arm.
His face still bore wounds and dust, like a fierce beast that had rolled around in an earthen cellar, though he probably hadn't suffered particularly serious injuries.
Ryomen Sukuna wiped the blood from his lip corner, drawling: "Not bad, truly unexpected—that move."
"You're quite unexpected too, actually mastering reverse cursed technique." Jiang Lai walked steadily to near the other's side.
"What's difficult about reverse cursed technique?" Ryomen Sukuna spoke words that would make countless people jump in frustration with complete indifference. "Just think about it a bit and you get it."
At this moment, the black-haired youth's navy kimono remained clean and tidy as always, forming a sharp contrast with the cherry pink-haired youth whose clothes were torn and who was covered in dust.
Jiang Lai smiled gently, holding up his book: "Looking like this, you're quite a mess."
Ryomen Sukuna squeezed out a disdainful low hum from his throat, raising his eyes: "Don't point that book at me."
"Hm?" Jiang Lai was somewhat surprised. Could it be the other had discovered Phone-kun's true nature, knowing the book could preserve embarrassing images?
Ryomen Sukuna uttered the latter half: "...... Don't know why, but it's somewhat annoying."
Oh—so it was animal-like intuition. Jiang Lai understood, his finger having already pressed the photo button to collect the embarrassing moment.
After taking the photo, Jiang Lai naturally put away the book with an ethereal demeanor.
With his mouth, he casually asked: "How did you just now......" What he wanted to ask about was Ryomen Sukuna's thought process in that instant of changing his decision during battle.
Jiang Lai knew the other must have perceived his unspoken warning in that brief moment, which made him decisively change his battle decision.
Honestly, he was still quite surprised. After all, he had basically adopted a hands-off attitude at that time, yet Ryomen Sukuna could still catch that slight hint.
"I could tell. With that expression and aura of yours, I guessed the scene in front of me was probably problematic." Ryomen Sukuna interrupted Jiang Lai's words, directly responding.
He looked ahead, sneered, and spoke leisurely: "Rare to see you looking conflicted—though it was somewhat disgusting."
Hearing this, a pulsing cross appeared at Jiang Lai's temple. He smiled on the surface while thinking darkly that maybe he should reverse time after all, saying nothing this time and letting the other die. Who cares if he becomes a curse.
Of course, this was just a thought. Jiang Lai understood that if Ryomen Sukuna became a curse early, that would be much more troublesome than maintaining his human state for a while. And cursed spirits would be even less able to restrain their instinct to kill.
By then, the other might grow even more terrifying than in the original story.
Speaking of which, what he had actually been conflicted about wasn't whether the other would die, but whether after dying, he would become a more vicious curse.
However, Jiang Lai felt that if he revealed the truth, the other might not feel disgusted anymore. Better to maintain the status quo and let him continue being disgusted.
Therefore, at this moment, he explained nothing, only using spatial techniques to have air forcefully kick the other from a distance as payback.
Ryomen Sukuna who was inexplicably kicked by air clicked his tongue lightly but didn't counterattack (though counterattacking would be useless anyway).
He simply tore off the torn upper portion of his obstructive kimono, revealing his muscular torso marked with black patterns, then loosely tied the fabric around his waist.
"There's a controller behind this, right?" Ryomen Sukuna wasn't stupid. After the recent incident, he also keenly noticed the content behind the villagers' and jujutsu sorcerer's routine. "Something like cursed energy parasites? Using people as cursed tools?"
Jiang Lai hummed in agreement, responding: "Those villagers were already soulless shells long ago. That jujutsu sorcerer probably was too."
"No wonder you didn't exercise excessive kindness. Turns out you can't save them?" Ryomen Sukuna casually threw out a comment, then flexed his wrists and broke into a wild grin, "—that guy hiding behind isn't qualified to kill me!"
He put his hands together, forming hand signs.
Jiang Lai was stunned for a moment, his eyebrows slightly furrowing. He raised his hand to build protection around himself with spatial techniques, saying: "You're going to use Domain Expansion?"
"Don't worry, you won't be affected by the domain. Before finding a suitable cook, I won't kill you, lest the meat become stale."
Ryomen Sukuna's villain tone drawled as he deployed his domain. The scene suddenly changed to Malevolent Kitchen's background, with ox bones piled high and blood water permeating everywhere.
Jiang Lai chuckled, saying lightly: "You couldn't kill me anyway."
His technique kept himself separated from the blood water in the surrounding domain by a small distance.
Then, Jiang Lai held his book in hand, his gaze sweeping around as he spoke in his usual tone: "You're planning to directly use Domain Expansion then unlimited slashes? How big is your radius? You're not allowed to exceed this uninhabited village......"
Before finishing his words, Ryomen Sukuna had already drooped his eyelids, his tone impatient: "Enough, shut up and don't make noise. I'm not planning to slash. Domains can also be used to search for people."
He rarely bothered to explain a sentence or two.
Even so, Jiang Lai still didn't relax his vigilance. His techniques surrounded him as he remained ready to counterattack and intervene.
Ryomen Sukuna closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them half a second later. He waved his hand to slash sharp cursed energy down toward the ground, abruptly excavating the accumulated earth!
The ground shook and cracked. Under the sharp cursed energy cutting, the surface layer was removed to reveal a hollow space beneath! Right then, a twisted figure emerged from underground.
Ryomen Sukuna moved extremely fast, flashing forward to directly grab the other's throat and mercilessly slam them to the ground!
"Ahhh—!!" That person screamed.
Several other figures appeared around the person who emerged, probably also puppets controlled by parasites. Surprisingly, there was even a young child among them.
Jiang Lai narrowed his eyes and looked up.
The moment that person was slammed to the ground, the puppets under parasite control gathered together and launched an attack on the cherry pink-haired four-armed youth.
But this was Ryomen Sukuna's domain, so naturally everything was under Sukuna's control. The cherry pink-haired youth didn't even need to look up, simply waving his hand to pin them in the blood water with cursed blades!
Ryomen Sukuna's grip was frighteningly strong as he grabbed that guy's neck and lifted him back into the air, looking ready to snap the person's neck in an instant—but Jiang Lai stopped him.
"Wait a moment." Jiang Lai stepped forward and stopped beside him. "I still have questions to ask."
"Oh?" Ryomen Sukuna raised an eyebrow. He heard but didn't stop his actions, directly snapping that person's neck with a crack!
Then he released his domain, throwing the corpse on the ground and chuckling: "Fine then, if you want to ask, just revive him—that way I can kill him twice."
"......" Jiang Lai was speechless for a second but decided not to waste words arguing with the other. He raised his hand to reverse that person's time.
The moment after revival, Jiang Lai used spatial techniques to restrain the other.
When Jiang Lai's aura turned cold, he also had quite a villainous presence, not to mention his face still had a layer of mist adding an eerie atmosphere. He said in a deep voice: "I ask, you answer. Or would you prefer to just die?"
"Don't don't don't kill me!" The revived person had no memory of being killed. Though he didn't understand why he was restrained here, he still instinctively begged for mercy.
"If you answer, I naturally won't kill you." Jiang Lai said. "I can make a binding vow with you. You tell the truth, and in exchange, I won't touch you."
That person nodded desperately, feeling like he'd been thrown a lifeline: "I agree! I agree!"
Jiang Lai asked: "Do you know the shrine maiden of this village and the travelers who stayed here before? What conversations did you have? Why did you set up this situation?"
"I know the shrine maiden. This village's shrine maiden can weave special ropes."
"I don't know that traveler. He wore a hat so I couldn't see clearly. He took the shrine maiden away and told me he'd seen Ryomen Sukuna appear in this area."
It seemed this guy wasn't very familiar either, uncertain whether that traveler was the thousand-year-old Kenjaku (Brain-kun). Jiang Lai felt somewhat disappointed.
"I wanted to use the reputation of demon exorcism to apply as a noble's guard, so I burned part of the village myself and spread rumors that Ryomen Sukuna did it. Then I made this village's people into parasite puppets, planning to set up a trap to kill him when Ryomen Sukuna appeared."
Really didn't value commoners' lives at all. Jiang Lai stood up.
His gaze caught the puppets pinned to the ground in the distance, and among them he again glimpsed the black-haired child.
Jiang Lai paused for two seconds and asked one more question: "Why did you keep the child by your side?"
Logically, children had no attack power.
"It's...... I encountered him in the previous village. He had just awakened a technique that uses shadows. I thought his technique was useful, so I made him into a puppet—but I haven't killed him! To let him continue growing, I just implanted a cursed energy parasite for control."
A technique using shadows? The first thing that popped into Jiang Lai's mind was the Zenin family's hereditary technique [Ten Shadows Technique]—something like Six Eyes that wasn't easily awakened but was very powerful.
Could this child be a possessor of Ten Shadows Technique?
But the child appeared in a village rather than with the Zenin family...... meaning he was most likely an illegitimate child, or the child of a Zenin family member who left home and started a family outside.
Speaking of which, did the Zenin family unlock some strange buff of "children living outside awakening Ten Shadows Technique"? In the main timeline, it was also Fushiguro Megumi living outside who awakened Ten Shadows Technique.
The flight of fancy lasted only an instant. Jiang Lai turned around, preparing to check on that child.
If still alive, he should be able to save him through time reversal.
This was probably the only one from the tragic scene who could be saved.
He didn't care about the jujutsu sorcerer on the ground (perhaps calling him a curse user would be more appropriate). That person deserved to die, and he wouldn't save him.
Jiang Lai had indeed made a binding vow with that guy about "not killing if he told the truth," but this only meant he himself wouldn't act.
Ryomen Sukuna beside him leisurely observed the cowering person on the ground, his crimson eyes fixed on him as he pulled up his lip corners again, one hand resting under his chin, speaking casually:
"Earlier it was snapping the neck, so this time—let's try a different killing method."
He moved his finger, and as that person screamed, sliced him into neat pieces!
Jiang Lai didn't look back. He crouched down beside the child and raised his hand to activate his technique.
Unidirectional space-time reversal manifested on the black-haired child, wounds gradually healing and the last traces of parasite influence dissipating.
The child opened his eyes, supporting himself with one hand to sit up, his expression a mix of confusion and wariness.
The child instinctively made the [Divine Dogs] hand sign—this was the only shikigami he could summon at his age.
Jiang Lai withdrew his hand from activating the spatial technique, but in that instant, he again felt exhaustion rising from the depths of his soul, more overwhelming than the fatigue after reversing an entire village!
"......!?" Jiang Lai's heart jolted in shock. After being stunned for a moment, he understood.
His ability was to reverse time while bearing corresponding karma for violating rules. The more influential the person he reversed, the more rules violated, the heavier the karma borne.
That is to say—this era originally shouldn't have a possessor of Ten Shadows Technique, but his revival made it so?
And a Ten Shadows Technique possessor who lived on would inevitably bring major influence in the future.
The black-haired child stared at the mysterious person with mist covering his face, his body tense and looking very nervous.
He pressed his lips straight, his blue-green eyes lifting.
Jiang Lai paused for a long while, finally softening his demeanor. He naturally emanated a gentle aura, his voice carrying a smile as he comforted: "Don't be nervous, the bad person who caught you has already been eliminated."
"Is this the ingredient you selected? The meat quality looks mediocre." Just as his words rang out, Ryomen Sukuna also happened to approach from behind.
The two spoke almost simultaneously, with "Don't be nervous" and "meat quality looks mediocre" ringing in the child's ears at the same time.
Jiang Lai: "......"
Black-haired child: "......"