Chapter 80: Cut-out Threads

The Sundown Alley is a marginalized place. It is a hotbed for criminals and refugees whose identities weren't convenient to be disclosed.

Naturally, there would be a feedback loop where several eccentric characters knew each other.

The girl, Pardofelis, only became a proficient thief two years ago. That was the time she came across the magician, an infamous figure in the Sundown Alley. 

Her biggest feature was her magic tricks. Nobody could figure out how she'd done it.

Pardofelis also participated in that quest until her consecutive failures. That event was significant enough to be placed on her bucket list.

"Well, are you curious about that?" Vill-V asked as she pointed out another twenty-storey tall building collapsed. The dust cloud became even thicker in that part of the city. A huge glacier rose up from its former position.

Crack-!

BAM-!

SHATTER-!

The next moment, it was violently shattered by a black streak.

"Eh, it looks like this should be left for another day. Until we meet again, little thief."

The metallic suit flew over the battlefield's direction. The amount of destruction caused by Aleph's fight with the fifth herrscher was devastating. Only half a minute had passed upon their contact, yet three high-rise buildings had already collapsed.

"Huh..?"

Pardofelis was surprised to find a business card flying towards her. When she took it, she saw a number as well as a huge name.

"MOTH…"

*****

"Tsk. I am trying to sleep properly, but these bastards..!"

The constant explosions due to the cars bumping and other things being unattended turned the City of Justice chaotic. It was the life-changing half a minute to the people who resided in that city.

Ironically, the people within the Sundown Alley weren't severely affected by it. Aleph's deliberate control of the battlefield as well as occasional disruption of the fifth herrscher's wide-scale attacks turned it into a melee.

Of course, that noise was still loud enough to disturb most people who aren't zombies yet.

Growl-!

"Tsk. Here comes another one!"

It was a sea porter turned into an undead. Similarly, the man who was woken up by the earthquakes was also a porter.

Bam-!

With one strike, the undead was sent flying.

The man did not seem to mind the bits of blood in his fists. His mask made it impossible for others to know his thoughts.

"Urgh, I can't sleep now. If these bastards came here…"

The man seems to have been used to coarse language. He massaged the back of his neck before he found himself walking aimlessly.

Of course, every undead and honkai beast that came across him was unluckily killed.

The man has a name:

Kalpas.

*****

"...to repent is to absolve oneself from sins."

Inside Sundown Alley's sanatorium, a nun completed her prayer.

She stood up from her kneeling position. Soon, she found herself looking at the night sky on the courtyard.

"Sister… there is an earthquake."

One of the kids rushed outside. She came from the sanatorium's dormitory.

"Calm down. You might trip yourself over."

With the nun's words, the girl really did calm down in an instant.

"Sister… I asked the others to come here. That was in the… uhm… drill."

The nun's head pat was the nail in the coffin. The girl's anxious state died down.

"That's good. Let everyone stay until it ends."

However, she seems to have been preoccupied by something else.

'It is not there.'

For the first time, the nun could not see a thread.

*****

Fizzle-!

A "metaphysical" sizzling came across Aleph's ears. It was his brain's interpretation of the positive energy—energy produced by the reverse cursed technique—healing his entire body.

As a result, his cursed energy reserves dropped further. Although his Ratio Technique did not consume huge amounts of cursed energy unlike other cursed techniques, his body reinforcement became his main job.

Two minutes after the beginning of their confrontation, Aleph gained something.

'I can see it.'

He wasn't idle during the past three months. Back then, he could've made a huge progress, what more of now when he had the Great Sage?

His focus was placed on three things.

First, the Esper research. Aleph gained enough to boost the Soldier Project ahead by several years at once. Though, he chose not to divulge all of it.

Still, the things he took out was enough to boost Mobius' progress to exaggerated levels. Once she didn't have any roadblock of sorts, she proved why she was one of the most brilliant minds in the Previous Era.

The next thing was the Divine Key Project. It was extremely crucial to push humanity's combat prowess by a huge degree.

Finally, it was the nature of the Jujutsu Power System. That was the time he learned to use Black Flash as well as the Simple Domain. The latter overlapped with his Sphere Boundary, however.

Other than that, Aleph focused the most on Reversed Curse Technique.

That, and…

'No wonder I couldn't learn this before..!'

Kashimo once gleaned over something that piqued Aleph's interest.

"If it wasn't for him… Itadori Yuuji, the contingencies would be riddled with holes."

"What was his trump card?"

"Trump card? Oh, you mean his soul-hitting punches?"

Soul-hitting punches.

It was something unique to Itadori Yuuji. Even Satoru Gojo didn't have it.

'To see the thing called soul… It was already with me way back then!'

Itadori Yuuji's situation was far from replicable. His punch could strike at the soul. It was only made possible when a being called Ryōmen Sukuna took over his body. That act was enough for Yuuji to grasp the nature of souls, even if it was instinctive.

'I already saw it… my Sephira Crystal. All that's left is an application!'

Upon this realization, Great Sage's response came.

{Result: Utilizing cursed energy in...}

Shatter-!

Aleph shattered the ice that tried to enclose him. He had been allowing the Herrscher of Ice to build a lot of distance from him, just so he could finish analyzing this soul-hitting strike.

It was a complete coincidence he realized it. He was looking for ways to wake up the human ego on the herrscher when he ran through parallels with the strongest Heian Era Sorcerer Kashimo and others fought.

Now, his fists could truly do all the convincing.

To the herrscher's surprise, Aleph leaped more than a hundred meters from his previous position—double from what he exhibited earlier.

Cursed energy began gathering on his fist. The purple-black energy coated it.

A timely realization struck Aleph.

Hum-!

Juezhao was utilized. It was originally a technique to gather one's force at one point. No Second Strike, its higher level, taught that internal force was the key to a destructive strike.

'He's holding back?!'

Unfortunately for her…

Bam-!

She could only see a black flash strike at her chest.

At that moment, her soul met the fists of the man blessed by the black sparks.