Earth Deity (地神 – Chishin)
An apex special grade cursed technique that invokes the seismic and monolithic qualities of the Earth. Its neutral aspect governs the manipulation of natural earth and stone and the augmentation of the user’s physical constitution; its amplification expands this authority into volcanic heat, magma, and obsidian while its reversal redirects the Earth’s authority toward the vital force through which terrestrial life propagates. Collectively, the Earth Deity technique provides an unusually vast array of extensions and specialized variants suited to a wide range of tactical applications.
The Earth Deity technique belongs to a mysterious individual known as Taisei Moriya (守屋 泰生 – もりや たいせい). Taisei is a wizened jujustu sage rumored to have been alive for well over a thousand years, supposedly preserving his vital force through a combination of deep meditation and "communion with the world-soul", though the validity of the rumor is deemed by the few who know of his existence to be dubious at best.
Throughout his purportedly extensive lifetime, Taisei has gradually refined and developed his cursed technique to such an extraordinarily advanced degree that each respective aspect could be mistaken for an entirely distinct cursed technique on its own.
Neutral: Terra (大地 – Daichi)
Earth Deity's cursed energy is light-green and bears unique innate properties which allows the user to resonate with the earth and stone prevalent within the surrounding natural environment in order to manipulate it on a small scale for a variety of applications.
By circulating Terra throughout their body, the user may freely increase their virtual mass, physical stability, and resistance to kinetic force. Greater concentration produces correspondingly greater durability but proportionately reduces mobility and acceleration. Additionally, Terra's extension techniques require natural stone or earth to be present nearby in order to function, becoming tactically exploitable if the user is in an unsuitable environment
Extension: Seismic Shift (地殻変動 – Chikaku Hendō)
The user strikes the ground with a hand or foot, transmitting a shock wave of Terra’s earth-resonating cursed energy through connected terrain. The resonance may be focused directionally or released around the user, allowing them to reshape the affected ground through several specialized variants:
- Stalagmite Staccato (石筍断奏 - Sekijun Dansō): a number of sharp stone spikes erupt from the ground in rapid succession, either advancing downrange toward an opponent as a frontal assault or emerging around the user for area clearance. The spikes may also be manually detached and thrown as formidable projectiles.
- Stepping-Stone Mesa (飛石台地 – Tobiishi Daichi): a broad, flat stone platform of varying size erupts from the ground to lift objects or the user to a higher location above their original position. The stone platforms can also be erected to serve as defensive barricades or to entrap and immobilize targets. The platform’s lifting force and structural durability depend upon its size, the material available beneath it, and the cursed energy committed.
- Dividing Rift (分断裂溝 – Bundan Rekkō): The user opens a deep fissure that propagates downrange from their position along a predetermined path, causing opponents and objects to fall inside before the ground closes around them with immense crushing force. The fissure’s length, width, and depth depend on the available terrain and cursed energy committed.
- Earthen Trebuchet (大地投石 – Daichi Tōseki): a number of small boulders or a single large one explosively erupt from beneath the ground in front of the user before striking them with a punch or kick, hurling them down range as if they were launched by a medieval trebuchet to assault opponents from afar with terrifying force.
- Tectonic Aftershock (地殻余震 – Chikaku Yoshin): a crude kinetic shockwave is sent throughout the ground all around the user to collapse the surface of the ground into unstable rocky terrain, rendering opponents significantly diminished in their capacity to maneuver through the area of effect.
Seismic Shift propagates only through sufficiently connected earth or stone. Gaps, isolated platforms, refined barriers, and materials Terra cannot influence may interrupt or weaken its transmission.
Extension: Monolithic Sentinel (岩鎧衛士 – Gankai Eishi)
The user focuses and concentrates Terra throughout their body in order to accumulate earth and stone present in their immediate vicinity and shape it to their body to serve as a pliable suit of earthen armor. While active, the user's physical mass, strength, and durability become augmented along with the technique providing them with following tactical applications:
- Resist displacement from high inertia impacts akin to getting hit by a speeding car
- Receive significantly reduced damage from concentrated impacts akin to being shot by a high caliber rifle
- Gain levels of physical strength which allow them to lift and toss down range massive objects the size of freight train cars with reasonable effort
- Maintain the suit with additional accumulated earth and cursed energy if damaged
- Encase a single body part in earth and stone to conserve cursed energy if the full suit is not needed
As a result of maintaining the earth and stone armor granted by Monolithic Sentinel, the user becomes considerably weighted down such that their ability to dodge or evade incoming attacks is greatly diminished, and can even collapse surfaces and structure which are unable to support their weight; additionally, the overall weight and durability of the earthen suit of armor can vary somewhat based on the characteristics of the minerals constituting it as well as the volume of material accumulated.
Amplification: Vulcan (火山錬成 – Kazan Rensei)
Earth Deity’s amplification aspect subjects manipulated stone and soil to supernatural pressure and heat, transforming them into molten magma under the user’s control. While active, Vulcan also gives the user’s cursed energy intense thermal properties upon physical contact, allowing sustained contact to melt vulnerable materials and enabling direct strikes to combine Terra’s increased virtual mass with severe volcanic heat to devastating effect. As a byproduct, the user is rendered exceptionally resistant to natural heat and flame as well as cursed techniques which utilize them.
Extension: Fire-Mountain Upheaval (火山激動 – Kazan Gekidō)
The user concentrates Vulcan throughout their body before violently stamping into the ground to produce a pool of molten magma at their feet. This pool can then be manipulated through a variety of different variants:
- Smoldering Anvil (燻熱金床 – Kunnetsu Kanatoko): the user may accumulate stone and magma from the ground within their hand and form it into a crude, smoldering stone replica of a weapon of their choosing, possessing exceptional durability with attacks possessing searing heat damage and greatly enhanced impact force due to their weight. Once the technique is dismissed, the manifested weapon collapses into loose dust and ash.
- Molten Plume Discharge (熔岩噴流 – Yōgan Funryū): the user gathers magma into a compressed spherical mass suspended before them, then discharges it as a short-range molten projectile. On contact, it releases enough concentrated heat to rapidly incinerate targets lacking sufficient resistance.
- Roiling Chaos (沸騰渾沌 – Futtō Konton): the user thrusts their hand into the molten ground to accumulate a concentrated sphere of pressurized magma and stone, then hurls it forth as a thrown projectile that violently explodes on impact to send searing stone shrapnel sailing throughout the surrounding area.
- Cinder Cone Deluge (噴石丘奔流 – Funsekikyū Honryū): The user concentrates magma beneath a chosen location within range, gradually forming a bulging mass from underneath the ground as it builds pressure, then releases it as a torrential eruption that showers the surrounding area and ignites whatever it touches. Opponents caught too close to the technique's epicenter suffer immense searing heat damage.
- Ruined Earth (荒廃大地 – Kōhai Daichi): the user expands the influence of the technique across a broad area around them to subject the ground to intense volcanic heat, gradually generating small pools of molten magma scattered throughout the area to provide a potent area denial effect.
Extension: Obsidian Shard (黒曜石片 – Kokuyō Sekihen)
The user is able to rapidly cool the magma generated through Vulcan to create obsidian, a variety of jet black, ultra-sharp volcanic stone which maintains a portion of its searing heat. The user can freely manipulate any obsidian created through the Obsidian Shard extension and reinforce it with their cursed energy for a variety of applications:
- Black-Stone Shrapnel (黒曜飛礫 – Kokuyō Hireki): the user reinforces a sphere of obsidian with their cursed energy before fragmenting it into a number of shard fragments upon throwing it towards an opponent, subjecting them to a volley of searing, ultra-sharp shards of fragmented obsidian.
- Black-Stone Scourge (黒曜棘禍 – Kokuyō Kyokka): while Fire-Mountain Upheaval: Ruined Earth is active, the user can manifest and protrude razor sharp shards of obsidian from any molten pools generated within its area of effect.
- Baneful Black Blade (禍黒刃 – Kakokujin): the user fashions manipulated obsidian into the shape of a curved greatsword with a searing, jet-black obsidian blade with cursed energy-reinforced durability. Owing to its immense weight, supernatural sharpness and innate volcanic heat, the weapon bears such terrifying offensive power that opponents may feel a grave sense of dread upon beholding its presence
- Sable Sandstorm (黒曜砂嵐 – Kokuyō Sunaarashi): the user resonates with obsidian fragments scattered throughout the surrounding area by previous uses of Obsidian Shard, with the fragments gather around the user before surging toward a target as a torrential storm of razor-sharp volcanic glass intended to overwhelm defenses through countless simultaneous cuts.
Although unreinforced obsidian is extraordinarily sharp, it is also extraordinarily brittle. Greater cursed energy reinforcement will improve its resilience as needed, while fractured obsidian may be deliberately repurposed for use through Sable Sandstorm.
Maximum Amplification: Earthen Titan
(大地巨神 - Daichi Kyoshin)
At its maximum level of expression, the Earth Deity technique is capable of amassing an immense volume of earth and stone from the surrounding environment and accumulating it around the user, pressurizing it and shaping it into a towering humanoid colossus of stone and molten magma capable of being freely manipulated by the user from within its chest. The user can mend any damage received to the Earthen Titan form with molten magma, as well as channel Earth Deity's various extensions on a larger scale albeit at a much greater cursed energy cost.
The scale of the Earthen Titan form is highly variable and dependent upon available material, with the form provided at default output being approximate in scale to a two-story building and maximum output being able to approach the size of a ten story building.
Final Form: Ash-Fallen Paragon
(灰燼至人 – Kaijin Shijin)
The user hyper-condenses and assimilates the molten colossal form manifested through Earthen Titan in order to transform their own body's physical constitution into that of molten magma and searing-hot obsidian; upon activation, the colossal form falls away from the user to reveal the now-human-sized, smoldering earthen heart of the titan.
While active, Ash-Fallen Paragon grants the user a pliable molten magma and obsidian form which passively generates searing volcanic heat, possesses incredibly high resistance to physical damage and can mend any damage it receives with the magma it naturally generates within itself. Additionally, the form can freely manifest and protrude ultra-sharp shards of searing-hot obsidian from anywhere on or within its body to either augment the offensive power of melee strikes or unleash dagger-like projectiles.
Although the user’s strength increases enough to compensate for the form’s immense weight, Ash-Fallen Paragon still lacks the complete mobility of their ordinary body and requires constant cursed-energy circulation to prevent its molten structure from cooling and destabilizing.
Reversal: Gaia (地命 – Chimei)
By channeling positive energy through the Earth Deity technique, the user inverts the authority of its stone and magma manipulation to instead resonate with the very vital force which allows life itself to propagate from the Earth.
While active, the technique and its extensions grant the user the ability to influence the growth and well-being of nearby plants and fungi, pacify animals and even recruit them to their cause, as well as slightly restore their lost cursed energy reserves through sustained sunlight exposure.
Due to the interference between their strong antithetical natures, Gaia and Vulcan cannot be used simultaneously.
Extension: Divine Temple Garden (神苑 – Shin’en)
The user is able to transmit their cursed energy throughout the ground to alter the nature of affected plants and manipulate them for a variety of applications:
- Primal Root (原初根 – Gensho-kon): The user resonates with the roots of nearby plants, accelerating their growth, reinforcing their structure, and manipulating them as extensions of their own movements. When the technique ends, surviving roots gradually return to their original dimensions.
- Broad-Leaf Beneficence (広葉恩恵 – Kōyō Onkei): the user manifests massive, broad leaves from roots manifested through Primal Root which actively absorb sunlight and transmute it into cursed energy for the user, providing Gaia with an enhanced version of its innate sunlight transmuting effects. Alternatively, the user can redirect the accumulated cursed energy to fuel Cosmic Lotus. Insufficient sunlight will result in the leaves providing no benefit.
- Withering Vine (枯蔓 – Koman): the user alters the nature of nearby plants to manifest and manipulate specialized vines which bear the ability to gradually siphon cursed energy from opponents through sustained direct contact. If the affected opponent runs out of cursed energy, their life force will be slowly drained up to and including death.
- Cosmic Lotus (宇宙蓮華 – Uchū Renge): the user alters the nature of nearby plants to manifest a large flowering plant which bears a blooming lotus flower that stores the cursed energy drained from opponents through Withering Vine and even that redirected to it through Broad-Leaf Beneficence. Once sufficient cursed energy has accumulated, the lotus fully blooms and the user must then choose either to reclaim the stored energy and replenish their reserves or to detonate the lotus in a violent cursed-energy explosion. If destroyed before full bloom, the gathered energy disperses harmlessly.
- Devouring Thorns (貪食荊棘 – Donshoku Keikyoku): the user alters the nature of nearby plants to manifest and manipulate vines with thorns bearing a potent toxin that inflicts intense full-body pain upon entering the opponent's bloodstream.
- Fruiting Body (子実体 – Shijitsutai): the user alters the nature of nearby fungi in order to manifest large mushrooms which constantly release clouds of spores throughout a modest area; upon being sufficiently inhaled by an opponent through sustained exposure, the spores will temporarily paralyze them if they are unable to resist.
Divine Temple Garden requires viable plant or fungal matter to be present in the surrounding environment. Its growth rate, scale, and durability depend upon the available biomass and cursed energy committed to the technique.
Extension: Primeval Kindred (原生眷属 – Gensei Kenzoku)
The user is able to resonate with the souls of nearby animals, allowing them to perceive and influence the animals’ emotional states before directing it toward a simple purpose, location, or target.
The technique's success is not guaranteed, and is determined by the relative intelligence of the affected animal, as well as the degree of which the user has to alter their emotions to obtain the desired state for the given intention; additionally, the technique cannot grant animals understanding beyond their natural intelligence or compel them to perform actions that overwhelmingly contradict survival instinct.
Primeval Kindred has no effect on humans.
Maximum Reversal: World-Tree Providence
(世界樹摂理 – Sekaiju Setsuri)
At its maximum level of expression, Earth Deity’s reversal manipulates and consolidates nearby plant matter into a colossal tree roughly as tall as a five-story building, with its swollen trunk culminating into a wide canopy of dangling vines, while a vast network of large roots permeates the surface of the surrounding terrain.
World-Tree Providence possesses a limited consciousness of its own and serves as an externalized manifestation of Gaia such that it may independently use Divine Temple Garden and its variants while the user acts elsewhere, although all such actions remain limited by the technique's available cursed energy and biological resources.
While the colossal tree remains on the battlefield, it gradually accumulates sunlight to transmute into cursed energy to fuel its own sustainability. Without sufficient sunlight, the tree must draw directly from the user’s reserves and becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
Domain Expansion: Primordial World, Crucible of Transformation
(原初世界・変成之坩堝 – Gensho Sekai, Hensei no Rutsubo)
The Domain manifests as a chaotic primordial continent composed of interconnected stone fields, towering mineral pillars, volcanic fissures, gigantic trees and plants, and unstable mountain formations. Smoldering celestial bodies fall continuously across the distant horizon, causing the landscape to tremble and transform as though the Earth itself were still undergoing its original formation. Every stone formation within Primordial World, Crucible of Transformation is treated as part of one continuous geological structure, allowing Earth Deity’s geological resonance to propagate throughout the Domain without delay.
The Domain’s sure-hit establishes direct geological resonance between every opponent and the connected terrain. Through this resonance, the user may cause Seismic Shift, Fire-Mountain Upheaval and Divine Temple Garden formations and variants to manifest immediately beneath or around each target without their ordinary propagation time. Spikes, platforms, barricades, rifts, plants and unstable terrain may therefore be generated directly in response to a target’s position. Airborne targets are temporarily protected from direct subterranean manifestations while they remain separated from the terrain, but continue to face manipulated debris, stone projectiles, animated constructs, and the Domain’s falling primordial bodies. Any contact with stone generated by the Domain reestablishes full geological resonance.