📖 Chapter 35: The Crimson Break
The battlefield thundered with chaos.
Arkais, no longer restrained by hesitation or memory, launched himself into the fray with ruthless precision. His fists tore through the air like bolts of lightning, cursed energy crackling at his fingertips. His gaze was cold—steeled by loss, sharpened by rage.
High above the fractured terrain, Sukuna hovered, his usual smirk curling at the edges of his lips.
> "Well now," he drawled. "Looks like you're finally showing your true colors."
Arkais didn't reply. Words had no place in this war.
Instead, his body twisted mid-air, and with a surge of lunar energy, he unleashed a barrage of spectral chains—each one pulsing with pale blue light, sharpened like blades. Sukuna dodged two, cleaved through three with a flick of his cursed blade—but the final chain struck true, searing across his shoulder with a hiss of burning flesh.
> "Tch." Sukuna's eyes narrowed. "You think this will bring me down?"
Still, Arkais said nothing. He was already moving.
His palms glowed with a ghostly hue as the sky cracked open above them. From within the rift, two crescent-shaped blades emerged—gleaming like cold moons forged from his will.
He hurled them without pause.
The blades cut through the wind, fast as thought. Sukuna tilted, narrowly avoiding one, but the second blade caught his cheek. Blood blossomed, bright and thin against his skin.
Sukuna's smirk faded for the first time.
This was no longer raw power—this was control. A sharpened storm.
And then, before Sukuna could even retaliate—
Arkais vanished.
A blur of speed. A whisper of wind.
And then: a single strike.
Arkais drove his hand deep into Sukuna's abdomen. Cursed blood sprayed outward. Sukuna flinched—not from the pain, but from something far more alarming.
He felt something.
> No… not something. Someone.
Lucius.
The soul he thought buried. Sealed. Destroyed.
It stirred within him—quiet at first, then louder, sensing every movement, every emotion. Watching.
> "How…? I cast you into darkness."
But Sukuna's moment of confusion cost him.
Arkais's hand clenched.
And when he withdrew it—eight severed fingers came with it.
Corrupted. Cursed. Glowing red.
Sukuna's eyes widened in disbelief.
The battlefield hushed.
Ash drifted across the scorched plains as Arkais stared down at the twitching remnants of ancient power.
> "So…" he muttered, voice like steel, "these were still inside you."
Before Sukuna could reclaim them, a sudden chill filled the air.
A rift opened behind Arkais. From within stepped a woman cloaked in black—a demon lord. Graceful, cold, and lethal. Her eyes glowed with amusement, and her aura shifted the air like storm winds.
She held out her hand.
Arkais hesitated only a second.
Then, without a word, he handed the eight fingers to her.
And in that moment—
Lucius saw.
Not just with the body he had lost—but with the soul that had never stopped watching.
The demon lord.
The same one.
The one who had killed his Master.
💥 Flashback Begins
The sky was dark that day.
Thunder rolled across the distant hills as the Master stood atop a grassy cliff—tall, unwavering, his blade glinting in the stormlight.
And across from him, she appeared.
The female demon lord.
Eyes glowing red. A smile of cruelty stitched across her face. Her cursed aura crashed against the land like a flood.
Lucius had hidden in the bushes, too weak to fight. Too young to understand. But he saw it all.
They clashed—blade against shadow, strike against curse.
The Master parried every blow, even as his strength waned.
Until—
She raised her hand.
Three blades of pure cursed energy formed in the air, their shape jagged and flickering.
> SHING — SHING — SHING
The blades struck.
Through his back.
Out his chest.
Blood sprayed in the rain as the Master staggered forward, eyes wide. Then, without a sound, he crumpled—falling from the edge of the cliff into the void below.
Lucius screamed.
> "MASTER!!!"
Time shattered. The sky turned white.
In that silence, memories surged. Training. Pain. Discipline. Kindness.
> "A warrior's path," the Master's voice echoed through the void,
"...isn't about winning every battle…"
"...it's about choosing which pain you can live with."
⚡ Return to Present
Lucius's soul trembled.
His body still belonged to Sukuna, but his presence had never left. And now, those memories… they burned like fire inside him.
Sukuna floated, staggered—not from wounds, but from a presence he could no longer suppress.
For the first time in centuries, he whispered—
> "You're still watching… after all this time."
Arkais turned.
The demon lord held the fingers in her hand, victorious and silent.
But Lucius's soul burned brighter.
He remembered.
The betrayal.
The blade.
The vow.
This war was no longer a fight for power.
It was personal.
And deep within the darkness of Sukuna's soul—
Lucius stirred.
And waited.
Chapter End