!
The sharp sound of glass shattering rose with too much intensity for the absolute silence that surrounded it.
Sukuna froze in place.
His body did not move, but his pupils locked with fury and confusion on the scar that ran across his entire Domain.
"H-How can this be…?" His dry lips barely opened, and in an outburst, he shouted in disbelief: "HOW CAN THIS BE?!"
The suffocating pressure that permeated the space began to weaken, and the Domain started to collapse at great speed.
The endless sea of blood lost its density. The shrine of bones trembled on the verge of collapse. Even the wailing souls distorted into fading figures that vanished.
… Everything that represented the authority of the King of Curses turned blurry.
Suddenly, the world shook and vision turned unstable.
The metallic stench of fresh blood was abruptly replaced by the dust of crushed concrete.
The Domain, his absolute territory, had disappeared, leaving behind no more than the blue scar still burning in his memory.
"..."
The ruins of Shibuya were once again exposed under the pale light of the moon.
But what was revealed before everyone's eyes was no longer a ruined city…
With Sukuna at the center as the only point of reference, within a radius of two hundred meters stretched a… vast plain.
There was no steel or concrete.
No vehicles or the flaming skeletons of shops remained. Everything that once defined Shibuya had disappeared.
Only an infinite, grayish-white ground remained, polished to such perfection that it looked like the work of a gigantic whetstone.
A smooth, dead mirror reflecting the moon on its cold surface.
Dead!
It was as if every form of matter that protruded even a single centimeter above the ground level had been mercilessly erased by the devastating attack of the Domain, reduced to the same inert plane.
"..."
Sukuna stood at the exact center of that plain.
He slightly lowered his head, his gaze sweeping over what remained of this work.
In theory, this should have been the perfect result of his endless slashes within his Domain. A clean space, annihilated, reduced to its purest form by the blade of his will.
And yet, what he had before his eyes was different.
Every fragment of that smooth surface was not proof of triumph, but proof of his HUMILIATION.
His shrine had been broken, his slashes pulverized, and the only thing left was a dead plain.
The evidence that his Domain had existed… and at the same time, the evidence that someone had destroyed it with a single katana.
"..."
Damian stood silently a few meters away from him.
His lowered eyelids conveyed an unfathomable calm as he watched Sukuna, who still remained petrified.
A deep, audible sigh slipped from his lips, breaking the silence.
"…Right now, you're far too boring." His voice was flat, without much emotion, as if he were stating a fact. "Sukuna… go and obtain all of your power."
!
Sukuna's body trembled violently.
Slowly, he raised his head, and in that gesture, the mask of arrogance that had always accompanied him crumbled.
His face hardened into a rigid grimace.
Deep within his pupils, the spark of absolute delight that once shone went out, replaced by a whirlwind of humiliation over what had just occurred, dread at realizing the magnitude of what he was facing… and, within it all, a cold spark of fighting spirit that began to ignite by force.
His eyes locked onto Damian with a sickening intensity, as if wanting to carve that figure deep into his soul, making sure he would never forget the affront he was experiencing.
The entire air seemed to freeze, trapped in a suffocating silence.
"…Good."
No laughter came from Sukuna's throat.
At that moment it became clear. The war of the King of Curses had been fully ignited. At the same time, it was recognition—something Sukuna had never granted anyone before.
After hearing him, Damian nodded, then lifted his wrist and looked at his watch.
11:04 p.m.
It was still early.
His thoughts drifted: 'There must be something else, right?... Ah, that's it… Mahoraga and Mahito.'
A faint smirk formed on his face.
'…especially Mahito, he was the one who directly took two of the most popular characters off the board.'
Thinking this, he sighed again, because both Mahoraga and Mahito would probably only have one fate: to be destroyed by Yamato.
'What a waste. So much noise for nothing. After I get rid of those two, I'll head home. Hopefully Marin is already asleep… or maybe awake…' Thinking this, he looked forward again and his eyes met Sukuna's.
At this moment, the King of Curses still had his gaze fixed on Damian.
He smiled faintly: "Until next time, Sukuna. I hope next time you can give me a bit more fun."
With that said, an invisible force began to flow from his body, twisting the space into black waves.
In the blink of an eye, his figure was swallowed by the darkness.
The only thing left was the vast dead plain, and at its center, Sukuna stood in silence.
The expression on Sukuna's face was complex. After a long time, he muttered, "Fun, huh?... You dare speak to me as if I exist for your entertainment… Insolent."
"The next time we cross paths, you will not have a single moment of peace. I will tear your flesh, break your bones, and rip every last scream from your throat."
"And when your spirit dares to resist, I will devour you slowly until only silence remains."
With those words, his figure vanished.
Shibuya, another battlefield.
"With this treasure, I summon you…!!"
Megumi Fushiguro's voice thundered through the deserted street.
He was kneeling on the frozen ground, his hand pressed against his side that had been split open from end to end. The wound gushed a warm liquid that ran between his fingers, but the pain no longer existed in his mind.
Every word he spoke carried the weight of a final attempt defying death itself.
!
The shadow behind Megumi suddenly expanded like a dark ocean.
The air was sucked in at once, creating a vacuum that crushed the lungs of the only one witnessing this.
A massive wave of cursed energy descended without warning, filled with a primitive desire for destruction that left no room for hope.
Haruta Shigemo, who just seconds earlier was laughing with his sadistic smile, was petrified.
His lips trembled and the mocking glint vanished from his eyes, replaced by a fear that crawled down to his very bones.
The pressure was unbearable.
That cursed energy was so dense and so vast that it pressed down on him like a mountain falling directly onto his skull, making every bone in his body creak.
"STOP—!!!" he screamed, but it was already too late.
From the shadows, a giant broke through the limits of the darkness.
It possessed a massive humanoid silhouette, rough grayish-white skin that looked like stone. On its right forearm was attached what appeared to be the blade of a sword.
Its face, without eyes, nose, or ears, was a mask without expression, incomplete, inhuman.
Two pairs of horn-like structures, resembling rigid wings, extended from where its eyes should have been, arching backward along its head.
Its mouth, lipless, exposed its rugged gums and white teeth.
And above its crown floated an unexpected object: a wheel.
This monster, standing over three meters tall, with muscles covering its entire body, was the most powerful shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique of the Zen'in clan.
Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General!
Mahoraga!
Megumi lifted his head, and on his pale face an arrogant smile formed as blood trickled down his lips.
He looked at Haruta and spat, "Hey, you piece of shit!"
"I'm already leaving, but… give it your all."
!
The moment those words left his mouth, an enormous arm came crashing down with violent force, ready to crush his head.
The shadow of death loomed over him, and for an instant time itself seemed to stop.
But right at that critical moment—
Swish
A dark blue flash cut through the shadows with impossible speed. The arc of light embedded itself directly into the giant arm, stopping its strike dead.
Mahoraga stopped.
Its arm trembled for an instant and, in the next fraction of a second, a perfect line opened across its surface.
It was a clean cut. The muscles separated without resistance, the tendons were severed, and the bone split in two as if it were made of glass.
With a crash, the amputated part of the arm collapsed.
"..."
The arm struck the ground next to Megumi and the earth shook under the impact, as if a mountain had fallen in the middle of the street.
Feeling this tremor instead of the blow he had been expecting, Megumi, who just a moment earlier had accepted his end, opened his eyes wide.
Fear, confusion, and bewilderment flooded him all at once.
WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!
Mahoraga's head lowered, as if even without eyes it too had stopped to "look" at the stump of its lost arm.
"..."
And then, without anyone being able to pinpoint the exact moment it had happened, a figure placed itself between Megumi and that shikigami.
White hair shining under the moon and a straight back.
Damian.
He did not turn to look at Megumi, who remained behind him.
"Mahoraga…" Damian's flat voice sounded. "...At last we meet."
He turned his head slightly, and his gaze briefly stopped on Haruta, lying on the ground, unable to control his own body, sunk in his shit and piss, completely consumed by panic.
"And there's still one left…" His wrist rose calmly as his eyes projected into the darkness, thinking of what came next.
"If I clean up these two, I'll be able to go home."
"ROOAAR!!!"
Mahoraga's roar interrupted him. Its mouth opened like a fissure, revealing rows of teeth.
On the stump of its severed arm, the flesh thrashed frantically, trying to regenerate. But the cut that had severed it remained there, marked with a will that set an impossible limit to surpass.
!
Then it raised its only remaining arm. The dark sword attached to its limb shone under a dense aura, the feared "Sword of Extermination."
The air itself whistled with its movement.
No embellishments, no techniques. Just brute force descending in a straight line, a sentence against the small white-haired figure.
The wind dragged by the strike swept through the street, lifting Damian's hair and clothes.
But he did not lift his head.
He only turned his body slightly, dodging with precision the central trajectory of the blade.
And then his left hand closed tightly around Yamato's hilt.
"Absolute Cut."
Yamato slid barely an inch out of the scabbard, but with that small movement, with Damian as the epicenter, countless blue flashes manifested in the air.
They were absolute cuts, appearing without visible trajectories, crossing in all directions at the same time.
!
As if an infinite net of death had been unleashed, the blades pierced everything, filling every corner of space with an icy glow.
Mahoraga's colossal body was instantly covered by that storm of cuts.
Swish
Swish
Swish
The continuous sound of the slashes echoed through every fiber of its flesh.
The movement of its arm stopped abruptly.
The Sword of Extermination, which just a second earlier had descended like a sentence, was now suspended in the air, rigid, just a millimeter from Damian's head.
The blade trembled, but it could not advance any further.
Grrrrrk—!
Suddenly, above its head, the eight-handled wheel emitted a sound like gears forced to turn against their will.
The helm began vibrating frantically, spinning at full speed in a desperate attempt to decipher, analyze, and adapt to the cuts that filled all space.
But—
Useless!
The net of slashes continued engraving itself into its grayish skin.
Swish
Swish
Swish
The blades pierced muscles, bones, and joints, sinking into the deepest parts of its colossal body.
In an instant, it and its sword were divided, reduced to hundreds of cubic blocks with edges as smooth as mirrors.
Each surface glowed with a residual blue shine, forcibly sealing the cursed energy that tried to escape.
Boom
The remains of the shikigami, mixed with pieces of the enormous sword, collapsed, shaking the ground.
Click
Yamato slid back into its sheath in a clean motion. Only then did Damian turn.
His gaze settled on Megumi, who was still kneeling on the ground, his abdomen bleeding uncontrollably and his face pale, unmoving like a petrified statue.
"It's settled." Seeing his state, Damian tried to reassure him with a voice that carried little inflection. "You'd better get out of here quickly."
But Megumi did not react to his reassurance, as his brain had stopped processing.
All the arrogance, resolve, and sorrow with which he had resigned himself to a martyr's fate crumbled in an instant.
He had witnessed how his strongest shikigami, the supreme weapon of the Zen'in clan, had been reduced to pieces in a single moment.
With stiff movements, he raised his head.
!
His pupils trembled as if they were about to shatter, focusing on Damian's serene face.
An absurd recognition ran through his body like an electric shock.
White hair… that face… those eyes…
"Ne… Nero?!"
Damian's eyebrows shifted in an involuntary reaction. But he did not answer, nor did he stop for another second.
Swoosh
His figure vanished.
In the scene only three things remained: Megumi's rough gasping, Haruta's collapsed body, and the fragments of Mahoraga, which were slowly being absorbed into the shadow of the ground.
"Huff… huff…"
The sudden euphoria of still being alive struck Haruta's nerves like lightning, still dulled by panic.
Clumsily he pressed his hands and feet against the ground, dragging his body to get up.
His movements were trembling, but his face suddenly twisted into an expression of joy.
"Ha… ha… HAHAHA!" A harsh, broken laugh burst from his throat. "I'm… I'm alive! I'm still aliv—Ghhk—!"
The last syllable was cut off abruptly, choked in his throat.
His body froze and his face locked in a mix of confusion and dread.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze.
Megumi, still dazed from blood loss, lifted his head just in time to witness the scene.
Haruta was paralyzed, his eyes fixed on his own chest. His arms, his abdomen, his chest… they all felt strange, as if he were looking at a body that didn't belong to him.
Then Megumi saw it.
On Haruta's skin, between the shreds of his torn clothing, countless thin luminous lines of pale blue had appeared.
They crisscrossed, forming a perfect net that covered him from head to toe.
On the edges of those lines a strange, distorted texture appeared.
!
Megumi's eyes widened in horror as he understood.
'It can't be… HIM AGAIN…?!' A freezing cold, far deeper than what he had felt in front of Mahoraga, brutally seized his heart.
"No…" A weak murmur came from Haruta's throat, heavy with terror.
A second later—
!
The sound of faint, simultaneous slashes resonated inside his body.
His pupils dilated sharply and his face froze, trapped in confusion and the fear of death.
And then… before Megumi's eyes, Haruta's body was divided with precision at the nanometric level.
Along those blue lines that covered him…
Slash—!
The head, the torso, and the limbs separated in an instant.
There were no spurts of blood and no screams. Only surfaces as smooth as mirrors, glowing with a faint blue light that seemed to seal each cut.
Thud
The body collapsed, like a child's toy tower.
Hundreds of fragments fell to the ground.
Among the pieces, one of the fragments of the head remained intact, Haruta's face, completely petrified in his final fear, with empty eyes pointing toward the sky.
"..."
Only then did the metallic stench of blood begin to spread through the air.
"Ghhk—"
Megumi brought his hands to his mouth at once, feeling a violent urge to vomit rising in his throat.
He was unable to focus on what he was seeing.
The spark of relief he had felt seconds earlier was instantly shattered in the face of the dismemberment scene.