Chapter 239: Sukuna: I'll Win!

As the blinding light faded, Jacob's Ladder left a scorched brand across the ruined earth.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka didn't relax.

He watched in silence as Sukuna looked at Gojo Satoru with open contempt. Mahoraga, who had vanished inside Jacob's Ladder, seemed to have melted into shadow and slipped beneath Sukuna's feet.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka turned it over in his mind.

If Mahoraga's adaptation were instant immunity, Sukuna would have no reason to recall it. He could have left it inside the radiance of Jacob's Ladder until it had fully adapted to the power.

So Mahoraga's adaptation wasn't instantaneous. It needed time to analyze.

Or rather, if the attack was lethal enough to destroy it in a single instant, the adaptation wouldn't have time to take effect at all.

Of course, there was also a very good chance that this Sukuna was deliberately showing them an opening.

Either way, the Sukuna in front of them was the perfect whetstone to test themselves against. With that thought, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka pressed Miyabi Nagumo's [Shadow-Devouring General Mask] onto his own face.

He didn't resist or struggle. Like a single drop of water joining the sea, he sank straight into the Kingdom of Shadows beneath his feet.

At the center of the battlefield, Sukuna's brow twitched upward.

In the gap while he was distracted, probing for the source, Fūka Kiryūin, wings spread wide behind her, had already closed in.

Sukuna had confirmed that the Black Rope would cut off his Dismantle and Cleave when she held him at close range. So he dropped the technique altogether and went straight to throwing punches, feeling the Ki energy in his body mix and convert with his cursed energy.

Where had these bugs crawled out of? They certainly had a lot of tricks.

Sukuna sneered inwardly, then threw himself backward in a burst of speed. His hands flashed through the hand signs for summoning Mahoraga.

"Dream on!" Fūka Kiryūin's eyes went cold. The black serpent lashed out to cut the summoning short!

Mahoraga did not arrive as expected.

Or rather, it was only a feint, bait Sukuna had thrown out.

Faced with the whipping Black Rope, he snatched the other end with a backhand grab and yanked hard, ready to charge in and fight Fūka Kiryūin in pure close combat.

"Got you, woman."

After all, the Black Rope only suppressed techniques.

As the King of Curses from a thousand years ago, he was confident he could tear this woman to pieces with nothing but his cursed-energy-reinforced body, no technique required!

But what happened next surprised Sukuna.

Just before he could put his strength into it, a piercing, bone-deep cold erupted all around him!

The corner of Fūka Kiryūin's mouth curled.

"Checkmate."

With [Demon Essence] driven to full power and a fierce hurricane current behind it, an ice storm instantly formed around Sukuna, a zone that contracted inward!

Razor-sharp ice crystals, like countless miniature blades, sliced easily through Sukuna's skin. The freezing air poured in through the wounds, trying to coagulate his blood solid!

"Tch." Sukuna clicked his tongue and had no choice but to let go of the Black Rope and pull out decisively.

But in that instant, as he retreated, his old momentum spent and the new not yet born—

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, hidden within the Kingdom of Shadows, made his move!

"Zero."

"Got it."

At Ayanokōji's command, dark tentacles, a blend of Parasyte and the Venom symbiote, shot out like chains reaching up from the depths of hell and wrapped tight around Sukuna's limbs and torso!

No extra words were needed. Fūka Kiryūin was already leaping high into the air.

The wings behind her snapped shut and reshaped into a longbow. She nocked the restrained Sukuna as her arrow and gathered every ounce of her power into a single point!

The killing blow—

"[Sky Strider]!"

At the same moment, Kiriyama Ikuha, who was providing support nearby, wasn't idle either.

He fired every micro-missile from his shoulders and drove his Imperial Arms [Purgatory Invocation] at the same time. A sea of fire blanketed the sky and sealed off every escape route Sukuna had.

A dead end. A true dead end.

It looked as though Sukuna couldn't break free of these uncanny tentacles by brute strength alone without using a technique. Yet there was no fear in his eyes, only a madness that grew wilder by the second.

Then so be it…

Sukuna decisively imposed a [Binding] on himself!

The price: from now on, he could summon Mahoraga at most three times per battle, and once he went over, the shadow pathway would be sealed for good. The reward: Mahoraga could be summoned [without hand signs or incantation]!

The collateral: his domain would have no enclosing barrier, leaving opponents an absolute way out. The reward: [a one-handed seal that instantly expands a Malevolent Shrine with a 200-meter radius]!

"Malevolent Shrine—"

His low, hoarse voice rang out in the storm of ice and fire.

But just as Mahoraga's signature eight-spoked dharma wheel appeared above Sukuna's head, and the phantom of the shrine had yet to fully take shape over this land—

"Zzzt!"

A bolt of lightning exploded in front of Sukuna without warning!

By the time Sukuna realized what had happened,

Miyabi Nagumo, wrapped in blue lightning from head to toe, was already driving the [Inverted Spear of Heaven] into his chest.

"You cut me a few times. Here's every one of them back!"

Miyabi Nagumo's gaze was cold.

With the Inverted Spear of Heaven, he cut off the still-forming domain outright.

Meanwhile, high above, the [Sky Strider] Fūka Kiryūin had finished charging bore down on them with world-ending force, straight and true!

As he pulled the Inverted Spear out, Miyabi Nagumo turned his body to lightning once more, letting that earth-shattering strike pass perfectly by his shoulder.

The wind roared. The tip of the arrow of wind was already at Sukuna's heart.

For the first time in a thousand years, Sukuna felt the shiver of "death approaching."

Luckily.

He had laid down two Bindings just before.

The domain had been cut off by the Inverted Spear before it fully started, so his brain hadn't completed the full-range technique projection, sparing him the technique burnout.

More importantly, the Inverted Spear could dispel sustained techniques, but Mahoraga was a shikigami already summoned in physical form, and its existence wasn't affected by the spear's suppression.

"Roooar!"

Right before the wind arrow could pierce Sukuna's heart, the massive Mahoraga manifested behind him.

With a roar, it slapped him clear out of the arrow's locked trajectory!

Mahoraga took the world-ending blow in his place.

"Boom—!!!"

A blinding white light swallowed the battlefield. [Sky Strider] not only punched straight through Mahoraga, its aftershock also blew several skyscrapers behind it into dust that filled the sky.

Sukuna, swatted into the air by Mahoraga, was in no good shape either.

Even without a technique burnout, the backlash of reversed cursed energy was enough to leave him dizzy.

Barring surprises, even if he forced a domain later, the burnout would be dramatically longer.

What's more, the force Mahoraga had used to rip him out of Ayanokōji's tentacles had been brutal, no holding back.

At the moment, the Ten Shadows Technique, Dismantle, Cleave, Furnace, Fuga, and Domain Amplification were all in disarray, and for a short while all he could manage was simple slashes…

But.

For some reason, as Sukuna slowly rose from the rubble, facing this disadvantage, he felt his blood boil.

Perhaps it was the cursed energy in his body, which was steadily assimilating with Ki and growing stronger, giving him an illusion of endless vitality.

Or perhaps it was because he knew full well that he still held his hidden original form, the four-armed, two-faced body, which was effectively his second…

In any case, Sukuna didn't believe he would lose now.

Without a doubt, he would win!

Too bad reality wasn't turn-based.

As for the examinees on the other side of the field—

Even those who hadn't joined the head-on fight during the encirclement would never let Sukuna off the hook now that he was weakened.

The enemy was in bad shape.

What else was there to do but kick the dog while it was down?

Obviously, nothing.

"Thunderfall!"

Yuta Okkotsu, who had long since circled around to the flank, raised the cursed tool [Kamutoke] that Miyabi Nagumo had snatched earlier through a space swap.

And that wasn't all. Amasawa Ichika's earlier reminder had given Yuta Okkotsu another idea.

He pulled out the [Sukuna's Finger] he had borrowed from Gojo Satoru, cursed energy flowing through his fingertips, and without hesitation used the copied [Straw Doll Technique] on it!

"Resonance!"

"Boom!" The lightning struck.

"Thud!" The tremor in his soul followed in the same instant.

Struck by both attacks, Sukuna stiffened and crashed to the ground.

In the Kingdom of Shadows,

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, coolly watching everything through a gap in the shadows, considered for a moment.

He wavered over whether to release the shadow soldiers of the Shadow-Eater Legion now, have them devour Sukuna's shadow, and physically seal his soul.

But the thought lasted only a second before he rejected it.

The Shadow Eaters themselves were fragile. All of their value rested on the first-strike mechanic that devouring a shadow guaranteed a seal.

It was a trump card that only worked as a surprise, the first time.

Against a Sukuna with multiple lives, Ayanokōji preferred to save it for a critical moment.

With that, he went on dissolving himself into the deep darkness, calmly watching from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, on the real battlefield,

unable to use his technique and hit by two attacks that carried powerful debuffs, Sukuna's body fell into a brief stall.

"Die!!!"

Kiriyama Ikuha seized that fleeting opening.

Using Sianweistan, he rushed behind the frozen Sukuna and dropped the overloaded, overheating Imperial Arms [Purgatory Invocation] at Sukuna's feet.

He meant to obliterate the King of Curses with the terrifying power of a self-destructing Imperial Arms, enough to flatten a valley!

As the Imperial Arms gave off a groan of cracking metal and its core energy began to burst out in destructive flame,

Kiriyama Ikuha fled outward in a frenzy, riding the lingering effects of his time dilation.

"Boom—!!!!!"

The violent blast threw up a small mushroom cloud that shot straight into the clouds.

Flames scattered, blinding enough to blot out the sky!

The entire ruined Shinjuku shuddered in the blast.

As the dust far off thinned a little, the heat wave kept warping the air.

Yuta Okkotsu stood at the perimeter and released a bit of his senses to scan the area.

Once he confirmed that he could no longer detect any of Sukuna's cursed energy at the heart of that scorched ground,

he finally let out a long breath, and a relieved smile crossed his face.

Great… it was finally going to be over. As expected of the help Gojo-sensei had brought in.

But just as Yuta Okkotsu was about to turn and crack open the champagne,

Suzune Horikita, who had kept her eyes on the Controller's screen, poured a bucket of ice water on him.

"He's not dead."

"…Not dead?"

Yuta Okkotsu frowned and objected almost reflexively. "How is that possible?"

Even with cursed energy manipulation on the level of Gojo-sensei's Six Eyes,

after his technique had nearly burned out, after taking a solid hit from Kamutoke's thunderfall, after being frozen by a Straw Doll Technique that struck straight at his soul, and finally at the center of a nuclear-grade self-destruct…

In a corner that tight, how could Sukuna possibly hide his cursed energy?!

Unless he really didn't have a trace of cursed energy left?

But that would be even more absurd…

A vague unease rose in Yuta Okkotsu. He hurried over to Horikita Manabu's side and looked down at the radar screen these otherworlders called the "Controller."

He meant to use the marvelous device to check Sukuna's real status.

The scan results had some connection to his earlier guess.

But once he read the text, Yuta Okkotsu couldn't feel happy at all.

Because…

Sukuna hadn't just survived. He had evolved at the brink of death and grown stronger!

On the light screen, the data read:

[Target: Ryomen Sukuna (Eighteen Fingers, Four-Armed Two-Faced Original Form)]

[Value: 182 points (originally 168)]

[Traits: Has completely discarded Megumi's body as a vessel and unleashed the true power of Sukuna's origin from a thousand years ago.]

[His score should have dropped when Mahoraga died. But thanks to the special cultivation technique Gojo Satoru leaked, during that last extreme, pressure-cooker fight at the edge of death, he grasped the resonance between cursed energy and "Ki." He successfully converted the cursed energy in his body into "Ki" energy, closer to the source of life itself. Its quality and his constitution have both improved.]

[Fatal points: Retains the innate technique Shrine (Dismantle, Cleave, Furnace, Fuga) and the Malevolent Shrine domain. Also has the strongest body configuration, four arms and two mouths, with no need to pause for hand signs or chanting. Today's Sukuna has completely broken past the limits of the modern age and matches, or even surpasses, his peak strength from a thousand years ago!]

"The special technique Gojo-sensei brought back…"

Yuta Okkotsu stared at the screen, his voice rough as he trailed off.

Shiraishi Asuka, who had seen the panel too, mused for a moment and asked quietly:

"A qigong technique?"

Yuta Okkotsu nodded heavily.

A wave of helplessness washed over him.

If Gojo-sensei still wouldn't act against a monster of this caliber, then what were they supposed to do about it?!

At the center of the battlefield,

the smoke of the blast was slowly clearing.

Because they had checked the Controller's intel earlier, everyone knew there was no information gap, and everyone understood that Sukuna had a trump card like a "second-phase transformation."

He could use incarnation to remold himself and switch back to his four-armed original form, which amounted to an extra health bar.

So no one was naive enough to think they'd already won. Everyone stayed on high alert around the perimeter, ready to react at a moment's notice.

Among them was Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, inside the Kingdom of Shadows.

After the Imperial Arms explosion died down, he used a trick he had picked up earlier from watching Suzune Horikita work.

With the shadow soldiers hidden in the shade as a medium, he turned them into "surveillance cameras" in the real world and observed from a safe distance.

To Ayanokōji's surprise,

there was no trace of Sukuna in the deep crater that should have been the exact center of the blast.

But Ayanokōji knew perfectly well that Sukuna wasn't dead.

After all, Sukuna was the target of the upperclassmen's Special Exam, including Miyabi Nagumo's group. If he died, the Black Sphere would announce the end of the exam almost immediately.

So here was the question:

Since he wasn't dead, and his condition had been fully restored through incarnation… what was his top priority now?

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's mind raced.

He realized at once that the [Straw Doll Technique] Yuta Okkotsu had just copied could ignore defenses and hurt the soul directly, but it was a technique that required obtaining part of the target's body to be used at long range.

Without a doubt, the only thing Sukuna could care about now…was the [Sukuna's Finger] in Yuta Okkotsu's hand!

And it wasn't just Ayanokōji.

Almost in unison, Miyabi Nagumo and Fūka Kiryūin, both sharp-minded fighters, had the same thought flash through their heads.

Yet apart from Ayanokoji Kiyotaka hiding in the dark, neither of them moved to fall back to Suzune Horikita and the other support members to protect them.

The reason was simple.

Except for Yotsuya Miko, who had the bad luck of drawing a Heroic Spirit card nobody had even heard of, Ryougi Shiki, the rest were no longer lambs waiting for the slaughter.

Ryūji Kanzaki had the [Door-Door Fruit], which could open and close doors at will.

Kouenji Rokusuke had the [Hogyoku] fused into his body, which could break through limits.

Kei Karuizawa and Shiraishi Asuka had completed their [Magical Girl] transformations and had no small power.

Amikura Mako was equipped with a Rider Medusa Heroic Spirit card, giving her astonishing speed. Akane Tachibana carried a golden Forbidden Memory, her combat power a mystery.

On top of that, there were Amasawa Ichika, Suzune Horikita, and Nanase Tsubasa, three spirit girls who had fused with [spirit crystals] and could summon angel weapons at any time.

Even if their command of their spirit crystals still fell short of Fūka Kiryūin, who had been upgraded with points in the Presiding God's Space,

as the saying goes, enough ants can kill an elephant.

With these assets, they were more than enough to give a Sukuna, who had no [Controller] to feed him intel and was used to looking down on the weak with arrogance, a nasty surprise.

The moment Sukuna got careless, or tried to pull the same domain trick again,

Fūka Kiryūin with the [Black Rope] and Miyabi Nagumo with the [Inverted Spear] and the lightning speed of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit could cut off his technique again!

Once he lost the shelter of his technique and domain, Sukuna would become a cornered beast capable only of pure melee, headed for a slow death.

And in fact,

it was just as everyone had guessed.

Sukuna, now blended with "Ki," had not only restored the perfect four-armed, two-faced body from a thousand years ago but also recovered his full peak strength in one stroke.

His gaze had indeed locked onto his own finger in Yuta Okkotsu's hand.

It wasn't that he thought he could still lose to this pack of oddball brats at his current strength.

It was simply because…

one more finger would make his power that much more boundless, and crushing these bugs would be more fun!

If he had to put it that way, this was also a kind of "respect" Sukuna paid his opponents.

In his value system, the greatest respect you could show an opponent was to pour out everything you had to kill them, whether by cowardly ambush or in an honest fight, it made no difference.

As long as you won, the method didn't matter.

But…

this was the first move in his brand-new original form, after he had perfectly converted cursed energy and Ki and, in passing, suppressed Megumi's consciousness into silence.

Sukuna didn't mind giving these mortals, who'd been working so hard for him, a little hint.

And so,

a gale rose, and the smoke and dust blew apart.

Sukuna stood proudly like a demon god on the high ground where Uraume had perished earlier.

Countless invisible slashes formed out of thin air like fine threads of rain and began to carve up the rubble around him.

Sukuna began disclosing his own information:

"Rejoice, bugs!"

"What you face now is a domain equal to the one I had at my peak a thousand years ago!"

"No closed barrier, no need to be confined to a small space. This is an indiscriminate slash covering a full 400-meter radius!"

He spread his arms, and joy glittered in all four of his eyes:

"Run all you like! If you can."

"Amuse me… then die in despair!"

Under the guaranteed-hit rule of the domain, and with his innate technique's natural power boost inside it, Sukuna had also raised the slash intensity further through the Binding of "disclosing technique information."

The blanketing Dismantle and Cleave were far sharper than the casual swings he'd used earlier on the piloted robot Miyabi Nagumo rode.

Almost the instant the domain's shrine took form,

the inescapable storm of slashes sliced nearly half the people within the 400-meter range into fine mince, without mercy.

Blood and severed limbs flew through the air.

They didn't immediately turn into blue light and get declared dead.

That was entirely because Suzune Horikita was on the team, fused with the [Tohka spirit crystal]!

Ignoring her own safety, the girl forcibly summoned [Sandalphon] as a giant shield to block, and at the same time swung [Crazy Diamond] in a flurry of afterimage punches.

She forced their bodies back together and repaired them at the edge of life and death.

The problem was that the rules of Suzune Horikita's Crazy Diamond meant it could not heal the one who used it!

Watching the wounds on Suzune Horikita multiply, her blood staining the ground,

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been hiding in the dark all this time, finally made his decision.

As the holder of the [Mountains and Rivers Map] now,

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka willed it.

He released the dead weight inside the domain, those who'd lost the ability to fight, together with Suzune Horikita, into the Map's pocket dimension.

In an instant, the once-crowded heart of the battlefield emptied.

Within the entire slaughter range of the [Malevolent Shrine], only a few remained:

Gojo Satoru, hanging high in the sky outside the domain's range, watching from the sidelines;

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, hidden in the Kingdom of Shadows;

and… Kouenji Rokusuke, who used the power of the [Hogyoku] to laugh wildly through the slashes while constantly reconstructing his body!

And of course, Yuta Okkotsu.

Since Okkotsu's own defenses weren't enough to withstand this level of guaranteed-hit slashing, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka sensibly bundled him up and sent him away a second before he would have been shredded.

Still, it wasn't all loss.

At the very least, when Okkotsu was sent away, he took the Special Grade cursed tool [Kamutoke] and the vitally important [Sukuna's Finger] off the battlefield with him.

That spared them the embarrassment of handing Sukuna a power-up himself.

Meanwhile, far up in the sky, beyond the limit of Sukuna's domain, Gojo Satoru,

seeing the scene, let out a soft breath.

"Phew… at least these brats were smart enough not to fight it head-on."

Honestly, the reason he'd chosen to hand one of Sukuna's fingers to Yuta Okkotsu for safekeeping in the first place

was that he'd figured Sukuna's 168-point value, pretty pitiful by Black Sphere's evaluation,

seemed a bit underwhelming for these otherworld students, a group that had jointly smashed a 200-point "Darkness Devil."

Gojo Satoru's playful, mischievous streak had flared up. He'd figured that if the students handled it badly and accidentally let Sukuna take the finger back and get stronger, that would teach them a lesson.

Of course, all of that was premised on Sukuna's score staying the same!

If today's Sukuna swallowed that finger and his strength broke past the two-hundred-point line, becoming the kind of final boss that even he, the strongest, might not be able to beat for sure…

then the fun would get real big.

After all, Chris, the one he considered the strongest among this group of Qualified, wasn't here right now.

And Gojo Satoru himself, though he'd learned "Ki," hadn't yet blended it perfectly with his cursed energy the way Sukuna had.

If this went wrong, it wouldn't be testing the students. It would be taking everyone along to see the King of Hell.

"Phew… nice work, kids."

Seeing them dodge the risk perfectly, with none of his students killed by the domain either, Gojo Satoru tucked his hands back into his pockets and went back to watching from the sidelines with a clear conscience.

Fūka Kiryūin, who was also outside the domain's range and had been waiting patiently for an opening, had by now steadied her stance again.

She spread her wings once more and locked onto Sukuna, who stood arrogantly on the shrine of white bones.

"Shoot him down, [Sky Strider]!"

With a sharp cry, the storm-wrapped arrow shot out again like a shooting star.

Sukuna felt that familiar sense of danger lock on from afar once more, and his eyes narrowed.

Considering it could kill Mahoraga outright, even he, proud as he was, had to admit how troublesome it was.

He immediately spread his lower two arms, fire flickering at his fingertips, and used a technique that could trigger a wide-area explosion right inside his domain!

"[Furnace: Fuga]!"

Under cover of the sky-high blaze from the violent blast, Sukuna not only dodged the lethal arrow Fūka Kiryūin had loosed, he also swallowed up Kouenji Rokusuke, who had been tanking the slashes with the Hogyoku inside the domain.

Considering that Miyabi Nagumo probably couldn't withstand the aftershock, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka decided to send him out of the Mountains and Rivers Map.

With that, only the few who had charged in earlier were left on the vast ruined battlefield.

Sukuna, who figured one domain and one Furnace: Fuga had easily swept away most of those annoying bugs, was in an excellent mood.

He flickered and appeared beside Kiriyama Ikuha as if teleporting.

Sukuna put a hand on Kiriyama's shoulder.

There was a crack, and an enhanced Cleave tore into him. Kiriyama Ikuha grunted, and half his body collapsed.

But Sukuna didn't rush to kill him.

Instead he raised his head and looked at Gojo Satoru, high in the sky, the corner of his mouth pulling into a mocking curve:

"You're next, Gojo Satoru."

"Heh heh… how many seconds do you think it'd take me to kill you now?"

Gojo Satoru, hovering in midair, pursed his lips.

He simply held up three fingers and answered in an infuriating tone:

"Let's call it a seventy-thirty split."

"Give me three seconds, and I can kill you seven times."

Hearing that, Sukuna laughed instead of getting angry.

He laughed until his shoulders shook.

At that moment, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been patiently hiding in the depths of the Kingdom of Shadows, finally seized the perfect opening while Sukuna was distracted by his own arrogance.

A few Shadow Eaters lying in wait in the shadows at Sukuna's feet silently opened their mouths wide and bit down hard on Sukuna's shadow.

But.

As the strongest King of Curses in a thousand years,

Sukuna's awareness and control at the soul level was so keen it was ridiculous.

Almost the instant the Shadow Eaters touched his shadow, he sensed something was off.

With a mere lift of his eyelid,

a few invisible fine slashes chopped the little shadow soldiers on the ground that had been trying to sneak a bite of his soul to pieces in an instant!

"Boring tricks."

Meanwhile, Kiriyama Ikuha, most of whose prosthetic body Sukuna had wrecked, knew he couldn't escape and had run out of options.

Since I'm dead either way…

Kiriyama Ikuha took advantage of the fact that his consciousness hadn't completely blurred yet and pulled out the [Rose of the Destitute] he had bought earlier as insurance.

"Go to hell… with me!!!"

Looking at the miniature bomb radiating destructive waves, Sukuna felt the pounding sense of death rush back.

An inexplicable irritation rose in his chest.

These people who'd appeared out of nowhere were more disgusting than flies!

Couldn't they just accept the gift of death like good little boys?!

Quit pulling out these unreasonable, absurd items to disgust people every time you turn around!

A real fight shouldn't be like this!

Shouldn't it be a fierce domain clash, then a technique burnout where both sides slug it out with Reverse Cursed Technique, fist to flesh, and finally one last all-or-nothing counterattack that overdraws their potential to settle it?!

What was this hoodlum style of self-destructing and tossing bombs every other minute supposed to be?!

Though he was furious,

to be safe, before the bomb could go off, Sukuna generously applied dozens of Cleaves to Kiriyama Ikuha and chopped him into eight pieces.

Then he shot backward, trying to flee the blast's center.

Of course, he didn't actually retreat very far.

Because right there, on his line of retreat,

Miyabi Nagumo, who had already become lightning itself, silently appeared before him, the [Inverted Spear of Heaven] in hand!

Having used the [Rose of the Destitute] himself to clear a field and farm points,

Miyabi Nagumo knew the power of this miniature nuke better than anyone.

With a consumable item whose nature is to kill a thousand enemies at the cost of eight hundred of your own, a detonation at this range would, even if it couldn't kill Sukuna on the spot, seriously wound him for certain!

What's more, in his elementalized state, he would suffer far less from physical-level explosions and shockwaves than Sukuna with his flesh-and-blood body!

On top of that, Suzune Horikita was standing by outside, ready to provide restorative healing.

Miyabi Nagumo had no reason at all to back down!

"You're staying here!"

Miyabi Nagumo roared, thrusting the Inverted Spear of Heaven at Sukuna's face.

Facing this man whose whole body had turned to lightning and who was as hard to kill as a cockroach,

Sukuna lost his patience entirely.

He decisively imposed a new [Binding]:

The price: from now on, before every domain or technique, he must complete the hand signs in full, chant every incantation word, and clearly lock the direction of the cast, greatly lengthening the wind-up. A heavy cost.

In exchange for this very moment!

"Malevolent Shrine!"

A giant, super-powered version of the domain, activated at zero frames, erupted with him at its center.

It gave Miyabi Nagumo no chance to stab the Inverted Spear of Heaven into his body and cut off the technique.

Since you can turn into an element and be immune to physical attacks…

then he would cut the space around you, and the natural elements making up your body, all to pieces, and annihilate them together!

Fūka Kiryūin, who felt that ubiquitous, invisible slashing intent that seemed able to carve up the world fill the air once more,

knew she'd missed the best chance for a surprise attack. She could only sigh helplessly and dash backward, pulling out fast.

But even in retreat she didn't give up.

Once again she drew her bow and set an arrow, preparing to make a last stand with [Sky Strider].

And this time she'd learned from the last one.

She coated the arrow with the freezing power of [Demon Essence], determined to leave Sukuna no possible way to dodge!

And with the situation having reached the decisive moment,

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been hiding behind the scenes, finally decided to step in personally.

He took Aatrox's greatsword out of the Black Sphere Watch!

The instant he gripped the hilt, the Darkin curse flared. A tide of savage will flooded into his mind, trying to turn the tables and seize control of his body.

On the way, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had already left the Kingdom of Shadows and arrived at Sukuna's side.

With no defense at all, he met the countless slashes blanketing the domain head-on!

"Splat! Splat! Splat!"

Dense slashes rained down across Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's whole body, instantly opening countless bloody lines.

He seemed to feel no pain, and his steps didn't falter for a moment.

Perhaps because Sukuna's death-by-a-thousand-cuts style of attack had infuriated it,

Aatrox, who had been fighting Ayanokōji for control of his body, stopped the infighting too.

He roared in fury and even cooperated actively with Ayanokōji, fully unleashing the Darkin's true form!

"Damn sneak attacker!"

"You've enraged the Darkin!"

"Killing you a thousand times wouldn't be enough!"

With Aatrox's bellow,

a huge sword-demon form, tattered wings sprouting from its back and a blood-drenched greatsword in its hands, loomed into being at the center of the battlefield.

Borrowing that power, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka perfectly fused [Infernal Chains] with the Venom Parasyte in his right arm and, tanking the skyful of slashes, bound Sukuna, who was still casting his domain, in place!

Another death-bestowing sword wave cut through!

"Miyabi Nagumo, Kiryūin!"

Ayanokōji called out:

"Now… there won't be a second chance!"

Hearing the shout,

Fūka Kiryūin released her taut bowstring.

The wind arrow, imbued with absolute cold, shot out like a meteor chasing the moon!

And Miyabi Nagumo, gritting his teeth against the pain of his elementalized body being sliced apart again and again, pulled the [Momonga Orb] from his coat.

In an instant!

The freezing storm, the blazing nuclear explosion, and a dazzling light capable of annihilating everything overlapped and erupted at the same coordinate!

The whole battlefield was swallowed by the glow, a blinding daylight that stretched across the sky.

No one could see what was happening at the center of the blast.

No one knew whether this strike, which gathered every trump card they had, had finally wiped out the King of Curses from a thousand years ago.

But…

"Ding—"

The crisp chime unique to the Black Sphere system, signaling that the exam had been cleared, rang out in the sky.

Every survivor, and Gojo Satoru floating in midair, let out a long breath in unison.

They won. It was really over.

Meanwhile, inside that same independent space called the [Mountains and Rivers Map],

Morishita Ai was trembling in some unnamed corner far from the battlefield's center.

At this very moment she was clamping her hands tight over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, her body curled into a ball.

"I can't hear anything I can't hear anything I can't hear anything…"

She muttered it like a spell.

She'd gone full ostrich, convinced that if she couldn't hear what was going on outside, no one could possibly find her.

Chris, watching this slightly ridiculous scene through his god's-eye view,

couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching.

Then he laughed out loud.

Interesting.

____