The battle unfolded with effortless ease.
In Satoru Gojo's eyes, the slashes imbued with Ryomen Sukuna's terrifying cursed energy were like the flailing fists of a child.
His body was like a weightless feather, dodging the fatal attacks with a mere light drift backward.
Sukuna's violent cursed energy could not touch him at all, failing to even stir the hem of his clothes.
"Good grief."
Satoru Gojo tilted his head, his tone filled with undisguised disappointment.
"Is this all you've got?"
"The power of a single finger from the Special Grade Cursed Object [Ryomen Sukuna] is truly weak. I can't muster any interest at all."
He even had the leisure to take out a Kikufuku mochi from the bag he was carrying, eating one while tossing another to Megumi Fushiguro nearby.
"Megumi, try today's new flavor. It's edamame cream. Make sure to eat it right away."
This careless attitude was a more effective humiliation than any verbal mockery.
Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses from a thousand years ago, was thoroughly enraged.
"Scum! Insects!"
A low roar tore from his throat as the cursed energy surrounding him began to skyrocket exponentially.
The air throughout Sugisawa Third High School became thick and viscous due to this massive power.
The ground began to crack, and countless pieces of rubble levitated into the air.
However, just as he prepared to unleash a stronger slash capable of completely leveling the area, a sudden change occurred.
The eerie markings on Sukuna's face began to flicker irregularly.
His raised arm, poised to launch an attack, halted bizarrely in mid-air.
"Stop... it!"
A completely different voice, carrying the clear and resolute tone of a young boy, squeezed out of his throat with great difficulty.
It was Yuji Itadori's voice.
In this critical moment, he had miraculously used his own body to suppress the consciousness of the millennium-old King of Curses, forcibly regaining a sliver of control over his physical form.
"Oh?"
Satoru Gojo's relaxed expression was instantly replaced by deep interest.
'What a truly gifted child,' he thought.
'To be able to house Sukuna in a body without cursed energy, and even suppress his consciousness.'
'An existence like this is practically born to contain and eliminate Sukuna.'
He did not take the opportunity to exorcise Sukuna; instead, he clapped his hands at Yuji Itadori with keen interest.
"Not bad, kid. You seem to be able to control it."
"This? It feels like I can control it if I want to," Yuji said as the two eyes on his cheeks opened for a brief moment before closing again.
"Oh? Is that so? How fascinating. However..."
"Could you let him out again so I can personally experience the power of this King of Curses?"
"Don't worry, I'm here."
Although Yuji did not know what Satoru Gojo was thinking, he complied with the request. He closed his eyes, and in the next instant, the two eyes and mouth on his cheeks snapped open.
"Bwahahahaha!"
Ryomen Sukuna's utterly arrogant laughter echoed once more as he completely regained control of the body.
His fury had already climbed to its absolute peak.
But just as he was prepared to make this arrogant white-haired man pay the price at any cost...
Sukuna's movements halted once again.
He snapped his head around, his crimson eyes, brimming with endless malice, locking onto the dilapidated school building in the distance.
Over there.
There seemed to be a powerful figure, a terrifying existence that even he could not completely see through.
That aura did not possess the overwhelming, suffocating pressure of Satoru Gojo.
The person was simply standing there quietly.
Yet, he seemed to continuously draw in the surrounding matter, as if he were the center of the universe. This actually made him, the King of Curses, feel a slight palpitation of fear.
A crazy idea surfaced in Sukuna's mind.
A sinister smirk curled on his twisted face.
'Since I am temporarily no match for Satoru Gojo, the current Six Eyes of the Gojo clan, I might as well drag this interesting person down with me. Who knows, he might even help me hold Gojo off.'
While he was lost in thought, Satoru Gojo's figure flashed in front of him, delivering a seemingly feather-light palm strike.
The power contained within it, however, was enough to easily shatter a small mountain.
Sukuna chose not to take it head-on.
Borrowing the momentum of the strike, his body shot backward like a cannonball, blasting toward the school building where Ian was located.
"Get the hell out here!"
While still in mid-air, Sukuna let out a maniacal laugh.
He casually waved his hand to unleash a slash.
A pitch-black slash, brimming with an aura of evil and chaos, swept outward.
BOOM!
Amidst an ear-piercing crash, the already dilapidated school building was sliced diagonally in half!
The upper half slowly slid off before collapsing with a thunderous roar under the terrified gazes of a group of teachers and students, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
The entire area instantly fell into a dead silence.
Megumi Fushiguro opened his mouth wide, staring blankly at this apocalyptic scene.
The smile on Satoru Gojo's face finally vanished completely at this moment.
The dust slowly settled.
At the severed cross-section of the school building, a bone-chilling sight was revealed to everyone.
A young man stood there quietly.
Beneath his feet was a blood-red landscape formed by a massive pile of severed limbs and gushing blood.
The cuts on the corpses were as smooth as mirrors, clearly the work of the same sharp weapon.
And in the young man's hand, he held a long blade forged from pure, pitch-black resentment.
Warm beads of blood were slowly sliding down the tip of the blade.
Drip, drop.
The soft sound of the blood droplets hitting the ground struck like a heavy hammer against everyone's hearts.
Satoru Gojo's [Six Eyes] clearly captured every detail of the scene, and his experience told him the truth.
The smooth, exquisite cuts on the severed limbs in the classroom were obviously not the work of cursed spirits.
The method of dismemberment, which displayed an intimate understanding of human anatomy, was absolutely the masterpiece of a human.
"Hahahahahaha!"
Seeing this, Sukuna was not angry but delighted.
Laughing maniacally, his figure flashed as he landed in that purgatory of flesh and blood, standing right beside Ian.
He could feel the threat this young man posed to him.
"Kid!"
He extended an invitation to Ian in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Your style really suits my tastes!"
"How about teaming up with me to kill that eyesore of a white-haired guy out there?"
"After that, we can rule this world together!"
Sukuna's face was filled with arrogance and excitement.
However, Ian did not even spare him a glance.
Annoyed by the noise, he dug at his ear before delivering a backhanded slap. It looked exactly like swatting away an irritating fly buzzing around his ear.
Smack!
A crisp, resounding slap echoed through the dead-silent campus.
The King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, had his insufferably arrogant expression instantly freeze on his face.
He didn't even have time to react.
His entire body was sent flying by this seemingly effortless slap.
His body traced a parabola in mid-air as the black markings on his skin receded like the tide.
His fragmented soul was actually forcibly knocked out of Yuji Itadori's body by this unreasonably tyrannical force!
Thud.
Yuji Itadori's unconscious body crashed limply into the distant rubble, completely passed out.
In the distance, Satoru Gojo, who had witnessed the entire sequence of events, felt his pupils suddenly shrink.
The expression on his face was one of unprecedented shock and solemnity, because he saw the soul that Ian had knocked out of the body.
That was the soul of the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna!