"Hey, isn't this our mighty King of Curses?"
"So they just tucked their tails between their legs and slunk away like that?"
At the end of the ruined street.
White Zetsu was casually carrying the unconscious Naoya Zenin by the neck in one hand and holding Uraume—whom he had easily picked up for free—by the hair in the other.
Facing Sukuna, White Zetsu slowly approached him with an incredibly arrogant, pigeon-toed gait.
"Hello, Secretary Uro!" White Zetsu yelled.
"Look at the back of our King of Curses. Doesn't he look exactly like a beaten stray dog right now?"
Takako Uro, having been suddenly summoned by name, cautiously glanced at Mirai standing nearby to ensure he wasn't angry. Then, facing Sukuna's back, she waved vigorously at White Zetsu and nodded rapidly in agreement, like a chicken pecking at rice.
As they drew closer, White Zetsu and Sukuna were only a little over a meter apart.
Looking at the taciturn, deathly silent Sukuna, White Zetsu chuckled with an absolutely playful expression.
"What's wrong?"
"Who is so bold as to make our Lord Sukuna look so disheveled and miserable?"
"Why the long face? What terrible thing happened to you down there in the dirt?"
White Zetsu casually tossed the unconscious Uraume into the air like a ragdoll.
His grinning, jagged face was right in front of Sukuna's eyes as he said, mocking him word by word, "Curse. King."
"If all else fails, you can beg me, and I'll gladly help you vent your anger on someone?"
Seeing the fleeting stiffness of absolute humiliation on Sukuna's face, White Zetsu clutched his stomach and burst into uproarious laughter. "HAHAHAHA!!!"
"You're so cute~!"
The harsh, mocking laughter was clearly heard by Yuji, Nobara, and the others, who were observing from over a hundred meters away.
Even they felt a twinge of second-hand embarrassment for Sukuna when faced with the absolute, devastating power of White Zetsu's foul mouth.
Having just personally witnessed some of the horrors that Zenin Mirai was capable of, Sukuna did not act rashly.
Without saying a single word in response to the taunts, Sukuna reached out and caught the unconscious Uraume. He then stomped his foot hard on the ground and rushed straight out of the Tokyo Colony 2 barrier.
Sukuna was well aware that the weak have absolutely no right to refute the strong.
He was filled with absolute murderous intent, but he disdained to argue with a Cursed Spirit like White Zetsu or the brats from Jujutsu High right now.
Verbal battles are pointless; actions speak louder than words. When he returned to his absolute prime, he would naturally seek his brutal revenge for today's humiliation.
...
"Keep up with him!"
Yuta Okkotsu, hidden a hundred meters away, made a judgment in an instant.
The Zenin clan under Mirai was currently not a force they could handle. On the contrary, Sukuna—whose strength was heavily suppressed and not at its peak due to Megumi's resistance—was the best opportunity for them to strike and defeat him.
This was also the absolute perfect opportunity to rescue Megumi Fushiguro!
—BOOM!!!
The group of Jujutsu High students, who were just about to set off in pursuit of Sukuna, paused in their tracks and nearly fell over!
"What's going on?!" Yuji yelled.
It wasn't Mirai or the Zenin clan taking action. It was the physical earth and the very Culling Game barrier around them that were violently shaking!
Ring... ring...
The satellite phone in Atsuya Kusakabe's jacket pocket suddenly rang.
"It's a call from Shoko and the others outside the barrier!" Kusakabe said urgently.
The phone was immediately put on speakerphone after a brief, tense moment of fumbling. If someone from the outside was calling to inform them at this exact moment, it must be something extremely important.
What exactly was happening to the barrier?
"News from all over Japan indicates that the ten Culling Game barriers are physically connecting with each other!"
Shoko Ieiri spoke in a deep, panicked voice about the dramatic changes occurring in the outside world in such a short time!
Realizing that the massive earthquake wasn't caused by Mirai's intervention, Nobara, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, said blankly, "It doesn't really matter whether the barriers merge or not, does it? Since we don't have any clue how to end the Culling Game for the time being anyway."
"No, there is a massive difference!"
Hiromi Higuruma, standing nearby, instantly understood the sheer terror hidden in Shoko's words.
With a deathly serious expression, Higuruma looked at everyone. "Tokyo Colony 1, Tokyo Colony 2, Sakurajima, Sendai..."
"If these ten barriers are connected and merged, they will almost cover the entire geographical map of Japan!"
Still not quite grasping it, Nobara asked, "Is there anything fundamentally different about that?"
As a former lawyer, Higuruma pointed out the terrifying legal loophole incisively. "Don't forget the third general rule of the Culling Game."
(Rule 3: Non-Players automatically transform into Players the instant they enter a Culling Game colony barrier).
"With the massive merged barrier now covering the entire country of Japan, the hundreds of millions of ordinary people in this nation will have absolutely nowhere to escape."
"Every single civilian is about to be forced to become a Player!"
Nobara and Yuji's pupils constricted sharply upon fully realizing what had just happened!
"Kogane indicates newly joined Players in the barrier!" the little Shikigami announced cheerfully.
Ding!!
"12,000... 76,000... 88,000... 440,000... 10,000,000... 10,000,000... 10,000,000!"
The terrifying number of people increasing by hundreds of thousands per second almost caused the Kogane's voice broadcast to crash!
Meanwhile, Yuji and the others found familiar names popping up on their own interface panels.
Player: Shoko Ieiri, Score: 0.
Player: Kirara Hoshi, Score: 0.
Player: Kiyotaka Ijichi, Score: 0.
Not only Tokyo Jujutsu High staff, but also the staff of Kyoto Prefectural Jujutsu High appeared on the list.
Player: Yoshinobu Gakuganji, Score: 0.
Player: Utahime Iori, Score: 0.
These Sorcerers with zero points all shared one thing in common: they were previously left outside the barriers to observe from the outside world. They were Sorcerers who had never officially entered the Culling Game.
Kusakabe's face was filled with absolute terror as he slowly said, "...Japan... is finished."
Having been reminded of the rules by Higuruma just moments before, everyone instantly realized the true, apocalyptic horror of the situation.
After ordinary civilians automatically became Players due to the barrier expanding over them, there were still the lethal restrictions under Rule 4 and Rule 8!
Players gained points by killing other Players. And if their total points remained unchanged for 19 days...
Death! Cursed Technique Removal meant death for ordinary people!
This was literally forcing all the innocent people of the island nation to murder each other just to survive!
The entire country of Japan was about to become a bloody, continental slaughterhouse!
Higuruma added in a deep, hollow voice, "This is a real-life battle royale with hundreds of millions of unwilling participants, using the entire country as the game arena!"
Kusakabe's face turned ashen. "Ordinary humans have absolutely no chance of escaping when facing a Sorcerer or an incarnated Player."
"This is a nationwide massacre."
"Let's go back first. We need to go back to Jujutsu High and have a proper meeting to discuss this."
Upon hearing this logic, Yuta Okkotsu reluctantly sheathed his long katana.
As for Sukuna... he had long since vanished without a trace, leaving them no chance to pursue him in the chaos.
...
"I am utterly sorry! I deserve to die!"
The site of the former, destroyed residence of the Zenin clan, within its two underground storage floors.
Uraume knelt on the cold stone ground, their head bowed as low as physically possible.
Their own injury was a small matter to them, but they were completely powerless to help their master when he was brutally humiliated right in front of them by Mirai.
Uraume clenched their fists tightly, their face contorted in a terrifying expression of shame and rage. This deep humiliation felt like a steel needle repeatedly piercing their heart.
Sukuna didn't seem to care much about it now and casually waved for Uraume to get up.
"It's alright. We'll settle this score with him later."
After removing his clothes, Sukuna slowly stepped into the ritual bath that Uraume had prepared in advance over the last few weeks.
It was filled with a thick, toxic purple liquid, and countless chunks of concentrated, rotting flesh left behind by slaughtered Cursed Spirits.
Sukuna's Bathing Ritual was exactly like Mirai using a similar process to cleanse White Zetsu's clones; it was a demonic, ancient ritual designed to completely suppress and sink the soul of the human vessel into absolute darkness!
"It's time to fully take over this body, but..."
Sukuna glanced indifferently at the dried, mummified corpse that White Zetsu had previously placed beside the bathtub days ago.
Sukuna frowned slightly. "Uraume. A thousand years ago..."
"Perhaps even longer ago than that... was there someone exactly like Zenin Mirai?"
The Zenin clan's underground storeroom already contained residual traces of the Bathing Ritual from Mirai's use, as did the mummified Buddha statue resting before them.
The intricate ritual of the Bath was a highly guarded secret, only mastered by a few wealthy aristocratic families a thousand years ago.
Even the knowledge of the specific poisonous ingredients, the economic sulfur, the rare herbs, the mechanisms, and the Cursed Spirit cores...
All of this led Sukuna to have the exact same doubts as Kenjaku had before his death.
That guy from the Zenin clan... Mirai... is very likely an ancient Sorcerer who survived through the eras by possessing another's body!
Uraume, who was standing respectfully to the side, pondered for a long time.
There was absolutely no reason for Uraume to simply forget a powerhouse who was only slightly weaker than their master at his absolute peak.
In order to find a Bathing Ritual site that was appropriate for Sukuna's status as the King of Curses, Uraume's first thought was to raid the residences of the Big Three Families. After observing the three estates, the mummified corpse hidden beneath the forbidden storehouse of the Zenin clan had also greatly surprised Uraume.
Shaking their head, Uraume replied in a deep voice, "I am sorry, Lord Sukuna. I have no memory of such a man existing in our era either."
"Forget it. Let's finish the ceremony first."
After saying that, Sukuna lowered his body, slowly sinking to the very bottom of the toxic, blood-filled bath.
Deep within Megumi Fushiguro's Innate Domain...
In a dark corner, the last, desperate glimmer of the boy's soul lay hidden in the absolute darkness.
Under the suffocating weight of the Bath, it gradually went out.
.....
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