On the tatami mat, the air still held a lingering warmth and a faint, sweet scent.
Chen Tian carefully moved Kitagawa, who was exhausted, glistening with sweat, and feigning sleep with her eyes closed, from his body and gently placed her on the thin futon beside them.
As soon as she left his warm embrace, Kitagawa groggily opened her eyes.
Her wine-red hair clung to her sweat-damp neck, and her large eyes, adorned with red contact lenses, were misty with lingering passion.
She lazily stretched out her arm and wrapped it around Chen Tian's neck again, pulling him closer.
Leaning into his ear, her warm breath carried a succubus-like allure, her voice soft and seductive: "Are...we...going for another round?"
Chen Tian lowered his head and pressed a soft kiss on her slightly pouted lips, which were still glistening.
"No," his voice was deep, hoarse from their intimacy, but clear, "I'm going to Shibuya."
"Eh?" Kitagawa paused, then followed his gaze to the simple clock hanging on the wall.
The hands clearly pointed to: 22:10.
The haziness in her eyes instantly dissipated, as she remembered the shock of the alley and the portal, the abnormality in the Shibuya sky, and the mission of her "superhero" boyfriend.
Chen Tian took her wrist, gently removing her slender arms from his neck.
He got up with practiced ease; their clothes were scattered beside the tatami mat.
He bent down, picked up his dark jeans and a plain black hooded T-shirt, and quickly put them on.
The simple clothes instantly concealed his lean, powerful physique, transforming him from an intimate lover back into the young man with a hint of wildness in his demeanor.
Kitagawa propped herself up and sat on the tatami mat, the thin futon slipping to her waist, leaving a large expanse of her fair skin exposed in the warm indoor light.
She watched Chen Tian dress, then saw him walk towards the empty wall in the living room.
As his thoughts shifted, the air silently ripped apart!
A quiet blue cross-shaped crack appeared out of nowhere, with familiar electrical arcs dancing at its edges, and a deep, starry vortex within—the portal to Shibuya had reopened.
"Tian-kun!" Kitagawa's voice rang out, tinged with a hint of nervousness, but more so with pure excitement and trust.
She clenched her small fists and waved them vigorously at Chen Tian's back, "Go! Beat those bad guys!"
Chen Tian paused slightly, then turned his head. The living room light illuminated half of his profile, white wisps of hair falling across his forehead, a warm smile gracing his lips.
"Mm," he replied, his voice clear, "Wait for me to come back."
As his words fell, he no longer hesitated, stepping directly into the star-flecked cross-shaped rift.
His figure was instantly swallowed by the starlight.
Buzz...
After a faint vibration in the air, the rift smoothed out as if erased, the quiet blue electrical glow vanishing in an instant, and the living room wall returned to its original state, as if nothing had ever happened.
Only a faint smell of ozone, lingering in the air after the spatial tear, bore witness to everything that had just transpired.
On the tatami mat, Kitagawa Marin sat alone.
The blush on her face hadn't faded, and the lingering fatigue in her body left her limbs still feeling a bit weak, but her large eyes, adorned with red contact lenses, shone with astonishing brightness, burning with a strange fire mixed with excitement, pride, and a hint of secret worry.
She looked down at her body, her charms fully exposed, but she didn't care.
"Hah!" She suddenly cheered, as if to pump herself up.
Then, she sprang up from the tatami mat with full vigor, pattering barefoot "thump-thump-thump" towards the kitchen, completely unconcerned with how "exposed" she was.
Her target was clear: the refrigerator!
She yanked open the refrigerator door, which was packed with groceries bought over the weekend. A blast of cold air hit her, making her shiver slightly, but her excitement remained undiminished.
"Tian-kun will definitely be hungry when he comes back from battle!" She muttered to herself, her small fists clenched, a hopeful smile on her face as she looked at the overflowing groceries in the refrigerator.
"What should I make? Ramen? Curry? Or pan-fried dumplings?" She tilted her head, her wine-red hair swaying with the movement, her little devil horns on her head gently rocking along, as she seriously began to choose.
Shibuya Center, the once-bustling Halloween celebration site, had become a purgatory.
Piercing alarms mixed with cries and screams, and the roar of collapsing buildings was constant. The air was thick with the smell of char, blood, and a heavy, suffocating aura of Cursed Spirits.
In the center of this chaos, on a relatively open patch of scorched earth.
On the ground was a massive, rapidly carbonizing, smoking pile of flesh, vaguely retaining the distorted, octopus-like outline of tentacles—that was the Special Grade Cursed Spirit, "Curse Spirit, Dagon," who had just been dealt with.
A figure squatted beside the pile of flesh.
He was powerfully built, his head resembling a miniature, active volcano, and his face—in place of his eyes—was a single, giant, cold, inhuman eye, staring dispassionately at the remains of his companion on the ground.
Jogo.
He reached out and grabbed a handful of Curse Spirit, Dagon’s rapidly carbonizing flesh. The warm chunks of meat quickly lost their color in his palm, turning charred and brittle, finally crumbling into dust that sifted through his fingers.
"So, Curse Spirit, Dagon is dead." His voice was like two rough rocks grinding together, cold and devoid of emotion, as if merely stating an irrelevant fact.
He stood up, casually flicking away the charred residue in his palm, the ashes scattering in the cursed wind.
"Our souls," that giant single eye turned to the three figures standing silently nearby, his words resolute, "don't need to rely on humans to reincarnate."
"A hundred years later, in the wilderness, we shall meet again."
As his words fell, that giant single eye suddenly turned sideways!
His cold gaze, like a tangible sharp knife, instantly locked onto the golden-haired middle-aged man among the three—Kento Nanami!
Killing intent!
A furious, scorching, terrifying killing intent, as if capable of burning souls to ashes, erupted without warning! Centered on Jogo, the scorched earth beneath his feet instantly cracked and melted!
No warning, no afterimage!
Kento Nanami's pupils constricted sharply; his Cursed Technique hadn't fully deployed, yet in his vision, that palm was already pressed against his abdomen!
"First one."
The cold declaration was like the whisper of the Grim Reaper.
Boom—!!!
Explosion! Like a volcano suppressed for ten thousand years erupting instantly within his abdominal cavity!
An indescribable, terrifying heat and shockwave poured forth from that palm!
Kento Nanami, along with the space he occupied, was instantly and completely consumed by a torrent of furious crimson flames!
Those flames were a molten lava current condensed to the extreme!
The golden-haired figure couldn't even let out a scream before being evaporated into nothingness, leaving behind only a terrifying, bottomless crater with molten lava flowing at its edges!
"Nana—!!!"
The woman beside him—Zen'in Maki—only managed to utter one syllable!
Jogo's figure vanished from the spot as if teleporting!
0.1 seconds!
He had appeared beside Maki. That rocky palm, which had just ignited Kento Nanami, casually, as if dusting off, lightly tapped her shoulder.
Buzz!
A miniature, extremely compressed molten fireball instantly formed and detonated at the point of contact!
Boom!!!
More intense than before! More explosive! A pillar of crimson fire shot into the sky, engulfing Maki along with the ground beneath her! The flames formed a violent molten tornado! The woman's figure twisted, carbonized, and disappeared within the crimson inferno!
The last one was the white-haired old man who had lost his right arm—Zen'in Naobito!
Experience made him react immediately! The moment Jogo locked onto Nanami, his withered body shot towards Jogo with incredible speed, attempting to get behind him!
However, the instant his feet touched the ground, his pupils sharply constricted to pinpricks!
Behind him, on both sides, two small volcanoes had silently and inexplicably risen from the ground! Their craters faced him, with viscous, destructive lava churning within!
"Hoh!" Naobito only managed a short, startled cry.
The next moment!
Two torrents of lava, like enraged crimson dragons, erupted violently from the two volcanoes! They precisely and completely converged on his position, leaving no blind spots!
Rumble—!!!
Terrifying heat waves and shockwaves swept out! Naobito's figure was instantly completely submerged and consumed by the crimson-gold lava torrent! Not even a trace of resistance remained!
Lava raged, and the scorched earth melted into bubbling, scalding pulp.
Jogo stood in place, not even glancing at the three destruction sites where lava boiled.
His giant single eye remained as cold as ever, as if he had merely crushed three annoying insects.
His icy voice rang out clearly amidst the crackling of burning flames and the distant clamor of disaster:
"Third one."
The scorched earth at the edges of the lava pits still sizzled, and the air was thick with the pungent smell of high-temperature burning and the heavy residue of Cursed Spirits.
Jogo's giant single eye coldly swept over the three lava-ravaged areas, confirming the complete annihilation of the 'ants'.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A wave of malevolent, suffocatingly heavy Cursed Energy suddenly spread like a tsunami!
Jogo's giant single eye suddenly widened! A hint of what could be called "dread" flashed deep within his pupil!
"Sukuna's finger aura..." His rock-grinding voice carried an incredulous pause.
Without any hesitation, his powerfully built body instantly transformed into an afterimage, shooting towards the source of that terrifying aura! Only distorted, high-temperature air and three deep lava pits remained in his wake.
Jogo's figure had just disappeared around the corner.
Rip—!
Right next to where Zen'in Naobito had just been swallowed by lava, the air was torn apart without warning!
A quiet blue rift appeared out of nowhere, with familiar blue electrical arcs dancing at its edges, and a deep, starry vortex swirling within.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Three figures were roughly flung out, landing heavily on the scorching, but no longer flowing with lava, scorched earth.
It was Kento Nanami, Zen'in Maki, and Zen'in Naobito!
The three of them lay sprawled on the ground, their faces still bearing the shock and bewilderment of the moment before death.
They stared blankly at their hands and feet—aside from the injuries and fatigue from their earlier battle with Curse Spirit, Dagon, there was no sign of the expected carbonization or evaporation! Let alone fatal injuries, there wasn't even a trace of a burn!
What was going on?!
Clack.
A foot, wearing classic red and black AJ1 sneakers, stepped steadily out of the quiet blue rift and onto the charred ground.
Then, Chen Tian's figure emerged from the split starry sky.
He wore a simple black hooded T-shirt and dark jeans, his white wisps of hair gently fluttering in the hot, cursed wind.
His face was expressionless, as cold as Shibuya's icy steel jungle at night. He casually glanced at the three still-stunned figures on the ground.
"Are you alright?" His voice was calm, even carrying a hint of detached coolness.
Kento Nanami was the first to react, suppressing the churning horror and wariness of the unknown, he abruptly propped himself up, his gaze sharp, locking onto Chen Tian: "Who are you, sir?"
Before Chen Tian could answer, Zen'in Maki beside him let out a short gasp, pointing at Chen Tian and blurting out: "Nanami-senpai! Don't you know him?! He's that super popular celebrity recently! Nero!"
Her face was full of shock, but the shock in her eyes was quickly replaced by an excitement of "seeing a top idol" and a sense of unbelievable absurdity.
The person who had emerged from a spatial rift and saved their lives was clearly the new generation idol, Nero, who was famous across Japan, seen on TV and GG ads!
Kento Nanami and Zen'in Naobito, who was struggling to sit up, both froze simultaneously: "A celebrity?"
The two exchanged glances, seeing the bewilderment in each other's eyes and the cracks in their worldviews.
A celebrity?
Someone who could silently and instantly rescue all three of them from the certain death at the center of a lava eruption, from a Special Grade Cursed Spirit of Jogo's caliber?
Are the standards for becoming a celebrity this ridiculous now?!
Chen Tian ignored their complex gazes.
He turned his head slightly, his gaze directed towards the depths of the distant ruins—that was the source of the terrifying Cursed Energy explosion just now, and the direction Jogo was rushing towards.
The distorted fluctuations lingering in the air and the mountain-like malicious Cursed Energy made a hint of excited curvature appear at the corner of his lips.
"Heh... has it begun?"