Deep beneath Shibuya.
Twisted, extended abandoned tracks resembled the intestines of a giant beast, and damp mold spread on the concrete pillars.
The air was murky, mixed with rust, dust, and a faint scent of blood.
Plink.
A drop of viscous liquid seeped from a cracked pipe, hitting the ground in the dead silence with a hollow sound.
“Oh dear…” A light, somewhat bored voice broke the silence.
Mahito sat cross-legged on the cold, dirty edge of the tracks, propping his cheek with one hand, while the other casually toyed with a twisted piece of concrete debris.
The expression on his stitched face was less of sadness and more like someone inventorying a wrongly purchased toy.
“Curse Spirit, Dagon is gone, Hanami is gone, and Jogo…” He tilted his head, the stitches pulling into a half-smile, “Oh, he seems to be still alive? But he was captured by those Jujutsu Sorcerers.”
He pouted, and the debris in his fingers was easily crushed into finer dust, “He probably won’t live much longer.”
He suddenly stopped, turned his head, and his heterochromatic eyes looked at the figure standing silently in the shadows beside him.
“By the way, who exactly is that white-haired man, Kenjaku?”
In the shadows, Kenjaku, clad in an old monk’s robe with a half-draped robe, slowly opened his eyes.
The calm, knowing smile that usually graced his face was gone, replaced by a deep solemnity, like an unmelting inkblot.
His narrow eyes squinted, his gaze piercing the darkness, seemingly trying to discern a presence that was not there.
“Nero…” Kenjaku’s voice was low, tinged with an unprecedented doubt and confusion, “The hottest top star in Japan in the past two years….”
He slowly raised a hand, his fingertips unconsciously fiddling with the dangling corner of his monk’s robe, a subtle movement that betrayed his inner turmoil.
“A complete ‘normal person.’ In all intelligence, there is no record of him having even the slightest connection to Cursed Energy or Cursed Techniques.” His voice paused, a cold sense of absurdity flowing through his words, “He’s just a… singing star.”
Mahito’s eyes widened dramatically, the stitches at the corners of his mouth almost tearing: “Huh?! A normal person?!” He seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world, his body trembling slightly from suppressed laughter, “Normal enough to cleave open Sukuna’s Malevolent Shrine with one slice? Normal enough to forcibly cleave the King of Curses back into Itadori’s body?”
He suddenly leaned closer to Kenjaku, his heterochromatic pupils gleaming with an eerie light in the dimness: “Hey, hey, hey, Kenjaku, that’s not funny at all! That was Sukuna with fifteen fingers! Domain Expansion! Smashed by a ‘normal person’… with brute force?! Huh?!”
Mahito spread his hands exaggeratedly, leaning back, his tone filled with absurd mockery.
Kenjaku was unaffected by his performance.
He remained silent, his eyes filled with a surging, unprecedented fog.
Thousands of years of accumulated experience and planning seemed to be on the verge of collapse in the face of this sudden variable.
Nero… that face, perfect as a masterpiece of God, that figure shining on stage, and the pale blue sword mark that cut through everything above Shibuya, tore and reassembled wildly in his mind.
“His power…” Kenjaku’s voice was low and slow, as if he was chewing on an incomprehensible concept, “It’s neither Cursed Energy nor Reverse Cursed Technique. It’s a kind of… purer, more absolute will. Transcending space.”
He slightly turned his head, his gaze seemingly piercing through layers of concrete obstruction, seeing the terrifying sight of the ground above, forcibly flattened into a smooth plain.
“Sukuna’s domain was denied by him. All rules, all slashes, were completely shattered before that sword light. That plain…” Kenjaku’s tone rarely carried a hint of imperceptible dread and… bewilderment, “Is the iron proof of his power’s existence, and the shameful mark of Sukuna’s domain being completely denied.”
“Denying Sukuna’s domain…” The playful look on Mahito’s face finally faded, replaced by a twisted expression mixed with shock and pathological excitement.
He licked his lips, as if savoring an extreme taste of danger, “This is truly… amazing! So twisted! So interesting!!!”
He suddenly stood up, his eyes gleaming with a pure, reckless madness: “Such a soul! Such an existence! If I could touch his soul… if I could twist and transform it…”
“Mahito.” Kenjaku’s cold voice interrupted his almost delirious fantasy, the voice like a poisoned ice pick, instantly piercing Mahito’s fervent delusion.
Mahito’s movements suddenly froze.
“Don’t do anything foolish.” Kenjaku slowly turned his head, and deep within his narrowed eyes, an undisguised cold warning flowed out, like stagnant water welling up from a millennium-old cold pond, “He is the biggest ‘variable’ outside of the plan. An existence with the concept of absolute severance.”
Kenjaku’s gaze locked onto Mahito, every word heavy as a thousand pounds: “Before your ‘Idle Transfiguration’ touches him, your soul, along with the very space of your existence, will be completely ‘cut’ away. There will be no possibility of adaptation.”
“…” The excitement on Mahito’s face instantly froze.
He looked at the unprecedented solemnity and warning in Kenjaku’s eyes, and for the first time, he truly felt a chill from the depths of his soul.
That white-haired man… was he a true monster, even troublesome for Kenjaku?
“Then… what do we do now?” Mahito asked subconsciously, a hint of trepidation in his voice that he himself didn’t notice.
Kenjaku was silent for a few seconds, his gaze once again cast into the bottomless dark tunnel, as if a new way out was hidden there.
“The variable has formed, the situation is chaotic.” His voice regained a certain cold calm, yet with an undeniable sharpness, “The established trajectory needs correction. We need…”
Before he could finish.
Buzz—
An extremely faint spatial ripple, like a dragonfly touching water, silently spread at the entrance of this underground space.
Fast!
Faster than the limits of perception!
Mahito’s heterochromatic pupils instantly contracted to pinpricks!
An extreme chill, primal and etched into his soul, like prey being locked onto by a top predator, instantly swept through his entire body!
He didn’t even have time to think!
His body’s instinctual reaction surpassed everything!
Crack! Splat!
The sound of bones twisting and flesh tearing and reforming erupted instantly!
Mahito’s entire body, like clay vigorously kneaded by an invisible giant hand, suddenly folded backward at an angle completely defying human physiology!
At the same time, his legs below the waist instantly swelled and deformed, transforming into two huge, twisted, translucent fleshy wings!
Almost at the very same instant—
Whoosh!
A pale blue, extremely thin and sharp mark, like the silent smile of death, appeared out of nowhere at the spot where Mahito’s head had been a second ago!
That sword mark spanned the air, neatly cutting even the dim light!
The edges were smooth as a mirror, with a lingering cutting will so cold it could freeze the soul!
The sword mark flashed and was gone, as if it had never appeared.
“Hoh… Hoh hoh…” Mahito’s twisted, deformed body, like a giant grotesque insect, trembled violently, large beads of cold sweat mixed with physiological tears instantly covering his stitched face.
That momentary brush with death left his remaining half-human face contorted with uncontrollable spasms of terror.
Just a little more…
Just a tiny bit more!
His head, along with the core of his soul, would have been silently cut into pieces, just like that trash Haruta Shigemo!
He stiffly rotated the only eyeball he could still move, looking at where Kenjaku had stood a moment ago.
Empty.
Only an extremely faint, almost invisible spatial distortion mark on the ground, like the last ripple spreading on water, was slowly settling.
Kenjaku… ran away?
The moment that monster appeared, he abandoned him without hesitation and fled alone?!
A ridiculous sense of humiliation from being completely used and discarded suddenly surged into Mahito’s brain, instantly overpowering his fear!
“Kenjaku—!!!” Mahito used all his strength, squeezing out a rage-filled, distorted roar from his twisted throat, full of venom and disbelief! Was he used as a decoy to draw fire?!
“Found you, Mahito.”
A voice so flat it lacked any emotional fluctuation, like a cold hammer of judgment, shattered the dead silence of the darkness and tolled Mahito’s death knell.
Mahito’s giant insect-like body suddenly froze, as if under a petrification spell.
He turned his head extremely stiffly, little by little.
At the tunnel entrance, a silhouette barely outlined by the faint red glow of a distant emergency light.
White hair like snow, emitting a faint, cold halo in the absolute darkness.
Chen Tian stood there silently, his right hand casually resting on the hilt of the ancient-looking long sword at his waist.
His deep-sea-like eyes were calm and unmoving, looking at Mahito as if at a piece of… inferior trash waiting to be disposed of in a laboratory.
“No, no! You can’t kill me!!!”
Mahito’s twisted, deformed body, like a giant insect, convulsed wildly, his stitched half-human face completely contorted by extreme fear!
He had never felt such cold, such pure malice—it wasn’t the gloom of a curse, but something higher, a denial from the very plane of existence!
His soul’s core, that chaos formed by humanity’s pure malice towards humanity, was now trembling and contracting wildly, like a flame thrown into absolute zero!
“A curse that twists souls…” Chen Tian looked at him, his eyes without the slightest ripple, “…is the most unrecyclable waste.”
The moment his words fell!
Buzz!
Chen Tian’s hand, resting on the hilt of the Yamato at his waist, moved!
There was no earth-shattering sword draw, no explosive surge of Cursed Energy held in reserve, not even any superfluous movements!
Just an extremely casual flip of the wrist!
Clang!
The Yamato was unsheathed!
The blade, in the extremely faint light of the emergency lamp deep in the tunnel, drew a cold, almost imperceptible pale blue arc! The blade cut through the air, leaving behind instantly closing spatial folds!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Chen Tian’s wrist was so fast it was just a blur! He casually, as if brushing away dust, made a few understated strokes with the Yamato in the empty space before him!
No trajectory! No warning!
Mahito’s movements, frantically twisting in fear and attempting to reactivate “Idle Transfiguration” to reshape his body, suddenly froze!
His massive, insect-like body, made of countless twisted flesh, along with the boiling core of malice deep within his soul, was instantly captured by an invisible, absolute cutting will!
Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff—!!!
A maddeningly dense sound of cutting exploded simultaneously across every inch of his body, every corner of his soul!
That wasn’t a physical slash!
That was space itself rejecting his existence!
It was the very foundation of his existence being coldly, precisely, like pruning dead branches—cut and stripped away!
Mahito’s consciousness plunged into absolute nothingness and blankness in that instant. He felt no “pain,” which is an experience of life.
What he felt was “existence” itself being “deleted” piece by piece, strand by strand.
His heterochromatic eyes, almost bursting from extreme fear, completely lost focus, leaving only blankness and solidified despair.
All the stitches on his face lost tension, sagging loosely, like a broken rag doll discarded after being played with.
Chen Tian didn’t even give him a final glance.
Rip!
The Yamato casually cut diagonally downwards through the air beside him, then reversed and swept diagonally upwards! A pale blue cross-shaped spatial rift instantly opened, its edges flowing with stardust-like light, leading to the clear, cold night sky outside the tunnel.
Chen Tian stepped forward, walking towards that portal.
Just as half of his body was about to disappear into the cross-shaped light.
His footsteps stopped.
He didn’t turn back.
He just slightly turned his face.
His cold gaze seemed to pierce through thick concrete, through countless ruins and the structures of the underground space, precisely pinning itself on a presence lurking deep in the darkness like a maggot on bone.
“Kenjaku.”
Chen Tian’s voice echoed clearly in the underground tunnel, not loud, yet carrying a chill that froze space, every word like an ice pick chipping at the depths of the soul.
“Don’t disturb me.”
The light of the portal illuminated half of his perfect profile, and the words he uttered carried an indifference that disregarded everything.
“I’m not interested in your tricks.”
“Including your… Culling Game.”
Chen Tian’s tone was flat.
“I will not stop Sukuna from regaining his full power.”
The corner of his mouth seemed to twitch upwards ever so slightly; it was definitely not a smile, but something deeper, a… mockery, of looking down on ants struggling.
“But—”
His tone suddenly shifted!
An invisible, terrifying will capable of shattering stars suddenly descended! The air in the entire underground space instantly solidified! Even the water droplets seeping from distant pipes hung suspended in mid-air!
“If you disturb me…”
“Or the people around me…”
Chen Tian’s figure completely merged into the pale blue cross-shaped light, leaving only one last bone-chilling sentence, like an invisible Sword of Damocles, crashing down into the depths of Kenjaku’s consciousness!
“I will cut you down.”
The cross-shaped spatial rift instantly contracted and vanished. Along with the white-haired figure, as if it had never appeared.
Leaving only Mahito’s massive, motionless insect-like body deep in the tunnel.
Crack… crack, crack…
Countless tiny, pale blue cracks, like crazily growing ice-patterned porcelain, instantly covered every corner of its body!
The next second.
Crash—!!!
Like a sandcastle being toppled.
Mahito’s body, a Special Grade Cursed Spirit condensed from human malice, along with his twisted soul core, silently disintegrated into billions of faintly blue glowing dust particles, silently annihilating in the dead silence of the underground tunnel.
Leaving no trace.