"Pfft!"
Everyone froze in place as the sound of blood spraying filled the air again and again.
Satoru's figure flashed through the crowd at terrifying speed. Every strike took down several transfigured humans.
"Ha… ha… ha…"
When he finally stopped, still holding two severed heads in his hands, his breathing had already turned heavy.
He could not use high-speed movement with his technique. He could not use the destructive power of the Limitless either. So he relied only on a body reinforced by cursed energy, dodging civilians while slaughtering the transfigured humans as fast as he could.
In a little over two hundred seconds, less than five minutes, the thousands of modified humans that Kenjaku had released underground were completely wiped out.
Even for someone with Satoru's physical ability, this level of killing left him exhausted.
Clap, clap, clap…
"As expected of Satoru Gojo. I only wanted to trouble you and sneak attack. I did not think I would see such a use of your domain."
Kenjaku, who had been hiding like a rat and observing for a long time, finally walked out while applauding.
"You… look a bit familiar…"
Still breathing hard, Satoru threw away the two heads and prepared to take down all three in front of him before the curses woke up.
"Why don't you look up?" Kenjaku spoke calmly, even kindly reminding him.
"What?"
Satoru raised his head.
Floating in the air was a square cursed object with a single eye.
'I heard the Prison Realm is in the enemy's hands. I have no cursed energy so I should not be targeted. You need to be careful.'
He recalled what Mukuro had told him.
But this… was different from the recorded Prison Realm.
The moment their eyes met, Satoru's first instinct was to leave the area. But something unexpected happened. As his Six Eyes locked with that eye, his body could not move, as if he had been forcibly fixed in place.
"Your ancestor Michizane Sugawara became one of Japan's Big Three Vengeful Spirits after his death. And this… is the special grade cursed object formed later from his soul and body together. The Spirit-Sheltering Cage."
* * *
Elsewhere, Kyoto, ten minutes earlier.
"You might not have finished talking. But I am done listening."
Under the flickering streetlights, Mukuro rested the back of his blade on his shoulder and looked up at the curse over two meters tall in front of him. The civilians around them were fleeing.
"But I still have to say—"
Whoosh!
Whether it failed to see the situation or was simply obsessed with introducing itself, the blade had already swung again. Just before it reached the head, the curse suddenly shrank its body by nearly half, and the slash passed over it.
'Much faster reaction than that useless trash…'
Mukuro was slightly surprised. In terms of shape-shifting speed and control, it far surpassed Mahito. In how troublesome it was, it was probably on Jogo's level.
"My name is Dakotsu. I am the dream abandoned by you humans!"
The curse punched the blade from below, yet failed to push Mukuro back even half a step.
Boom!
As the weapon turned with the borrowed force, the curse split its body along the path of the blade and avoided the attack perfectly, then retreated more than ten meters.
"Did you skip your meal?"
That punch had felt strange to Mukuro. With that level of cursed energy and speed, the power was far too low. And it still had not used any technique.
"I was not finished talking."
Dakotsu's voice was calm, yet arrogant. It was not a curse that only wanted to kill. At least for now, it wanted to talk first. It wanted him to understand why it opposed humans and sorcerers.
But to Mukuro, it sounded like it could end him at any time and saw no need to hurry.
"Fourth Path: Hundred-Battle Asura."
He chuckled as the long blade in his hand turned into a trident. The number in his crimson right eye shifted from "1" to "4," and purple energy flowed out.
"Beat me. Then I will listen."
Mukuro raised the trident and pointed it forward.
"Dreams are crying because of human inaction!"
The curse roared. Its right arm turned into a sword and it charged.
This time it did not dodge.
Clang!
The weapons collided. A terrifying force came from the trident, and Dakotsu's eyes widened. An irresistible strength pushed it back. It kept retreating while the blade pressed forward, the ground shattering inch by inch wherever they passed.
"This is human strength?!"
A special grade curse had lost in raw physical power to a human with no cursed energy.
Wings spread from its back and it shot into the air. Cursed energy gathered in its hand, ready to fire downward.
"He is gone…"
When it searched for Mukuro, his figure had vanished.
"Above!"
It could not sense him, but it heard the wind. Its body exploded apart to avoid the strike and reformed on the other side.
"You are finished!"
It raised its hand again in the air, gathering power for a decisive attack.
But in the next instant, Mukuro stepped once and appeared in front of it.
Blood sprayed.
The extended arm separated from its body. Then the curse itself was kicked from the sky and smashed into the ground, creating a crater over ten meters wide as dust rolled into the air.
Sizzle!
After landing, Mukuro walked toward it. The trident dragged along the ground, throwing sparks.
Boom! Boom!
From the dust, Dakotsu's body suddenly expanded. The abyssal mouth could swallow a car whole.
"Getting bigger only makes you slower—"
Mukuro had just started to question it when the next action cut him off.
"I did not want to do this…"
Dakotsu took a deep breath and spat humans out like seeds, one after another, all flying toward him headfirst.
And they were alive.
If they hit the ground at that speed, they would die.
"Blue Sea."
The Naraka Path activated. The earth turned into an ocean, and like a soft bed it caught every human the cursed spirit had launched as a weapon.
"As expected… the power of dreams!"
Dakotsu's eyes changed. It formed a hand sign.
"Domain Expansion: Void of Myriad Dreams!"
Childlike, colorful strokes spread instantly and wrapped around Mukuro, forming a giant sphere.
"I don't know your technique. But the guaranteed-hit effect does not work on me. Kenjaku told you that, right?"
Mukuro watched cautiously and did not attack first. He did not know if it could perform indiscriminate attacks like Sukuna. There was no need to rush.
"I know. That is why I came. My domain has no guaranteed-hit. Or rather, the guaranteed-hit is the domain itself."
The curse answered.
Then, its body dissolved into the domain.
"Hmm?"
In Mukuro's perception, Dakotsu's cursed energy surrounded him from all directions. Not like a domain.
More like… inside its stomach.
From the outside, in just a few seconds, the sphere shrank until it became the curse itself.
Dakotsu fused with the domain, using its fantasy power to alter its body, and with the domain's guaranteed-hit and amplification on itself, it forcibly swallowed the entire space where Mukuro stood into its belly.
"Now!"
At its shout, a massive ball of vines burst from the ground nearby. Hanami's ability had sealed the cursed energy inside.
A bald curse user jumped out and threw the legendary special grade tool toward it.
"Gate: Open!"
**
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