The urgent report was brought by Special First Grade Sorcerer Naoya Zen'in.
Though it was merely an inference, he pointed out that the enemy's objective might be the 'simple spiritual grounding of terror-stricken regions' through the slaughter of innocent people and the 'massive cursed energy released from the brains of sorcerers at the moment of death.'
Therefore, his opinion—that the lingering residue should be decontaminated as quickly as possible—was met with no particular opposition and was arranged following the principal's approval.
However. By the time the Jujutsu High camp began preparations to exorcise the curses across various regions, the situation had already entered a stage where it was too late.
"Oh, so close! As expected of the Six Eyes, I suppose? But what a shame. At the stage where we blew up the stations nationwide simultaneously, I had one Bitz commit 'suicide via a death binding vow.' At that point, Tokyo and Nagoya were already more or less finished."
While saying such things, the one running around the hideout as joyfully as the White Rabbit, claiming to be "busy, busy," was the nuisance-level apostate—or rather, the curse user—Kenjaku, who had been preparing for this big event for over a thousand years.
Prior to the activation of the ritual, Yorozu and Uraume had recently successfully conceived. The ten vessels for Ryomen Sukuna were successfully integrated into the system of the grand ritual, the 'Culling Game,' and Kenjaku was currently attempting to use 'a certain something' for the final touches.
Floating in the culture medium before his eyes, radiating a loathsome cursed presence, was the corpse of a boy whose body cells were being kept alive despite having lost his brain.
The name engraved on the nameplate of the cultivation pod was Bitz Zero. He was the 'very first one' created during the research stage—a pitiful child who lost his life due to a binding vow that led to death within a year, and whose remains were being used as a 'server for the soul information of the Bitz clones.'
The cursed energy rising from that body was incredibly powerful and pitch-black. The cause was 'the collection of death,' which was the ultimate purpose for which Kenjaku had created the Bitz.
Even ordinary people awaken cursed energy and generate a massive amount of curses due to intense stress at the moment of their end.
If so, what would happen if a soul born as a sorcerer were made to taste countless deaths?
The answer was Bitz Zero, who had completely turned into a cursed object before Kenjaku's eyes. His soul, forced to experience countless deaths, had become violently distorted, housing enough cursed energy to transform his flesh into a cursed object and still have more to spare.
"Seeing that obtaining Tengen was out of reach, I want to praise my past self for raising you this far to be the core of the Culling Game. This seems like it will be more fun than using Tengen anyway! The Golden Age of Jujutsu in the Heian! The Revival of Jujutsu in the Heisei! Pitting them against each other will definitely be fun! I can't let something like this slide! Ahhh, I'm truly looking forward to it. It's a bit of a regret that I can't reunite with Ryomen Sukuna in the flesh, but well, it can't be helped. Because this looks so much more interesting...!"
With those words, Kenjaku opened the lid of Bitz Zero's cultivation medium, leaned over, and 'opened his head.' He placed his own brain, his true form, into the head of Bitz Zero, took over the body, and resurrected the corpse that had been drifting in the abyss of countless deaths.
"Now, let us begin. This delightful, enjoyable slaughter..."
"DOMAIN EXPANSION: CULLING GAME."
Immediately after he chanted those words.
The body of Bitz, which had been leaking cursed energy just by existing, now surged with an incomparable, massive amount of power. It melted into a torrent of cursed energy, and the domain, which had even dissolved Kenjaku's main body, began to 'outflow' boundlessly with Kenjaku's soul as its core.
An abnormally scaled 'unclosed domain' began to cover all of Japan. As if to support this massive domain, pillars of enormous cursed energy erupted toward the heavens from ten locations where death had been deeply etched by terrorism: New Aomori, Morioka, Sendai, Tokyo and Shinagawa, Nagoya, Kyoto, Shin-Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kagoshima-Chuo. The Japanese archipelago was being contaminated by cursed energy of an extraordinary scale.
The Grand Ritual: Culling Game. While the original plans had been significantly altered, the naming—a point of Kenjaku's personal obsession—was successfully inherited. In short, this ritual was a chain-link fence deathmatch hosted by Kenjaku.
'Stuff a bunch of my favorite wrestlers into a giant ring for the dream title match!'
The purpose of this ritual, which harbored an objective that seemed almost pure in a sense, was, quite simply, the Grand Martial Arts Tournament of the jujutsu world.
To determine the strongest in the jujutsu world, 'colonies' were established as special venues at the base of the ten pillars piercing the sky.
Inside each colony, countless sorcerers and cursed spirits with whom Kenjaku had contracted from the past to the present—on the condition of 'participation in the Culling Game'—were packed in. Along with participants from the outside, they would kill each other until only one team remained.
However, as the phrase 'only one team' implies, forming factions is not a problem at all. In extreme terms, if there were someone with enough communication skills to become friends with everyone in the colony, the condition could be achieved.
'If there were a person with a brain that much like a flower garden, I'd certainly like to see them!' This was Kenjaku's honest feeling.
However, even if a colony were to achieve a bloodless surrender, what would be sequentially deployed into the colonies after the culling was complete was...
[TO EVERYONE! WELCOME TO THE CULLING GAME! THE NUMBER OF DAYS REMAINING UNTIL THE FORCED MANIFESTATION OF 'RYOMEN SUKUNA' IN EACH COLONY IS 49! FURTHERMORE, A 7-DAY PREPARATION PERIOD WILL BE ESTABLISHED STARTING NOW! DURING THIS PERIOD, COMBAT BETWEEN PARTICIPANTS IS PROHIBITED, SO PLEASE PREPARE WITH PEACE OF MIND!]
Such a voice echoed beside the curse users, jujutsu sorcerers, and those whose talents had been awakened by the immense cursed energy of the Culling Game throughout the country. Small, 'chibi-fied' versions of Bitz, looking like fairies, gave a sharp salute with comical movements.
Many sorcerers belonging to the High School side reflexively killed those 'fairies,' but the beings simply resurrected with an unbothered look.
They were the mechanisms for disclosing information about this giant technique and were impossible to destroy—as told by the Chibitz themselves after their resurrection.
Through the eyes of these beings, who also served as the sensory organs for Kenjaku—who had incorporated his entire existence, soul and all, into the ritual of the 'Culling Game'—the sorcerers were now being monitored. As they began to move frantically to grasp the situation, the three 'strongest'—Naoya Zen'in, Satoru Gojo, and Suguru Geto—gnashed their teeth at the reality of being one step behind.
Watching even that sight and laughing uproariously within his own innate domain, which had been incorporated into the Culling Game's management system, was none other than Kenjaku himself.
"Now then, things are getting interesting! These seven days are the key to understanding the rules and achieving victory, you know? Come on, do your best, do your best!"
As he muttered this, he devoured popcorn, nachos, and cola created through imagination. Reflected on the virtual screen before his eyes were the strongest individuals, none inferior to the others.
Among them were the figures of Ryomen Sukuna's vessels—the fetuses who had just achieved conception.
"Yes, yes. It seems the cursed energy supply from the Culling Game is proceeding without issue. Sucking up, circulating, and refining the despair and curses of the Japanese citizens. What awaits at the end? Will it be the surviving sorcerers, or will it be Ryomen Sukuna? If Ryomen Sukuna wins, everything ends up inside his stomach. Now then, do your best, modern children. Time is finite, after all."
For Kenjaku, who was cheering for them with a 'no-side' attitude, there was no fear regarding the fact that he himself would vanish along with the technique after this great ritual ended, regardless of who won.
He was the most troublesome curse user in history, his eyes simply sparkling with the joy of peering into the depths of jujutsu.
The greatest and final amusement of his life had now made its grand, flashy debut.
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]