Chapter 1: The Ruins of the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons
The stench of blood was so thick it felt like an invisible hand closing around his throat, squeezing tighter and tighter until he could barely breathe.
"Urgh..."
Yami's eyes snapped open, and the violent churn in his stomach nearly made him throw up on the spot.
What greeted him was a scene ripped straight from hell.
This was supposed to be an abandoned construction site, a half built skeleton of steel and concrete left to rot in the darkness. Instead, it had become a slaughterhouse. Exposed rebar jutted from broken pillars like twisted spears, and the ground was strewn with severed limbs and mangled remains.
Blood dripped steadily from the warped floorboards above, each drop hitting the ground with a wet, chilling tap that echoed through the dead silence of the night.
Where was he?
Wasn't he supposed to be working overtime, buried in code?
Yami pressed a hand to his pounding head and forced himself upright, his vision swaying as he staggered forward.
Then he heard it.
Crunch. Crunch.
The sound came from the darkness ahead, damp and grotesque.
It was the sound of bones being chewed.
Yami slowly turned his head, his movements stiff with disbelief.
Under the pale wash of moonlight, he finally saw the source.
It was a grotesque mass of flesh more than three meters tall, its swollen body pieced together from countless twisted human faces. Bone spurs jutted from its bloated frame, sharp and jagged like the remains of something that had forced its way out from inside. In its hands was half a corpse dressed in a security guard's uniform, which it was casually gnawing on as if it were chewing sugarcane.
At the monster's feet, two high school students huddled together in terror.
A young couple, judging by their uniforms and the way they clung to each other. They had probably wandered into the area at the worst possible moment. The boy had already fainted from sheer fear. The girl was still conscious, but only barely. She clamped both hands over her mouth, tears soaking through her collar as her wide, trembling pupils reflected the sight of the monster feeding right in front of her.
All the strength in her body had been drained away by terror.
This was not courage failing in the face of danger.
This was instinct.
The primal despair of prey staring at its natural predator.
"Meat... more... more..."
The monster casually tossed the half eaten corpse aside. Dozens of cloudy eyes rolled at once, locking onto the girl cowering in the corner.
"N No... no..."
The girl's will finally shattered.
"Help! Someone save me!"
The instant that scream rang out, a word exploded in Yami's mind.
Cursed spirit.
At the same time, a cold mechanical voice echoed in his ear.
[Ding! The Strongest Role Playing System has activated.]
[Current World: Jujutsu Kaisen.]
[Initial Template Loading... Yoriichi Tsugikuni, the pinnacle of Demon Slayer.]
[Current Role Playing Progress: 1%.]
[Unlocked Ability: Hinokami Kagura, prototype of Sun Breathing.]
Yoriichi Tsugikuni?
The man who had driven Muzan Kibutsuji into a corner?
Before Yami could even begin to process the information flooding into his mind, the cursed spirit moved first.
"More... fresh... meat..."
The claw that had been reaching for the girl froze in midair. Then the thing's attention shifted completely, its many eyes turning toward Yami with ugly, ravenous hunger.
It had lost interest in the terrified girl.
This new prey smelled different.
Special.
Delicious in a way fear alone could never be.
Boom!
Its massive body exploded forward. A foul gust of wind, thick with the stink of rot and blood, rushed straight at him.
It was absurdly fast.
The girl squeezed her eyes shut in despair.
It was over.
That thin, ordinary looking boy would be ripped apart in an instant.
But just as those enormous claws were about to crush Yami's skull, he moved.
No.
To be more precise, his body moved before his thoughts could catch up.
Faced with an indescribable monster, he felt no panic at all.
Instead, a strange calm settled over him, cold and clear as still water. Along with it came a quiet sorrow, and a faint trace of pity for the abomination before him, this thing that had trampled life so casually.
"Life shouldn't be desecrated like this."
His hand shot down instinctively and seized a rusty iron bar lying near his feet.
Then his breathing changed.
He had not yet mastered Total Concentration Breathing, but his lungs rose and fell in a rhythm that felt ancient, natural, and terrifyingly precise.
In that instant, the world slowed.
The movement of the wind.
The twitching contraction of the cursed spirit's muscles.
The drifting dust suspended in the air.
Everything became painfully clear.
[Hinokami Kagura: Dance]
Yami swung the iron bar.
It was nothing more than a discarded length of rusted metal, bent and rough and unworthy of being called a weapon.
And yet, in his hand, it blazed with the soul of the sun.
A faint but incomparably pure flash of fire cut across the darkness, tracing a perfect arc through the night.
Pfft!
There was no resistance at all.
The cursed spirit's hide, which could have shrugged off bullets without issue, split open like paper before that strike.
One huge, swollen arm was sent flying into the air.
Then came the neck.
The countless distorted faces embedded in its body did not even have time to fully twist into pain before a scorching force swallowed them whole.
"ROAAAAR!!!"
The cursed spirit let out a shrill, agonized scream.
Its regeneration had failed.
The wound burned with a blazing force that smothered its cursed energy, preventing it from healing. Its enormous body crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact, sending dust and gravel billowing into the air.
Silence followed.
The girl in the corner stared blankly, unable to believe what she had just seen.
That monster... had been killed.
And the one who killed it was a boy wielding nothing but an iron bar.
Yami stood there, breathing a little harder now. The rusted bar in his hand had bent from the force of the swing, and faint wisps of heat still curled from its surface.
"Is it over...?"
He looked at the fallen cursed spirit, the tension in his body loosening by a fraction.
Although his role playing progress was only at 1%, Yoriichi Tsugikuni's swordsmanship was simply too overwhelming. Even the barest fragment of that power was enough to cut down the creature before him.
Just as Yami was about to step forward and check on the girl's condition
Whoosh!
A sharp sound suddenly tore through the air from above.
Yami's instincts screamed, and he looked up immediately.
A dark figure descended like a meteor, then landed lightly atop a broken pillar amidst the ruins.
Moonlight poured down and illuminated the newcomer.
A black high school uniform.
A signature black blindfold.
Short silver white hair.
The man stood there with both hands tucked casually into his pockets, a lazy smile curling at the corners of his lips.
He looked relaxed, almost careless.
But the moment he appeared, the atmosphere of the entire ruin changed. The air itself seemed to freeze, as if everything around him had been forced into submission by his presence alone.
There was no need for introductions.
There was only one man in this world who could make an entrance like that.
The strongest sorcerer of the modern era.
Satoru Gojo had arrived.