Shattering the Barrier

"Jogo! That green-eyed bastard is shameless, yet he made sure everyone heard him clearly, his words chilling to the bone. 'Didn't I tell you—'"

He paused. Each word landed in Jogo's mind like a heavy hammer.

"Don't mess with me?"

Jogo's pupils shrank. His legs nearly gave way, and his heart clenched in Chen Tian's powerful grasp.

Mess with him?! What a joke! Wasn't this demon supposed to be lying low on North Road?! He was impossible to avoid—who the hell would dare provoke him?!

"I..." Jogo's lips trembled. He struggled to explain himself. "It wasn't me..."

Chen Tian's mouth curled into a smile devoid of warmth, filled with nothing but utter contempt.

"My house," he said, his voice dropping low, like a cold wind blowing from the Abyss. "It's been reduced to rubble."

Jogo's pupils contracted to pinpoints. His mind went blank.

His house? Which house? The one in Suginami Ward?! It had been destroyed?! Who did it?!

It wasn't me! I swear it wasn't me, boss!

His anguished howl nearly burst from his throat. The injustice—and even greater terror—turned his blood cold. Which idiot had caused this mess and left him to take the blame?!

"I..." Jogo tried to force out an explanation, but his voice cracked.

A faint tremor was all that remained in the air.

There was no motion of a blade being drawn, no warning of Cursed Energy surging.

A blue-white slash, as if it had cleaved space itself, swept across the entire Domain without warning!

It appeared out of nowhere. No one had time to react.

Jogo's expression had not yet shifted from surprise and confusion to fear when his body's instincts made him whip around and look behind him—

The twisted, evil black tree at the heart of his Domain, "Vast Myriad Realms," had countless grotesque fetal faces frozen in place along its trunk. Its belly-like branches had locked in a bizarre, rigid pose.

A line of light, thin as a strand of hair, pierced straight down from the very center of the canopy to the roots.

BOOM!!!

The enormous black tree split cleanly down the middle and crashed to either side!

Countless heart-rending infant shrieks erupted from inside the trunk—the screams of Cursed Spirits whose cores had been destroyed in an instant! The Domain's foundation had been severed with a single slash!

Vast Myriad Realms—shattered!

VMMM—

The backlash from the Domain's collapse sent Jogo tumbling. Cold sweat soaked him in an instant. It wasn't because he was injured. It was because he hadn't even seen how Chen Tian had drawn his blade!

That slash hadn't merely destroyed his Domain. It had shattered a thousand years of accumulated understanding—so power could really be this unreasonable!

"You..."

Chen Tian's icy voice sounded right behind him without warning.

"What are you looking at?"

Jogo's entire body tensed. He twisted around with all his strength, his gaze frantically searching as Chen Tian's figure shrank into the distance.

His body was moving away, but why couldn't he feel his arms and legs? A bizarre, tearing sensation suddenly seized his heart!

He instinctively looked down—

His body was still flying backward! But both arms and both legs hung suspended where Chen Tian had been, as if nailed in place!

The cuts were as smooth as mirrors, with not even a splinter of bone visible.

Half a second later, blood erupted from the severed limbs like fountains held under pressure for too long!

Only then did the muffled sound of flesh tearing reach him.

"Ugh?!" Jogo let out a short, strangled cry. The pain finally struck his brain, fierce and merciless.

He watched helplessly as his hands and feet, like dismantled parts, fell limply from the air and hit the rubble with dull thuds.

The scattered dust was stained dark red by the splashing blood.

His body, stripped of all four limbs, slammed into the rubble, sending dust billowing. The impact and pain of his severed limbs made Jogo's vision go black, but his thousand-year-old instincts as a Cursed Spirit suppressed everything else.

Reverse Cursed Technique!

His immense Cursed Energy surged wildly. The bloody, ragged ends of his limbs immediately began to writhe and regenerate—new arms and legs visibly taking shape!

But just as the flesh was about to form—

A shoe, caked with dust and rubble, ground mercilessly into his face! The tremendous force nearly drove his head into the ground!

"Gah—!" Jogo's nose was crushed out of shape. His facial bones cracked with a series of crushing snaps.

Humiliation! The humiliation cut to the bone! But the threat of death was worse!

Gravity Technique: Thousand Jun!

Jogo's pupils shrank. He turned his face toward the sky as much as he could and locked his will onto the owner of the foot—Chen Tian! His Cursed Energy erupted in an instant, and he unleashed his Gravity Technique without holding anything back!

He would crush this bastard into a meat patty!

An invisible field enveloped Chen Tian in an instant. And yet—

Chen Tian's suspended body did not move at all. Even the hem of his hanging clothes didn't stir.

The foot planted on Jogo's face remained steady, pressing down even harder, as if the technique he'd unleashed with all his strength were no more than a breeze brushing over a boulder.

"Guh?!" Jogo's eyes bulged in disbelief. He could feel his Cursed Energy draining away. The Gravity Technique was working—so why?! Why wasn't it having any effect?!

Gravity Technique: Ten Thousand Jun!

Jogo roared, his forehead veins bulging. The Cursed Energy he poured into the technique surged again, and the air itself groaned faintly under the crushing weight.

Chen Tian stood with one hand in his pocket, looking down at Jogo's struggles, his gaze cold as ice. He wasn't being crushed. If anything, the pressure of the foot pinning Jogo down was increasing.

CRACK! The ground beneath Jogo's head sank even deeper! He felt every bone in his skull groan!

"Keep going." Chen Tian's voice remained calm. "Try harder. Let's see how much weight it takes to crush your own head."

His words doused Jogo in ice water.

He understood at once! The gravity he applied to Chen Tian was as futile as an insect trying to shake a tree!

Instead, the terrifying field of gravity seemed to act directly on the area "beneath" Chen Tian—or rather, on Jogo himself, beneath Chen Tian's foot!

The stronger the gravity he applied, the more terrifying the force of Chen Tian's foot became! Chen Tian wasn't pressing down harder. Jogo was using his own Gravity Technique to crush his own head!!!

Jogo's mind went blank. He immediately cut off the flow of his Gravity Technique! The invisible field he'd applied to Chen Tian vanished in an instant.

The pressure of the foot eased slightly, but it still pinned him down like a block of iron.

"Nero! Listen to me!" Jogo's voice warped with terror and humiliation. Blood and foam spilled from the crushed, misshapen corner of his mouth. "It wasn't me! I didn't destroy your house! I didn't do it!"

"I know." Chen Tian's voice held no emotion, as if he were discussing something trivial. "It was just players fighting in the Culling Game, and the damage spilled over, right? I know all about it."

"Then..." Jogo's mind went blank. He was practically about to lose it.

You know? Boss, you know and you still came after me?! You turned me into a torso and pinned me under your foot anyway?! What the hell is this?! The guilty party should answer for the crime!

Injustice and terror tangled together, choking his throat. He couldn't get out another word.

Chen Tian looked down at his face, twisted by the crushing pressure and shock, and added indifferently, pronouncing his fate:

"But as the game's organizer, you didn't set a rule forbidding players from destroying things connected to me. So I'm going to tear apart your stupid game right in front of you."

The foot pinning Jogo's face lifted slightly. Just as Jogo thought he was about to be let go, his Reverse Cursed Technique surged again, frantically regenerating his severed limbs—

The foot slammed down! With the force of ten thousand jun!

Its target was Jogo's head, still wondering, "Why is it always me who gets hurt?"

Dust and rubble burst into the air like an explosion!

The Barrier's Destruction

Port of Dongjin, battlefield in the ruins.

Kashimo Hajime shook his wrist. Thick blood dripped from his fingertips.

The player beneath his feet had fallen silent, his twisted body embedded in the fractured asphalt.

"Tch." He pursed his lips, his eyes full of bored irritation. "How dull."

He looked up at the gray sky shrouded by the Culling Game's barrier. His voice carried a breathless note of longing. "Haguruma... You bastard... Where are you hiding? Come out and fight me!"

The instant the words left his mouth—

VMMMM—!!! An unprecedented, hair-raising tremor swept across all of Tokyo!

It was as if countless strings stretched to their breaking point had been plucked at once, releasing a high-pitched wail!

Then came a sharp, piercing—

CRACK! CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The sound of a gigantic glass dome about to shatter! The rapid succession of cracks made hearts stop!

Kashimo Hajime snapped his head up, his pupils contracting!

Countless dazzling blue-white cracks suddenly appeared across the translucent barrier wall that shrouded the sky and gave off an ominous glow!

Each one radiated an icy, utterly pure aura of destruction!

They were countless fine but deadly streaks of slashing light, appearing out of nowhere, spreading and crisscrossing wildly across the entire sky like a spiderweb!

"What is that?!" Kashimo Hajime's muscles instantly tensed. His violent Cursed Energy erupted instinctively, lightning crackling around him!

An unprecedented sense of danger drenched him like ice water!

The next second, his gaze locked onto the center of the sky, where the cracks were densest!

A figure hovered there.

White hair whipped wildly in the chaotic energy currents, and black clothes flapped in the wind.

He casually held something in his right hand...

No—it was a person!

A young man in a tattered kasaya, severed cleanly at all four limbs, his flesh slowly regenerating through Reverse Cursed Technique. He was covered in blood and looked utterly wretched!

Kashimo Hajime's eyes went wide in an instant!

His mouth hung slightly open. He recognized that face!

"Jogo?!" The thousand-year-old Cursed Spirit who had plotted in the shadows, toyed with the entire Curse world as if it were in the palm of his hand, and even Kashimo Hajime had found unfathomable—

Jogo was now like a shredded rag, dangling in someone's hand like a piece of trash?!

The shocking sight left Kashimo Hajime's mind blank for a moment.

He stared at the White-Haired Youth's cold, impassive profile in the sky. His violent fighting spirit was replaced by overwhelming shock and uncertainty.

Who... was this guy?!

Chen Tian looked up at the blue-white cracks that still lingered across the sky. The remnants of the slashes flickered against the gray barrier wall like frozen lightning.

"Nero, you can't destroy the barrier." Jogo's voice was muddled by blood, his crushed throat making his words leak out like air from a punctured bellows. "I spent countless years carefully preparing this barrier. Even if you destroy the barrier in the Dongjin area, barriers elsewhere can be repaired and completed here."

He suddenly began to wheeze with laughter. Pale pink flesh buds writhed at the stumps of his limbs. "You think you can just..."

"Is that so?" Chen Tian turned his face slightly. His white hair fell across his eyes, obscuring his expression. "Then I'll destroy all ten barrier points you 'carefully' prepared in one go."

Jogo's laughter abruptly stopped. His newly regenerated pupils suddenly widened.

Ten? How could he know the exact number? In all his investigations, Nero hadn't even cared about the Curse world.

Before he could figure out the answer, Chen Tian's figure became a dark blur.

The next moment, the air rippled slightly atop the tallest hotel in the Port of Dongjin.

Chen Tian appeared on the rooftop, holding Jogo. He tossed him aside, and he hit the ground with a dull thud.

"Cough—!" Jogo coughed up blood as he fell. The flesh buds that had just grown half an inch instantly collapsed.

Chen Tian didn't look at him. His left hand curled loosely at his side.