Satoru Gojo's azure eyes narrowed slightly, a playful smirk curling at the corner of his lips. "Sukuna."
His voice was as flippant as a casual greeting, yet it made the air freeze solid.
Sukuna's four crimson eyes contracted simultaneously, his cursed energy erupting into tangible black flames that shot toward the sky. "Die!!"
He stomped the ground, shattering it, and lunged at Gojo as a blur—only to freeze mid-swing, a flicker of shock crossing his curse-marked face.
'Fushiguro Megumi?!' Sukuna's pupils trembled violently.
He sensed a consciousness stirring within him, coiling like thorns around his cursed energy flow. The boy's soul, supposed to be utterly suppressed, was now fighting for control of the body!
"Heh." Chen Tian stood with arms crossed. "The Vessel's resisting."
Gojo suddenly flashed in front of Sukuna, their noses almost touching. "Can't even control your own body."
He raised a finger and wagged it. "How are you supposed to tear me apart and..." He teleported beside Chen Tian, draping an arm over his shoulder. "...this Star Guy?"
"Mongrel!!" Sukuna roared in fury, clawing at his own throat, nails digging deep into the flesh.
Chen Tian casually raised a hand and knocked Gojo's arm off his shoulder, his gaze sweeping past the struggling Sukuna to lock onto Gojo. "Boring." His voice was cold. "Sukuna's Last Finger—you have it."
Gojo raised an eyebrow, azure eyes brimming with surprise. "Ahh, yeah."
"Hand it over," Chen Tian commanded.
"Huh?" Gojo exaggeratedly gaped. "You're not serious, little bro?"
"A Sukuna like this is boring," Chen Tian repeated, his expression utterly flat.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Gojo tapped his temple with a finger. "If we do that, Fushiguro-kun's gonna get completely crushed, you know?"
"I know."
"Then why the hell—?!" Gojo's voice shot up.
A slow, wild grin spread across Chen Tian's lips. "That... is what makes it interesting."
Even Sukuna stopped struggling, all four blood-red eyes fixed on Gojo and Chen Tian.
Gojo's mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg, his azure pupils quaking twice.
The next second, he doubled over, clutching his stomach as he burst into earth-shattering laughter. "Hahahaha! Interesting! That's fucking interesting!!!"
He rocked back and forth, even wiping exaggerated tears from his eyes.
Then the laughter cut off like a blade, and his carefree face instantly froze over.
"You sure?" Gojo's voice dropped, deep as abyssal ice. "That Sukuna back then? He was terrifyingly strong." The air grew thick with every syllable he spoke.
"I know." Chen Tian didn't even blink.
Gojo's lips slowly split into a maddening grin. "Then—"
"Can you win?"
Chen Tian's hand rested on the Enma Sword Hilt at his waist, the sheath and metal scraping together in a crisp ring.
He lifted his gaze slightly, looking past Gojo at Sukuna.
"I'll win."
"I'll win."
Those three words fell, and Gojo's azure pupils erupted with a blinding light!
That wild confidence struck like lightning, hitting the deepest part of his heart and igniting a dormant madness.
"Hahahaha! Fine!" Gojo's laughter exploded with unprecedented exhilaration. "Take it!"
He casually extended two fingers and hooked them toward the sky.
A streak of azure light tore through the heavens, a distant black dot rapidly magnifying as it screamed through the air!
Gojo caught it with precision—a plain wooden box landing in his palm. Without even looking, he flung his arm, sending the box hurtling toward Chen Tian like a phantom.
Chen Tian didn't even raise an eyelid. He caught the box with a backhanded swipe, and without a moment's pause, flicked his wrist.
The box containing the King of Curses' final source of power was tossed away like trash—straight at Sukuna, who was at the epicenter of a cursed energy storm, seething with rage at being bartered like goods!
"You—bastard—!!!" Sukuna's roar twisted and warped, his four crimson eyes nearly bleeding!
A towering humiliation solidified into tangible killing intent, as if dragging the entire space into hell! He
snatched the flying box, savagely crushing it along with the last withered finger inside!
Without hesitation, he shoved the fragments and the finger—brimming with endless curses—into his mouth!
The sickening crunch of chewing echoed.
Boom—!!!
A jet-black cursed energy, countless times more terrifying than before, pure enough to inspire despair, erupted like the primordial explosion of the universe, centered on Sukuna!
The rubble of concrete and steel beams instantly turned to nothing but dust!
The body belonging to Fushiguro Megumi swelled and twisted wildly within the vortex of black energy!
Skin tore open as more Cursed Marks spread like living things, intertwining and radiating an aura of annihilation.
Four grotesque arms burst from the body, a massive mouth split open across the abdomen—a complete, suffocating, terrifying silhouette of the King of Curses rose from the heart of destruction!
"Tsk tsk," Satoru Gojo clicked his tongue, his Azure Eyes sweeping over the inhuman demonic shadow, his tone carrying an exaggerated awe. "Even scarier than I expected."
He turned to Chen Tian, cracking a playful grin. "Kid, go ahead and charge in."
He gave a thumbs-up, pointing at himself. "If you lose, the strongest is still backing you up from behind."
Chen Tian's gaze never left the King of Curses, who was completing his final transformation.
He didn't even glance at Gojo, his voice calm yet carrying a razor-sharp edge that cut through all doubt:
"No need."
"Sukuna will die."
"Your students," he paused, his gaze seeming to pierce through the boiling black tide of cursed energy, seeing something beyond, "will live too."
Chapter 19: Impossible to Please
Sukuna's manic laughter exploded from the center of the churning Jet-black Cursed Energy like the roar of a hellish demon:
"Hahahahahaha, arrogant white-haired scum!!! I'll chop you to pieces!!!"
The crushing pressure hit like a mountain collapsing and a tsunami crashing. Haguruma Kanko, Nanami Kento, Yuji Itadori, and Angel Sumika were instantly drenched in cold sweat, their hearts clenched by Sukuna's curse energy, thick with endless malice.
Chen Tian tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over Gojo. "Aren't you going to take your students and colleagues out of here?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow, a grin spreading across his face. "Fair point."
His figure vanished in an instant, reappearing beside Yuji and Sumika. He gave a curt order to Nanami and the struggling Kanko:
Before the words faded, space twisted, and Gojo disappeared with Yuji and Sumika.
Nanami and Kanko exchanged a glance. Without a moment's hesitation, their curse energy erupted, and they shot into the distance as two afterimages at full speed!
Chen Tian's gaze locked back onto the boiling core of the curse.
"Not ready yet?"
The answer came as Sukuna's enraged roar and a collapse of curse energy that could crush space itself!
"Shut up! I'll cut you down!"
"Domain Expansion—"
"Fukuma Mizushi!!!"
Heaven and earth warped! The familiar grotesque shrine, the skeletal altar, the endless sea of blood instantly replaced the ruins! The rules of slashing filled every inch of space!
Chen Tian stood still, unmoving. This time, he closed his eyes slightly.
His skin sensed the very "cutting sensation" of space itself, his soul analyzed the rule intensity of "sure-hit" and "ignores defense."
Compared to the domain in Shibuya... more condensed, more violent, more... complete.
The true fangs of the King of Curses.
Sukuna's roar amplified infinitely within the domain! Without any gesture, the omnipresent slash descended!
A cold gleam that tore through space, a chilling edge that ripped through time—[Cleave]! [Hachi]!
Billions of slashes, ignoring distance, ignoring process, struck directly at Chen Tian, aiming to shred him and space itself into nothing but dust!
In those pitch-black pupils, there was no ripple of facing a dead end—almost as if there was a hint of... disinterest.
Just as the slashes, enough to annihilate any living being billions of times over, were about to land—
A crisp sound, like Dragon Scale scraping, tore through all the noise within the domain!
The Enma Sword, drawn!
"Not bad," Chen Tian said, the Enma Sword tracing a blue afterimage through the air.
The moment the blade swung, his entire arm and the sword itself vanished from sight—pure physical speed breaking the limits of retinal capture!
Hum! Hum! Hum!
Countless intersecting arcs of blade light flared within the domain, each one precisely intercepting Sukuna's slashes.
Sparks burst at the points of collision, weaving a brilliant starry net across the blood-sea domain.
Unlike the overwhelming crush in Shibuya, this time Sukuna's domain only trembled violently, cracks appearing on the shrine's pillars but not collapsing.
"Scum!" Sukuna's four crimson pupils contracted simultaneously, his grin splitting to his ears. "You think this is still a game of cutting through melons?!"
All four arms moved at once—two maintained the domain's hand signs, while the other two rapidly shifted into the Ten Shadows technique's seals, curse energy solidifying into black lightning at his fingertips!
"Buruburu! Yuruyurara!"
Three shadows rose from the blood sea.
Three towering Mahoraga figures emerged from Sukuna's shadow.
"Triple adaptation." Sukuna grinned, licking his fangs. "I'll make you watch in despair as your slashes become useless!"
The middle Mahoraga One stomped the ground hard!
The towering figure appeared before Chen Tian the instant the ground-shattering sound erupted, raising the Demon Slaying Blade high for a downward strike.
Facing this unstoppable slash, Chen Tian merely sidestepped slightly, the blade grazing past his body.
In that same sidestep, a second Demon Slaying Blade thrust toward his back, and Chen Tian slid back a step, dodging the sword tip.
As he evaded the second attack, a third Demon Slaying Blade came slashing upward from below.
Chen Tian lifted his foot and gave the incoming blade a light kick—seemingly weightless and powerless, yet it sent both the sword and Mahoraga Three flying back.
His dodging movements, though sounding complex, were all completed within a single second.
The three Mahoraga gave Chen Tian no chance to catch his breath, their assault surging like a tide without a moment's pause.
Mahoraga One raised the Demon Slaying Blade above its head, channeling the force of a thousand jun, and brought it down in a full-power overhead chop, the sharp edge tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.
Mahoraga Two crouched low, the Demon Slaying Blade skimming the ground like a black lightning bolt, thrusting straight at Chen Tian's ankle.
From the side, Mahoraga Three lunged at an angle, its longsword aimed at Chen Tian's waist and flank in a tricky, precise strike.
The three attacks interlocked seamlessly, compressing Chen Tian's evasive space to the absolute limit.
Chen Tian's eyes narrowed slightly, yet his posture was as light and agile as a willow in the wind.
With a gentle tap of his toes on the sea of blood, his body spun in a smooth rotation, like an elegant dancer in mid-performance.
During the spin, his left hand casually traced an arc through the air, the Enma Sword following with a trail of azure blade light, effortlessly severing all the invisible slashes howling from Sukuna's domain.
Those slashes, upon touching the blade light, vanished like snow under a blazing sun, leaving only scattered specks of Cursed Energy debris.
Facing the Mahoraga's fierce triple assault, Chen Tian, still in the momentum of his spin, hooked his right foot lightly in the air, the toe precisely striking the wrist of the Mahoraga above.
That seemingly gentle kick carried astonishing force—the Mahoraga's thick arm was knocked violently off course, the Demon Slaying Blade veering away to chop into the ground beside it, splashing up a great wave of blood.
At the same time, Chen Tian used the recoil to shoot sideways like an arrow from a bowstring, moving several meters away and easily dodging Mahoraga Three's thrust.
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