Fake News

He turned his head slightly. His gaze seemed to pierce through layer upon layer of concrete, taking in the terrifying sight above: a vast stretch of land forcibly flattened into a smooth plain.

"Sukuna's domain was rejected. Every rule, every slash was completely shattered before that blade of light. That plain..." Jogo's voice carried a rare note of shock and confusion. "It's proof that his power exists—and a humiliating mark left by Sukuna's domain being utterly denied."

"Rejecting Lord Sukuna's domain..." The amusement finally faded from Mahito's face, replaced by a twisted expression mingling shock with a pathological excitement. He licked his lips, as if savoring some supremely dangerous flavor. "This is... absolutely wonderful! So twisted! So interesting!!"

He abruptly stood, his eyes glittering with pure, reckless madness. "A soul like that! A being like that! If I could touch his soul... if I could twist and reshape it..."

"Mahito." Jogo's cold voice cut off his near-delirious musings. Like a poisonous icicle, it pierced through Mahito's feverish fantasies in an instant.

Mahito froze.

"Don't do anything stupid." Jogo turned his head slowly. His half-lidded eyes were deep-set, and he made no attempt to hide the icy warning in them. It was like the waters of a thousand-year winter surging forth from a frozen abyss. "He's the biggest 'variable' outside the plan. A being with an absolute concept of negation."

Jogo's gaze fixed firmly on Mahito, each word heavy as a thousand pounds. "Before you come into contact with him using your Idle Transfiguration, your soul—and the space it occupies—will be completely 'cut apart.' There's no chance you can adapt to it."

"..." The excitement on Mahito's face seemed to freeze over in an instant.

Looking at the solemn warning in Jogo's eyes, Mahito felt, for the first time, a chill deep in his soul.

That white-haired man... was a true monster, one even Jogo feared?

"Th-then what do we do now?" Mahito asked instinctively, his voice wavering with a hesitation he didn't even notice.

Jogo was silent for a few seconds, his gaze once again turning toward the depths of the dark, bottomless tunnel, as if something new lurked there.

"The variable has emerged, and the situation has changed." His voice returned to its usual icy calm, though it carried an undeniable edge. "The established course needs correcting. We need to..."

An almost imperceptible ripple in space, as slight as a water strider touching the surface, spread soundlessly at the entrance to the underground space.

It was faster than the limits of perception!

Mahito's mismatched pupils contracted to pinpoints!

A bone-deep chill, instinctive and etched into his soul, swept through him like the overwhelming dread of prey being targeted by an apex predator!

He didn't even have time to think!

His body's instincts overrode everything!

Crack! Splurt!

The sounds of bones twisting and flesh tearing and reforming erupted instantly!

Mahito's whole body was like putty being savagely kneaded by an invisible giant hand. His upper body snapped backward at an angle that defied human anatomy!

At the same time, his legs ballooned and transformed below the waist, becoming two huge, twisted, translucent flesh-wings!

At almost the exact same moment—

A thin, deep-blue slash appeared out of nowhere where Mahito's head had been a second earlier, like the silent smile of the Grim Reaper!

The blade mark stretched across the air, neatly cleaving even the dim light!

Its edges were smooth as mirrors, and the cutting intent it left behind was cold enough to freeze the soul!

The slash vanished in a flash, as if it had never appeared.

"Hah... hah..." Mahito's distorted body, like that of a gigantic, deformed insect, trembled violently. Beads of cold sweat mingled with tears of sheer terror, instantly covering his stitch-lined face.

Having narrowly escaped death in that instant, the half of his face that still looked human contorted with uncontrollable fear.

That close!

His head, along with the core of his soul, would have been sliced into pieces without a sound, just like that piece of trash, Haruta Shigemo!

He stiffly turned the only eyeball he could still move and looked toward where Jogo had stood.

There was nothing there but a faint trace of spatial distortion on the ground, almost invisible, like the last ripple spreading across a pool of water, slowly settling.

Jogo... had run away?

The moment that monster appeared, he'd abandoned Mahito without hesitation and fled on his own?!

A wave of absurd humiliation at being used and discarded surged into Mahito's mind, instantly overwhelming his fear!

"Jogo—!" Mahito roared through his twisted throat. His voice began furious, then turned hoarse and low, filled with resentment and disbelief. "So I was just bait to draw him out?!"

"I found you, Mahito."

A voice utterly devoid of emotion rang out like the blow of an icy gavel, shattering the darkness and silence—and tolling the death knell for Mahito.

Mahito's huge insect-like body froze as if he'd been petrified.

Extremely stiffly, he turned his head, inch by inch.

At the tunnel entrance, the faint red glow of a distant emergency light barely outlined a silhouette.

His white hair shone like snow, emitting a faint, icy radiance in the absolute darkness.

Chen Tian stood there quietly, his right hand resting casually on the hilt of the ancient-looking long sword at his waist.

His deep-sea eyes were calm and still. He looked at Mahito as though he were a piece of low-quality trash awaiting disposal in a laboratory.

"No, no! You can't kill me!!"

Mahito's twisted, insect-like body convulsed wildly. The stitched half of his face was contorted beyond recognition by absolute terror!

He had never felt such cold, such pure malice. It wasn't the darkness of a curse, but something higher—a negation at the level of existence itself!

The core of his soul, that chaos formed from humanity's pure malice toward itself, was now trembling and contracting wildly, as though thrown into flames of absolute zero!

"A curse that twists souls..." Chen Tian looked at him without the slightest change in expression. "...is the most irredeemable kind of trash."

The instant the words fell!

The hand resting on the hilt of the Enma Sword at Chen Tian's waist moved!

There was no earth-shattering Drawing Sword Technique, no surge of Cursed Energy as he gathered power, not even a single unnecessary movement!

He merely flicked his wrist with casual ease!

The Enma Sword slid from its sheath!

Beneath the faintest light of the emergency lamp deep in the tunnel, the blade traced a cold, almost imperceptible arc of blue! Its edge passed through the air, leaving behind a spatial fold that closed in an instant!

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Chen Tian's wrist moved so fast it left only afterimages! Casually, as though brushing away dust, he made a few light strokes through the empty space before him with the Enma Sword!

No trajectory! No warning!

Mahito was writhing wildly in terror, trying to activate Idle Transfiguration once more and reshape his body. His movement abruptly froze!

His enormous insectoid body, made of countless masses of twisted flesh, and the churning core of malice deep in his soul were instantly caught by an invisible, absolute cutting intent!

Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff—!!!

A dense, maddening flurry of cuts rang out simultaneously through every inch of his body, every corner of his soul!

Those weren't physical slashes!

Space itself was rejecting his existence!

The very foundations of his being were being coldly and precisely stripped away, like dead branches being pruned—

Mahito's consciousness sank into absolute nothingness and blankness in that instant. He couldn't feel "pain." That was an experience belonging to the living.

What he felt was "existence" itself being "deleted," piece by piece, thread by thread.

His mismatched eyes, wide with abject terror and on the verge of bursting, lost all focus. Only blankness and frozen despair remained.

Every stitch on his face had gone slack, drooping like the seams on a rag doll discarded after being played with.

Chen Tian didn't even look at him one last time.

He casually swept the Enma Sword diagonally downward through the air beside him, then reversed his grip and slashed diagonally upward! A cross-shaped spatial rift opened instantly, its edges flowing with starlike light and leading to the cool night sky outside the tunnel.

Chen Tian stepped toward the portal.

Just as half his body was about to disappear into the cross-shaped glow—

He stopped.

He didn't turn around.

He merely turned his face slightly to the side.

His icy gaze seemed to pierce through the thick concrete, through countless ruins and underground structures, and lock precisely onto a presence lurking in the depths of the darkness like a bone-deep parasite.

Chen Tian's voice rang clearly through the underground tunnel. It wasn't loud, but it carried a chill that seemed to freeze space. Every word struck the depths of the soul like an ice pick.

"Don't bother me."

The portal's light illuminated half his flawless profile. His words were spoken with a cold indifference to everything.

"I have no interest in your tricks."

"Including that... Culling Game of yours."

Chen Tian's tone was calm.

"I won't stop Sukuna from regaining his full strength."

The corner of his mouth seemed to lift ever so slightly. It wasn't a smile, but something deeper—the mockery of one looking down on ants struggling below.

"But—"

An invisible, terrifying will, powerful enough to shatter stars, descended abruptly! The air in the entire underground space froze! Even water droplets leaking from distant pipes hung suspended in midair!

"If you bother me..."

"Or anyone around me..."

Chen Tian's figure disappeared completely into the blue cross-shaped light. Only his final, bone-chilling words remained, falling like an invisible Sword of Damocles upon the presence lurking deep in the darkness.

"I'll cut you down."

The cross-shaped spatial rift contracted and vanished instantly. The white-haired figure disappeared with it, as if neither had ever been there.

Only Mahito's huge, motionless insectoid body remained deep in the tunnel.

Crack... crack-crack...

Countless tiny blue fissures instantly spread across every corner of his body, like crazily growing cracks in frozen porcelain!

Crash—!!!

Like a sandcastle knocked down.

Mahito's Special Grade Cursed Spirit body, formed from humanity's malice, and his twisted soul core silently crumbled into billions of faintly glowing blue particles. They vanished without a sound in the dead-silent underground tunnel.

Chapter 9: Fake News

Cold figures congealed in the classified Jujutsu Headquarters report:

"Shibuya Incident, deaths—5,376 (excluding Transfigured Humans). Deaths caused by Transfigured Humans—7,129.

"Severely injured or disabled—6,955. Minor injuries—4,251."

"Total casualties: 23,411."

The heavy figure lay on the page, recording the true devastation left behind by the collision between the King of Curses and a certain being.

And yet, these numbers were already far better than in the original story.

In the original, all of Tokyo had been plunged into darkness. Nearly all twenty-three wards had been destroyed. Almost five million people needed to be evacuated. On top of that, many high-ranking government officials had gone missing, and the government had even considered moving the Prime Minister's Official Residence to Osaka.

So Chen Tian's appearance had, to some extent, reduced the casualties and damage.

However, when night faded and dawn forced its way over the ravaged streets of Shibuya, the voices flowing from television screens told a completely different story.

The newscaster's makeup was immaculate, her tone steady, carrying just the right amount of solemnity.

"During last night's Halloween celebrations, a series of serious natural gas pipeline explosions occurred in Shibuya, killing ten people and injuring fifty to varying degrees. The government will engage in serious reflection and strengthen public safety oversight..."

The footage cut rapidly, the camera sweeping across the outskirts of the district, which had been deliberately cleared. A few collapsed buildings, symbolically cordoned off with safety barriers, stood amid the rubble as rescue workers in clean uniforms carried out "cleanup work."

Ten dead? Fifty injured?

The view outside silently mocked the report—more than half of central Shibuya had vanished! As far as the eye could see stretched a smooth, lifeless gray-white plain, running for kilometers without end, as though an invisible giant plow had scraped the earth clean!

That was the Absolute Cutting Zone left behind by Sukuna's domain! Beyond the "plain" lay a forest of ruins, utterly destroyed by the shock wave. Twisted rebar jutted toward the gray sky like the ribs of giant beasts, while broken glass and concrete dust covered everything.

But no one questioned it.

The memories of the Halloween crowds, their panicked screams and desperate flight, and the relatives and friends of countless missing people... were completely overwritten and altered by the Jujutsu world high-level's forcibly imposed "memory cleansing."