Binding Vow

"Buzz!"

The gravity field over Shinjuku, and even all of Tokyo, collapsed in an instant.

Rubble, cars, even ordinary people who had not had time to evacuate—all of them floated up in defiance of physics, then were violently flung into the sky by a lateral repulsive force.

"Damn it!"

Satoru Gojo gritted his teeth and slammed his hands together.

"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red!"

A dark crimson wave of repulsive force erupted around him, forcibly canceling out the warped gravity affecting everyone.

"Shiyue! Did this happen because you appeared?" Satoru Gojo turned around and looked at the boy lying against Shoko Ieiri.

The light in Shiyue Shuo's eyes had dimmed to its lowest point. He looked at the sky, at those seven familiar yet unfamiliar figures, and pulled his lips into a smile more painful than crying.

"Yes... Gojo-sensei."

Shiyue Shuo's voice was weak. "This world has balance. Just as the appearance of someone like you, with the Six Eyes, caused cursed spirits to become more active, the power I possess has drawn the world's causality, forcibly strengthening the other side."

"This causality..." Yuta Okkotsu stood protectively before Shiyue Shuo, the katana in his hand trembling. "Are you saying these monsters' target... is you?"

"ROAR!!!"

As if to prove his words, the mountain-sized demon in the sky let out a deafening roar. Its enormous maw, large enough to swallow heaven and earth, aimed at the ground, and a massive suction force instantly formed a visible tornado.

Its target was Shiyue Shuo.

"Protect Shuo!" Yuji Itadori roared. His feet shattered the ground as the glow of Divergent Fist lit up around his knuckles, trying to block that suction.

But this was not a battle on the same level at all.

Each of those seven demon gods possessed enough total cursed energy to rival, or even surpass, Ryomen Sukuna at his peak. Seven monsters beyond Sukuna's level had descended at once. This was no longer a game on the level of the Culling Game—it was a true apocalypse.

"It's useless."

Shiyue Shuo struggled into a seated position. He looked at Yuji, Yuta, and Satoru Gojo in the air, all standing before him.

"You can't stop them. As long as I still 'exist' here, they will attack without end until they erase both me and this land."

"Then we'll exorcise every last one of them!" Satoru Gojo instantly appeared atop the green mountain of flesh and brought down a vicious roundhouse kick.

"Boom!"

The bloated mass of flesh only swayed slightly. Then, a blue Thunderbolt struck from the flank and instantly swallowed Satoru Gojo.

"Gojo-sensei!"

"Don't worry about me! Take Shiyue and go!" Satoru Gojo's voice rang out from within the lightning. It was still forceful, but everyone could hear the gravity in it.

Shiyue Shuo watched the scene, his heart turning ice-cold.

He knew full well that Satoru Gojo might be able to fight any one of them alone, and perhaps barely hold off two. But there were seven of them. And they were seven great demons who each wielded the power of their own rules.

More importantly, these demons had been born because of Shiyue Shuo. He could certainly lift his suppression over the talismans and fight them now, but as long as he remained exposed to this world's observation, the world's corrective force would endlessly resurrect these demons.

This was a war that was destined to be unwinnable.

Unless...

Shiyue Shuo lowered his head and looked at his palm.

At that moment, a talisman mark engraved with a cyan snake silhouette flickered faintly in his hand.

"Is this the only way..."

Shiyue Shuo closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

The air was thick with the scent of despair. It was the bloody smell of his companions fighting for their lives, and the scorched stench of a city on the verge of destruction.

"Snake."

Shiyue Shuo called softly in his heart.

"The Shadowy Snake makes me omnipresent."

"If I push this authority to its limit and combine it with a Binding Vow, can I go even further?"

"Yuta-senpai, Yuji, and... everyone."

Shiyue Shuo suddenly spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it strangely pierced through the chaos of the battlefield and reached everyone's ears clearly.

Yuta Okkotsu turned around and saw Shiyue Shuo shakily rising to his feet.

"Shuo? What are you doing? Lie back down!"

"Listen to me." Shiyue Shuo ignored Yuta's warning. He raised his head, his clear eyes reflecting the Thunderbolts and flames filling the sky, terrifyingly calm. "This disaster began because of me, so it must end because of me."

"What nonsense are you talking about?!" Yuji smashed a low-grade accompanying cursed spirit that tried to approach with one punch and shouted, "We're partners! We'll figure something out together..."

"There is no way."

Shiyue Shuo gave a miserable smile. "As long as I am still 'observed' in this world, this correction won't stop. You will die. Gojo-sensei will die too."

He raised his right hand. A faint green glow began to swirl in his palm.

It was the radiance of the Snake Talisman, but at that moment, it was deeper and stranger than ever before.

"I'm going to make a Binding Vow with this world."

Shiyue Shuo's voice became ethereal, as though it came from another dimension.

"What are you doing? Stop!"

Satoru Gojo in the sky seemed to realize something. Ignoring the barrage of lightning, he forcibly activated Limitless and teleported down, trying to seize Shiyue Shuo's hand.

But he grabbed nothing.

Satoru Gojo's palm passed straight through Shiyue Shuo's shoulder, as though passing through a holographic projection.

"Sensei, the Six Eyes can see it clearly, right?" Shiyue Shuo looked at his body as it began to turn transparent. "My existence is being 'forgotten' by the world."

"Shiyue!" For the first time, panic appeared in Satoru Gojo's azure eyes.

"I will make a Binding Vow."

Ignoring everyone's cries, Shiyue Shuo formed a hand seal. It was an ancient, obscure gesture that, together with the authority of the Snake Talisman, engraved his will into the world's underlying logic.

"I offer this body as sacrifice, using the authority of the Snake as the medium."

"I am willing to abandon all social existence as 'Shiyue Shuo.'"

"Unobservable, undetectable, without presence."

With every word he spoke, Shiyue Shuo's body became a little more transparent.

"Though I may objectively exist, no living being will be able to discover me."

"I will become nothingness, unable to be perceived and unable to be tracked by cursed techniques."

"My past will turn to dust, unable to be remembered or recorded."

"From this moment on, there will no longer be a Shiyue Shuo in this world. I will have no family, no friends, and no connection whatsoever to this world."

"In exchange—"

Shiyue Shuo suddenly raised his head and looked at the seven roaring demon gods in the sky.

"Let the world's causality lose its target!"

"Bzzzzz!!!"

An invisible ripple swept out from Shiyue Shuo, instantly crossing all of Shinjuku, Tokyo, and the entire world.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Everything happened in complete silence.

Yuta Okkotsu's hand, which had been reaching toward Shiyue Shuo, suddenly stopped in midair. A momentary blankness appeared in his eyes, as though he had forgotten why he had reached out.

Yuji Itadori remained in the middle of his punch, but the anxiety and sorrow on his face rapidly faded in that second, replaced by deep confusion. He looked at the empty space before him, feeling hollow inside, as if he had lost something important but could not remember what it was.

"What are we... doing?"

Maki Zenin gripped her pitch-black sword, her brows tightly furrowed. She clearly remembered coming here to save someone, but who was she saving?

In her eyes, Shiyue Shuo was still standing there. But her brain, her entire cognitive system, naturally "ignored" him.

Like a speck of dust by the roadside. It objectively existed, but it held no meaning.

This was the ultimate extent of the Snake Talisman—Conceptual Concealment.

Not only vision, but causality, memory, emotion, and every trace of "presence" had been completely erased.

In the sky.

The seven great demons, who had been preparing to unleash a world-ending strike, froze in perfect unison.

The Thunderbolt demon's lightning spear had already taken shape, but its eyes, flickering with electricity, were filled with confusion.

"The target... has disappeared?"

The singularity that had broken the balance, the source that had drawn them here, had completely vanished from the world in that instant.

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