Tokyo's sky was currently shrouded beneath an ominous, suffocating veil of dark red light.
It was a massive hemispherical barrier radiating outward with Shibuya at its center.
Like an inverted translucent bowl, it locked countless desperate souls tightly within.
Outside the barrier, the world still barely managed to keep functioning, but inside, it had completely devolved into a ruthless battleground where the strong preyed upon the weak.
On the rooftop of a high-rise less than a kilometer from Tokyo Colony No. 1 (the Shinjuku area), Yoru stood with his hands behind his back.
The howling wind whipped his black haori, making it flap wildly.
Within his deep red eyes, patterns as intricate as clockwork gears rotated slowly—Transparent World, fully open!
Under the godlike, ultimate clarity of the Transparent World, this black barrier—which seemed indestructible to ordinary mortals and unshakeable even to Special Grade Cursed Spirits—
gradually shed its mysterious and terrifying guise, revealing the foundational flow of cursed energy beneath.
"Just as I thought..."
A cold curve tugged at the corner of Yoru's mouth.
"Master Tengen was right. The Culling Game is a super-massive technique constructed using barriers across all of Japan."
"And any technique, no matter how grand or intricate, must possess a core sustaining its operation."
In Yoru's sight, the dark red cursed energy lines interweaving across the sky ultimately converged upon a few exceptionally concealed nodes within the barrier.
Those nodes were like pacemakers for this colossal heart, ceaselessly siphoning the negative emotions generated by the players slaughtering one another inside the barrier to sustain this death game.
"As long as I find these core control points and destroy them with absolute violence..."
Yoru slowly rested his hand on the hilt of Shiranui at his waist, sensing the terrifying heat inside the blade that seemed ready to erupt at any second.
"There's no need to follow that bullshit nineteen-day rule, nor any need to blindly farm points."
"Flip the table, and this game naturally comes to an end!"
Right then, low footsteps approached from behind him.
Dressed in his signature gojo-kesa, Suguru Geto walked slowly to Yoru's side.
His gaze was likewise fixed on the suffocating crimson barrier ahead, complex emotions swirling deep within his eyes.
"That bastard Kenjaku..."
Suguru gritted his teeth, his voice laced with irrepressible fury.
"Even though we forcefully reclaimed my body in Shibuya, he still managed to use the intelligence blind spots I left behind during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons to seize Rika's shell and Mimicry!"
"Now, it's precisely by using that power to integrate the countless cursed techniques collected over a millennium that he forcefully triggered this nationwide Culling Game."
Suguru turned his head toward Yoru, his narrow eyes gleaming with resolute determination.
"This disaster is the result of my blunder."
"So I must put an end to it with my own hands!"
Yoru turned his head, smiling slightly at this close friend who was originally fated to die alone.
"Don't shoulder every ounce of blame yourself, Suguru."
"If you hadn't taken back your body, the situation right now would only be worse."
"Besides..."
Yoru looked past Suguru's shoulder toward the group standing behind them on the rooftop.
Maki rested her polearm on her shoulder, a bloodthirsty battle intent burning in her eyes;
Hiromi Higuruma adjusted his glasses, his shikigami Judgeman faintly visible behind him;
Kinji Hakari grinned widely, letting out an arrogant laugh while flexing his wrists;
and there were all the other companions Yoru had forcibly dragged back from the butcher's blade of fate...
This terrifying force forged by Yoru's own hands, standing completely beyond the higher-ups' control, was already poised to tear everything apart.
"Are you ready?"
Suguru looked at Yoru and asked in a low voice.
Yoru did not speak, only slowly drawing Shiranui from his waist.
*Clang—*
As the long blade cleared its scabbard, an indescribable, extreme heat instantly erupted!
The crimson blade shone like a burning sun with blinding radiance, forcibly repelling the oppressive dark red light of the barrier several meters back.
"Sun Breathing..."
Closing his eyes, Yoru drew a deep breath.
Scorching oxygen poured down his windpipe into his lungs, then converted into violent energy that circulated with his blood to every single cell in his body.
"From the very first day I arrived in this world, I have been waiting for this moment."
Yoru snapped his eyes open, and within those deep red irises blazed a light more dazzling than the stars.
It was a divine fury belonging to Yoriichi Tsugikuni—an absolute zero tolerance for all evil and perversion!
"Satoru Gojo is sealed? No matter, I'll pull him out."
"Ten million people dragged into the slaughter? No matter, I'll slice this damn barrier to ribbons."
Yoru raised Shiranui high, pointing its edge directly at the abyssal black barrier ahead.
"This time, we will thoroughly end Kenjaku's plot."
"We will teach that thousand-year-old rat that before absolute strength, his self-important schemes aren't worth a single damn!"
"Let's move!"
With Yoru's roaring shout, he was the first to plunge, turning into a streak of red lightning as he leapt straight off the hundred-meter-tall rooftop and surged toward the edge of the Shinjuku barrier.
Behind him, Suguru Geto, Maki, Kinji Hakari, and the rest of the powerhouses followed in close pursuit, like asuras bursting from hell, carrying a tempestuous aura that would tear through anything as they crashed straight into that crimson domain of death.
When Yoru's body passed through the translucent barrier wall,
it felt as though he were cutting through a cold, viscous film of water, and an extremely unsettling sensation of weightlessness instantly washed over him.
Immediately afterward, a cold, mechanical, emotionless voice detonated straight inside his mind.
The voice belonged neither to human nor cursed spirit; it was the will of the barrier born from the layering of tens of thousands of techniques.
[PLAYER: YORU HAS ENTERED TOKYO COLONY NO. 1 (SHINJUKU/SHIBUYA REMNANT AREA).]
[SCANNING PLAYER'S CURSED TECHNIQUE...]
[WARNING! WARNING! NO CURSED ENERGY FLUCTUATIONS DETECTED!]
[PLAYER DETECTED AS HAVING NO AWAKENED TECHNIQUE. AUTOMATICALLY DESIGNATED AS NON-SORCERER.]
[THE CULLING GAME OFFICIALLY COMMENCES.]
[TIME REMAINING UNTIL TECHNIQUE REMOVAL (DEATH): 18 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 59 MINUTES.]
Listening to that countdown echoing like a death knell in his head, and feeling the so-called rules the barrier attempted to impose on him, Yoru curled his lips into a savage sneer.
'Technique removal? Death?'
'What an arrogant system.'
He lifted his head, looking toward the city ruins within the barrier that had been utterly devastated by war and blood.
The once-prosperous streets of Shinjuku had now become a living hell.
Severed limbs littered the ground, car wrecks burned, and the sickening stench of blood hung heavy in the air.
At the edge of his vision, several incarnated sorcerers exuding ancient, formidable auras were closing in on him with cruel sneers.
They wore tattered clothing from centuries ago, their eyes glittering with an insatiable bloodlust.
Evidently, they regarded Yoru—who had just entered the game without the slightest ripple of cursed energy—as a fat sheep ripe for slaughter, an easy "non-sorcerer" prey worth 1 point.
"Hey, non-sorcerer brat over there, stick your neck out like a good boy!"
One scarred ancient sorcerer licked his lips, the giant battleaxe in his hands glowing with the crimson hue of cursed energy.
"A non-sorcerer?"
Yoru slowly tightened his grip on Shiranui, and atop the blade, the flames of Sun Breathing began to roar with madness.
A scorching wave of fire instantly swept over the surroundings, baking the concrete beneath his feet until it splintered into spiderweb cracks.
Sensing this terrifying heat capable of boiling the seas and scorching the heavens, the smirks on the faces of the ancient sorcerers froze in an instant, replaced by a shudder stemming from the depths of their souls.
"Then let me show you old fossils who crawled out of your graves..."
"what a god without cursed energy looks like!"
At this moment, the curtain of the Culling Game was violently cleaved open by a flame-engulfed wild blade in the most savage, brutal manner.
And within this flesh-grinder ruled by ruthless laws where the strong survived and the weak perished, Yoru—an ancient beast draped in human skin—was about to unleash a storm of blood that would leave the entire jujutsu world trembling!