The ground of Shibuya had long since been reduced to scorched earth.
The soaring flames illuminated the late autumn night sky as if it were broad daylight.
Scalding lava flowed freely across the asphalt roads, melting the cars and billboards along its path into puddles of scrap metal that emitted pungent black smoke.
Jogo panted heavily, the volcanic vent atop his head continuously spewing out white steam. His single eye was bloodshot, staring fixedly at the pink-haired youth standing unharmed atop a utility pole ahead.
"What's wrong? Is this all you've got?" Sukuna stood with his arms crossed, looking down condescendingly at the gasping Jogo.
His school uniform had already been shredded during the previous chase, revealing a lean, muscular upper body covered in black markings. Those two pairs of eyes belonging to the King of Curses were filled with undisguised boredom and mockery.
"I gave you a chance, lava-head. If you could land just one hit, I'd work for you lot. In the end, you've been struggling for ages and haven't even touched a corner of my clothes."
Sukuna yawned and lightly tapped his toe against the utility pole.
Crack!
The solid concrete utility pole snapped in half.
Sukuna's figure turned into a blurred black shadow, appearing instantly in front of Jogo, and delivered a casual whip-kick to his abdomen.
Bang!
Jogo was sent flying like a cannonball, crashing through the load-bearing walls of three consecutive buildings before becoming deeply embedded in a pile of rubble.
"Cough!" Jogo spat out a mouthful of purple blood.
The gap in strength was simply too vast. Even though Sukuna only had the power of fifteen fingers now, that absolute suppression in speed, strength, and the application of Cursed Energy still made Jogo, a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, feel a deep sense of despair.
"Since conventional means can't touch you..."
Jogo gritted his teeth and struggled to climb out of the ruins. His hands suddenly slammed together, and the Cursed Energy within his body vented outward without reservation.
The surrounding temperature surged abruptly, and even the air became severely distorted due to the extreme heat.
"Then I'll use an attack that covers the entire street!"
"Maximum: Meteor!"
Following Jogo's roar, the cloud layer in the night sky was forcibly torn asunder.
A massive meteorite over a hundred meters in diameter, condensed from pure lava and high-density Cursed Energy, crashed down toward Sukuna's position.
Before the meteorite even landed, the terrifying wind pressure had already blown off the roofs of all the surrounding buildings.
Sukuna stood his ground, looking up at the burning giant rock that occupied his entire field of vision. Not only did he not dodge, but the arrogance on his face grew even more intense.
"Now this is more like it. Finally, something to let me stretch my limbs a bit."
He shoved his hands into his pockets, preparing to release a slash to shred this meteorite.
Suddenly—
A visible, eerie ripple spread through the air.
Sukuna's movements halted.
His two pairs of eyes suddenly constricted, staring fixedly ahead.
Clang—
A clear sword chime exploded without warning in the night sky of Shibuya.
A deep purple lightning slash rose from the depths of the street ahead. It swept upward from below, effortlessly passing through the hundred-meter-wide meteorite.
The next second.
Rip!
The burning meteorite, which could level half of Shibuya, was smoothly split in two right down the middle.
Fine electrical arcs jumped wildly across the cross-section of the lava.
The originally violent downward kinetic energy was instantly disintegrated by this Lightning Release Chakra. The two massive meteorite fragments lost all impact force and crashed heavily into the ruins on both sides of the street, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Who is it?!"
Jogo widened his single eye, looking in the direction the slash had been unleashed from in utter horror.
His Maximum technique, his strongest strike that gathered all his Cursed Energy, had been split open by someone with a blade?
The dust slowly dispersed.
The sound of leather boots stepping on the cracked asphalt road rang out unhurriedly.
Yamada, holding the Kusanagi Sword in one hand, stepped past the two massive meteorite fragments and walked into this devastated battlefield with steady steps.
In his deep black eyes, the Six Tomoe Rinnegan in his left eye and the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in his right eye emitted a ghostly light like that of a Shinigami.
He didn't spare a glance at Jogo, who was shivering in the ruins, but instead cast his gaze straight at Sukuna standing ahead.
"Throwing stones in the street in the middle of the night. Has your upbringing been eaten by the dogs of those thousand years?"
Yamada's voice wasn't loud, yet it drowned out all the surrounding sounds of burning.
Looking at that face, both familiar and strange, the memories that had been buried for several months in Sukuna's mind instantly resurfaced.
The rooftop of Sugisawa Third High School.
The man who had stepped on his head and ground him into the mud with absolute violence.
"It's you!"
The smile on Sukuna's face vanished, replaced by a twisted, extreme, and violent killing intent.
"I was wondering where I should dig you out once I regained all my power. I didn't expect you to deliver yourself to my door."
Sukuna spread his arms. The abundant Cursed Energy brought by fifteen fingers gave him absolute confidence at this moment.
"Back then, I only had the power of one finger, which is why you got the better of me. Today, I'll pick out your bones inch by inch and turn them into the most exquisite ornaments on the streets of Shibuya."
"Only one finger, so you lost?"
Yamada's right hand holding the Kusanagi Sword hung casually at his side, a mocking curve hooking his lips.
"The weak always like to find excuses for their incompetence. So what if you have fifteen fingers? No matter how much trash you pile up, it's still trash."
"You bastard!"
The King of Curses, humiliated repeatedly, went completely berserk.
His hands swung violently.
Dismantle!
Cleave!
Two distinctly different slashing Cursed Techniques were pushed to their limits in an instant.
It was as if hundreds of invisible blades had appeared out of thin air, weaving into a dense, airtight net of death that descended toward Yamada.
The ground, streetlights, and remaining walls along the way were dismembered into countless fragments the moment they touched this invisible net.
Facing this unavoidable, all-encompassing slaughter, Yamada didn't even use the Rinnegan in his eye.
He flipped his wrist and lightning-attribute Chakra instantly enveloped the blade of the Kusanagi Sword.
Lightning Release: Chidori Current!
With Yamada as the center, a violent high-voltage lightning net erupted.
The Kusanagi Sword drew a perfect semi-circle in mid-air.
Clang... Clang...
Dense sounds of metal clashing merged into one.
Those slashes, invisible to the naked eye, produced blinding sparks when they touched the Kusanagi Sword imbued with Six Paths Chakra, and were all forcibly deflected and shattered.
Wherever the sword edge passed, Sukuna's Cursed Technique was disintegrated like dry weeds.
"He blocked it?!" Jogo's scalp tingled as he watched from behind.
Sukuna's slashes were actually all parried by a single blade? Just how far had this man's reaction speed and dynamic vision reached?
"If slashes are useless, then I'll crush you with my fists!"
Sukuna didn't pause because his technique was blocked.
Using the slashes as cover, his figure had already cut into Yamada's inner range like a phantom.
A powerful straight punch headed straight for Yamada's chest. This punch compressed a massive amount of Cursed Energy, even forming a ring of black light at the fist's edge—Black Flash!
"Taijutsu?"
Yamada snorted coldly, casually stabbing the Kusanagi Sword into the ground beside him.
With his left hand in his pocket, his right hand turned from a palm into a fist, meeting the attack head-on without yielding.
Bang!!!
The two fists collided.
A visible white airwave exploded at the point where their fists met.