A towering black translucent curtain forcibly cut the bustling city into an outlaw land.
The sky was grey, and the air was thick with the pungent smell of blood and the burnt scent of ozone.
Buzz!
A visible ripple spread through the void at the edge of the barrier.
Yamada, with one hand in the pocket of his black trench coat, crossed the spatial boundary and stepped into the Culling Game.
Toji followed closely behind, the Inventory Cursed Spirit coiled around his shoulder and the Chain of a Thousand Miles in hand, his gaze like a hungry wolf entering a flock of sheep.
A winged, imp-like barrier guide, "Kogane," fluttered over and spoke mechanically, "Welcome to Tokyo Colony No. 2. Please review the current point rules and—"
Slap!
Annoyed, Toji casually slapped the system Shikigami into a shower of light particles.
"Boss, the smell of blood here is quite thick." Toji cracked his neck, his joints letting out crisp pops.
His five senses, far beyond those of ordinary people, had already captured several greedy gazes hidden in the ruins around them.
Those were ancient Sorcerers and modern Curse Users lying in wait to hunt newly entered players.
"I'll leave the small fry to you, don't let them dirty my shoes."
Yamada walked forward at a steady pace, his leather boots making a crisp sound on the asphalt road covered in glass shards.
"Happy to oblige."
Toji grinned, his figure pulling out several blurred afterimages in an instant.
In the next second, shrill screams erupted one after another from the dark shops on both sides of the street. Toji, devoid of Cursed Energy, was like an uncatchable ghost in this barrier.
Walls collapsed and blood splattered. Those hunters who thought they were well-hidden couldn't even see Toji's movements before their internal organs were shredded by the Chain of a Thousand Miles.
In just two short minutes, no living being remained on either side of the long street.
Yamada had little interest in such a one-sided massacre. He continued forward until he stopped in the middle of a crossroad.
Ahead, a mountain of corpses blocked the way.
Modern Sorcerers, ancient incarnated ones, and even Cursed Spirits cut into pieces. Their deaths were remarkably consistent: charred all over, emitting the stench of being instantly carbonized by extreme heat.
And on that small hill built of corpses sat a man. He wore a slightly worn Kariginu, his blue spiky short hair wild in the wind.
He held a staff horizontally, and the lightning-shaped mark at the corner of his eye exuded unmasked wildness and violence.
Kashimo Hajime.
The strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer who was famous throughout the world four hundred years ago.
"Hey. You two, did you just come in?"
Kashimo Hajime stood up from the mountain of corpses and shouldered the staff.
His gaze passed over the blood-stained Toji and landed on Yamada.
His intuition, honed from years of slaughter, told him that the black-haired youth standing there, whose breathing rhythm hadn't even faltered, was the truly lethal prey.
"Since you've entered, you should know the rules. Tell me, where is Ryomen Sukuna? If you can provide a lead, I might let you die quickly."
Kashimo Hajime flexed his wrists, blue electric arcs faintly dancing on his body with a crackling sound.
"Looking for Sukuna?"
Yamada looked up, his deep, pitch-black eyes meeting Kashimo Hajime's from below.
"That trash I stepped under my foot, who couldn't even raise his head—what do you want with him?"
As the words fell, the air suddenly froze.
Kashimo Hajime was stunned.
For four hundred years, he had sought defeat, making a binding vow with Kenjaku to cross time to the modern era. His only obsession was to have a satisfying battle with the legendary King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna.
And now, this guy of unknown origin actually said he had stepped on Sukuna?
"Hahahahaha!"
Kashimo Hajime suddenly burst into a fit of wild laughter, laughing so hard that tears almost came out.
"How interesting! Do modern sorcerers love to brag this much? However, you've successfully provoked me."
Boom!
The laughter stopped abruptly, and the corpse mountain beneath Kashimo Hajime's feet was instantly blown apart by violent lightning Cursed Energy.
His entire body turned into a streak of blinding blue lightning, tearing through a distance of over ten meters. The staff carried an enormous force as it swung down at Yamada's head.
Toji stood not far away and whistled, having no intention of stepping in to help.
What a joke, taking a hit for that monster boss? He hadn't lived long enough yet.
As the staff fell toward his head, Yamada didn't retreat. With a slight tap of his right foot on the ground, his body pivoted with minimal movement.
Whoosh—
The metal staff brushed past the edge of his trench coat and slammed into the ground.
With a thunderous boom, a deep trench dozens of meters long was smashed into the asphalt road, and rubble flew in all directions like bullets.
Missing the strike didn't annoy Kashimo Hajime. Instead, an even greater fighting spirit ignited in his eyes.
His Cursed Energy trait was 'electricity.' As long as he hit his opponent with Cursed Energy during combat, he could leave a positive charge on them and then release a sure-hit lightning strike to pierce through them.
"Got you!"
Using the reaction force from hitting the ground, Kashimo Hajime twisted his waist sharply and landed a heavy left hook squarely on Yamada's shoulder.
The moment the fist connected, the blue electric charge was successfully transferred.
"Die!"
Kashimo Hajime immediately pulled back and held up one hand.
The negative charge in his body and the positive charge on Yamada created a lethal attraction. A thick pillar of blue lightning generated out of thin air, ignoring spatial obstacles and following the rule of absolute accuracy, striking directly at Yamada's heart.
No Domain Expansion was needed, this was a certain-kill strike achieved purely through Cursed Energy traits.
The lightning swallowed Yamada's figure.
Kashimo Hajime snorted and shouldered the staff again.
With a current penetration of this level, even if the opponent used Cursed Energy for defense, their internal organs would be roasted in an instant.
"A fool who can't even counterattack dares to claim he stepped on Sukuna..."
"Is this all there is to the lightning you speak of?"
The low, steady words, without a hint of a tremor, clearly emerged from the blinding lightning.
Kashimo Hajime's pupils shrank suddenly.
The blue electric glow receded like a tide. Yamada was still standing there, one hand in his pocket.
The black trench coat on his shoulder didn't even have a single scorch mark.
The moment those violent blue currents touched his body, they were forcibly assimilated and absorbed by a high-dimensional energy.
"This is impossible! My Cursed Energy has a pure lightning property! How can you be unharmed after taking it with your physical body!"
Kashimo Hajime gripped the metal staff tightly, feeling the shock of his common sense being overturned for the first time in four hundred years.
"Lightning property?"
"Your understanding of lightning is too superficial."
Shing!
The Kusanagi Sword was unsheathed.
A layer of lightning instantly clung to the pitch-black blade. This was no ordinary natural lightning, but the ultimate Lightning Release Chakra fused with Six Paths power and Yin-Yang Release.
"Let me show you what true lightning is."
Yamada flicked his wrist.
Swish!
A slash swept out along the ground.
Wherever the slash passed, the air let out an unbearable, shrill tearing sound, and the hard concrete road was sliced into a smooth and bottomless rift.
Kashimo Hajime's hair stood on end, and his intuition, tempered between life and death, screamed in alarm.
He couldn't dodge! The speed and range of this slash were impossible to evade!