The battle was over.
In order to kill Lynn, the enemy had used every trick in the book, including the ultimate technique, the Spirit Devouring Barrier, to trap him.
Testing with a Sukuna's Finger Cursed Spirit, engaging in a domain battle to drain stamina, and exhausting all resources to push the Extreme Art: Vortex to its limit...
With this sequence of actions, theoretically, no one except Gojo Satoru, who was a transcendent combatant, could withstand it.
But unfortunately, the enemy was too careless and underestimated Lynn's true strength, leading to their own demise.
During these ten days, One-Punch Lynn awakened the Mist Space, and DanMachi Lynn received a boon and leveled up twice.
Coupled with assistance from the other Lynns, Jujutsu Lynn not only had his physical quality strengthened but also rapidly graduated in Barrier Techniques through cheating.
Excluding the performance gap in their innate techniques and lacking good hardware like the Six Eyes, the current Lynn was not much inferior to Gojo Satoru.
By utilizing the Fusion Domain as a trump card, he even had a chance to defeat Gojo Satoru and claim victory.
And without knowing any of this, the enemy, who had set up an ambush to eliminate obstacles, was caught completely off guard.
The plan was broken head-on, and the ultimate fallback, Hanami, suddenly died. Even the enemy was stunned by this turn of events.
But it was clear that Lynn would not accept his surrender.
The merciless iron fist slammed down, and the heavily injured enemy spat out blood as he was thrown backward.
The next second, the Spirit Devouring Barrier activated.
Along with Hanami, who was blown into a mist of blood, the souls of the three were sucked into Lynn's body to become nourishment.
"What a satisfying battle."
After letting out a sigh, Lynn reached down into the pit before him and picked up three fingers.
Including the finger from the Juvenile Detention Center, he had been delivered four Sukuna's Finger at once.
Now that the battle was over, Lynn no longer had any reservations and directly swallowed the four fingers.
The next instant, Sukuna's will surged up from within his mind, attempting to seize control of his body.
"He's quite cooperative."
Lynn let out a light chuckle.
After summoning Sukuna's soul fragment into the Mist Space and crushing it last time, he gained a deeper understanding of the Mist Space's true nature.
This Mist Space, existing deep within his soul and connecting to the Lynns of all heavens and myriad worlds, possessed its own protective logic for the soul.
It didn't matter how Lynn courted death himself, but if anyone tried to touch his soul, he could use the power of the Mist Space to fight back.
Bang—!
A sound of a soul shattering, audible only to Lynn, rang out.
This time, Sukuna was crushed by Lynn before he even had a chance to manifest.
The Spirit Devouring Barrier activated again, and Sukuna's soul remnants were drawn in and flew into Lynn's body.
The fingers originally used to store the soul, having lost their core, were also absorbed and digested by Lynn.
In just a few breaths, the four Sukuna's Finger were completely consumed by Lynn without any waste.
New power surged within him, and Lynn's aura greatly increased, causing Ijichi beside him to tremble.
"Lyn... Lynn, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, or rather, I'm in great shape."
Golden arcs of electricity flashed across his skin, and Lynn's perception spread into the distance.
Soon, he located Itadori and the others in a supermarket a kilometer away; they were fighting two Cursed Spirit users.
One of them was bald, holding a cleaver, with a maniacal smile on his face.
The other had his hair in a golden, slanted ponytail, gripping a blade with a black and purple handle.
Three against two, despite having a numerical advantage, Itadori and the others were at a disadvantage.
To protect a little girl, Itadori and Fushiguro were covered in wounds, and Kugisaki even had a gash across her abdomen, from which blood was profusely flowing.
"I see, there are hostages."
Through his perception, Lynn could confirm that the strength of the two Cursed Spirit users did not significantly surpass that of Itadori's trio.
The reason they were being suppressed unilaterally was because many ordinary people in the supermarket were being held hostage, restricting Itadori's trio who were trying to protect them, leading to them constantly being hit by the enemy's attacks.
"What hostages?"
Ijichi, standing nearby, didn't know what was happening and asked with a hint of confusion.
"Over at the supermarket, the Cursed Spirit users have hostages."
Lightning converged, forming a long spear that Lynn grasped.
"Let me think... The technique of the blonde with the single ponytail seems to be luck storage for absolute defense. I'll take care of the other one first."
"Eh?"
Ijichi was stunned.
When he realized what Lynn was talking about, he saw the other party take a step forward and throw his right arm out.
The lightning spear pierced the air and vanished in an instant.
At the same time, a massive explosion echoed from the distance.
Boom—!
"Next is the second one."
The lightning transformed into a longbow. Lynn held the bow with his left hand and drew the string with his right, as a golden arrow leaped onto it.
The next second, streaks of golden arrow shadows tore through the sky, rushing toward the distant supermarket.
Because his teammate was instantly obliterated by the sudden lightning strike, Choso was momentarily stunned.
When he snapped back to his senses, streaks of arrows were already appearing before him.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Continuous ripping sounds erupted as a dozen or so arrows pierced Choso and pinned him to the ground.
His accumulated luck was instantly depleted, and after that, the arrows exploded like dynamite.
Dazzling lightning swallowed him, leaving behind a pit several meters wide where he stood.
"Wha... What's going on?"
Kugisaki looked at her teammates with some bewilderment.
"I don't know, but this attack looks somewhat familiar."
Itadori looked back in the direction the arrows came from.
"It's Lynn."
Fushiguro let out a long breath and provided the answer.
Because he was curious about Lynn's strength, Fushiguro often watched Lynn train in the past few days.
During that process, he had an extremely deep impression of that golden lightning, recognizing its source immediately.
"Speaking of which, there was a huge commotion coming from the Juvenile Detention Center just now. Lynn must have finished his fight."
"Ugh, this is so embarrassing."
Kugisaki sat on the ground, clutching her abdomen.
When they separated earlier, she had told Lynn to be careful and wait for them to come back and help.
As a result, Lynn not only finished his fight first but also sent remote support that instantly eliminated their enemies.
"Everyone! Are you all okay!"
One minute later, Ijichi rushed into the supermarket with the logistics team and immediately began treating everyone's injuries.
"Mr. Ijichi, where is Lynn?"
Itadori, who had the lightest injuries, quickly tied up his wounds, glanced around, and didn't see his friend.
Instantly, countless imagined scenarios flashed through his mind.
After fighting with all his might and defeating the enemy, the heavily injured Lynn found Ijichi and learned about the situation at the supermarket.
For their safety, Lynn disregarded the cost and forcibly activated his technique to send support to the supermarket.
"Lynn is fine."
Ijichi interrupted Itadori's fantasy.
"He already returned to Jujutsu High."
"Jujutsu High?"
"Yes, I'll explain the details later."
Recalling what Lynn had said earlier and his murderous expression before leaving, Ijichi sighed.
He could roughly guess what Lynn was going back to do.
After directing the logistics team to stabilize the situation on site, Ijichi finally found a moment of free time, pulled out his phone, and made a call.
"Moshi moshi~ This is Gojo Satoru, currently on an outing~"
A few seconds later, the call was answered, and a flippant voice came from the phone.
"Mr. Gojo! Something terrible has happened!"
Ignoring Gojo Satoru's antics, Ijichi immediately reported what had just happened.
After listening to the whole sequence of events, Gojo Satoru understood why Ijichi was contacting him at this moment.
However, more than Lynn returning to Jujutsu High, he was more concerned about another piece of information in the report.
"You encountered Suguru Geto?"
"Uh, yes."
Ijichi hesitated for a moment before adding, "When I met him, he only had half a body left, but he was still lively and even able to speak. He looked extremely bizarre."
Gojo Satoru: "Did he escape?"
Ijichi: "No, Suguru Geto ordered a Cursed Spirit that looked very dangerous to kill me, and Lynn arrived in time to eliminate them all... leaving no corpses behind."
Gojo Satoru: "I see."
On the other end of the line, Gojo Satoru looked up at the sky, his face showing a complicated expression.
He had known about Suguru Geto's body being occupied from Lynn over ten days ago.
Considering the situation, he had already made arrangements to deal with the possibility of the enemy trying to use Suguru Geto's corpse to cause trouble, but he hadn't expected the enemy to move so quickly.
"Mr. Gojo, about Lynn..."
Ijichi's voice sounded again.
But before he could finish, Gojo Satoru interrupted him.
"Don't worry about Lynn. I will find a way to handle it. You just take care of Itadori and the others."
"Uh, understood."
Ijichi hung up the phone.
Having witnessed Lynn's strength firsthand, he knew very well that he was incapable of getting involved in that matter.
Leaving the follow-up to Gojo Satoru, he dispatched personnel to settle the hostages in the supermarket and sent others to cordon off the area around the Juvenile Detention Center to prevent irrelevant personnel from approaching.
At this point, concealment was impossible.
The Extreme Art: Vortex, which had gathered hundreds of thousands of Cursed Spirit and could even shatter a Fusion Domain, could not be contained by an ordinary curtain barrier.
The mushroom cloud that blew the Juvenile Detention Center into the sky back then could be seen by anyone in the vicinity who wasn't blind.
Considering the viral nature of the internet and the time that had passed since the incident...
Ijichi tremblingly raised his finger and tapped the phone screen.
[Breaking News! A mushroom cloud appeared in Tokyo, suspected to be an explosion caused by a gas tank leak! ]
[Encountered a massive explosion while shopping; the shockwave was as strong as a monster, sent flying and suffered fractures despite my best efforts! ]
[Gas tank leak? Terrorist attack? The truth behind the mushroom cloud in Tokyo is...]
"Sigh, I knew it would be like this."
Ijichi's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally died.
The famous Jujutsu Sorcerer, Kento Nanami, once said that Jujutsu Sorcerers are crap.
But in Ijichi's view, the Jujutsu Sorcerer logistics team is also crap; it's completely not a job for humans.
With the public outcry being this huge, he could forget about resting for the next few months; he'd be working overtime until he died.
...