Mount Fuji erupted. Within a twenty-kilometer radius, towns like Hayakawa, Nanbu, Yui, and Hakone were swallowed by a thick, suffocating shroud of volcanic ash in under ten minutes. Under the weight of this natural disaster, buildings crumbled like sandcastles, lives were snuffed out in an instant, and entire cities were leveled to a wasteland of grey soot.
The nightmare didn't end there. Tsunamis, earthquakes, and forest fires triggered by the eruption followed in a hellish succession.
Maki sprinted through the raining ash, Toji's weight heavy on her back, her eyes wide as she witnessed the living purgatory unfolding around them.
"Damn it! These Curses are insane... to pull a stunt like this right before dying!"
It seemed Jogo, the Disaster of Earth, had offered his very soul as a sacrifice. The intensity of this eruption far surpassed any recorded in history. The tremors were so violent they were felt eighty kilometers away in the heart of Tokyo.
Shinjuku, Tokyo.
BOOM!!!
A ferocious fist wrapped in arcs of black lightning slammed into Sukuna's jaw, sending the King of Curses hurtling through the structural pillars of a skyscraper.
Souma Gojo lunged forward with a savage grin. Sukuna, mid-air, grabbed a stray fire extinguisher and hurled it with lethal force.
Pop!
Souma punched the canister into scrap metal, and a cloud of white chemical retardant momentarily veiled the two fighters.
"Open: Flames of Naraka."
Sukuna wove a ball of fire between his palms, drawing it back into the shape of a longbow. He loosed an arrow of pure solar heat toward Souma. This was the same technique that had incinerated even a fire-specialist like Jogo. Its temperature was so extreme that steel rebar melted into liquid slag before the arrow even touched it.
Facing this heat, Souma didn't dodge. He reached out with both hands and caught the arrow of fire mid-flight.
Sizzle—
The sound of searing flesh echoed as Souma's palms blackened. With a look of utter indifference, he snapped the arrow in two, letting the embers dissipate into the wind.
"Blue."
Souma's charred left hand pulled, and Sukuna's body was yanked forward, gravity-bound and helpless.
"Red."
A point-blank blast was shoved directly into the maw on Sukuna's stomach. The resulting explosion leveled the remains of the building, sending a shockwave of dust and debris through the street.
Sukuna, aided by the cursed tool Hiten, retreated with a speed that rivaled Souma's own teleportation. The mouth on his abdomen had been reduced to a smoking, bloody crater.
In a heartbeat, his Reverse Cursed Technique knitted the tissue back together.
"Dismantle."
A net of invisible slashes enveloped Souma. He didn't blink. He allowed the grid-like cuts to blossom across his skin, blood spraying in fine mists, and used the moment to close the distance once more.
"Red."
BOOM—
Souma's wounds vanished as quickly as they appeared. He looked at Sukuna, who had emerged from the ruins with that same maddeningly confident smile.
"You're a tough one to put down," Souma sneered.
He surged forward, unleashing another Black Flash.
CRACK!
Sukuna flew backward again, buried under a mountain of rubble. Yet, he stood up almost instantly. His durability was nonsensical. Even when Souma hammered him into the earth, Sukuna rose as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. His health pool was an ocean.
Despite being on the defensive, Sukuna's smile remained—a look of someone who still held all the cards.
"You aren't bad yourself!" Sukuna laughed. "Catching my flames with your bare hands and only suffering a minor burn... and taking my Dismantle head-on without even activating Infinity. You really are a monster."
Souma spread his hands, showing his scarred palms. "My Reverse Cursed Technique is actually slowing down. What kind of fire is that?"
Sukuna gave a cold chuckle. "Would I reveal my secrets to my enemy?"
"Tch! Cheap bastard."
Sukuna suddenly raised the tool Kamutoke.
"Naraka: Divine Punishment!"
Crr-ack!
A bolt of lightning descended from the pitch-black sky, shaping itself into a hundred-foot serpent of electricity that lunged for Souma's throat.
Simultaneously—"Cleave!"
This was the "beautiful" form Kashimo had marveled at. With four arms and two faces, Sukuna could chant and weave two high-level techniques at once, a feat impossible for any other sorcerer.
The lightning serpent and a lethal slash converged on Souma from two different vectors.
Souma's eyes remained calm as he raised a hand.
"It's time."
"Maximum: Eon."
In Sukuna's eyes, Souma Gojo simply... vanished.
No! Not vanished! He's too fast to see!
Sukuna's sixth sense, honed over a millennium of slaughter, screamed a warning. Souma hadn't teleported; his speed had reached a different dimension entirely.
From Souma's perspective, the world had ground to a halt. The lightning serpent and the Cleave were frozen in place, inches from his skin. He casually stepped to the side, letting the attacks pass through the space he had occupied a micro-second ago.
He moved in front of Sukuna. In his hands, Blue and Red began to spin, merging with the maximum output of his cursed energy.
"Hollow Technique: Purple!"
In slow-motion, Sukuna's eyes flickered. Even if he couldn't track Souma's movement, he could feel the sudden, absolute threat to his existence.
When the violet sphere finally entered his perception, it was already touching his chest. At this distance, at this speed, there was no dodging.
Is this the end?
Do I fall here?
In that infinitesimal moment, a thousand years of combat experience flashed through Sukuna's mind. Every scrap of cursed knowledge, every chant, every soul-bound secret resonated. His instinct for survival pushed his potential past its breaking point, searching for a path through the impossible.
Cursed energy... Technique... Chants... Slashes...
Life... Death... Existence... The World...
"Dragon Scales."
"Reciprocity."
"Paired Meteors."
"Dismantle!"
In that split second, Ryomen Sukuna transcended himself. He didn't chant with his mouths; he chanted with his soul.
The gods themselves seemed to favor him. An invisible slash manifested, not aimed at Souma, but at the very fabric of reality.
A Chantless Technique.
The World-Cutting Slash.
A strike that severs the very dimension.
The World-Cutting Slash collided with Purple.
The world turned white. The sheer volume of the clash rendered both fighters momentarily deaf.
BOOM!!!
Everything was erased. Everything was annihilated. Buildings, earth, trees—it all vanished into a void of pure energy.
At that same moment, the shockwave from Mount Fuji's eruption finally reached Shinjuku. The earth split open, buildings swayed, and volcanic ash began to fall from the sky like grey snow.
Shinjuku had become the end of the world.
"Hahahaha..."
Two figures emerged from the settling dust. Sukuna was laughing—a raw, manic sound of pure delight. He stared at Souma, his face twisted with a frenzied joy.
"I owe you my thanks, Souma Gojo!"
"Because of you, I have finally grasped the true essence of my technique!"
"To show my gratitude, you shall be the first to die by this move. Feel honored!"
"Shut up!"
Souma wasn't interested in the monologue. The duration of Maximum: Eon was only ten seconds—ten seconds by his own internal clock.
And he only had three left.
Souma's figure vanished again, and that familiar sense of impending death surged back into Sukuna's heart.
But this time, Sukuna didn't panic.
"Dragon Scales."
"Reciprocity."
"Paired Meteors."
"Dismantle."
"Infinity."
"Sovereignty."
"The Great Web."
"Maximum Output: Silence!"