Having just flipped over the barricade and stepped into the cordoned-off zone, Utaha stopped in her tracks, her eyes looking toward the direction of the intense gunfire and eerie laughter in confusion.
The "tenant" inside her body let out an excited whisper, "Oh? A fight? And this power... interesting. It's not Cursed Energy, nor pure resentment. It seems tonight's 'walk' will be even more exciting than expected."
...
Despair, like a cold tide, had completely submerged the remaining members of the Public Security Exorcist Division.
The Ghost Devil's unpredictable attack patterns, its near-immortality, and its cold malice that eroded the soul made these well-trained and well-equipped warriors appear incredibly fragile.
One after another, their comrades turned into green smoke or mummified corpses, as shrill screams and eerie giggles intertwined into a sonata from hell.
A shadow brushed past the Captain's arm, instantly turning it black and numb. The spiritual light at the muzzle of his specialized submachine gun dimmed. He knelt on one knee, gasping heavily, his eyes filled with resentment and despair.
Himeno lied slumped not far away, her pupils dilated, seemingly having given up resistance.
That Ghost Devil, a convergence of countless grudges and twisted rules, hovered in mid-air. Its massive body, composed of innumerable small arms, writhed slowly. Its remaining head, with its constantly rolling, sinister eyeballs, let out a joyful "cluck," savoring the fear of its prey. It was preparing to deliver the final blow to these struggling ants.
Just then—
An indescribable pressure, far beyond the understanding of everyone present, descended without warning.
It wasn't the bone-chilling malice of the Ghost Devil, but a pure, supreme terror that seemed to originate from the very source of the world.
The air solidified instantly, and time seemed to be forcibly stretched. The dilapidated scene of the abandoned street began to warp and ripple violently, like a reflection in water after a stone had been thrown in.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine."
In the next moment, the world was overturned.
The concrete ground beneath their feet shattered inch by inch, replaced by a "foundation" paved with countless bleached white bones. These bones were of various forms—some human, some indescribable monsters—twisted and struggling as if frozen in an eternal moment, forming the base of this terrifying structure that suddenly rose from the ground.
A massive, hideous shrine, radiating an endless aura of blood and slaughter, manifested out of thin air. Rather than a shrine, it was more like a living, bloody slaughterhouse where killing was the offering.
And the sky was completely covered by a layer of vivid, dripping crimson blood, as if it had just been spilled. This bloody dome was not static. It writhed and flowed slowly, as if alive, completely cutting off all external light and casting only a suffocating dark red glow, painting the entire space like the depths of hell.
In just an instant, centered on that abandoned commercial building, an area with a radius of nearly a hundred meters was completely swallowed and covered by the domain named "Malevolent Shrine".
This included the remaining members of the Exorcism Division, that arrogant Ghost Devil, and Utaha, who had just stepped into this area and was still observing.
"Wha... What is this?!"
A member of the Exorcism Division cried out, his voice cracking from extreme fear.
He looked around, seeing only endless bones, a writhing flesh-and-blood shrine, and a dark red sky.
The familiar streets, the city, the night sky... everything was gone.
They seemed to have been forcibly pulled into an alien space independent of reality, constructed entirely by the rules of slaughter.
The Captain struggled to lift his head, his cold face showing a look of near-collapsing horror for the first time.
As a Captain of the Exorcism Division, he had encountered many supernatural events and heard rumors about powerful Cursed Spirits or otherworldly beings possessing "domains," but those were just vague concepts.
Witnessing and being personally trapped in such a concrete, terrifying, and overwhelmingly present domain shattered all his understanding and courage.
This was no longer a battle, this was... divine punishment.
The powerlessness of an ant facing a natural disaster!
Himeno was even more stunned with fear, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open unconsciously, unable to even scream, her body shaking.
And the Ghost Devil, which had been so arrogant just a moment ago, was now plunged into immense confusion and suspicion. Its constantly rolling eyeballs stopped for the first time, staring fixedly at that bloody shrine. The countless arms forming its body agitated and curled up uneasily, letting out unintelligible, fearful screeches.
It instinctively felt a fatal threat, a level of threat far exceeding anything it had ever encountered before.
In the center of this bloody domain, directly in front of that towering and terrifying Malevolent Shrine, a figure stood quietly.
It was a tall girl with long black hair fluttering gently in the domain's dark red breeze. Her eyes were now as cold as eternal ice.
It was Utaha or rather, it was Sukuna who had taken control of her body.
Sukuna tilted his head back slightly and took a deep breath of the blood-and-slaughter-filled air within the domain, a satisfied and intoxicated expression appearing on his face.
His clear breathing, in this deathly silent domain, was like the death knell of the Grim Reaper, striking the hearts of every survivor.
"A decent toy, but a pity... the toy is a bit dirty." Sukuna said, controlling Utaha's vocal cords to produce a low, magnetic evaluation.
His gaze fell upon the Ghost Devil, which was trembling slightly from fear. He didn't even make any obvious movements, he just had a slight thought.
Buzz—
The air within the domain emitted a faint, vibrating hum, like a plucked string.
Immediately after, on a level that neither humans nor devils could understand or observe, countless invisible and intangible slashes, instantly enveloped the Ghost Devil like a violent storm.
It wasn't a physical slashing of swords, but a "cutting" and "separation" on a conceptual level.
In the next instant, as if being sliced into a thousand pieces by countless sharpest invisible blades at the same moment, the Ghost Devil's massive body, composed of shadows and grudges, suddenly splattered with countless jets of pitch-black "blood" as thick as oil.
Its densely packed, constantly waving, and writhing eerie arms were actually severed at the root in an instant. Countless severed arms fell onto the white bones on the ground with a pattering sound, then quickly dissolved and evaporated, turning into wisps of black smoke.
In just one encounter, this Ghost Devil, which had caused heavy losses and near-despair for the Public Security Exorcist Division, was stripped of almost all its means of attack.
Only a head covered in sinister eyeballs, carrying extreme suspicion and unbelievable fear, rolled across the ground like a kicked ball, separating from its severed body. The eyeballs on that head rolled frantically and irregularly, trying to understand what had just happened and searching for the source of that invisible attack.
Its gaze, filled with a sinister and eerie feeling, subconsciously swept over the surrounding members of the Public Security Exorcist Division, who were collapsed on the ground like lambs to the slaughter.
Just being swept by the gaze of this terrifying head made the team members, whose minds had already collapsed due to the Domain Expansion, feel as if they had fallen into an ice cellar. A chill rushed from their tailbones straight to the tops of their heads, and even their breathing almost stopped.
They had no doubt that if it weren't for the "girl" who had suddenly appeared and controlled the terrifying domain, drawing all the Devil's attention, they would likely have turned to ashes just like their previous comrades.