The night was as black as ink, thickly enveloping an industrial wasteland on the edge of the city.
This had once been a bustling textile mill, but now only crumbling walls, rusted steel skeletons, and broken windows remained. Under the pale moonlight, it looked like the carcass of a giant beast, exuding an unsettling gloom amidst the deathly silence.
A dark shadow streaked silently across the night sky, landing on the roof of the tallest abandoned factory building.
Utaha's body landed lightly, her long black hair fluttering in the night wind. Sukuna, controlling her body, scanned the dilapidated scene below with four crimson pupils flashing like a predator's in the darkness.
"This is the place." Sukuna's deep voice echoed in Utaha's mind, carrying a hint of confirmation.
"One of my fingers is right down there. Although the aura is faint and has been deliberately masked by something, there's no mistake."
He could feel that finger belonging to him emitting a unique fluctuation of Cursed Energy, acting like a lighthouse in the dark to guide him. At the same time, he also sensed that the entire building was permeated with an unusually thick, chaotic, and malicious Cursed Energy field, far stronger than the "filth" an ordinary abandoned building should have.
"It seems my finger has been eaten by some Cursed Spirit." Sukuna sneered, his tone playful with a hint of subtle excitement.
He hadn't really loosened up his muscles since being awake.
He controlled Utaha's hands to quickly form a simple yet profound hand seal. An invisible Cursed Energy with isolating and concealing properties rapidly spread out with her as the center, forming a hemispherical, dark thin film barely perceptible to the naked eye, enveloping the entire abandoned factory.
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure, and exorcise all filth."
Sukuna casually recited the incantation and explained to the curious Utaha, "This is a Curtain, a basic barrier technique. It can mask the sights, sounds, and Cursed Energy fluctuations within, preventing ordinary people from wandering in and avoiding having our little skirmish attract unnecessary flies."
"Of course, its effect is limited against Jujutsu Sorcerers with some skill, but at least it buys some time or makes the hunt a bit quieter."
After setting up the Curtain, Sukuna no longer hesitated. Controlling Utaha's body, he leapt from the roof as if weightless, easily dropping through a broken window and entering the factory interior.
The interior was even more dilapidated and dark than it appeared from the outside. The air was thick with heavy dust, mold, and an indescribable, disgusting smell like rust mixed with rotting meat.
In the empty workshop, only a few pale beams of moonlight cast through holes, reflecting the twisted shadows of abandoned machinery and debris scattered on the floor.
Almost the instant Sukuna landed, rustling sounds came from the shadows. Several low-level Cursed Spirits with distorted forms and weak Cursed Energy fluctuations pounced from all directions like hyenas smelling blood.
They took various shapes—some like rotting meat, others like twisted shadows—letting out meaningless screeches.
"In the way."
Sukuna didn't even bother to use a Cursed Technique. With a thought, several translucent hands composed of shadows and Cursed Energy instantly condensed and took shape beside and behind Utaha. These arms were flexible and swift, like tentacles with their own consciousness, precisely grabbing the lunging low-level Cursed Spirits.
In "Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World," the Unseen Hand was originally the Authority of the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti. In the hands of this Archbishop, these invisible hands possessed the formidable power to tear human bodies apart, destroy the ground, and devastate forests, making them difficult for ordinary people and most warriors to withstand.
Although they were called invisible, given their performance in the story, the "unseen" setting was mostly just for show anyway.
These invisible hands not only dealt extremely high physical damage but also possessed a certain level of mental assault. This mental pollution had a massive impact on ordinary humans. Only those with high spirit affinity had a chance to withstand this move.
However, on one hand, the movement speed of these hands was relatively average, making it difficult to hit targets when facing agile and powerful opponents.
On the other hand, the hands were only invisible to the naked eye, not truly non-existent in a literal sense. If covered by visible substances like dirt or rain, their movement trajectories would be revealed, allowing opponents to find opportunities to respond and counterattack.
Squish! Splat!
Accompanied by a series of extremely unsettling sounds of crushing, tearing, or vaporizing, this lopsided massacre began.
The hands acted like the most efficient scavengers, precisely grabbing every low-level Cursed Spirit that pounced.
Some were squeezed until they exploded, turning into a pool of foul black water that then evaporated.
Some were easily torn in two, their Cursed Energy cores instantly snuffed out.
Others were slammed against the walls or floor by invisible force, becoming blurred meat pies.
Under the absolute power of the invisible hands, those low-level Cursed Spirits were like crushed rotten tomatoes, instantly dissolving into wisps of black smoke without even a margin for resistance.
Throughout the process, Sukuna controlled Utaha's body without pausing his steps, walking toward the densest source of Cursed Energy—the direction of his finger—as if taking a stroll.
All obstacles along the way, whether physical debris or Cursed Spirits, were easily cleared away by the Unseen Hands like sweeping up trash.