The flashlight beam hit the figure's face—it was a youth who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, his face pale, eyes wide open with dilated pupils, long since stopped breathing.
An expression of extreme terror was frozen on his face, and there were purplish-black bruises on his neck.
"He's dead..." Nobara said in a low voice.
Yuji crouched down and carefully looked at the name tag on the boy's chest. "Tadashi... he's the son of that mother outside."
He thought of that grief-stricken woman, and a wave of pity rose in his heart.
"We can't leave him here. At least... we should take him out and give him to his mother."
Fushiguro shook his head, his voice cold and hard. "No, Itadori. The priority of the mission is the living. Besides..."
He pointed to some unhealed scrapes and bruises visible on Tadashi's arm, then looked at some unnatural impact marks on the surrounding walls.
"The preliminary report from Window mentioned that several violent incidents occurred in this detention center recently."
"Tadashi... if I remember the additional information in the briefing correctly, he was sent here for a hit-and-run that killed a young girl and had multiple records of violence."
"His death might not be an accident, it might even be related to the outbreak of the curse here. We can barely protect ourselves right now, moving with a corpse is too dangerous."
Yuji opened his mouth, looking at Tadashi's young but lifeless face, then thought of the crying mother, falling into internal struggle. Logic told him Fushiguro was right, but emotionally...
Just then, a sudden change occurred.
The ground beneath everyone's feet suddenly became as soft and viscous as a swamp without any warning.
Furthermore, this change was not uniform. It was like a precise trap—the ground where Nobara, Utaha, Eriri, and Kato were standing instantly turned into a dark mire of churning bubbles, and a powerful suction force pulled at them.
"What?!"
"Aaaah!"
"Kasumigaoka!"
Amidst the cries of alarm, the four girls didn't even have time to react effectively before their bodies were rapidly swallowed by the black mire, sinking downward.
Yuji and Fushiguro tried to move forward to rescue them, but the ground beneath their feet remained solid, as if an invisible barrier separated the two groups.
"Kugisaki! Kasumigaoka! Sawamura! Kato!"
Yuji's eyes were nearly bursting as he frantically pounded on the ground that had suddenly become as smooth and hard as glass, but it was useless. He could only watch helplessly as his four companions vanished into the darkness.
Fushiguro's face was ashen. He immediately tried to use his shadow to connect, but when the shadow touched that area, it was blocked and contaminated by something slippery, quickly retracting.
"It's a Domain! They've been teleported somewhere else! Calm down, Itadori. Anger and panic are useless right now."
Just as the two were reeling from the sudden loss of their teammates, deep in the corridor, the darkness and curse aura so thick it was inseparable began to churn and coalesce violently, as if possessed of life.
An extremely unsettling existence slowly "emerged" from the shadows.
It roughly took on a distorted human shape, but its form was far more bizarre than an ordinary Cursed Spirit.
Its upper body consisted of exaggeratedly bulging, unhealthily pale muscles, with veins writhing under the skin like earthworms, filled with a sense of savage power.
Its head was covered in eerie patterns of interlaced black and white, like abstract ink splashes or cracked porcelain. These patterns tapered toward the back, forming a long, thin braid like a fetal umbilical cord.
The face had no nose, only a giant mouth that grinned almost to the ears, revealing interlocking sharp teeth. Above this massive mouth, four protruding eyes without eyelids, with pupils as thin as a reptile's, rotated irregularly like independent organisms, flashing with pure malice directed at all life.
However, in absurd and terrifying contrast to this gruesome upper body was its lower body.
From the waist down, it hadn't completely emerged from its "birth" state, still tightly wrapped in a layer of dark purple, thick, and viscous fetal skin covered in blood vessels and unknown slime, resembling a giant placenta or cocoon.
It relied on its upper body to drag this heavy "cocoon" across the ground, producing a wet and slippery sound.
This was the Cursed Womb born here.
It was not naturally conceived, its core fear stemmed from the deep-seated human dread of "dying young" or "becoming distorted before being able to grow."
Crucially, during its formation, it happened to consume one of Sukuna's fingers.
That fragment of the King of Curses' extreme evil and power acted like the most violent catalyst, causing it to undergo an unimaginably rapid mutation, gaining terrifying power ahead of time,
Yet because it hadn't completely digested or integrated with it, its form remained stuck in this "half-hatched" distorted state, doubling its resentment and agony.
"Giggle, giggle..."
It's four eyes simultaneously locked onto the remaining Yuji and Fushiguro. A bizarre sound, a mix of a baby's cry and the grinding of bones, emerged from its giant mouth as viscous saliva dripped down, corroding the floor.
The Cursed Energy fluctuations radiating from its body were unmistakably Special Grade.
The appearance of the Cursed Spirit was like having a bucket of ice water poured directly into the bones of Yuji and Fushiguro.
This was not merely a gap in Cursed Energy strength. It was a sense of crushing dominance stemming from a higher life form, an instinctive feeling of being overwhelmed.
Just by fully emerging from the shadows, its terrifying aura—a mixture of the malice from undigested Sukuna finger, the resentment of premature death, and pure wickedness—crashed down on their minds like an invisible mountain.
The air became thick like glue, and every breath carried the sweet, metallic stench of rust and decay, stinging their lungs.
Yuji felt his proud athletic prowess was like a rusted gear, turning with difficulty.
Fushiguro felt the surrounding shadows trembling and retreating, as if they had encountered a natural predator.
Cold sweat instantly drenched both their backs.