Toyokawa Sakiko's main body sat cross-legged in the pitch-black void, eyes closed, shunting most of her attention into her Possibility Double—Gojo Saki—while Nagasaki Soyo and Kochō Shinobu stood guard to her left and right.
Gojo Saki walked toward the towering city gate. With Sakiko's prior experience "piloting" an Odin-Saki under the fourth-stage Berserk Blood state, it took only a short stretch of movement before she adjusted to this one-ninety frame as naturally as breathing.
She took a slow breath, then guided Gojo Saki forward—straight through the gate.
The instant the soles of her shoes touched the Palace's floor, a grand, omnipresent background score slammed into existence.
It didn't enter through the ears.
It poured directly into the mind—an overwhelming melody that felt like someone had "nerfed" the effect in exchange for infinite coverage, almost like a diluted Unlimited Void that traded lethality for range.
The music was intricate and solemn, mechanical to the point of precision, yet threaded with a faint loneliness—like the city itself inhaling and exhaling.
Sakiko's sense of rhythm was excellent to begin with. During the Ave Mujica era, she'd endured brutal operatic stage training. Now, Gojo Saki's Six Eyes provided a terrifying boost to bodily control on top of that.
She didn't even need to consciously count.
Gojo Saki's body began to move as if the beat were a natural law.
On streets paved with interlaced metal and wood, her long frame turned lightly, toe tapping down—each step landing dead-center on the downbeat.
The motion fused operatic drama with a predator's combat awareness: clean, sharp, powerful, and impossibly elegant.
Scattered along the road were several cartoonish dolls modeled after Wakaba Mutsumi.
Expressionless. Dressed in simple skirts. Marching stiffly along their routes like wind-up toys.
Gojo Saki danced among these silent "spectators," advancing a few steps—still fluid, still perfectly on time—when a sharp glint flashed deep within her pale-blue pupils.
Her cursed energy efficiency had increased.
Not metaphorically. Not "she felt better."
The Six Eyes' feedback was explicit: every time she hit the beat precisely, her cursed energy flow became smoother, stronger, faster to mobilize.
Gojo Saki's mind raced.
The navigation app had only listed the most basic rule: if you didn't act on the music's tempo, you would be harmed.
But if you did more than merely follow the tempo—if you matched it—what then?
She had her answer.
Obeying the rule wasn't just about avoiding punishment.
It granted a terrifying, holistic buff.
With the Six Eyes, her cursed energy control was already obscene. Unless she used Reverse Cursed Technique and multiplied cursed energy into positive energy for healing, her losses were so close to zero they were practically nonexistent.
And yet, under the BGM's umbrella—when her movements aligned perfectly with each accented beat—she could feel it:
Her cursed energy wasn't being preserved.
It was increasing.
Increasing.
Her consumption had flipped from zero to negative. The more she used cursed energy, the more she had.
"This is insane," she thought, and the Six Eyes tore into the anomaly at high speed.
She also sensed the strength of the buff wasn't fixed. It likely scaled with both her precision—how perfectly she hit the beat—and the beauty of her movement.
The more accurate she was, the more visually pleasing the dance… the more lavish the rule's "reward" became.
A thought flickered through her mind:
Ryomen Sukuna's efficiency couldn't possibly be poor. Under this kind of rule support, "infinite uptime" might not even be a joke.
That eased Sakiko's lingering worry about Soyo's safety.
The positive effect was confirmed. Now it was time to test the boundaries—and the penalty.
A Double dying was no big deal. You just resummoned it.
Gojo Saki's graceful dance halted.
She continued forward, still respecting the beat—step, pause, step, pause—but in the stiffest, ugliest way possible.
Instantly, the buoyant "surplus cursed energy" sensation vanished.
The BGM's full-spectrum buff receded like a tide.
Her body returned to normal. Her cursed energy returned to its Six Eyes baseline: near-zero loss, but no "free gain."
And just as the app had said, she took no damage.
The model was clear now:
Simply moving on the beat met the minimum requirement—no punishment.
To receive the absurd buff, you had to dance—to be elegant, beautiful, pleasing to the Palace's rules.
Gojo Saki's expression turned serious.
"Now… let's see what 'wrong' costs," she decided.
She tracked the next beat point—
And, just before the beat truly fell, she deliberately stepped half a beat early.
A shriek ripped the air.
A razor slash appeared out of nowhere, too fast for ordinary eyes to follow, accompanied by a screech of tearing metal. The metallic ground where she'd stepped split open into a mirror-smooth fissure, an inch deep, sparks snapping along the cut.
This was the Palace's punishment.
Gojo Saki's Infinity—her untouchable barrier—blocked it effortlessly.
But she didn't relax.
Her face hardened further.
Her technique efficiency had dropped.
In the moment she broke tempo and the slash triggered, her cursed energy seized—flow turning stiff, sluggish, difficult.
Maintaining Infinity suddenly demanded higher precision. Its consumption spiked in a way that made no sense under "normal" physics.
If she kept going off-beat—if she created serious rhythm chaos—her cursed energy could spiral into total disorder.
And if her cursed energy went berserk, Infinity would collapse. Then she'd be naked beneath the rule's punishment.
Worse still: Reverse Cursed Technique would become nearly impossible.
Reverse Cursed Technique was refinement incarnate. You had to multiply cursed energy, invert it into positive energy, then guide it with surgical control to knit damaged tissue.
If cursed energy flow was already out of control—if even basic output couldn't be stabilized—high-level conversion was out of the question.
Even with Six Eyes, it wouldn't happen… unless you had a fully automatic, no-control-required healing engine.
But the danger wasn't limited to internal interference.
Gojo Saki sensed the environment change.
She lifted her gaze and scanned the surroundings.
Along both sides of the street, the Wakaba-Mutsumi dolls—previously background props wandering without purpose—stopped, all at once.
To fully map the Palace's underlying logic, Gojo Saki stepped off-beat again, right before the next beat landed.
Blue flame erupted from nothing, lashing up like venomous snakes around her lower leg.
Infinity held steady, isolating the heat and flame completely.
Yet the penalty didn't end there.
As the flame rose, every doll's head began to rotate—slowly, inch by inch—until every one of their empty stares locked onto Gojo Saki.
The rule was now obvious:
In Mutsumi's Palace, breaking tempo didn't just trigger external punishment and disrupt your internal power flow.
It also activated the doll sentries and drew full-scale pursuit.
—
Outside the mechanical Palace, in the icy void—
Because Sakiko had poured almost all of her consciousness into Gojo Saki's exploration, her main body was nearly on autopilot.
Soyo and Shinobu stood beside her, effectively idle.
Soyo folded her arms, brows drawn tight. She kept glancing at Sakiko—motionless, eyes closed—then back at the Palace gate.
Her fingers unconsciously twisted her sleeve. She hesitated to speak, swallowed it down, and finally released a sigh so small it barely existed.
Being forced to wait—unable to seize control with her own hands—made her feel like a useless wife.
Anxiety crept up, then was crushed back down by the Willpower Glasses before it crossed a certain line.
Shinobu, on the other hand, had long since dropped her gentle smile.
She crossed her arms. Her slender fingers tapped her elbow in a steady rhythm. Her violet eyes narrowed in focus and doubt.
Too slow.
That thought kept recurring.
She looked at Sakiko's main body, then the Palace entrance.
Her Demon Slayer instincts agreed: letting the most durable, death-agnostic scout—a Possibility Double—probe alone was the safest, most rational approach in unknown territory.
Yet the sense of wrongness wouldn't fade.
Shinobu felt there was a better solution right in front of them—hidden behind a thin veil.
Instinct and experience fought inside her skull. Experience, once her weapon, now became a cage.
She tried to break out of it. She tried to find the more efficient method.
But the door wouldn't appear.
The frustration built, sharp and irritating.
"No. We can't keep doing this."
Shinobu's eyes sharpened.
She took a breath—and, for the first time, actively used the Thought Singularity.
Yes, it had a side effect: her butt would get bigger. Yes, that side effect was somehow derived from her own concept. But she made the decision anyway.
She'd need the Thought Singularity repeatedly to study modern medical knowledge in Sakiko's world. The "price" was coming sooner or later.
And right now, she was wearing clothing formed by the Word-Spirit Tights—meaning even if her hips changed, the outfit would instantly adjust. No sudden waistband catastrophes.
As Thought Singularity activated, her mind's horizon expanded.
The fog in front of her thinking vanished.
And one critical point—something she'd completely ignored—lit up like a beacon:
The group livestream function.
It was a feature unlocked only two days ago, when she joined. In practice, she'd been the only one to experience it as a viewer even once.
That single experience had left a subconscious imprint, making her feel their efficiency had room to improve—yet her old habits had stopped her from connecting the dots.
"So that's what it is."
Shinobu's eyes flashed.
A new plan assembled instantly:
They didn't need to let one Double fight alone.
All three of them could send their Doubles into the Palace simultaneously, split up, and explore in parallel.
Possibility Doubles could be resummoned even if they died.
And with group livestream, their main bodies could synchronize everything in real time—sight, sound, environment, sensations.
If one Double found a rule, the other Doubles would know immediately.
If one Double hit danger, the others could analyze and adapt instantly from the feed.
Real-time shared intelligence didn't just triple efficiency.
It multiplied it.
Then the Thought Singularity gave Shinobu the missing answer:
Why hadn't Sakiko thought of it?
Because Sakiko had never personally used livestream. It unlocked late. And Sakiko had been relying on old "safe" experience—plus her protective instinct toward Soyo.
Meanwhile, Shinobu herself had been trapped in the Demon Slayer mindset until now.
Shinobu stepped forward.
"Sakiko—pull a bit of your focus back."
Sakiko's body jolted. Her lashes trembled.
Then her closed eyes snapped open, sharp with confusion at the interruption.
Shinobu spoke fast—very fast:
"We shouldn't let only one Double explore. All three of our Doubles should enter the Palace and split the search."
"With livestream, we can share everything instantly. That's the most efficient approach."
Sakiko froze for a heartbeat—
Then understanding surged through her face like sunrise. Confusion drained away.
She slammed her right fist into her left palm, a mix of annoyance and excitement.
"Right. Livestream. We can absolutely do that."
No hesitation. She immediately pushed the newly discovered rules from inside the Palace to both of them.
"Listen. Mutsumi's Palace runs on rhythm."
"Every action must match the background music's tempo. If you follow it, your speed, strength, even energy circulation get buffed."
"But if you go off-beat, you won't just get hit—you'll feel your powers jam and stall."
Her voice dropped.
"And those wandering dolls lock onto off-beat targets. If you mess up too much, they may attack."
With the rule briefing done, they moved.
Shinobu's fingers flicked through the interface and she started a livestream in the main group.
Soyo moved too.
Her motions were still a little clumsy, but with Sakiko guiding her she quickly started a livestream inside the subgroup.
Sakiko, meanwhile, opened two livestreams at once—one in the main group and one in the subgroup.
Next, Sakiko entered both of their livestream rooms.
Shinobu and Soyo, since they weren't in the same chat, used Sakiko as a relay node to access each other's feeds.
Then the "weird" sensation arrived.
Each of them felt split into three viewpoints—yet all unified into one mind.
Their own primary vision remained crystal clear. Body control didn't lag at all.
But the other two feeds poured in without resistance, as if their brains had opened two parallel processing channels.
Image, sound, micro-sensory details—everything layered cleanly, without dizziness or overload.
Then Shinobu's eyes narrowed.
The fiery aura on her body receded like a tide.
Air twisted violently, and her Flame Pillar Double peeled off into a separate physical entity.
Flame Shinobu and Ryomen Sukuna exchanged a look—then, without hesitation, marched toward Wakaba Mutsumi's Palace entrance.
Dance and rhythm weren't foreign to Shinobu.
In Demon Slayer's breathing styles, Insect Breathing was a special branch.
Unlike most styles that named techniques as "forms," Insect Breathing's ultimate moves were named as dances—Butterfly Dance: Caprice, Bee Sting Dance: True Flutter, Dragonfly Dance: Compound Eye Hexagon, and more.
Rhythm had already been embedded into her fighting instincts and breathing cadence.
So merging motion with the BGM's tempo was not hard for her.
Flame Shinobu moved.
Her steps were light and uncanny—toe taps, turns, slides—each precisely cutting into the beat.
Flames traced hot arcs through the streets. Her silhouette carried a slightly "feminine," serpentine rhythm—like a blazing dance of death.
Her larger build didn't quite match the style, yet the beat lived in her bones. She looked effortless.
In contrast, Sukuna stayed still for a moment.
For that Double, dance and music were alien.
And while Soyo had musical training—basic rhythm sense—she'd never formally studied dance.
By tempo comprehension alone, Sukuna could likely only manage marching on the beat to avoid punishment.
But Sukuna's most terrifying gift was the ability to observe and learn any technique.
Her four crimson eyes locked onto Flame Shinobu's beat-woven movement.
After only a few seconds, Sukuna moved.
At first, her steps were rough, transitions stiff.
Then, on the very next beat—
She almost perfectly replicated Shinobu's insect-style dance.
Shoulder sway. Hip rotation. Arm arcs.
It was disturbingly accurate.
That eerie, delicate choreography performed by a wild, predatory woman created a violent visual contradiction.
But it was only the beginning.
Sukuna's learning accelerated—absorbing, restructuring.
Insect Breathing's "feminine" quality was stripped away, simplified.
Her own instincts—directness, aggression, brutality—poured in.
The imitation vanished.
The dance evolved into hers—a war-dance of raw, violent rhythm.
No longer tricky. No longer delicate.
Now it was big, bold, clean.
Every arm swing and stomp tore the air with audible force.
And somehow, it fused with the BGM even more naturally—as if she wasn't adapting to the rules, but declaring dominion over them.
Now Flame Shinobu and Sukuna became two cyclones—different styles, equally fast—cutting through the city's labyrinthine streets in parallel exploration.
Meanwhile, Gojo Saki pushed deeper into the Palace's mechanism.
As the omnipresent BGM continued, she resumed dancing.
Her movement was smooth and strong, every turn and gesture locked into the music's seams.
The dolls that had frozen and begun to glare at her earlier released their hostility the moment she returned to rhythm.
Their lock broke.
They went back to wandering like sleepwalkers.
Gojo Saki's Six Eyes swept over the nearest blank doll.
Her feet kept dancing—yet her right hand snapped forward with a heavy downbeat.
"Blue."
The word was calm.
But under the BGM's massive output buff, her "Blue" detonated with grotesque strength.
Space warped, collapsed. A deep-blue sphere formed instantly.
The doll didn't even twitch.
The moment it touched the sphere, it compressed into a point with a muffled crunch of cloth and stuffing—then vanished, swallowed whole.
Gojo Saki kept moving, Six Eyes monitoring her body and the environment.
No rule backlash.
Her cursed energy stayed smooth.
She smiled.
So long as you matched tempo, attacking was allowed.
But "allowed" didn't mean "consequence-free."
The instant that doll was erased, something triggered—
Like a silent alarm.
Every wandering doll froze.
Then dozens of round cloth heads rotated in perfect sync.
Hollow eyes lit up crimson.
All of them locked onto Gojo Saki.
A shrill, inhuman roar exploded across the street.
A violent aura surged.
Some dolls sprinted and pounced.
Others swelled—distorting, expanding—cloth tearing open to expose cotton stuffing.
Their mouths split into jagged toothy maws.
They lunged.
Gojo Saki didn't flinch.
She stood in place, swaying lightly to the beat, smiling lazily as if dancing alone at a masquerade.
Claws, fangs, fists—everything screamed toward her—
Then, within the final inches, every attack slowed.
Like film being dragged through molasses.
Then stopped—less than a hair from her skin.
Gojo Saki tilted her head, her Six Eyes studying the creature suspended so close that drool nearly hit her nose.
"Attack power… weak."
She sounded like she was reviewing a mediocre café.
Then the next downbeat hit.
Gojo Saki moved—no fancy technique, just raw physical violence.
A straight punch snapped out with a sonic crack.
A doll's head detonated into cotton confetti.
She spun into the mob.
Hands flashed, grabbing a lunging doll by the shoulders—
With a brutal tearing motion.
The cloth shrieked.
She ripped it in half bare-handed, stuffing exploding outward.
Her body became a weapon: fists, palms, elbows, knees, feet.
Any doll stopped by Infinity was shattered like brittle pottery.
A whip-kick swept through—
Several dolls exploded midair into rags and cotton.
Within seconds, a wide radius around her became snowfall—cotton drifting down.
Gojo Saki brushed off her hands as if there had ever been dirt.
Then walked forward on the beat again.
—
Elsewhere, Sukuna danced her brutal war rhythm.
Through the shared livestream, her four eyes flashed in recognition—she had received Gojo Saki's data. Now she wanted to see what she could do.
On a strong beat, she pivoted with exaggerated flourish.
Five fingers slashed forward.
"Dismantle."
Invisible cuts swept the area.
The dolls froze for an instant, as if the world held its breath.
Then thin lines appeared—
And their bodies fell apart into clean slices, dropping in chunks like cut paper.
Even the metal wall behind them was scarred by deep grooves.
No rule backlash.
Soyo, outside the Palace, stood quietly in the void.
With the Willpower Glasses, she felt no discomfort. Her gaze remained calm.
Farther away, Flame Shinobu received Gojo Saki's shared data via livestream.
She turned, slid, and drew her blade—fire carving arcs through the air.
She wasn't using the classic, bluntly aggressive Flame forms.
She'd modified them—folding Insect Breathing's rhythmic dance structure into flame.
"Flame Dance: Will-o'-the-Wisp!"
A red lotus of fire bloomed in her blade path.
Several dolls were swallowed, incinerated into ash.
Her motion flowed, every slash snapped into tempo.
She wasn't as absurdly overwhelming as Gojo Saki or Sukuna, but she still carved through the doll flood without difficulty.
—
Thirty minutes later, Sakiko pulled some attention back and frowned.
Mutsumi's Palace was enormous.
In the last half hour, scenes repeated like copy-paste.
They'd explored for a long time and found nothing special.
Other than the endless dolls pouring from shadows and pipes, there were no meaningful clues.
Sakiko spoke into the shared channel. "What now?"
Soyo pushed at her temple.
"I… I have no idea."
"Saki, you know I'm new to all of this."
Shinobu's eyes sharpened.
"If we can't locate Wakaba Mutsumi's Shadow directly, then we should rattle the nest."
"Wandering blindly is pointless. We should cause a disturbance big enough to force the target to react—at least reveal the core."
"Right now, our exploration efficiency is too low."
Sakiko weighed it quickly.
Rattling the nest could invite harsher retaliation.
But Shinobu was right: staying lost in a maze was worse.
At least striking first could break the deadlock.
"Agreed."
Sakiko nodded, then turned to Soyo.
"Soyo, next we use large-area techniques. We smash everything until Mutsumi's Shadow can't hide anymore."
Soyo adjusted her glasses, inhaled, and answered softly, "Understood."
Shinobu shook her head with faint frustration.
"Demon Slayer styles specialize in precise, efficient kills against humanoid targets. Large-scale destruction isn't our strength."
Sakiko nodded, understanding, and shifted her consciousness deeper into Gojo Saki again.
Flame Shinobu continued scouting.
Inside the Palace, Gojo Saki began to dance in place.
Her dance was powerful and beautiful—each turn and stomp perfectly embedded in the music's nodes.
As her steps aligned, cursed energy began to boil.
She chanted like she was singing a hymn with the city's melody:
"Phase… paramita… the hooves of wisdom…"
Her left palm formed a blue sphere—Blue, attraction.
"Phase… bodhisattva… the pillar of light."
Her right hand lifted a violent red sphere—Red, repulsion.
These opposing energies became ribbons in her hands, trailing dazzling arcs as she danced.
"Nine Ropes… Polarized Light… Crows and Declaration… Between Front and Back!"
As the BGM surged toward a high, violent climax, her dance froze in a pose full of tension.
Her Six Eyes widened. Pupils tightened to a razor point.
At the exact instant her chant ended—and the music hit its peak—
Her arms snapped together before her chest.
A blazing violet erupted between her hands, swallowing all color.
Hollow Purple—300%!
The imaginary mass roared forward like a newborn universe.
Everything it touched—metal, wood, dolls, even light itself—was erased.
Space tore, annihilated.
The beam punched through the street, then into layered buildings beyond.
Towers and factories vanished in strips.
Explosions flared—then were eaten by nothingness.
A straight, horrifying trench remained.
At the same time, on the other side of the city, Sukuna's catastrophe arrived.
Sukuna danced her savage war rhythm.
She planted herself at a crossroads, arms spreading wide.
When the BGM hit its peak—when the final crest of momentum arrived—
Her hands formed a seal.
"Domain Expansion—Malevolent Shrine!"
A four-hundred-meter radius domain erupted outward.
Inside it, invisible Cleave and Dismantle filled every inch—an indiscriminate slaughterhouse.
The air screamed with countless cuts.
Towering structures, alloy walls, wooden decorations—everything was repeatedly segmented.
In one or two heartbeats, everything within four hundred meters was pulverized into metal dust and wood splinters, roiling into a massive gray sphere.
And that wasn't the end.
Sukuna's hands shifted again.
She pulled back like drawing a bow.
"Open."
The dust ignited.
A chain reaction like a powder explosion detonated.
Orange fire ballooned, rolling upward.
A shockwave of molten violence blasted beyond the domain, painting half the mechanical city in flame.
The scale of this explosion rivaled Gojo Saki's 300% Purple.
Through three shared perspectives, Sakiko, Soyo, and Shinobu experienced the apocalypse in sync.
Soyo steadied her glasses. Her gaze stayed calm, but her fingers curled slightly without meaning to.
Shinobu's breathing quickened as she evaluated destruction in the other feeds.
Sakiko's face remained flat—this wasn't at Odin-Saki's level, so it didn't impress her.
But as the smoke thinned, an unpleasant truth appeared.
Mutsumi's Palace was simply too big.
Gojo Saki's trench and Sukuna's spherical crater were grotesque scars… yet still only scars—limited wounds in a steel forest.
The city's function didn't stop.
Damaged structures even began to twitch and creep, as if trying to self-repair.
The grand BGM never paused, echoing everywhere—almost mocking their effort.
Their bombardment hadn't exposed the core.
It had only kicked a colossal hornet's nest.
Deep within the ground, heavy, dense metal grinding began.
The city's defense mechanisms fully activated.
From twisted pipes, abandoned workshops, even cracks torn open in the street—
More Wakaba Mutsumi dolls poured out.
This time, they weren't the small fry you could crush with a punch.
New dolls had swollen in scale.
Some were room-sized, stomping hard enough to shake the street.
Some expanded into four- or five-story hulks, casting shadows over shattered roads.
They still wore Mutsumi's blank cartoon face.
But their bodies had warped into pure war machines.
Some had mechanical arms built from abandoned train cars and twisted rail tracks, joints turning on massive bearings.
Some were boilers and thick pipes, with steam vents spitting heat.
Others were aggregates—built from countless human-sized dolls glued into a single mass, thousands of empty faces writhing across its surface, cold eyes locking onto the "intruders."
Under that crushing pressure, Gojo Saki and Sukuna felt… nothing.
"Now this is more like it," Gojo Saki laughed, standing at the edge of her own trench.
She rose onto her toes, dancing lightly to the beat again.
This wasn't a struggle.
With tempo buffs, their cursed energy economy became a true perpetual motion engine—the meter literally running backward.
When a giant steam-hammer fist crashed down, Gojo Saki slid aside on a sharp note, weightless as mist.
The hammer cratered the street.
Gojo Saki reappeared at the knee joint.
"Blue."
Her fingertip touched—blue light sank in—
And the joint, including its internal hydraulics, compressed into a fist-sized lump of scrap.
The giant toppled.
Gojo Saki didn't even look back.
On the next beat, her right hand flicked—
"Red."
A repulsive blast punched a hole straight through an oncoming aggregate doll.
Bodies burst into stuffing and scraps.
Sukuna charged with equal savagery.
She didn't open her domain this time. After restoring herself with Reverse Cursed Technique, she folded Cleave and Dismantle into every punch and kick.
Against multiple mountain-sized dolls, she counter-charged like a demon.
A casual punch split space; a giant's torso opened like paper.
She leapt, spinning—one kick smashed a tower doll at the waist.
Metal screamed.
The upper half collapsed into others.
Her cursed energy boiled. Everything in her path—room-sized, building-sized—was shredded, cut, crushed.
Her smile sharpened into pure mania under firelight and collapsing steel.
They became moving natural disasters.
Explosions. Metal shrieks. Collapse. Air tearing.
Fire, smoke, and energy turbulence swept the city.
Gojo Saki's Blue and Red alternated like strobe lightning.
Sukuna's fists and slashes shattered giants.
Occasionally, Hollow Purple carved a new scar through distant districts.
Malevolent Shrine bloomed and vanished like a lethal flower.
The BGM itself began to distort—pitch rising, tempo tightening, and a faint thread of chaos bleeding into the once-perfect rhythm.
And then—amid the endless slaughter—
Both Doubles caught the same subtle pattern.
At first, dolls had poured from all directions.
Now the spawn points began to concentrate.
As if two invisible springs were feeding the army from two specific origins.
Gojo Saki dodged a massive drill thrust and looked northeast.
Beyond collapsed towers and mangled overpass wrecks, a structure appeared through the smoke.
An opera house.
Grand arches. Ornate reliefs. A massive curved metal frame like an open embrace.
Heavy curtains hung like a stage.
Above the entrance: an abstract mask made of gears, its eyes hollow, as if watching the battlefield.
The doors gaped like a beast's mouth—
And dolls were pouring out of it.
At the same time, Sukuna noticed the shift on her own front.
She'd just sliced a building-tall doll into chunks, detonating another explosion.
As dust cleared, she looked southwest.
A cathedral—holy and grotesque at once.
Tall stained-glass windows shaped like colorful gear mosaics.
A thick metal door carved with intricate patterns—
And those patterns, on closer look, were composed of countless expressionless Wakaba Mutsumi faces.
It stood silent.
And dolls were "growing" out of its door, its windows, even its walls.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to pause.
Across distance and chaos, their gazes locked onto their respective targets.
Gojo Saki stood atop wreckage, Six Eyes narrowed, staring at the opera house in the northeast.
Sukuna balanced on the remains of a shattered giant, four crimson eyes fixed on the cathedral in the southwest.
Join here to read ahead.
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DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 55
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 65
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 45
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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