One year later.
Pushing open the doors to the cursed vault, the Fallen One did not see Uraume anywhere nearby.
After hesitating slightly, he leapt directly into the bottom of the bath.
Today, another batch of objects had completed ten months and ten days within it, transforming into cursed tools.
Normally, this was work handled by Uraume.
It was also the first time Sukuna himself had soaked within the blood of cursed spirits.
His four eyes trembled faintly, yet the Fallen One failed to notice the subtle changes appearing across half of his face.
The cursed markings flashing across his flesh were hidden beneath his clothing.
It was the same sacrificial platform as before.
After retrieving the cursed tools, the Fallen One arrived there once again.
The difference this time was that Uraume—who had been absent earlier—was now bound atop it.
Alongside over a dozen servants who had once been close to the Fallen One's mother.
"Join the Nirai Suppression Unit. Find an opportunity to approach the current head of the Fujiwara clan and assassinate him!"
His father pressed the tip of a blade against Uraume's throat, while the wooden pillars binding the servants had already been drenched in oil.
"This is not a request between father and son. It is an order from the clan head!"
"Either you watch these people die, or you complete the mission!"
His father's cold words caused the Fallen One to once again recall the hatred in his mother's eyes before her death.
The cursed tool he had just taken shattered within the grip of his overwhelming physical strength.
For the first time, killing intent appeared upon the Fallen One's face.
The gentle expression vanished, replaced by a torrent of wicked cursed energy.
"'Dismantle.'"
Just like the exquisite swordsmanship displayed within the cursed vault—
Bodies sliced apart with horrifying precision.
And scarlet blood splattered across the ground.
"So it really was the demonization ritual of the Bath that awakened you?"
Mirai glanced at the figure beside him.
"No wonder you said the Fallen One from back then wasn't truly you."
"Maybe 'awakening' isn't the right word. You were simply hiding within that body the entire time, observing the outside world."
When Mirai used the Rinnegan during the Domain Expansion, he had confirmed these were Sukuna's soul memories.
The scenes beginning from infancy proved that Sukuna had possessed consciousness from the very start.
It was simply incomplete—or perhaps lacking power.
Sukuna only sneered in response.
The Bath had merely become the trigger that released him.
Just like the moment the Fallen One's mother had been burned alive.
"Oh? This meat tastes truly awful."
Holding his father's severed head—still frozen in terror—the Fallen One's bloodstained face bore a deep bite mark where flesh had been torn away.
His crimson eyes turned toward the figure beside him.
"Uraume, besides your knife skills… are you good at cooking?"
After a brief moment of shock, a strange smile curled across Uraume's lips.
The reason Uraume had always disliked the Fallen One was because of that hypocritical kindness.
Despite possessing the strength to overturn everything, he had allowed insects to trample over him in an era where madness and strength ruled above all else.
The previous Fallen One had been nothing but a fool.
"Yes, Lord Fallen One."
Uraume had actually experienced the Bath's demonization ritual before the Fallen One ever had.
The Fallen One licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and spread his arms wide, savoring the freedom before him.
"No. From now on… call me Sukuna."
A strange flush rose across Uraume's face as he dropped to one knee.
"Yes,Sukuna-sama."
In a single day, the Fallen One's entire clan was annihilated.
Whether sorcerers or ordinary humans, all of them became pastries celebrating Sukuna's birth.
"That naive fool could awaken again at any moment."
"So the first thing to do is sever every remaining attachment he has."
After changing into fresh clothes and enjoying Uraume's exceptional cooking,
Sukuna led Uraume toward their first destination.
The Imperial Guard Division Headquarters.
A hellish scene of rivers of blood.
Corpses sliced into pieces littered the ground.
"Oh? So that person isn't here."
Sukuna muttered irritably.
He was searching for the Fallen One's only friend.
If he killed that girl and devoured her,
then surely the Fallen One's soul would sink even deeper into despair.
Mirai sped up his reading of Sukuna's memories.
He could already sense changes occurring little by little in the outside world.
After a long time,
Sukuna finally found the girl within one of the Imperial Guard's bases.
Under her disbelieving gaze, the kind-hearted Fallen One slaughtered her entire family.
That wasn't the Fallen One…
Because of her unique constitution, the girl sensed the screams of another soul within that body.
He wasn't the Fallen One.
He was Sukuna!
At the final moment, the Fallen One's soul managed to resist.
Combined with a monk skilled in barrier techniques stopping Uraume, the girl narrowly escaped.
Sukuna's unchecked slaughter finally drew the attention of the four great powers.
The "Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad,"
the "Five Void Generals,"
and the "Nirai Suppression Unit."
The forces sent to eliminate Sukuna grew increasingly powerful.
Yet through each life-and-death battle, Sukuna's strength continued to rise.
However, at this point, he still could not face the combined might of all the great powers alone.
So, following Uraume's suggestion, Sukuna concealed his movements and launched an attack upon the Abe clan estate.
Before reinforcements arrived, Sukuna invaded the cursed vault and seized the Abe family heirloom:
Kamutoke.
Enhanced through onmyōji techniques, the special-grade cursed tool Kamutoke possessed terrifying lightning-manipulating power.
There was another incident during the raid.
One of the guards protecting the Abe clan's cursed vault was a sorcerer named Angel—
a woman with pure white wings and a halo above her head.
The major powers had long known that the Bath ritual carried the risk of turning people into demons.
But each faction possessed methods of eliminating such corruption.
Angel's purification technique was one of them.
Because of the importance of her technique, Angel herself escaped punishment for failing to protect the vault.
But someone still had to bear responsibility for the mistake.
Just like how the Fujiwara Northern Clan blamed the Wu Army for their own internal struggle over power,
the great powers always pushed the disgrace of incompetence onto subordinate clans.
Angel escaped punishment.
But her clan paid the price for losing the heirloom.
Angel's parents and elders were executed the very next day after Kamutoke was stolen.
After obtaining it, Sukuna immediately headed for his second target.
With the support of the special-grade cursed tool Kamutoke, he once again broke into the Fujiwara main family's cursed vault.
There, he seized another heirloom:
Hiten.
With both cursed tools in hand, Sukuna became unstoppable—slaying gods and Buddhas alike.
In merely half a year,
Sukuna repeatedly assaulted the headquarters of the four great powers, carrying out horrifying massacres.
In the end, the four factions were forced to unite because of a single man.
Filled with overwhelming hatred, Angel joined forces with the Abe clan elites and merged with the Fujiwara main family—who had also lost their heirloom.
Together, the two factions formed a new Nirai Suppression Unit.
The four great powers no longer waited passively.
They chose to strike first.
After the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad discovered Sukuna's location, all four factions mobilized simultaneously.
Against any single faction, Sukuna could easily prevail at this point.
But facing all four powers united together, even wielding two cursed tools, he found the battle extremely difficult.
Especially Angel's purification pillar of light that pierced heaven and earth itself.
It was the first time Sukuna let out a scream of agony he could not suppress.
Feeling his soul tearing apart from the unbearable pain, Sukuna screamed—
yet also instantly realized that this was the perfect opportunity.
An opportunity far better than killing the girl.
A chance to completely seize control of the body forever.
Kamutoke crackled with blinding lightning,
yet before the horrified eyes of everyone present,
Sukuna turned the blade of Kamutoke toward his own face.
Without hesitation—
he sliced off half of his own head.
And with the aid of Angel's technique,
what he severed was not merely flesh—
but part of his very soul itself.
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