Five pillars of light shot towards the sky, visible even from over a dozen kilometers away. The game pieces revealed their presence to all, as if announcing that the final tickets were ready.
As for why there were only five pillars... Schwarzer was thousands of meters high in the sky. Her light came from the heavens.
The people below looked up at that position. Few could reach such heights thousands of meters in the air, and those with enough power could easily guess who was up there.
Even the ever-arrogant Sukuna had no intention of looking for trouble. Schwarzer's power was in a league of its own; from within Itadori's body, he had witnessed her terrifying analytical abilities.
He wouldn't be surprised if she could produce his own slashing techniques, or even Malevolent Shrine.
She had even learned Gojo Satoru's Limitless, just by observing and analyzing it!
"I never thought I'd hit the jackpot right off the bat. Looking at you, you must be the legendary King of Curses, Sukuna, right?"
The sudden voice interrupted Sukuna's thoughts. Their locations had been exposed by the game pieces, and many people had rushed over.
"Oh? You see me and don't intend to run?" Sukuna turned to see several sorcerers.
Reiji Star, Uro Takako, Dhruv Lakdawalla, Daido Hagane...
None of them were weak. To dare attack someone who held a qualification piece, they were naturally confident in their own strength.
Of course, they also knew that the six individuals deemed the strongest were not opponents they could defeat one-on-one. They had formed an alliance on their way here.
"Then I'll use you as an appetizer."
Even when facing a group that included several with Special Grade strength, Sukuna showed no intention of retreating.
In his eyes, this group was nothing more than toys to warm up with. A bloodthirsty smile crept across Sukuna's lips as he moved to meet them.
The appearance of the three pillars of light turned their original base into a 'graveyard.' Gojo Satoru wasn't yet confident enough to challenge the entire world by himself—at least, not before he mastered Senjutsu Chakra.
"If we stay inside the base, we have a geographical advantage. Why did we have to run out here?"
Naruto didn't quite understand why they needed to find an open area. Wouldn't that just make it easier to expose their exact location?
"We have three of the game pieces, which means we hold half of the top six spots. Normally, no one could take our pieces in a direct confrontation, but..."
"The environment inside the base is no advantage. On the contrary, it's a 'prison' that restricts our movement."
"Don't forget, it's not just sorcerers who exist in this world. Ordinary people have also been dragged into the Culling Game. The ones who can threaten us aren't just other sorcerers."
Gojo Satoru meaningfully picked up a poster. It was a flyer dropped from The President's vehicle before it crashed, featuring his promotional image inviting people to join 'America.'
"This is the modern age. The ones who have always dominated the world are the so-called ordinary people."
He looked up at the pillar of light in the sky. Schwarzer had been sitting on the mountain watching the tigers fight, and no one had gone to disturb her. But what Gojo thought of was not her, but the power of 'technology'.
Understand, analyze, replicate. Schwarzer's power and appearance reminded him of creations also born from what is called 'technology.'
From the moment he received the game piece, he understood. The hardest part of this final stage admission ticket wasn't acquiring it, but keeping it.
The biggest problem with this beacon-like standard was that it let everyone know their location, which meant that certain 'underhanded tricks' could now be effective.
"The power of modern society..." The first one to understand his hint was surprisingly Itadori. He saw 'The President' on the flyer and suddenly understood what Gojo Satoru meant.
"Are you talking about... a nuke?!" Itadori instantly thought of the worst-case, yet most likely, scenario and shouted it out loud.
Upon hearing this, the others' faces paled slightly. The President himself had appeared; producing a nuclear bomb wouldn't be a huge stretch.
"How is that possible? There are still tons of civilians in Tokyo..."
Fushiguro Megumi was about to argue, but then he remembered the man's identity. Why would the President of America care about the lives of Japanese people?
If it was deemed necessary, dropping a nuclear bomb on Japanese territory was clearly not a difficult decision. Civilians wouldn't even be part of their consideration. Even the local sorcerers didn't care about civilians.
If Schwarzer hadn't been suppressing them, they would have already slaughtered all the civilians in Tokyo for points. But even Schwarzer probably couldn't handle a nuke, right?
That word naturally holds a suppressive power in the eyes of the Japanese people. Moreover, since Schwarzer had never shown her true strength, it was natural for them to think this way.
"If we were to face a nuke directly, the only way is for me to use my Limitless to teleport all of you away before it detonates. Inside the base, we wouldn't even know how we died."
The purpose of an open environment is to maintain real-time observation of our surroundings. Since the beacons will expose our position anyway, there's no need to hide.
However, the one thing they miscalculated was that it wasn't just the fruits of technology like thermal weapons that could defeat them.
"Caw—"
In the pitch-black night sky, a lone crow let out a caw, drawing everyone's attention.
It slowly came to rest on a streetlight, just like an ordinary, passing crow—
"Fwish—"
Along with the sound of something cutting through the air, a kunai filled with hatred shot straight at it, passing through its body and taking a few feathers with it.
"Uchiha Itachi!!!" The three-tomoe Sharingan activated instantly, shifting slightly amidst intense hatred, but in the end, it merely wavered and didn't evolve further.
Everyone was startled by this war-cry-like outburst, not realizing why Sasuke was going berserk. Only Kakashi understood what was happening fastest.
A Sharingan of his own emerged, transforming from three-tomoe into a Mangekyo. Even the level of Kakashi's awakened eye far surpassed Sasuke's.
"Everyone, be careful! It's Uchiha Itachi!"
"Eh, is the administrator entering the game now? Or was our judgment mistaken?"
Hearing that name, Gojo Satoru's fighting spirit ignited. He consciously limited the ability of his Six Eyes, giving up his perfect 360-degree vision. Do not make eye contact with the Sharingan. He remembered that point.
"Just like before, only this level of alertness is worthy of praise."
"The Culling Game has been going on for so long, and you still haven't awakened your Mangekyo?"
"Just keep sinking into this game of house you're playing. This weak world certainly suits you."
A large flock of crows gathered together, forming into Uchiha Itachi, dressed in the iconic Akatsuki robes.
His pair of Mangekyo Sharingan made the others afraid to meet his gaze. It was a genjutsu that even Gojo Satoru would find difficult to escape, a power from another world.
He himself was the one secretly manipulating the situation, yet now he was mocking Uchiha Sasuke for not awakening his Mangekyo. But Sasuke didn't know this and instead began to blame himself.
He was still too weak, too powerless.
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