A while later.
Inside the Tombs of the Star Corridor.
"You should know very well what has happened. Aren't you going to come out and meet us, Tengen?"
The three special grade sorcerers once again stood in the same place where they had first met Tengen years ago.
Mukuro looked at the endless white space around them and spoke toward the unseen presence.
"I am here."
Ripples spread through the air as Tengen slowly stepped out of the void, still wearing that same strange face with four eyes and a thumb-like shape.
"Pfft! Master Tengen still looks the same. I thought you would've evolved into MetalGreymon by now."
Looking at that face again after so many years, Satoru burst into laughter. At the same time, he secretly glanced at Suguru beside him, clearly remembering the joke they had made here back then.
"Hm... Master Tengen, looking like this, does that mean your evolution never started?"
Ignoring Satoru's glance, Suguru looked at Tengen's completely unchanged appearance from twelve years ago and asked in surprise.
Other than Mukuro, neither of them had seen Tengen again during those years, so they knew nothing of what happened afterward.
"You could say it failed."
Tengen smiled calmly, then explained what happened to his evolution.
Twelve years ago, not long after choosing to stop merging with the Star Plasma Vessel, his body began evolving in an unknown direction. Sadly, the result was far from ideal.
His physical body almost regressed into that of an infant, and he could no longer move on his own. Even his consciousness had nearly faded away.
The one standing before the three of them now was no longer his true body. It was an existence formed through barrier techniques, carrying Tengen's own consciousness.
Tengen was the world, and the world was Tengen.
His true soul had long since merged through barriers into nearly all of Japan. He was in the Tombs of the Star Corridor, yet also almost everywhere.
Because of the effect of his immortality technique, Tengen now existed in a state between existence and nonexistence.
"I can no longer be called human."
Tengen patted his chest. All four eyes narrowed into a smile, yet beneath his words was a faint loneliness so slight that even he himself could not notice it.
"So it failed..."
Even Satoru, who usually loved making jokes, did not mock him this time.
"Back to the main matter. You came here because of Kenjaku, didn't you?"
Seeing the mood shift, Tengen brought the conversation back to their purpose. Tokyo Jujutsu High was already within his barriers, so naturally he knew what they had discussed.
"Kannon Bodhisattva uses a compassionate rope to guide and save all beings... How ironic."
Only now did Satoru remember the name Mukuro had mentioned back when the Death Painting Wombs first appeared. A name meant for salvation, yet used for destruction.
"That's right. We want to know where Kenjaku is now, how the Culling Game can actually be ended, and what the purpose of starting it was." Suguru got straight to the point.
"As for Kenjaku, he has deliberately hidden his whereabouts, to the point that even I cannot detect him. And the barriers of the Culling Game are rejecting my access. After all, in the last thousand years, he is second only to me in barrier techniques."
Tengen answered the first question, then paused.
It seemed he carefully considered his next words before continuing with something slightly off topic.
"Kenjaku's goal is to cause evolution across all of Japan, using specific humans as the standard."
Then, Tengen explained why the man had not simply used his barriers back then to activate Idle Transfiguration directly.
The reason was simple. He did not have enough cursed energy.
To use the technique and individually select people all across Japan for modification would have been troublesome and unrealistic. Not only would Kenjaku's cursed energy recovery fail to keep up with the cost, the sheer amount of time required would likely have allowed Suguru to notice something strange and draw the attention of special grade sorcerers.
After finishing that side explanation, Tengen returned to the main topic and answered Suguru's third question.
"If he wanted to save time, save effort, and possibly succeed right under your noses, then the only method was to promote assimilation between myself and all humanity. And the Culling Game is likely Kenjaku's warm-up for forcing that assimilation between me and the people of Japan. You could also call it practice."
"Assimilation? But Master Tengen isn't..."
Shock appeared on both Suguru and Satoru's faces.
The word assimilation was not unfamiliar to them. But adding all of Japan to it changed everything.
Tengen then explained in detail.
Because his evolution had failed, he was no longer like before, when he could only assimilate with the Star Plasma Vessel. His mind and soul had already spread into the world. As such, he could now assimilate with any human.
In the past, assimilation was done through his physical body and soul directly, so it could only happen with one Star Plasma Vessel. But now, his true body had regressed, while his soul had spread through the barriers across Japan. That meant the target of assimilation had changed from the body to the soul.
His soul was the world. And with the vastness of the world, he could assimilate with countless humans.
The reason Tengen called the Culling Game a practice before assimilation was because if he directly assimilated with humanity in his current state, the result would most likely be flawed.
The Culling Game had ten barrier points across Japan. Its boundaries were formed through the connection between players' cursed energy, barriers, and the barriers linked to each other.
By using that system, it was turning the people of the nation toward the "other shore."
Put nicely, it was "guiding humanity to the other shore."
In truth, it was cursing everyone in the country so they could merge with Tengen more smoothly.
"But that creates another problem. Even if Master Tengen's soul is spread through the world, you still maintain self-awareness through barriers. That means you should be able to reject assimilation, right?" Suguru raised another question.
If Tengen could clearly refuse, then even if Kenjaku successfully used the Culling Game as preparation and cursed all humanity, it should still be meaningless.
After all, the one with control during assimilation was the person standing before them.
"If it were before, yes. But yesterday, I saw Kenjaku's true body. He has already changed into the body of the former head of the Kiyomaru clan."
That was what worried him most.
The inherited technique of the Kiyomaru clan was God Feeding Art.
At that moment, only Mukuro's pupils narrowed. Through Ijichi's investigation and fragments of his own memory, he had already remembered what that family's ability was.
"What's special about the Kiyomaru clan head?" Satoru looked confused.
"In my current state, my body cannot move, and my soul has spread through the world. Theoretically speaking, because of the immortality technique, I now lean closer to being a cursed spirit. And if stable barriers were not maintaining my awareness and this current form, my true body would drift into becoming an unconscious cursed spirit, entering a state similar to suspended death." Tengen spoke in a low voice.
"Master Tengen, are you saying..."
All three of them had already guessed it.
"That's right. I can most likely become a target of the God Feeding Art."
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