Chapter 111 (Patreon)

Golden ripples spread across the sky behind Ragnar Kagenou. In the next instant, their radiance multiplied until the heavens themselves seemed to have been swallowed by gold.

“How unsightly.”

At Ragnar’s command, thousands of Rank B Noble Phantasms erupted from the golden portals every second. They descended in an unending storm, pulverizing the tree trunks as they spread through the city.

Even that was not enough to stop the casualties.

One minute and forty-four seconds had passed since the Corpse Tree first appeared.

The death toll had already reached 114,514—and that number had been recorded one second ago.

Whenever the trunks extending through the air were destroyed, they immediately began growing again. Worse still, the Corpse Tree’s roots were spreading beneath the ground, indiscriminately impaling and crushing every human being they encountered.

Hanami stared at the towering tree in silence, visibly taken aback.

He had originally summoned it for one purpose: to delay Ragnar Kagenou and Satoru Gojo.

He had never expected the Corpse Tree to begin devouring tens of thousands of people the instant it manifested. At least fifty thousand lives had already been consumed by it, and the terror, despair, and hatred flooding the surrounding area had produced an immense surge of Cursed Energy.

The more people the Corpse Tree killed, the more Cursed Energy gathered around it.

And the more Cursed Energy it absorbed, the stronger it became.

“At this rate, the tree alone may be enough to kill them.”

Hanami no longer intended to retreat.

However, the moment he tried to move toward the Corpse Tree, his body refused to obey him.

What was happening?

He suddenly felt something seize the left side of his face from within.

Riko Amanai’s voice rang through his mind.

“Don’t even think about it!”

Hanami’s eye widened in disbelief.

“How is this possible? You are merely human. How are you resisting my control?”

Through Hanami’s vision, Riko could see the Corpse Tree he had created with his Cursed Technique.

She could see the countless people it had slaughtered.

“You’re... not allowed to go over there.”

“Silence!”

Hanami despised humanity from the very depths of his being.

The damage inflicted upon his soul had caused him to lose many of his memories, but there was one conviction he could never forget.

Human beings were the ones destroying nature.

That hatred had been carved directly into his soul.

After all, Hanami was a Cursed Spirit born from humanity’s fear and hatred of the forests.

“Humanity must be eradicated. Only then will nature finally be allowed to breathe.”

Hanami released a violent surge of Cursed Energy, forcibly suppressing Riko’s consciousness once more.

“You are nothing more than a human. Would it not be easier to remain silent and wait for death?”

With those words, Hanami attempted to move toward the Corpse Tree again.

If he assumed direct control of it, the Corpse Tree’s power would rise tremendously.

“Wretched humans... Today, you will pay for everything you have done.”

A crushing pressure suddenly descended upon him.

Hanami stopped.

His gaze slowly rose toward the sky.

“What... is that?”

——————

Even Satoru Gojo found the situation troublesome.

“What the hell is wrong with this tree?”

Every life the Corpse Tree claimed increased its power. Its regeneration was accelerating with each passing second.

“I can’t let you keep growing like this.”

Without Ragnar continuously destroying the spreading branches, the death toll would already have been several times higher.

Gojo raised one hand.

“Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.”

An overwhelming force of attraction formed.

“Cursed Technique Reversal: Red.”

A second force—absolute repulsion—manifested alongside it.

The two opposing infinities converged.

Purple light emerged around Gojo, condensing into an enormous sphere of Cursed Energy. The space surrounding it distorted beneath the pressure, as though the world itself were being torn apart.

Gojo flicked his finger toward the Corpse Tree.

“Hollow Purple.”

The imaginary mass tore across the city at low altitude.

Every branch and building in its path vanished without leaving so much as debris behind. Hollow Purple struck the center of the Corpse Tree’s trunk and erupted inside it.

BOOM!

The Corpse Tree was torn completely in half.

Its enormous upper section began falling toward the ground, but before it could crash into the city, countless roots burst from the exposed cross-section of the remaining trunk.

The roots stretched upward and fastened themselves to the severed portion.

Then they pulled.

The two halves began reconnecting, and the wound steadily closed as the tree restored itself to its original state.

Two minutes and thirty seconds had passed since the appearance of the Corpse Tree.

The death toll had reached 154,672.

“So that’s how it works.”

Gojo watched the tree regenerate behind his blindfold.

“Even Hollow Purple can’t completely erase something this large.”

It was not that Hollow Purple lacked destructive power.

Its effective range simply was not wide enough. It was, after all, an attack primarily suited to erasing targets closer to the scale of humanoid Cursed Spirits.

“Bones become its branches, while flesh and blood nourish its roots.”

Ragnar’s voice carried across the frozen air.

“A Cursed Spirit capable of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people within minutes... If you were allowed to continue unchecked, eventually the entire world would become your nourishment.”

Golden ripples appeared behind Ragnar once more.

From within them, the Chains of Heaven shot forward and coiled around the towering Corpse Tree, binding its colossal form in place.

“But tell me, Cursed Spirit...”

Snow began falling from the heavens.

A fierce wind swept across the city, carrying countless white flakes through the air.

“Do you understand what you have tried to take from me?”

The temperature plummeted.

Cold air rolled across the land, and snow danced violently within the gathering gale. Before long, the entire city had been covered in a mantle of silver.

“This world belongs to me.”

Ragnar looked down upon the Corpse Tree.

“No living creature has permission to lay a hand on it.”

Hanami stood upon the ground, staring upward.

“What is that?”

An unimaginable concentration of energy was gathering in the sky.

To ordinary people, it appeared to be nothing more than a blizzard that had emerged without warning.

But to anyone capable of perceiving Cursed Energy, the sky felt as though it contained a nuclear weapon on the verge of detonation.

Ragnar stood at the center of the storm.

“Grand Anti-Calamity Ritual—Open.”

A brilliant blue light bloomed within the wind and snow, shining like an enormous sapphire suspended in the heavens.

“Rhongomyniad—transfigure into Excalibur.”

Wave after wave of radiant energy gathered beneath Ragnar’s feet.

The night sky seemed to answer his invocation. The stars emerged from behind the clouds, and their light descended around him.

“Holy Sword—draw!”

The starlight surrounding Ragnar transformed into layers of enormous magical circles. The emblems and structures of Rhongomyniad and Excalibur were engraved throughout their designs.

“O God of Sacrifice, forgive us our sins—!”

The countless magical circles converged.

They formed a single, colossal ritual array that radiated an unmistakably dangerous presence.

The people below stared upward as layer after layer of magical formations extended into the heavens. Their light drove away the darkness and illuminated the entire night sky.

At the exact center of the array stood the Corpse Tree.

No matter how one looked at its pale, gigantic form, there were only two words capable of describing its existence:

【Threat to Humanity】

Iridescent radiance gathered high above it.

Like the Sword of Damocles, divine judgment began its descent from the heavens.

The entire city was submerged beneath the reflection of that multicolored brilliance. The light became so intense that the people below were forced to close their eyes.

A vast torrent of rainbow light poured down from the sky.

Guided by the ritual’s targeting array, the attack recognized only a single target.

The Corpse Tree.

“Inherited Wish—Sword of Hope!”

The torrent struck the earth.

Magnificent light embodying hope and salvation engulfed the Corpse Tree, washing over every branch, root, and fragment of its monstrous body.

HMMMMM—!

Noble Phantasm: Inherited Wish—Sword of Hope

Rank: A+

Type: Anti-Divine Noble Phantasm

Description:

Rhongomyniad—the lance of protection constructed by the British Fairy Kingdom within Camelot, the City of Sin.

An Anti-Calamity Purge Noble Phantasm that recreates the ritual used to eradicate calamities born from curses.

Within the British Lostbelt, it existed as a ritual designed to annihilate such calamities.

This Noble Phantasm combines the power of Excalibur and Rhongomyniad.

An explosion produced by this level of magical energy would ordinarily possess an extraordinarily wide destructive range. However, through an advanced bounded field, its target has been restricted to 【1】, preventing the attack from inflicting any additional casualties.

It possesses special effectiveness against entities bearing the attributes of 【Chaos】, 【Divinity】, and 【Threat to Humanity】.