Chapter 178 (Patreon)

At the same time, strange phenomena began to unfold across heaven and earth.

Seven Crowns of the Beast rose from Tokyo Bay, each corresponding to one of the seven Evils of Humanity.

Their appearance heralded Sukuna’s next stage of evolution.

“Is this... the Third Magic?”

Ragnar Kagenou watched Sukuna closely.

The result before him was equivalent to Heaven’s Feel—the materialization of the soul, one of the Five True Magics.

Sukuna had reached it through cursed energy rather than the established path of True Magic.

Even so, reproducing such a phenomenon was no ordinary feat.

“Sukuna. I acknowledge you as a worthy opponent.”

Ragnar reached into the Gate of Babylon and withdrew a golden key.

The Key of the King’s Law.

He turned it.

Crimson magical circuits spread from the key, branching across the sky.

For the first time, the Sword of Rupture manifested in this world.

Ea.

It began to read the structure of the world around it.

The three cylindrical segments of its blade rotated. Compressed, interwoven layers of wind pressure tore through the surrounding space, producing ruptures akin to faults in space-time.

Anything caught within those fractures would be ground apart.

Without a defense on the level of Anti-Enforcement Defense, Sukuna had no way to withstand it.

“Consider it the greatest honor of your life that I have drawn Ea. Raise your head and behold it!”

Crimson pressure rolled outward from the sword.

The space before Ragnar shattered.

Each red fracture carried an edge of distorted space that ordinary defenses could not stop.

A thin cut opened across Sukuna’s cheek.

Blood trickled down his face.

“So I can’t block it. Not even with cursed energy.”

BOOM—!

Ragnar had merely raised Ea.

Already, Sukuna could neither withstand its pressure nor approach him.

In a direct contest of power, Ragnar held an overwhelming advantage.

“This is where you end.”

Enkidu’s golden chains swept through the air, weaving around Sukuna from every direction.

The entire sky had fallen under Ragnar’s control.

“Dismantle!”

Countless black slashes shot upward.

The Chains of Heaven snapped beneath them.

Even the surging waters of the Great Flood were split apart.

“Just how powerful are you? At this point, I could probably destroy the entire surface of the earth.”

Sukuna stared at Ragnar.

“And all that earns me is the right to be called your opponent?”

The cursed energy pouring from his body grew so dense that its currents became clearly visible.

It surged outward in towering waves.

“Even giving everything I have... I still can’t make you take me seriously?”

“Are those your last words?”

Ragnar’s expression remained unchanged.

“Then return to hell. Few ever receive the honor of dying beneath Ea.”

Black cursed energy spread in an instant, engulfing the entirety of District 11.

...

BOOM—!

“Your death will give rise to a new world, Sukuna.”

Crimson pressure burst through the sea of cursed energy.

The world was bathed in blood-red light.

“Now witness the power that stands at the summit of my Noble Phantasms.”

Ragnar raised the Sword of Rupture.

“I will let you see it for yourself... the end of the world.”

A piercing metallic hum rang out.

Ea’s cylindrical segments began to rotate at tremendous speed.

“An earthquake?”

Suspended in midair, Sukuna felt the violent trembling passing through his body.

His eyes narrowed.

“No. It’s the world itself.”

“Awaken, Ea! Your stage is ready!”

The crimson pressure bearing down upon space-time left Sukuna unable to move freely.

Fleeing would accomplish nothing.

Ea had already fixed upon him.

Wherever he went, death would follow.

Sukuna forced himself against the rupturing space.

His body shattered and reformed, only to be torn apart again.

But hope had not vanished completely.

Black slashes cleaved through heaven and earth.

With Ea already destabilizing the surrounding space-time, even Sukuna’s attacks could tear through its weakened structure.

He held nothing back.

The circulation of cursed energy within his body accelerated, driving his output to its absolute peak.

His slashes grew broader and more destructive, as though they might truly sever the world.

At the same time, his body began to disintegrate under the strain.

The black attacks struck Ea’s overlapping spatial faults.

None reached Ragnar.

Nor could the cursed energy corrode the Sword of Rupture.

“Cleave!”

Disregarding the damage to his body, Sukuna forcibly merged the three powers within him.

A black-and-gray slash tore forward.

It broke through one layer of the spatial distortion.

‘An opening!’

“Dismantle!”

Ragnar’s attack could be opposed.

Sukuna poured Dismantle’s power into the slash, sharpening it beyond its previous limits.

The outer spatial faults shattered beneath its edge, scattering fragments of distorted space-time.

Blazing flames wound around the advancing slash.

Under their heat, the fragments crystallized and fell toward the ground.

“Open!”

Ragnar increased Ea’s output by another two stages.

Then he unleashed its supreme strike.

“Behold the dawn of creation—Enuma Elish!”

His voice rang out in seven overlapping echoes.

Where the sword pointed, a crimson fissure tore through the black clouds.

Ea turned.

With the first revolution, the earth beneath Sukuna began to break apart.

Endless spatial faults radiated from the sword’s tip.

Sukuna’s strongest slash met them.

It shattered like brittle paper.

Countless golden lines spread across the ground.

They were not cursed energy.

They were wounds in space itself, laid bare by Ea’s rupturing force.

“Domain Expansion...”

Sukuna stared in disbelief as the pressure from the sword pulverized both his body and his cursed energy.

His domain was torn apart by an invisible force the instant it began to take shape.

It was not merely being destroyed.

The very foundation that allowed it to exist as an independent domain was being erased.

Ea completed its second revolution.

The sky shattered.

Countless spatial fractures hung overhead like the splintered facets of an enormous mirror.

Each reflected a different vision of hell.

Sukuna could neither withstand it nor fight back.

He dropped to his knees upon the cracked, scorched earth.

The crimson pillar piercing heaven and earth was reflected in his eyes.

The scarlet spiral surrounding Ea hummed like an ancient beast awakening.

With every fraction of its rotation, another part of Sukuna’s body crumbled.

Nothing before the Sword of Rupture could survive that overwhelming force.

Everything within Sukuna’s sight dissolved into nothingness.

Sound twisted into a shrill metallic wail.

He could still see his raised arm, frozen in the posture of defending himself.

The rest of his body had already fallen apart.

There was no pain.

No fear.

Even his awareness that he was about to die was fading.

The sword was annihilating more than his flesh.

It was erasing the existence he understood as himself.

Then the world fell still.

——————

Noble Phantasm: Ea—Sword of Rupture

Release: Enuma Elish—The Star of Creation That Divided Heaven and Earth

Rank: EX

Type: Anti-World Noble Phantasm

Description: A sword bearing the name of a god from Mesopotamian mythology.

Ea rends space itself.

The compressed, interwoven layers of wind pressure produced by its rotating blade generate pseudo-spatial faults that grind its enemies apart.

It stands among the greatest treasures within the Gate of Babylon—a sword capable of tearing the world asunder.

Its ultimate release, Enuma Elish, takes its name from the Babylonian creation epic.

——————

The Five True Magics: The Third Magic—Heaven’s Feel

The materialization of the soul.

In other words, a True Magic that realizes perfect immortality, freeing the soul from the limitations of a mortal body.

Once fully realized, the materialized soul functions as a perpetual-motion engine, providing an inexhaustible source of magical energy.