Chapter 180 (Patreon)

“Why resist, O King of Man?”

Sukuna, the Anti-Savior Beast, kept his eyes closed.

His voice, saturated with hatred, reverberated across the heavens.

“Sukuna has fully matured into a Beast... This is the worst possible future predicted by the All-Knowing and All-Powerful Star.”

Despair spread across the world.

The remaining two percent of humanity now faced a living hell.

Perhaps the ninety-eight percent whose consciousness had already been extinguished were the fortunate ones.

Their deaths had occurred in an instant.

They had vanished before they could feel anything.

“Answer me. The Age of Man has already ended. Your resistance will accomplish nothing but delay the extinction of its final flame... for a single moment.”

“Resistance?”

Ragnar Kagenou wiped the blood from his face, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

“Mongrel. A curse will always remain a curse. Becoming a Beast changes nothing.”

More than ten thousand golden ripples appeared behind him.

“I will personally send you back to hell.”

The Gate of Babylon opened.

“Let the wars of mythology be reenacted upon this land!”

Enkidu—the Chains of Heaven—shot toward Sukuna’s colossal body.

The moment they coiled around the Beast, the golden chains blazed like molten metal. Their anti-divine restraint activated, binding Sukuna with scorching force.

“Foolish.”

Thousands of arms reached back and seized Enkidu.

CRACK—!

Sukuna began tearing himself free.

A thunderous explosion shook the world.

Countless high-ranking Noble Phantasms erupted from the Gate of Babylon and bombarded the Beast’s enormous body.

Sukuna’s voice emerged from within the storm of destruction.

“The hands of time reverse over the ruins of Babel. The steam engine devours the children of Victoria.”

“A cage forged from blood and tears shackles the wings of freedom. The spiral of life twists itself into another chain.”

“Brew humanity’s follies into wine, and raise the cup in tribute to the madness of eternal recurrence!”

Countless hands reached toward Ragnar.

They were moments away from touching him when he finally saw through their deception.

Those things had never been arms.

Sukuna had concealed their true nature beneath shapes woven from cursed energy.

The four thousand appendages spreading from his back were actually—

Demon God Pillars.

There were thousands of them.

Hope itself seemed to disappear from the world.

The power condensed within each pillar was enough to bring an entire world to ruin.

Sukuna possessed four thousand.

“Ea!”

Crimson spatial faults erupted from the Sword of Rupture and drove the Demon God Pillars back.

Ea’s world-rending force could injure them.

Their overwhelming numbers were the problem.

“Tch. There are far too many.”

This world possessed no Throne of Heroes.

There was no Gaia.

No Alaya.

Against Sukuna, who had fully matured into a Beast, Ragnar was almost entirely alone.

His expression darkened.

This was precisely the situation he had never wanted to face.

Human civilization had almost no possibility of surviving.

The All-Knowing and All-Powerful Star calculated a 99.99 percent probability that Sukuna would overwrite human history with a new foundation.

[Genesis of Curses]

“Return to the past and choose again.”

Zafkiel manifested behind Ragnar.

An ancient and ornate clock face appeared in the sky, its hands beginning to turn.

“Sixth Bullet—Vav!”

BANG—!

Ragnar opened his eyes a moment later.

Nothing had changed.

“What?”

He looked at the frozen clock.

“Even Vav can no longer return my consciousness to the past?”

If the Sixth Bullet had failed, he would use the Twelfth.

Even if the cost was a portion of his remaining life.

“Zafkiel—Twelfth Bullet, Yud Bet!”

BANG—!

Another gunshot echoed across the ruined world.

Ragnar remained exactly where he stood.

Even Yud Bet had failed to send him into the past.

“A futile act,” Sukuna said. “Human history no longer possesses a past or a future. Even the parallel worlds have been consolidated.”

“The only thing that exists... is the present.”

Ragnar frowned.

Even the concept of death seemed to have disappeared from Sukuna’s existence.

“I owe this power to you,” Sukuna continued. “Had you not opened the path to parallel worlds, I could never have reached this state.”

Even after becoming a Beast, the original Sukuna should not have possessed anything close to this level of power.

“Parallel worlds?”

“When I consolidated the past and future, I discovered the parallel space-time you had created. It allowed me to assimilate the versions of myself from countless other worlds.”

A memory surfaced in Ragnar’s mind.

Several years ago, he had withdrawn a portal gun from Rick and Morty from the Gate of Babylon.

“Do not speak nonsense. I never used that weapon.”

“The moment the weapon manifested in this world, countless possibilities branched from its existence. Whether you actually pulled the trigger was irrelevant.”

Sukuna brought two of his hands together.

Cursed energy as deep and oppressive as the Abyss gathered between his palms.

‘The past can no longer be changed.’

Ragnar stared at the Beast.

‘Then I have no choice but to pursue the remaining 0.01 percent.’

Sukuna’s current power far surpassed his own.

Even if Ragnar wagered everything, victory remained almost impossible.

‘I need a Noble Phantasm that possesses the attribute of salvation...’

Ea was one of the greatest Noble Phantasms within his treasury.

As an Anti-World Noble Phantasm, it possessed the power to tear apart the World itself.

If Sukuna had become an existence bearing the concept of a World, Ea could have annihilated him.

But the Beast before him was different.

Sukuna was the manifestation of destruction and curses within the World.

Golden light suddenly erupted from the Gate of Babylon.

Ragnar turned in surprise.

A Noble Phantasm was emerging from the treasury of its own accord.

“Excalibur... the Sword of Promised Victory?”

WHOOSH—!

A pillar of golden light pierced the vortex of curses overhead.

Hope erupted across the darkened sky.

The radiance of the Holy Sword spread throughout the world.

Excalibur—the Holy Sword of the Planet—floated before Ragnar.

“It appeared on its own because the world is facing destruction...”

Ragnar looked at the golden blade.

“And it wants me to wield it.”

The Holy Sword released a clear metallic cry.

It flew directly into Ragnar’s hand.

Avalon, the distant utopia that served as Excalibur’s sheath, manifested around the blade for a brief moment before dissolving into light.

At the same time, the intricate restraints placed upon the Holy Sword began to unlock one after another.

More than half of the Thirteen Restraints had been approved and released.

Excalibur’s true form appeared within this world.

Its golden blade radiated the light of the planet itself.

It was not merely a weapon made to destroy evil.

It was the Holy Sword forged by the planet to repel threats capable of ending the world—the crystallization of humanity’s hope and a weapon that truly possessed the power to save it.

Then the other supreme Noble Phantasms within the Gate of Babylon began to resonate.

Countless pillars of divine radiance erupted from the treasury.

The light capable of saving the world was not limited to gold.

Red.

Blue.

Silver.

Violet.

A multitude of colors poured from the Gate of Babylon, illuminating the human history that now stood on the verge of annihilation.

“Perhaps this will be enough to defeat the Beast.”

With the All-Knowing and All-Powerful Star operating at full capacity, Ragnar could normally display an enemy’s abilities in the form of a data panel.

This time, however, every field except Sukuna’s name had been reduced to unreadable noise.

Name: Ryomen Sukuna

True Name: [Beast VI/S—The Anti-Savior Beast, King of Curses of the Two Principles]

(The following information is invisible to Ragnar Kagenou.)

Authority of the Beast:

Anti-Savior—Nega Messiah

An Authority possessing a conceptual advantage against [Salvation].

The more strongly someone attempts to save humanity, the more deeply that individual will be eroded by the Beast.

The aggregated Evil of Humanity observed across every timeline.

“So his True Name is the only thing I can read.”

Ragnar tightened his grip on Excalibur.

“The Beast’s Authority is interfering with the predictions of the All-Knowing and All-Powerful Star...”

——————

Noble Phantasm: Anti-Genesis—Malevolent Shrine

Rank: EX

Type: Barrier Noble Phantasm

Description: The planet is enclosed within an enormous cocoon formed from cursed blossoms. Space-time is inverted within the cocoon, and every physical law is rewritten.

At the center of the World floats the Clock of All Things, created from the condensed Evils of Humanity. Each time its hands move in reverse, a different apocalyptic scenario is invoked.

Civilization Reconstruction: Every second, the domain randomly replaces the present civilization with another possibility from human history.

Perpetual Cursed Energy: The souls of those who die within the domain are refined into Cursed Energy Crude Oil, providing Sukuna with an inexhaustible source of power.

Cognitive Contamination: Survivors gradually accept the belief that humanity must be destroyed. Once their resistance collapses, they willingly abandon their humanity and transform into Cursed Spirits.