The King of Curses breathed in deeply, feeling air whistle through both the teeth of his upper mouth and the fangs of his lower one. It was good to be back, in his own flesh.
It had taken a while to return to something resembling his prime. Even then, things weren't quite as they should be, he thought, looking down at Kamutoke. The vajra-like Cursed Tool seemed to be buzzing quietly, as if in anticipation of slaughter.
He knew the feeling. Cutting down weaklings was, sometimes, almost as pleasant as cutting down monsters. Were it up to him, he'd alternate. Otherwise, mass murder would become boring and fighting would start feeling like work.
He'd faced something of a challenge, recently. The Gojo brat had put him on the ropes several times, almost burned his brain out with his damned Unlimited Void. If not for the Ten Shadows he'd stolen, he'd have needed to return to his original form instead of wearing Fushiguro's flesh and leaning on Mahoraga.
Ahh...Satoru Gojo. He'd remember him as long as he lived. He hadn't lied when he'd promised that. The strongest Sorcerer of today might not have been quite as good as he'd thought, but he'd come much closer than...anyone, really.
Even back in the golden age of Sorcery, when every wretch with a scrap of Cursed Energy had come to sharpen their skills against him, he hadn't fallen. Instead, he'd gone on, passing through the ages in the form of his fingers.
But Gojo had almost managed. Maybe he'd lacked Sukuna's skill in Sorcery (who didn't?), but honestly, Gojo had been far more powerful than him, in a way. Over the centuries, Sukuna had observed Cursed Techniques that might have killed even him on contact, but would have never bypassed Infinity. And its applications, the facets of Limitless...
Sukuna had aimed for Fushiguro as a vessel both for the Shikigami bound to him and because he'd known taking over his body was possible. It has been the easiest way to defeat Gojo, not to mention it had let him escape that insultingly boring Itadori kid.
But Sukuna would have preferred Gojo. All that power, directed by his prowess, would have made him unstoppable. He'd known Gojo would never accept or be tricked into swallowing one of the King's fingers. He'd been too savvy, and his Six Eyes had missed nothing.
Well. Almost nothing. Otherwise, he wouldn't have become half the man he'd been.
Then had come that hotheaded bastard Kashimo, rambling when he should have been biting Sukuna's throat out instead. But, perhaps predictably, he'd been all flash and noise, like the lightning he loved so much.
Even that ridiculous transformation of his had failed to bridge the gap between them. And here Sukuna had expected to get his nose bloodied, at least. Kashimo had seemed so enthusiastic to fight him...a shame. Eagerness didn't make up for ineptitude.
All the King's eyes lazily moved across the remains of Shinjuku, waiting for the rest of the Sorcerers to come out of hiding. Who was left, who was left? The copy Sorcerer-Gojo's heir-with the Queen of Curses shackled to him, the butcher of the Zen'in Clan...they'd be the biggest obstacles.
There was still q handful of ragamuffins besides them, but he might as well let Uraume get rid of them if they didn't run at him to get shredded first. Like that salmob-haired maggot almost certainly would.
As Sukuna's eyes scanned the ruined cityscape, his other senses kept track of everything else around him. There were some strong Cursed Energy signatures, distant but approaching. Even so, it took him a while to notice the disturbance above.
'Hm?' Sukuna hummed, glancing up. He hadn't felt any Cursed Energy, and yet, the sky was rippling, crumpling in on itself like a piece of paper, an unearthly sound filling his ears.
The fabric of reality seemed to fall apart and away as long, dark shapes made their way through, like worms eating their way through an apple.
Oh, would you look at that. Speaking of maggots...
One of the creatures fell towards him as if it had aimed for the King of Curses, despite its eyeless head being all mouth, a yawning circle lined with razor fangs. It was as long as a skyscraper was tall, with a bloated gray body, so dark it was almost black.
Sukuna could not feel any more Cursed Energy from the worm than he could from any animal, just like he couldn't from the kilometers-wide breach in spacetime above. Apparently, it was planning to crush him with sheer, brutish strength and mass.
The Disgraced One's mouths split into wide smiles. Good.
As hundreds of thousands of tons of monster came at him, fast enough to cover the creature's length every second, Sukuna flicked a hand up, Dismantling the freak lengthwise.
Its halves fell in different directions, sent flying by the power of the slash, crushing city blocks upon landing. Sadly, Sukuna was sure there had been no weaklings in those buildings when they'd been flattened. Oh, well...
Another maggot appeared, seeming to fall as slowly as a snowflake between the distance and the King's reflexes. With an easy leap, Sukuna was upon it before it could react, Cleaving it into quarters.
Jumping away from the monster he'd cut down to size, Sukuna looked up in midair, to see the entirely of the town-sized portal was filled with maggots, squirming in its dark holds like their smaller counterparts in a wound as they fell.
Hmph. They might take a while to kill, but with how easy they were to destroy, it would be more like a chore than a fight. They were far too slow to catch him, and he wasn't planning to stand still just to get mauled by a living hill, if only because it would take so long.
It'd take some time. The worms were large enough his Domain could only contain one at a time, maybe two, but Malevolent Shrine would have been both overkill and inefficient. He didn't need a guaranteed hit. This was target practice.
What then? Sukuna loosed a Fire Arrow up a maggot's gullet as he weighed his options, smiling serenely as it watched it burst apart, charred, the flames incinerating a couple of worms close to it.
Yes, it seemed there was no way around this. Might as well get stuck in.
Sukuna moved between worms, using their bodies and corpses as springboards, as they continued to fall. His four fists sunk into spongy flesh, splattering it with the strength to shatter skyscrapers, drenching the King in inky, cold sludge.
If not for his immunity to poisons, Sukuna was sure he'd have melted into a puddle or twisted himself to death in the throes of agony. Licking some of the ooze off his face and stomach, Sukuna raised his hands, palms up and fingers splayed.
Worm blood evaporated as Cursed Energy flared into existence around him, bursts of it blasting holes through worms as Sukuna spun, aiming all around him.
By now, they were all on the ground, with the maggots turning what remained of Shinjuku into a crater, between their death throes and their attempts to crush and devour Sukuna.
The Imaginary Demon laughed quietly, moving between piles of remains faster than the sound of his own mirth. The mouth on his abdomen mouthed taunts, hoping for more worms, while his lower hands kept meeting to form and launch Fire Arrows, turning more monsters into carbonized corpses.
His upper hands Dismantled worm after worm, but, much to his dismay, he wasn't even tired by the time he was done, much less wounded. No fight, just as he'd expected. Drudgery.
The sky shook above Sukuna, as if the air were caught in a quake, and the portal seemed to shudder as a shape almost as large as it made its way through.
Sukuna looked up, chuckling, as he came face to face with the largest maggot yet. Their mother, perhaps, or the Queen of their hive. He didn't know, nor care much.
What he did care about was that the gargantuan creature fell apart before he could even aim at it. Sukuna watched, pouting almost childishly, as the hiant worm collapsed from the inside, flesh shaking as it was cut into neat segments.
Sukuna crossed his arms as he watched a figure stand up on the worm's head after slashing through the slimy, leathery flesh. He couldn't feel any Cursed Energy from it, but surely no human would have been able to cut through that monster's insides with a straight razor. Not this fast. Unless...
Images of his clash with the Zen'in girl and that dead weight Yuji flashed through his mind. She had no cursed Energy, either, her Heavenly Restriction exchanging Sorcerous power for physical might and a superb awareness of the world.
But even she wouldn't have been able to break free with a blade that small. Not being a Cursed Tool, it would have shattered in her grasp, or against the monster's insides.
Sukuna hopped onto the maggot's severed head, taking in the newcomer.
He was of average height, slight and gaunt as if malnourished. Discolored hair hung lank, as dull as his dead eyes, and he wore a gray long coat, dripping with filth. In his right hand, he clutched a straight razor, blade gleaming, miraculously clean.
Might as well give him a warm welcome, Sukuna decided, whispering, "Fuga."
"And who are you?" Sukuna asked curiously, even as he loosed a Fire Arrow as the ooze-covered stranger.
The blade flashed up, faster than a bullet, and the Sorcerous projectile became a smoky explosion as it clashed against the razor.
That was when the smell hit Sukuna, making him grimace.
"What in the..." he began, the stench sticking to his throat. Now, the Disgraced One wasn't squeamish. You couldn't exactly eat people and sweat the small stuff, even when they were cooked.
But this was nothing like a human corpse's scent. That was merely foul. But, impossibly, the worm's sludge-like flesh had seemed to make the man smell better.
The coated man walked closer, smiling blandly, and Sukuna bristled, feeling his hair stand up. He was sure no fly could come close to this guy without dropping dead.
"What the hell did you crawl out of?" he grunted, gesturing to Dismantle him.
The gray coat parted, as did his reeking flesh, revealing gleaming bone. The man's spine knot back together as soon as it had been severed, and he continued advancing without missing a beat, razor in hand.
Sukuna grimaced, despite himself. Getting rid of this eyesore looked like it'd be more of a challenge than playing exterminator, even discounting the fact that he'd probably have to raze Tokyo just to escape the stench.
* * *
Razor Eddie's hand was aching slightly, as it had once when he'd accidentally touched a burning corpse, back when he'd been human. Even though the unnatural flame flung at him had only made contact with his blade, not his body.
A wicked fire, to affect his godly flesh like this. A wicked fire, for a wicked man, Eddie is sure. Spiritual flith fouls the substance of the world, as surely as the stench that clings to his coat fouls the air.
If the thing in front of him could even be called a man. Going by the magics radiating from him, the four-armed being seemed about as human as Eddie himself, an insult he didn't throw around lightly.
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Eddie's divine senses resonated with his desires, and his never-ending hunt for evil had left him attuned to the likes of the warlock grimacing at him, who reminded him of the Nightside's darker areas.
If he'd known the hunt for those maggots from the timeslip would lead him here, he'd have cut his way through space and time and appeared her to begin with.
Hmm...where was he, anyway? Eddie rarely knew the answer to that question, and not just because the city where he spent most of his life constantly changes. He did not think about locations, mostly. The grey god defined his world by the forms evil takes.
Eddie's eyes darted around so fast a human's would burst into flame from the friction, but even his superhuman sight took a while to make out anything behind his ruined surroundings.
Tokyo, Japan. Not his, he knows - he had gone yokai-hunting there once, and it had been in far better shape, not to mention full of people.
Eddie's gaze returned to his would-be killer, hardening, though he'd been told he rarely looked anything besides lazy or unhinged. The mage's four arms were sheathed in shining energies, black-clawed hands clenched. In one, he held a vajra, crackling with lightning.
He was tall and muscular, covered in dark, jagged tattoos, and wearing a pair of baggy pants. Half of his face showed two eyes, a small one beneath where a human's would be, while the other was covered by some sort of half-mask or bony growth. Messy pink hair was swaying lightly from the pressure of the power he was channeling.
'Your doing?' Eddie asked, stepping forward, trusting in his divinity to get the message across in case his rudimentary Japanese fails.
The warlock chuckled. 'This?' He gestured at the blasted cityscape. 'It was a team effort, actually.'
A fight, Eddie decided. Likely with what was now bisected cadaver he saw some distance away, half-buried in worm guts, some magic still lingering around it.
He breathed in, lungs filling with the reek of monstrous ichor and magic dripping negative emotions.
'You're dead,' he said simply, and dashed.
The mage reacted, ducking beneath what would have been a decapitating swing so fast a bullet would have barely had time to move. His upper hands closed around Eddie's wrists, holding him in place, while his lower left one dug into the god's guts, wrapping around a handful of intestines.
The sorcerer jammed the Vajra into his side, pulping flesh and cracking bone, and lightning lanced through Eddie.
His knee smashed into the warlock's groin, making his legs buckle slightly before he steadied himself. Eddie perceived a faint rearrangement of the magic cloaking his enemy's body, as the layer around his crotch thickened.
Eddie didn't stop kneeing him. Even if the sorcerer had burned all his insides to nothing, it would have barely made him stumble. The god was briefly reminded of the story John Taylor had told him, the future version of himself who'd spent decades being used as a nest by monstrous larvae that ate him from the inside out whenever a new generation hatched, leaving only hollow, hole-riddled skin.
The spellslinger trying to kill him wasn't that thorough, though he was more vicious. Eddie couldn't let him keep walking all over him. So, when he smashed his head into the sorcerer's face, he put some of his divinity behind the headbutt.
The warlock's eyes bled as he moved backwards, smoothly turning the stumble into a slide. The godly power had scorched more than a fair share of his face, but Eddie has been trying to get through the magical shielding to return his favour and burn him from the inside out.
No dice. Looked like he had to wear the mage down.
'Aaahhh~' the sorcerer grumbled as he channeled power into his smoking wound, which was covered by untouched skin in short order. At the same time, he flicked his wrist, causing Eddie's razor to almost fly from his grasp. The god tightened his grip, though, not that the blade would have been easily parted from its wielder.
'What are you, anyway?' the warlock drawled, hooded eyes flicking down to the razor and back to Eddie's face. He matched the god's thin, tight smile with a wide grin.
'I am here to kill you,' Eddie answered.
'Good luck.' The words were followed by a couple of punches, which sent Eddie flying off the dead worm's head and through two skyscrapers, shattering dozens of storeys. He crashed into a third one, which toppled with a groan of metal.
Eddie cut his way free, running upwards faster than debris could fall, jumping between falling concrete blocks and steel beams that seemed stationary to his divine perception. He'd healed before the building had started to fall, and his razor now slashed through countless tons of concrete, steel and shattered glass as he broke free.
The sorcerer was above him, still in midair from a jump, still wearing that damned smile.
I'm going to wipe that face off your skull, Eddie promised silently, to himself, even as bolts of magic raced towards him.
Bolts of magic raced down at Eddie, and the punk god raised his namesake, cutting three of them - aimed at his head, blade and legs - in half, alongside the space they occupied, making them disperse harmlessly behind him as the halves sputtered into nothing.
The fourth bolt smashed into his chest, packed with enough power to atomise a small crowd, and Eddie felt blood fill his mouth. He hawked a gobbet of bloody spit, his insides already healed by the time he opened his mouth, and cut reality under him.
Eddie's perceptions lurched as he felt through the world and landed in a wasteland, on his feet. The shift from horizontal to vertical was the only thing that could draw his attention in this place.
There was no surface, as such, merely what felt like a screen of force under his boots, extending endlessly beneath pale, green mists. Eddie wasn't sure why he was righted whenever he jumped or fell here, nor did he care.
He cut a new portal, back into the universe he'd left, eyes meeting the sorcerer's back. The razor flew at his neck-
-and stopped, Eddie's arm falling into pieces, some of them remaining in the hand that had grabbed his wrist.
Half-turning, the warlock smashed his vajra into Eddie's hip, sending him flying. Airborne and unarmed, he glared at the fiery arrows racing for him.
* * *
Sukuna cracked his fingers, eyes tracking the smoke cloud his Fire Arrows had made. Trying to modify Cursed Techniques, especially on the fly, had a tendency to produce spectacular failures, even when it was him experimenting.
It was why he preferred to test new applications of Jujutsu on humans. Whether they lived or died, it wasn't like anything changed in the world.
Splitting his Fire Arrow into a couple of smaller ones had been as awkward as he'd expected, but he'd hardly been aiming to kill that atrocious-smelling man with this trick.
No, Sukuna had wanted to keep him in the air for a while longer, distract him with the smoke. The attack had been more flash than substance, with the Arrows exploding before they'd even made contact.
Still, it had worked. He should have enough time to find that strange razor and crush it. Sukuna didn't know what it was, only that it wasn't a Cursed Tool - or if it was, its energy was subtler than his senses could pick up. In any case, it was clearly the hobo's main weap-
Sukuna staggered, a hand flying to his gaping eye sockets. The foul bastard had done it again, hit him with that pulse of strange energy he could only feel the aftermath of.
Good. He'd be disappointed if this was a short fight.
Sukuna slowed down as he moved towards where he'd thrown the razor. The energy spike had speared his brain, and that needed to be healed, or the damage left by Gojo would be compounded.
The eyes followed, but for a few milliseconds, his vision swam. His Cursed Energy sense was on full alert, but that was not helpful. The man didn't have any.
By the time Sukuna reached the blade, he could see properly again, though it would be a while before he'd be able to open his Domain.
Glaring down at the straight razor, he raised Kamutoke, bringing a gargantuan thunderbolt down on it, vaporizing concrete fragments for tens of meters around.
It glinted as it fell, not even cracked. Tch. He'd been testing the waters with this - who knew what the weapon would do if he tried to touch it? -, but he clearly needed to get his hands dirty.
Sukuna turned, fists pasting half of the coated man's body as he tried to tackle him from behind. The impact was still enough to lift him off the ground, his enemy glaring feverishly at him as they flew, showing his teeth in an insane grimace, like the rat he was.
Sukuna nearly shoved a fist down his throat, preparing to blast him apart from the inside, and narrowed his eyes when his hand was parted from his body.
The little freak must have snatched up the razor when they were flying over it. Perfect! He knew how to fight, dammit. Sukuna had killed far too many Sorcerers who fell apart when their Cursed Tools and Techniques were removed or destroyed, then literally fell apart moments after.
The only way this day could get better would be if the man's regeneration persisted after his death. Sukuna's mouths almost watered at the thought of gorging forever on an ever-healing corpse.
Sukuna snickered as the the man kicked him away, rising in a crouch and clutching his razor. His eyes were as unfocused as they were insane, but Sukuna wasn't fooled. He hadn't seen such a skilled killer since he'd last looked in a mirror.
They stared each other down for a thousandth if a second, before Sukuna broke the silence. "Nothing to say?" he asked, spreading his arms, one hand toying with Kamutoke.
Besides his promise at the start of their fight, the man had been quiet, even when Sukuna had Cleaved his arm into pieces. It made sense, he supposed. Regenerating from enough wounds left you numb to pain, and this guy had clearly been fighting for a long time.
"I'm going to kill you," the man said flatly.
"I'm sure," Sukuna sneered. "But do you have a name? I like to know who I'm tearing to shreds." He opened both of his left hands, gesturing to himself with the lower one. "Ryomen Sukuna. King of Curses."
The guy spun the razor, slowly making his way towards Sukuna. "I'm Eddie. Punk god of the straight razor."
The Disgraced One laughed. "A god?! Well," he cupped his chin, smirking, "I was worshipped once too, you know. People threw festivals in my honor." Sukuna wondered who even prayed to this shithead. Hairy assholes with even hairier assholes? "For a time. But I soon realized their flesh was sweeter than their prayers."
"You should've choked on them," Eddie said darkly, dashing at him. A heavy pressure pushed the hand holding Kamutoke down even as the god began moving, making Sukuna drop the Cursed Tool when his broken fingers were forced open.
Though Sukuna met him with a smile, already healed and moving far faster than the sound of his own laughter, he was starting to get tired of this self-styled 'god'. Wounds that would've killed Sukuna had been shrugged off without the raggedy bastard so much as blinking, and damn if he could tell why. No amount of Sorcerous regeneration should have let him keeping going, let alone with such nonchalance.
Sukuna was half-sure the little shit wasn't actually a Sorcerer, and he'd never heard of a Heavenly Restriction with such effects on its bearer. Then there was that razor, like the slash he'd used to cut through Infinity and Gojo himself, in the form of a weapon.
Heh, Sukuna thought. How to kill you, how to kill...tch. Can I even do it? Did it matter? This might just turn out more interesting than his fight with the strongest modern Sorcerer.
Still, no need to let the dumpster reject wear and cut him down. Unlike him, Sukuna's reserves of regeneration were merely great, not, seemingly, limitless. Not to mention they were the same reserves he used to fight, so...
I'm going to cut you into dust, the Imaginary Demon thought cheerfully. But he needed his Domain for that. Eddie, he'd seen, would weather his usual attacks and keep coming at him, a scenario that favored the alleged deity. Without Malevolent Shrine, he'd be drawn in a battle of attrition, and those were always painfully dull.
Hmm...maybe the second-stringers would come around soon? Jujutsu Society's best weren't a patch on Gojo, even together, but they'd at least offer some variety, not to mention people he could actually kill. This grim-faced freak promised only headaches death threats, and he'd faced enough pains in the ass over the centuries to get bored of all variations of the righteous killer sooner or later.
Who the hell got offended on behalf of others, anyway? And they called him insane...it would've been like him torturing someone because they'd killed Uraume, instead of breaking them because he could.
Sukuna twisted away from an upwards swing that would've bisected him from crotch to neck. Clearly, Eddie had decided that, if his enemy could heal, he might as well cut him apart as badly as he could.
The Imaginary Demon understood the feeling. It was mutual, even. As soon as he got his brain back in top shape (the Six-Eyed brat's sensory overload had done more of a number on him than he'd expected), he'd open his Domain and reduce the fake god to bloody mist.
Fortunately, he was more than skilled enough to heal and fight, even while being pressed by a peer. Unfortunately, brain regeneration took longer than that of most other body parts, and while he could've managed that if his opponent had been limited to melee, the Eddie had access to some sort of imperceivable power he couldn't really dodge. Was it even line of sight? He'd managed it through that smoke cloud created by the Fire Arrows, but his eyes might have just been that sharp.
One thing Sukuna had noticed, though, was that, before both times he'd been wounded by that energy, Eddie had been angry. Was that it, then? Was rage the trigger? He'd seen stranger Binding Vows, but if this was the truth, he doubted he could put Eddie in a position where he couldn't use that power. After all, he hadn't showed any of the fear, reverence or respect Sukuna had gotten used to, to the point of boredom. And he doubted the guy was going to chill out instead of getting more and more pissed at him, anyway.
Eh. Might as well cut him up and see if the dust put itself back together, or something. Cutting things up usually achieved some measure of finality, for someone.
As Sukuna moved away from Eddie, he leapt up, firing a short-lived bolt of Cursed Energy beneath his feet, the resulting explosion allowing him to dodge the god who'd jumped after him. His lower hands, repeated the process, while his upper ones came together to release Fire Arrow after Fire Arrow. This was rushed compared to how he'd usually cast the flames, not to mention sloppy, but that was alright: he wasn't planning to burn Eddie to a crisp, anyway.
He wouldn't mind killing him like that; he just doubted it would stick. Not to mention slicing someone who loved blades so much apart would be hilarious. No, the problem was that the blade-wielder could easily defend himself the Sorcerous projectile, either by cutting it apart, or by using that portal trick he'd performed earlier to try and sneak up on Sukuna. Maybe he'd even take it head on and heal. He seemed tough enough, and was certainly stubborn.
Malevolent Shrine would put him down, or at least give Sukuna time to think of another way to kill him. If he'd had Hiten with him, he wouldn't have been caught up in such a stupid fight, but...
Eddie was becoming more careful, as if mirroring him. Maybe he was actually doing it, to taunt him. Sukuna had seen the type before, stone-faced sticks in the mud who never laughed or cried, but goaded people with gestures. They squealed once you ripped their guts out, but stopped by the time you were throttling them with their intestines. Sadly. Humans tasted like pork, and the shrieking sound of a stuck pig was always funny, whether the pig walked on four or two legs.
Instead of letting himself fall and jumping off a structure, Eddie was moving by means of portals, cutting holes into reality that faded as fast as their ragged edges split existence apart. Sukuna was waiting for another attempt at an attack from behind, but none came; Eddie just kept moving in something fairly close to a straight line, leading Sukuna to believe that, probably, his speed and direction remained the same while passing out of the world and into wherever the portals went.
Maybe he couldn't turn around, or retain his speed, while inside the portals, and slowing down would defeat the purpose of trying to sneak up behind Sukuna.
With the beginnings of a faint frown upon his face, Sukuna kept launching Fire Arrows whenever Eddie dipped back into reality. However, those split-milliseconds were more than enough for Eddie to cut portals that dumped the Arrows gods knew were. And he kept getting closer and closer, despite his ridiculous portal-hopping, despite the hundreds of projectiles that had been aimed at him.
It was alright, though. As Cursed Energy rippled around and within him, Sukuna was, once again, whole.
A Cursed Energy blast aimed at Eddie's face when he reappeared also blasted Sukuna downwards, his feet leaving trenches across the devastation as he landed. Eddie had just dropped into a portal last he'd seen him, and-
-ah! Clever, Sukuna thought as a portal was cut into being under him, large enough that he didn't have anything to jump off. A Cursed Energy blast sent him flying away from the god who'd tried to cut him off at the knees, scorching Eddie as he leapt up.
He should've tried this earlier, the idiot. He might've had a chance.
"Domain Expansion," Sukuna spoke as Eddie crashed a few hundred meters away, scrabbling to a stop on charred hands. Malevolent Shrine seemed to darken the world around it as it loomed, horned and filled with monstrous skulls.
It was time to finish this.
* * *
Eddie's glare was as steady as ever as he approached the sorcerer once more. A twisted construct, filled with the remains of monsters, dominated an unnatural-feeling area the size of a couple football stadiums, but the grey god had the feeling this was just one more weapon in his enemy's arsenal.
He gathered his anger around him. Not just at this Sukuna's callousness, but at the fact that someone so cruel bore such power. The world shouldn't have worked like this. It should've been better, dammit. How many more sinners did he have to slaughter before the scales tipped towards fairness?
Eddie's rage had reduced buildings to gravel on his first night of godhood, and it had only grown deeper, more refined, since then. He'd once gone head to head with the Walking Man, after all, and though he couldn't quite summon the fury he'd felt at Saint's blind attempted purge of the Nightside, his blood still boiled.
A barrage of slashes rained upon him the instant he entered the dark space, a fraction of their power breaking through his anger to leave only scraps of regenerating flesh hanging off his shredded skeleton. He was healing as fast as he was being cut, but this only meant he could move at a snail's pace instead of being pinned in place.
The warlock's upper hands were together in some arcane gesture, but he wasn't done. Chanting something from the mouth on his stomach, his lower hands moved, and the world came apart under Eddie's eyes, as if he'd cut it himself.
His razor had instinctively moved up the moment supernatural power had moved against him, but even so, its spacetime-splitting edge could only grind against whatever spell the mage had now cast.
He was caught in a double stalemate: the storm of slashes never stopped cutting him up, while the spatial slash kept him in place and effectively disarmed him. This, Razor Eddie realised, wasn't something he could bull his way through.
He wasn't planning to, though. As his intent and power surged through his weapon, Eddie let go, and the spatial slash dispersed the shield of his wrath, leaving him to be driven down to the floor by the barrage of cuts.
However, Eddie had completed the motion of swinging when he'd stopped struggling, and his razor traced an arc through the air, ending up above the sorcerer and his darkling altar. Then, the portal he'd aimed for belatedly opened, spewing forth every fiery arrow the mage had aimed at him during their midair chase. Not any colder or slower thanks to the endless emptiness of the misty plane where they'd been sent, they crashed into the bone-filled shrine in a blast that, Eddie, knew, was barely enough to dazzle the surprised sorcerer.
It was enough for him, though. A tide of outrage spread from him, dispersing the endless slashes, and Eddie closed the distance between him and his target as fast as any manmade projectile. His razor hung in the air, caught in the slow fall dictated by gravity, and Eddie's hand darted out to grasp it even as his wrath made Sukuna's face crumple in on itself, eyes bursting.
His fist, backed by divine fury, drove the half-mask, or whatever it was, into Sukuna's skull, shards pushing into the mage's brain. Eddie's arm shattered under the impact, but was already healed by the time his other hand brought the razor onto Sukuna's head, cutting into the neck before the halves of his head could begin moving.
Space and time rippled as the blade kept going, cutting clean through both magic and inhuman flesh until it parted Sukuna's body. Before the bisected body could so much as sway, Eddie knocked it down with a leg sweep, going to work even as it fell. Halves became quarters, which became eights, but Razor Eddie didn't stop cutting.
Even when Sukuna had been reduced to blood-tinged dust, he didn't stop cutting. It was only when a handful of mages warily approached him, clearly expecting a fight, but bemused at the sight of him, that his eyes moved away from the cloud of bloody mist.