Chapter 144

Just by being born, Ryomen Sukuna shattered everything that Kannon had built up until then.

"…Wait. Just by being born?"

It would make sense if he had rampaged right after being born. Unlike humans, curses are strong even right after birth.

'But the nuance of what she just said wasn't like that.'

It sounded as if the mere act of being born had destroyed everything.

"Was this Sukuna a curse?"

"No. Ryomen Sukuna had a monstrous body, but he was human."

And that was the beginning of all the tragedy. Zoro frowned at Tengen's muttered words.

"I don't understand."

"Let me give you an example."

Tengen stood up and took two boxes containing a golden scale and multicolored beads from a drawer. The beads made sense, but why there was a scale in the drawer was beyond comprehension.

"First, I need to explain the laws of this world. This world is balanced by the cursed energy of curses and the cursed energy of humans."

"Huh?"

"When a powerful curse is born, a powerful sorcerer is also born, and vice versa. If a powerful sorcerer is born, soon a powerful curse will appear."

Tengen placed two clear beads on one side of the scale and two colored beads on the opposite side. The scale balanced perfectly.

"But then, Ryomen Sukuna, with his immense cursed energy, was born as a human."

Tengen placed a teapot on the side of the scale with the clear beads. Suddenly, with the heavy object added, the scale tipped drastically toward the side with the clear beads.

Tengen half-closed her eyes and asked,

"What do you think happened?"

"..."

"The scales of the world only consider whether the being with cursed energy is biologically human or a curse. It doesn't matter if the nature of that human is more like a curse."

In simpler terms, on the scales of this world, Ryomen Sukuna is counted as a 'human.'

With his face hardening, Zoro said,

"…With Sukuna's birth, a massive number of curses must have been born."

"Correct. This is what happened."

Tengen grabbed a handful of colored beads and poured them onto the opposite side of the scale. The mound of beads on the opposite side of the teapot finally balanced the scale.

Zoro alternated his gaze between the teapot and the heap of beads.

Ryomen Sukuna. Plus the newly born powerful curses. The Heian period, when all this was born at once…

"It must have been chaos."

...

Even with the increased number of curses, the sorcerers of that time could still manage. After all, it was the Heian period.

Sorcerers who had received energy, shikigami, and teachings from Kannon in the Nara period, and had their safety somewhat ensured under Tengen's barriers, eventually formed their own families, schools, and organizations over time.

They banded together, complemented each other's techniques, and married within their groups to pass on precious techniques to their children and descendants.

It was an era with no dispute about calling it the golden age of sorcery.

Yet, despite that, no one could defeat Ryomen Sukuna.

"I thought there might be something interesting among the old sorcerer schools…"

How dull. He said this as he casually tossed aside the severed head of a young sorcerer, not even ten years old.

The King of Curses. True to that nickname, Ryomen Sukuna killed, violated, ate, and toyed with everything in sight, destroying it all.

He was the embodiment of living evil and malice. With unimaginable strength, Sukuna slaughtered both non-sorcerers and sorcerers indiscriminately.

Naturally, Kannon's disciples were no exception.

In fact, because they were Kannon's disciples, they died even more. The sorcerers who had received what were practically righteous teachings from Kannon couldn't just stand by and watch Ryomen Sukuna's heinous actions.

Countless sorcerers who received energy from Kannon, learned Buddhist law, and faithfully followed his teachings, along with their descendants, were helplessly slaughtered before Sukuna.

Heads severed, bodies sliced, violated, eaten, and finally burnt to black ashes. When Kannon saw the bodies of his close kin piled up like a mountain, he collapsed powerlessly on the charred field.

"Ughhhh!"

The beast-like wail echoed across the field. Even as tears mixed with blood streamed down his face, he couldn't close his eyes.

Tengen personally took care of the fainted Kannon, exhausted from crying. But when Kannon woke up and Tengen saw his eyes had turned red, she had a feeling something had changed forever.

"Tengen, I will kill Sukuna."

"..."

"No matter what it takes, I will do it."

From that moment, Kannon set out to kill Ryomen Sukuna.

But tragically, he had no means to fight and win against Ryomen Sukuna directly. His technique of transferring cursed energy and his unparalleled reverse cursed technique were useless against Sukuna.

So, Kannon resorted to his original method. He transferred his energy to talented individuals and excellent weapons, making them powerful, and sent them to fight Sukuna.

But Ryomen Sukuna was different from any enemy he had faced before.

No matter how much energy he transferred, no matter how he turned weapons into shikigami by infusing them with energy, Sukuna laughed at Kannon's efforts and slaughtered them effortlessly.

Whether he sent one, two, ten, or a hundred.

Whether he sent them separately or all at once, whether he devised strategies or trained them rigorously, whether he sent sorcerers with unique and groundbreaking techniques… Ryomen Sukuna usually sent them all to the afterlife with a single wave of his hand.

Kannon decided to change his approach and scoured the land. He believed that somewhere, there must be a way to kill Sukuna.

"Was there really such a thing?"

At Zoro's innocent question, Tengen gazed at him intently. Then, with a significant look, she spoke.

"…There wasn't. In 'this world.'"

Receiving the strange look, Zoro's eyes widened.

"No way."

"Yes, that's correct."

You were Kannon's solution, the way to kill Ryomen Sukuna.

...

The small artifact named 'Six Paths' was an artifact that opened a pathway to another place. The peculiar thing was that the more power you infused into it, the farther the pathway opened.

Kannon began to study the artifact obsessively, as if possessed by something.

Then, on the day he poured all his power into the Six Paths to its limit.

In a fleeting moment, at the end of the pathway that opened and closed, smaller than the eye of a needle, he saw a world he had never seen or imagined before.

A world where power did not exist at all.

Though power and magic did not exist there, strong individuals still existed in that world. Some of them possessed strength that even renowned sorcerers could not match.

Kannon thought.

'What if I could bring the strongest from that world into this world and infuse them with power using my magic?'

Could that person defeat Ryomen Sukuna?

The thought struck him like lightning, and Kannon made it his goal. He decided to bring the strongest from another world, free from the constraints of magic, to fight Ryomen Sukuna.

Simply bringing them over wouldn't be enough. This world might not accept the presence of beings from another world. To increase their strength and bind them within the constraints of this world, Kannon decided to use his magic to infuse them with power.

To become a being with power meant becoming part of this world.

"…So that's how it happened."

Zoro could roughly understand the situation. Kannon somehow managed to open a pathway to Zoro's previous world and brought him to this world.

But, then.

"What if the strongest person he brought over is worse than Sukuna?"

Wouldn't that make the world even worse? Zoro questioned.

Even in this world, and in his previous world, the strongest weren't necessarily good people. In fact, it was often the opposite.

Take Zoro for instance. If you had to categorize him as either good or bad, he'd be considered bad. At least, that's what he thought of himself.

'Could he really select only the good strongest individuals?'

If that were the case, he probably wouldn't have brought me. Zoro tilted his head in confusion, and Tengen gave a bitter smile.

"He probably didn't think about that. At that time, Kannon likely only cared about killing Ryomen Sukuna."

"Crazy."

"…He was crazy."

Because of his madness, Kannon did not hesitate.

At first, it was impossible to stably open the pathway between this world and the other world. It was because there wasn't enough power to infuse into the artifact. Unless it was Kannon before he shared his power with others, at that time, he had already transferred a lot of his power to others.

"So then how… No way."

"I mentioned it earlier. Kannon could also take the power of other beings and make it his own."

"But that…"

"Means the other party either has to agree or he has to kill them."

At first, he killed sorcerers and curses to take their power, but even that power was insufficient, Tengen explained.

"He gradually crossed the line."

He began to indiscriminately take power from tools and artifacts, scavenging the corpses of dead sorcerers for power, forcibly extracting power from good sorcerers through threats, posing as a cult leader to siphon power from followers, and even killed a follower who resisted him.

"In the end, he even killed his beloved disciples with his own hands to gain more power."

"That bastard completely lost his mind."

Zoro shuddered. Since he had no intention of denying it, Tengen said nothing.

"The world of sorcery was turned upside down. After all, the man who practically established the foundations of the sorcery world became a rogue sorcerer."

At that time, the major figures in the world of sorcery, whether they liked it or not, whether they had close or distant ties, were all connected to Kannon in some way.

They were either descendants of those who received power from Kannon, his disciples, descendants of those disciples, users of artifacts created by Kannon, or followers of his teachings.

'The Zenin family too.'

During the period when Kannon went mad and began massacring his disciples, the founder of the Zenin family, who was one of Kannon's disciples, established the family to hide his name from Kannon.

Like the founder of the Zenin family, the sorcery world at that time desperately tried to erase everything left by Kannon. The atrocities committed by Kannon were attributed to Ryomen Sukuna and the curses, and the teachings and achievements left by Kannon were claimed by the sorcerer Tengen, who lived in the same era.

'Of course, it was impossible to erase all traces.'

Not all of Kannon's disciples and their descendants died, and there were artifacts he created. Some of these were still in use in modern times.

For example, the special-grade artifact, Yuun, handed down as a family heirloom in the Zenin family.

"That artifact was also created by Kannon."

Yuun (Playful Cloud) was an ordinary three-section staff used by one of Kannon's disciples, into which Kannon had infused abundant power. It was a special-grade artifact, the only one with no technique effects, purely a concentration of power. Therefore, its strength greatly depended on the skill of the person using it.

'My father has that.'

Zoro silently recalled the red three-section staff that squirmed and swallowed in the armory.

'Did my father steal it from the Zenin family? Looks like he did.'

Having no expectations of moral behavior from Toji, Zoro naturally thought Toji had stolen it from the Zenin family. Which, of course, was true.

"Anyway, Kannon used the power he obtained by killing people to activate the Six Paths and open a passage to another world. He hid in a place where he thought no one could find him, as both I and the sorcerers were pursuing him."

"...."

"He couldn't bring a living person. Even after scraping together all that power, it was still insufficient. Instead, he decided to pull the information of a deceased person's body and soul and overlay it onto a pre-prepared body."

"Like that husk from earlier?"

It was supposed to be the body he had prepared to use for Zoro's physical form. It made sense, but it was extremely unsettling.

"Can you really create a human that way?"

Can a dead person's information embedded in an empty body become a living human?

Tengen shrugged in response to Zoro's question.

"Why do you think Kannon tried to put you into a human body? If he made you human, the balance might tilt towards humanity again."

Creating you as a curse would have been more convenient for Kannon. She spoke quietly.

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