Chapter 106: No One Can Protect the Person I Want Dead
A seductive, depraved pink mist permeated the air. Tempting whispers and the enchanting strumming of harps filled their ears, carrying a terrifying power capable of making an ordinary person lose themselves to their basest desires.
Within this fog, Hikigaya Hachiman, Gojo Satoru, and the remains of Mechamaru heard a sound like a snake's tongue flicking. They felt as if smooth, delicate scales were brushing against every inch of their skin.
"What is this?"
Gojo's eyes widened. Within the dense pink haze, he saw the true form of the terrifying entity hidden there.
Thanks to the Six Eyes, the image was agonizingly clear.
First, he saw two harps playing themselves without a visible performer. The music that drove listeners to madness and hedonistic collapse came from these instruments. But calling them instruments was an understatement; they were made of living people.
"Human Harps."
The term flashed in Gojo's mind—a concept so niche and grotesque it inspired immediate dread. The description fit perfectly: the frames of the harps were formed from the twisted bodies of people in agony, and the strings were made of their ligaments and stripped muscle fibers.
With every note, the victims' faces alternated between expressions of bliss and peak agony.
Behind them loomed the most horrifying sight: a gargantuan silhouette hidden in the pink smoke. It emitted a lethal mental pollution and a crushing pressure, yet it possessed a fatal attraction that made it impossible for Gojo to look away.
The entity had delicate skin and a curvaceous upper body, but its lower half was a massive, winding pink serpent. It combined the contradictions of man and woman—a slender female frame topped with a prominent Adam's apple. Its head was encased in a crustacean-like shell, with giant Medusa-like tentacles writhing from it. Gojo couldn't see its face, but the obscured features only made him want to look more, to use his Six Eyes to pierce the veil.
As he tried to focus, a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his pupils. Just as he was about to force his gaze upon the being seated on the divine throne, his vision was blocked.
"Don't look."
Hachiman's voice, cold as ice, cut through the haze. Gojo snapped back to his senses instantly.
A cool, refreshing power flowed from Hachiman into Gojo's eyes, dulling the pain.
Hachiman recognized this power immediately.
It belonged to one of the four Chaos-tier entities he had encountered before—the Master of Lust, the deity of pleasure.
Hachiman had intentionally slowed his dismantling of Casios's soul earlier. It wasn't just to study the technique or the incarnation process; it was a performance of calculated agony. As a veteran of the Great Crusade, Hachiman knew how to handle the parasites of the Warp.
To flush out a traitor or a daemon, one must make them desperate.
'To destroy them, first make them mad.'
Hachiman had been using Casios as bait. He wasn't just executing a messenger; he was aiming for the master standing behind him. If the gods themselves weren't dealt with, a thousand more messengers would eventually rise.
His gamble paid off.
An evil far greater than Casios erupted from the man's body. The deity's power intensified, using Casios as a spatial coordinate for a manifestation.
When Hachiman saw the soul being pulled toward the void by the Master of Lust, he knew he had succeeded in "fishing" for the big one.
Without the network of techniques Hachiman had meticulously built, the Jujutsu Association would have been blind to this invasion for another decade.
But even these "Evil Gods" had a weakness: in Hachiman's eyes, the "Four Saints" were overly protective of their favored pawns.
Hachiman watched as the divine hands reached through the void to pull Casios's soul back. Casios's soul was a bloated, horrific collective of thousands of tormented spirits—a human soul that had devoured others to become a Grade 0 entity. It was the human equivalent of Geto Suguru's Cursed Spirit Manipulation, but instead of spirits, Casios "manipulated" and wore the souls of the champions he had killed.
For the Master of Lust, reviving Casios was easy: just pull the soul out and find a new vessel.
For Hachiman, seeing the deity intervene was a gift. It allowed him to gauge the "Ecstasy Lord's" power level.
When the divine will descended, it was clearly above any Special Grade Cursed Spirit—arrogant entities greedy for the world's destiny. But showing themselves before Hachiman so early was a fatal mistake.
Gojo, meanwhile, felt his Infinity had flickered out.
His brain was "overheating"—the information processed by his Six Eyes from that single second of looking at the deity had nearly fried his frontal lobe. He tried to speak, but was hit in the face by shrapnel.
It was the remains of Mechamaru.
Beep-beep-beep!
Muta Kokichi had triggered a self-destruct. Even miles away, operating the machine via remote cursed energy, he had felt something looking back at him through the sensors. To avoid being traced, he sacrificed the puppet. Underground, Muta vomited a massive amount of blood, his bandaged body leaking red.
"I almost died," he wheezed, shaking with the terror of having been nearly found by that gaze.
"Hahaha! Mother has come for me!"
Casios felt his scorched soul being pulled away by "tender" hands. Just as the Blood God demands skulls, the Master of Lust demands sensation. Casios cried like a child seeing its mother after being bullied.
This human, Hachiman, was a monster.
In a thousand years, Casios had never encountered anyone so terrifying—someone who treated a champion of God like a piece of meat on a cutting board, slicing him up with "elegant" precision.
If the Mother God hadn't arrived, Casios's mind would have broken before his body. Now, he believed his fate was salvaged. Even after dying hundreds of times, the prospect of finality had truly terrified him.
"Come here then!" Casios barked at Hachiman as his soul was being extracted from Larue's body. Safe under the deity's protection, his arrogance returned. He was like a dog being held by its owner—vicious while in arms, but silent on the ground.
Hachiman took a step forward. Casios flinched instinctively, then felt ashamed of his fear. He thought he had won.
He was naive.
To Hachiman, Casios was still a lamb for the slaughter. He had only let the man live this long to see the face of the master.
"No one can protect the person I want dead."
Hachiman drew his sword. As he ran his fingers along the blade, it erupted into a roaring, holy conflagration.
It was the Emperor's Sword, burning with the fire of the Golden Throne.
With a single, fluid strike, Hachiman severed the projected hands of the Evil God.
Casios's expression froze in disbelief. A split second later, Hachiman brought the blade down like a merciless sun.
Hachiman, wielding the greatsword of [Faith Energy], wasn't just killing the projection; he was seizing the lingering trail of the deity's power.
He intended to trace the "Mother of Lust" back to her domain.
He was going to bring the "warmth" of the sun directly to her doorstep.
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