The road back to Tokyo was a serpentine path of jagged asphalt and steep, unforgiving drops. I thought we were safe. I thought the weight of the "Mountain God" and the screams of Oubari Village were behind us. But as the SUV's headlights cut through the thick mountain mist, reflecting off the damp leaves like thousands of tiny, watchful eyes, I realized that the real monsters don't live in cursed villages. They don't hide in ancient shrines. They live in high-walled estates in Kyoto, drinking tea while they sign death warrants.
Gojo was driving, his hands relaxed on the wheel, humming a tune that felt jarringly cheerful given the blood still drying on my forehead and the metallic tang of spent cursed energy filling the cabin. Nobara was slumped against the window, her breathing heavy and rhythmic—the kind of deep, suffocating sleep that only comes from total soul-exhaustion. She looked smaller like this, her usual fire dampened by the toll of the Resonance.
Suddenly, the hum of the engine was cut by a sound like a violin string snapping at high tension.
[WARNING: DOMAIN OVERLAY DETECTED]
[THREAT LEVEL: LETHAL]
[95% ACCURACY: SOUL-TYPE CURSED TECHNIQUE]
"Gojo-sensei!" I shouted, the [Demon's Instinct] flaring behind my eyes like a hot iron. But the warning was already too late.
A single, silver thread—thinner than a human hair and glowing with a faint, moonlight radiance—intersected the road. It didn't just stop the SUV; it sliced through the engine block, the chassis, and the reinforced tires like a hot wire through butter. There was no explosion, only the terrifying sound of physics being rewritten. The front half of the car sheared away, and the momentum sent the cabin spinning toward the rusted guardrail.
"Nobara!" I lunged across the seat, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I didn't use my cursed energy to protect myself. I threw every ounce of it into a localized [Gravity Buffer] around her. We hit the asphalt hard. The world became a blur of grinding metal and shattered glass. The car rolled three times, a sickening tumble that felt like being trapped inside a giant's rattle, before slamming into a rock face.
Silence followed, thick and heavy, broken only by the ticking of cooling metal and the hiss of escaping steam.
The Weaver Appears
I kicked the door off its hinges, my lungs burning from the acrid airbag chemicals. I dragged Nobara out from the wreckage, her head lolling against my shoulder. She was alive, but the cut on her forehead was bleeding freely, and her eyes stayed shut. The Resonance had drained her to the bone; she was a hollow battery.
Standing in the middle of the moonlit road, twenty yards away, was a woman who looked like she belonged in a museum of the Heian era, not a modern battlefield. She wore a pristine white kimono that didn't have a single speck of dust on it, and her hair was held up by twelve silver needles that glinted like stars. She didn't carry a sword. She held a simple, wooden spindle.
"Ume," Gojo said, stepping out from the shadows of the pine trees. He looked perfectly fine—not a single white hair out of place—but his blindfold was off. His Six Eyes were glowing with a predatory, electric intensity that made the air around him hum. "I haven't seen you since the Kyoto Incident. I heard the Zenin elders had you chained in the archives for 'heresy.'"
"Chains are merely threads that haven't been unraveled yet, Satoru," the woman replied. Her voice wasn't one voice; it was a chilling harmony, like a choir whispering in a cathedral, echoing from the trees themselves. "The Elders are tired of your 'experiments.' They want the Vessel's heart. And they want the girl's head as a warning to the common-born who dare to touch the blood of kings."
My grip on Nobara tightened until my knuckles turned white. The violet aura of the [Void-Walker] began to leak from my pores, cracking the asphalt beneath my boots.
"She's a Weaver, Ren," Valthazar hissed, his voice filled with a rare, genuine caution that sent a chill down my spine. "Her threads don't cut flesh. They don't care about your muscles. They cut the connection between the soul and the body. If she touches you, I'll be ripped out—and you'll be a vegetable, a breathing corpse."
The Emergency Shop
[SYSTEM QUEST: SURVIVE THE WEAVER]
* Primary Objective: Protect Nobara Kugisaki.
* Secondary Objective: Force a retreat or survive for 300 seconds.
* Reward: 2,000 OP | Title: [Unbreakable Shell]
Ume raised her spindle. With a flick of her wrist, thousands of silver threads erupted into the air, weaving a shimmering, translucent web across the entire highway. Each thread hummed with a frequency that made my teeth ache and my vision swim.
"Ren! Don't let those touch your skin! Not even a graze!" Gojo warned. He lunged forward, his [Infinity] clashing with the silver web. Space itself began to distort, threads snapping and reforming instantly in a paradoxical dance of destruction.
But Ume was a master of redirection. While Gojo was occupied with the main web, a single cluster of threads bypassed his infinity, snaking through the shadows of the cratered road toward me. They moved with a predatory intelligence, sensing the heat of my soul.
I had 1,850 OP. I couldn't wait for a training arc. I couldn't wait for the safety of the dorms. I needed power now, or Nobara and I would be trophies on a Kyoto wall by sunrise.
'System! Open the Hidden Armory! Spend it all!'
"Finally!" Valthazar roared, his laughter echoing the chaos. "Spend it, boy! Dress like the King you are destined to be!"
> [HIDDEN ARMORY: KING'S REGALIA]
> * [SKILL: GRAVITY ANCHOR] - 500 OP
> * (Passive: Pins your soul to your physical form. 100% resistance to Soul-Extraction.)
> * [ITEM: CLOAK OF THE FALLEN KING] - 1,200 OP
> * (Passive: High-density gravity armor. Shreds any physical or spiritual object within 1 inch of the body.)
>
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED. BALANCE: 150 OP]
As the silver threads reached for my chest, a heavy, obsidian-black cloak materialized around my shoulders. It wasn't made of cloth; it was woven from compressed shadows and the weight of a dying star. The moment the silver threads touched the outer edge of the cloak, they didn't cut—they shattered like frozen glass, pulverized by the localized gravity field.
"My turn," I growled. My voice was no longer just mine; it was layered with the tectonic resonance of Valthazar.
I didn't run. I used [Gravity Anchor]. I slammed my fist into the ground, and the very concept of "weight" in a fifty-foot radius shifted. The silver threads in the air didn't just fall; they were pulled down with such sudden, violent force that they tore the asphalt into jagged chunks.
Ume's serene expression finally broke. Her milky eyes widened. "The Vessel... he's stabilizing? No... he's evolving."
"He's doing more than that," Gojo laughed, a dangerous, manic spark in his eye as he obliterated a section of the forest with a flick of his finger. "He's getting tired of being hunted, Ume. And you just brought a needle to a black hole fight."
The Rising Tide
I stood up, the [Cloak of the Fallen King] billowing in the mountain wind despite its incredible weight. I looked at Nobara, still unconscious behind me, then at the woman who had called her a "common-born" sacrifice.
The vertical slit on my forehead pulsed with a violet light, tearing slightly, the pain fueling my focus. I felt the 13.0% Sync Rate lock into place, solid and unyielding.
"You're not taking her," I said, the words vibrating the very air. "And you're not taking me. Tell the Zenin... the next time they send someone, they should send the whole clan. Because I'm coming for the gatekeepers."
Ume pulled back her spindle, her threads glowing a blood-red now. "Such arrogance. Let's see if your soul stays anchored when I weave the Shroud of the Dead."
I stepped forward, the road cracking under the sheer weight of my new armor.
The mountain wind howled, carrying the scent of ozone and blood.
Ume's threads trembled—not from fear, but anticipation.
I took one more step forward.
The [Cloak of the Fallen King] dragged shadows behind me like a royal train, the weight of it cracking the road beneath my boots. Every instinct screamed that once this fight started, there would be no retreat—only erasure.
Behind me, Nobara stirred faintly.
That was enough.
"Come," I said quietly, opening my hands.
The silver threads surged.
And the night tore itself apart