Jujutsu Kaisen: I have everything I need now!

A few seconds later, Kugizaki suddenly opened his eyes and pointed directly below them.

"Down there! The core is at the deepest part of the platform!"

"It's using the entire platform's structure as cover; what's moving on it is just its extension," December immediately concluded. "No wonder Zhenyi absorbed so much energy, yet its size didn't shrink noticeably."

"Since it's down there..."

Yi Guyou didn't continue with his nonsense.

He gripped the knife with both hands, the tip reversed, aiming at the top of the heavy steel shipping container beneath his feet.

"Rika, protect them!"

A massive surge of magical power erupted from Yigu's body like a volcanic eruption, pouring entirely into the longsword.

"boom--!!!"

Yi Gu pierced the iron sheet with his knife, and then slashed downwards with force.

With a piercing metallic tearing sound, a huge cross-shaped gash was sliced ​​open on the top of the sturdy container.

But this is not enough.

Yi Gu drew his long sword, took a deep breath, and compressed the cursed power within his body once more. He leaped up suddenly, then inverted his body in mid-air, using the momentum of his fall to stomp heavily into the center of the cross-shaped opening.

The immense force caused the container to dent and collapse.

The heavy metal deck beneath the container also groaned under the impact, finally snapping completely.

A huge hole appeared on the deck of the drilling platform.

"Jump!"

Yi Gu shouted and jumped down through the hole first.

Kugizaki followed closely behind.

On the first day of the twelfth month, using her mental power, she lifted up Zhenyi and followed her into the hole.

The instant they jumped down, the surrounding black slime seemed to be sensing something and surged wildly into the hole, trying to bury them completely.

As December 1st looked at the continuously surging black water, his eyes narrowed, and he suddenly lifted his hands upwards.

A massive, invisible force of thought formed an impenetrable wall of air above the hole. The cascading black slime struck the wall with dull thuds, yet failed to penetrate it even slightly.

The group quickly fell through the hole into the drilling platform.

There was no light here, and the air was filled with the smells of engine oil, rust, and the strong, fishy stench of dead fish.

Before long, they had passed through the surface structure of the platform and arrived at the equipment area in the middle layer.

This area should have been filled with pipes and machinery, but now all the equipment is covered in a thick layer of black slime. Under the emergency lights, the slime reflects a nauseating sheen.

Green light reflected off the slime, making the entire space seem like the stomach of a giant monster, with the surrounding walls undulating rhythmically.

"Bang."

They landed smoothly on a metal platform on the lower level. The space here was very narrow, with a crisscrossing network of pipes overhead.

"Where is the core?" Yigu gripped his long sword tightly, looking around warily.

Kugizaki glanced at the faintly glowing threads of cursed energy on his wrist and pointed to a dark passage ahead.

"At the end of this passage."

"Walk."

Without hesitation, the four of them immediately moved deeper into the passage.

The slime inside the passage was thicker than outside, almost reaching their ankles. Every step required immense effort. Moreover, sharp tentacles would occasionally emerge from the slime to launch sneak attacks, but they were all cut off by Otsuko and Rika beforehand.

May walked in the middle of the group, her gun still raised. The "Black Queen" emitted a faint red glow in the darkness, yearning for food.

The closer you get to the control room, the stronger the oppressive feeling becomes. The air seems to thicken, making it very difficult to breathe.

"arrive."

Kugizaki stopped in his tracks.

At the end of the passage was a heavy, explosion-proof isolation door. But the door was now completely deformed, riddled with corroded holes.

Black, sticky liquid kept seeping out from the cracks in the door.

Yi Gu stepped forward, but instead of pushing the door open, he directly brandished his long sword.

"Whoosh!"

The explosion-proof door was neatly cut into four pieces and collapsed with a crash.

The crowd finally saw what was inside.

The control room was a large space, but it was now completely filled with something disgusting.

In the very center of the room hung a huge "heart" made up of countless black chunks of flesh and slime. This "heart" was beating slowly, and with each beat, a stream of black slime was transported through pipes connected to the walls to every corner of the platform.

At the very center of that enormous "heart" was a mask without any expression.

That's General Rasu's mask, the core of the Alien Corps.

"Finally found you, you coward." Kugizaki sneered, his long nails already poised to strike.

"Be careful, watch out for his dying counterattack," December 1st warned.

Seemingly sensing the arrival of the crowd, the giant "heart" stopped beating.

Immediately afterwards, all the black slime on the walls, ceiling, and floor around the control room began to boil simultaneously.

"You... all must die..."

General Rasu’s voice came from all directions.

In an instant, all the slime in the room transformed into hundreds and thousands of sharp black spears, shooting towards the four people standing at the door from all blind spots!

This is an absolutely enclosed space, with no possibility of dodging.

On the first day of the twelfth lunar month, he clasped his hands together and released all the mental energy within his body without reservation.

A white, semi-transparent shield tightly enveloped the four of them. Black spears struck the shield, producing a series of piercing scraping sounds. Fine cracks began to appear on the shield's surface, clearly indicating it couldn't hold out much longer.

"We'll be worn down if this keeps up!" Kugizaki gritted his teeth as he watched the increasingly intense attacks.

"Mayi!"

He suddenly shouted on the first day of December.

"I see."

Zhenyi remained completely calm. Before they entered, December had already devised the final strategy with her.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Ignoring the suffocating attacks around her and the ever-widening cracks in her shield, she focused all her attention on the "Black Queen" in her hand.

She poured all the remaining power in her body into the gun.

The "Black Queen" sensed its master's will, and the dark red patterns on the gun instantly burst forth with a blinding light. The space around the barrel even distorted due to the highly concentrated energy.

"Yigu!" Zhenyi roared.

Yi Gu You Tai immediately understood.

He withdrew from all defensive stances, gripped the sword with both hands, and the cursed power within his body burned to its peak in an instant.

"Get out of the way!"

With a roar, Yi Gu shot out like a cannonball.

He ignored the black spears aimed at him and concentrated all his strength on this one strike.

"boom--!!!"

A dazzling, pure white blade of light illuminated the entire control room.

The blade flash, with its overwhelming force, forcefully cleaved a path through the dense rain of black gunfire.

At the end of the passage, one can see the enormous "heart" suspended in mid-air.

Within one tenth of a second of the passage being split open.

Kugizaki Nobara has made her move.

Instead of using a hammer, she used all her strength to hurl the long nail, imbued with all her magical power, along the path split in the bone towards the mask.

The long nail transformed into a streak of light, precisely piercing into the thick layer of black flesh covering the mask.

"Explode!" Kugizaki roared.

The cursed power on the long nails exploded inside the chunk of flesh.

Although it didn't directly shatter the mask, it successfully blasted a fist-sized hole in the defensive slime covering the mask.

The mask itself was exposed to the air.

"Mayi!"

Zhenyi suddenly opened her eyes and pulled the trigger.

"Bang--!!!"

The recoil from that shot was so great that it even caused Zhenyi's body to slide back half a meter.

A jet-black bullet, several times larger than the previous one and composed entirely of extremely compressed shadow energy, roared out of the gun barrel.

The bullet traveled along the passage and accurately entered the gap created by Kugizaki's explosion, striking the mask squarely between the eyebrows.

No explosions occurred.

Time seemed to stand still in the control room at that moment.

next second.

An immense suction force, indescribable in words, erupted from the black bullet that struck the mask.

"No...this is impossible..."

General Rasu let out a scream of extreme terror.

It felt its energy draining away at an unstoppable, frantic rate. The bullet was like a bottomless black hole, greedily devouring its power.

The enormous "heart" began to shrink rapidly.

The black spears that were attacking the crowd lost their power and fell to the ground, turning into a pool of foul-smelling black water.

Zhenyi's hand holding the gun was trembling violently.

The immense energy flowed back into the "Black Queen's" gun. The barrel had turned red-hot, even emitting black smoke. May felt as if her brain was about to explode from this cold, chaotic energy.

Without any hesitation, on the first day of the twelfth month, he flashed and arrived in front of the shrinking "heart".

He brought his two fingers together and chopped them down without any mercy.

"Whoosh!"

The last piece of flesh covering the mask was completely severed.

The mask, deprived of its energy supply and physical connection, let out a desperate cry and fell from mid-air.

With quick reflexes, Yi Gu caught the mask.

As the mask fell into Egoku's hands, the suction force on the "Black Queen" instantly ceased.

Once the black slime in the entire control room lost its core control, it quickly lost its activity, like lifeless mud.

The nauseating sense of oppression on the drilling platform finally dissipated completely.

Zhenyi's legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground. She was panting heavily, her entire body soaked in sweat.

"Mai-senpai!" Kugizaki rushed over to support her. "Are you alright?"

"I won't die..." Mayi shook her head weakly, glancing at the "Black Queen" in her hand, which had returned to calm but whose color had become even deeper.

On the first day of December, he walked to Zhenyi's side, looked at her pale face, and reached out his hand to comfort her.

"Thank you for your hard work. You did a great job."

Yuta Ekiku walked over, holding the Alien Group mask. The eye sockets on the mask had lost their blue glow, turning into cold, lifeless objects.

"It's over." Yigu glanced at the black water all around him and sighed. "What a pity about the workers on the platform..."

Everyone was silent.

That's how sorcerers fight: they can destroy monsters, but they can't bring the dead back to life.

"Don't overthink it." Kugizaki stood up, dusted himself off, and said, "We survived, that's enough. Besides, we got another mask."

"Hmm." Yigu put the mask away.

The four men retraced their steps and, with great difficulty, climbed back onto the deck of the drilling platform along the split passage.

The raging wind and rain outside had stopped sometime ago.

On the eastern horizon, a pale dawn was breaking. A red sun was slowly rising, its golden rays scattering across the sea, creating shimmering waves.

As the sunlight shone on the platform, the inactive black slime began to slowly evaporate and dissipate under the sunlight, as if it had never existed.

On the first day of December, I stood on the edge of the deck, watching the sunrise in the distance.

Two masks.

In just a few days, they successfully retrieved the masks from the Samurai Group and the Alien Group. But December Shuo didn't feel much relief.

What unsettled him was that everything was going too smoothly; although it was a battle, there was no interference whatsoever. And now there was the Shadow Devouring Clan hiding underground, constantly devouring and growing stronger.

"I hope everything goes well from now on."

He silently said to himself on the first day of December.