novelhk Page 400
Page 400
A few seconds later, he suddenly opened his eyes.
Those familiar phoenix eyes were initially empty and blank. He slowly raised his hand, looked at it, and then looked around blankly. His memory was still stuck at the last moment when he was killed by Gojo Satoru.
Then, he saw a white-haired man wearing an eye patch standing not far away.
"...Enlightenment?"
Xia Youjie's voice was tinged with uncertainty and hoarseness.
Gojo Satoru's body jolted violently. He looked at his dearest friend, who had come back from the dead and whose eyes had regained their clarity, and a thousand words stuck in his throat, but he couldn't utter a single one.
Just then, Zhou Ye's voice, broadcast live globally, solemnly resounded throughout the world.
"From this day forward, the system vulnerability known as Cursed Power will be fixed. Curses caused by negative emotions will become a thing of the past."
"The Celestial Council will take full control of the management and research of all supernatural phenomena in this world. All existing sorcerers will be registered, evaluated, and retrained. A new, unified, and secure order will be established at this moment."
"The old era has ended."
As he announced this, the golden code-covered sky began to slowly dissipate, revealing the true night sky of Shibuya. The chaotic streets, thanks to the efficient work of the Cursed Corpse Legion, had largely returned to calm. The wounded were quickly transferred for treatment, and the troublemakers were all apprehended.
Go-jo Satoru looked at his best friend who had come back from the dead, then at the man in the sky who proclaimed the arrival of a new world like a god, and then at Shibuya below where order had been quickly restored. The extremely complex expression on his face finally turned into a relieved, shocked, and somewhat excited smile.
He lost, he lost to this behemoth called the "Council".
But the world won.
He is no longer the "strongest" who carries everything alone.
……
Inside the Wanxiang Surveillance Room, in the pure white space, the crimson data mass representing the two sides of Sukuna, bound by countless golden chains, remained in a state of "formatted" silence.
However, at the very moment Xia Youjie was resurrected, this data suddenly exhibited an extremely faint yet incredibly clear anomaly.
He "saw" the entire process of Zhou Ye creating life energy out of thin air.
For the first time, a pure, cold data stream, devoid of any negative emotions, called "interest," emerged from this mass of data.
Destruction, killing, devouring... these actions he repeated for thousands of years seem somewhat... tedious in the face of the miracle of "creating life".
He seemed to have found something more interesting than destruction.
Chapter 361 The Cornerstone of the New Order
The night sky over Shibuya was clearer than ever before.
After the canopy of "tents" and golden code disappeared, the real stars reappeared, seemingly watching silently over this land that had just undergone a dramatic change. The global live broadcast signal had been cut off, but the uproar on the internet was only just beginning to ferment. Within just half an hour, the name "Celestial Council" became the most searched term globally, its popularity even surpassing that of the recently concluded Shibuya Incident itself.
For most ordinary people, it was an incomprehensible spectacle, a blend of science fiction and mythology. But for the world of sorcery, it was the death knell of the old era and the clarion call of a new one.
Five underground levels, the platform of the new sub-center line.
The air still held the lingering echoes of the vast information flow from the Boundless Void, as well as the spatial dust that had dissipated when the prison gates were crushed.
Xia Youjie sat blankly on the ground, still wearing that familiar five-striped kasaya. His memory was like a broken film reel, one end showing the streets of Shinjuku, his own gradually cooling body reflected in his best friend's pale blue eyes; the other end was this scene, both familiar and strange.
He saw his own soulless body not far away, and the "brain flower" sealed in a transparent cube, screaming madly. Fragmented information, through the environmental data left by the council, was slowly flowing into his brain, helping him piece together the truth.
"...So, I died. Then, that thing took over my body and did a bunch of awful things. Then, you staged a scene to expose him. Finally...your boss resurrected me?"
Xia Youjie's voice was hoarse. It took him several minutes to barely make sense of this absurd chain of logic.
Gojo Satoru 713 squatted down in front of him and removed his blindfold. Those six eyes no longer held their usual frivolity and unfathomable depth; they simply gazed quietly at his dearest friend. He didn't answer, but instead reached out and squeezed Xia Youjie's shoulder firmly, confirming the real touch.
"It hurts." Xia Youjie frowned.
"That's good."
Gojo Satoru grinned, a smile that held relief, weariness, and above all, the ease of having unloaded a tremendous burden. He plopped back down on the ground, stretched, and his joints cracked and popped.
"Ah—so tired. After being the strongest for so many years, I never thought I'd have to rely on acting to get off work in the end."
Looking at him like this, Xia Youjie's sense of alienation, as if he had been resurrected, suddenly dissipated considerably. He couldn't help but retort:
"You call that acting? The opening scene almost blew the whole station upside down! That's just... ridiculous!"
"Don't worry about the details."
Gojo Satoru waved his hand.
"As long as the result is good. Speaking of which, how are you feeling right now? Do you feel like something's missing or something's added to your body?"
Upon hearing this, Xia Youjie subconsciously checked his body. The cursed power was still there, and the foundation of the [Cursed Spirit Manipulation Technique] was still there, but... it was different. In the past, every time he swallowed a cursed spirit, the nauseating feeling, like swallowing a rag stained with vomit, would be clearly felt deep within his soul. But now, he could sense the existence of the technique, but he could no longer feel that negative, nauseating connection. It was as if the system had been reinstalled, leaving only the software while deleting all the viruses and junk files.
"...It's clean now."
he said softly.
"Yes, it's clean now."
Gojo Satoru looked up at the ceiling, which had been restored to its original state as a plain concrete dome. "It's not just you, the whole world is clean."
The two men were speechless for a moment. The joy of reuniting with their dearest friend was intertwined with the shock of the world being turned upside down, making these two men, who had once stood at the pinnacle of the world of sorcery, feel a sense of unreality.
Just then, Zhou Ye's figure appeared silently behind them. He didn't look at Gojo Satoru and Natsumi Yuuki, but instead turned his gaze to the other side. Yagami Masamichi was leading Itadori Yuujin, Fushiguro Megumi, Kugizaki Nobara, Zenin Maki, Zenin Mai, Toudou Aoi, Miwa Kasumi, Panda, and others out of the passage. Their faces all bore the weariness of surviving a disaster and the confusion about the future.
Behind them followed a tall, elegant woman—a top-tier sorcerer, Tsukumo Yuki. Her gaze towards Zhou Ye was filled with inquiry and wariness, but even more so with curiosity about an unknown power.
"The top management of the General Affairs Department and their key associates, totaling 371 people, have all been corrected," Zhou Ye's voice rang out calmly, as if he were giving a work report.
“The core elders of the Zenin family and the Kamo family are also on the list. The old power structure has collapsed.”
Everyone felt a chill run down their spines. Three hundred and seventy-one people—this was practically the foundation of the entire upper echelons of the sorcery world. And all of this had happened in just over ten minutes.
"However, once the rotten roots are removed, the soil itself also needs to be improved."
Zhou Ye's gaze swept over the young people in front of him. "You are the first batch of selected seeds."
His gaze lingered on the sisters in the Zen temple for a moment.
“The Zen temple is truly rare, the Zen temple is truly reliant on.”
When their names were called, both sisters tensed up at the same time.
Do you crave power?
Zhou Ye asked the question directly.
Maki answered almost without hesitation, "Yes." Her eyes, like those of a lone wolf trapped for many years, were filled with a longing to break free from its constraints.
Zhenyi glanced at her sister and nodded vigorously. She didn't want to be a burden to her sister anymore, and she didn't want to see her sister covered in wounds while protecting her.
“Very good.” Zhou Ye then looked at Dongtang Aoi and Miwa Kasumi.
"what about you?"
"Of course! I'm willing to try any method that can make me stronger so that I can better protect my dearest friend!" Toudou Aoi patted her chest, full of confidence.
Kasumi Miwa bowed somewhat timidly: "I...I want to become useful, I don't want to be like this again, just watching..."
Finally, Zhou Ye's gaze fell on Tsukumo Yuki.
"Master Spellcaster, Tsukumo Yuki. You have been exploring the evolutionary path of the Heavenly Origin, Spell Power, and humanity, attempting to find a world without Spell Spirits. Now, the answer lies before you. Are you willing to personally participate in the construction of this new world?"
Yuki smiled, tossing her long blonde hair in an excited smile of finding a kindred spirit. "This sounds much more interesting than figuring it out by myself. I'll join in."
"very good."
Zhou Ye nodded in satisfaction. He snapped his fingers, and a technologically advanced door, emitting a soft white light, unfolded out of thin air in the center of the platform. On the other side of the door was a pure white space that stretched as far as the eye could see.
"This is the Chamber of Time and Spirit, a training facility under the Celestial Council. The ratio of time flow inside to outside can be freely adjusted, up to a ratio of one day outside to one year inside. You will receive the first phase of intensive training inside."
Upon hearing this, everyone's expression changed drastically. A time flow rate of one thousand to one? This was completely beyond their comprehension.
"The training instructors are my direct subordinates."
Zhou Ye turned to the side, and a quiet and gentle-looking girl in an ordinary high school uniform emerged from the shadows behind him.
It was Yotsuya Miko.
She bowed slightly to the crowd, a shy smile on her face. But none of the sorcerers present dared to underestimate her. They could sense that this girl possessed no magical power, yet she gave them a sense of oppression even deeper than when facing a top-tier cursed spirit. It was as if she herself was a node connected to the rules of the world.
Behind Jianzi stood two armed puppets that resembled pandas, but with cold eyes and covered in dark gold metallic armor. They were products of Zhou Ye's database, combining cursed skeleton technology, mechanical intelligence, and high-dimensional energy weapons; each possessed combat capabilities far exceeding those of a top-tier mage.
"Zen Temple Sisters, Higashido Aoi, Miwa Kasumi, Panda, your goal is to master the Six Styles and the modified Eight Gates Formation, and to apply them skillfully in actual combat."
Zhou Ye's voice was emotionless, yet it stirred up a storm in their hearts. What was that? A term they had never heard before.
"Kyuuji, your opponent is Miko. Your task is to try to hold out in her territory for ten minutes."
Tsukumo Yuki raised his eyebrows, his eyes gleaming with fighting spirit.
"As for the training content..." Zhou Ye's lips curled into a meaningful smile as he gently waved his hand towards the pure white space. In that pure white world, countless ferocious and terrifying monsters instantly appeared. One of them was as large as an office building, covered in eyes and tentacles, and the aura it emitted made everyone present's hair stand on end.
"Those are Warcraft, biological samples extracted from the databases of other defeated civilizations. Have... fun."
Watching the expressions on the young people's faces shift from shock to horror, and finally to resolute determination, Zhou Ye turned to Gojo Satoru and Xia Youjie and said:
"Both of you will have new jobs."
"The mess left by the Zenin and Kamo families needs someone to clean up. After the high-ranking members were purged, those family forces, now leaderless, should be completely dismantled and reorganized, or should suitable people be selected. It's up to you to decide."
"Is this... your first project since joining the company?"
Gojo Satoru stood up and dusted himself off.
"Consider it a test for you."
Zhou Ye's gaze fell on Xia Youjie. "Especially you, Xia Youjie. The world only remembers your identity as the leader of the Panxing Sect. Prove with your actions that you have been reborn."
Xia Youjie was silent for a moment, then stood up. He took off the five-stripe robe that symbolized his past, revealing a simple black combat uniform underneath. He looked at Gojo Satoru, and the confident and powerful smile from his high school days reappeared on his face.
"Wu, let's see who finishes cleaning first!"
"Ha, just what I wanted." A light rekindled in Gojo Satoru's azure eyes.
The foundation of the new world will be laid by their own hands. And the first cornerstone will be the most stubborn remnants of the past, entrenched deep within the world of sorcery.
Chapter 362 Admiration for Zhou Ye
Inside the "House of Time and Spirit".
This is not simply a white space, but a surreal dimension that can simulate any environment according to training needs. At this moment, it has become an abandoned city, with towering buildings, broken streets, and complex terrain that can be utilized.