Chapter 242 : Brain Flower's Rule Announcement
For ordinary people in the jujutsu world, ever since the Mount Shichi incident occurred, the entire world had begun to become fantastical.
The public opinion shock of the Mount Shichi incident itself need not be mentioned. Although many jujutsu sorcerers showed nothing on the surface, privately they had begun connecting previous suspicious points, suspecting that the higher-ups had other conspiracies behind the scenes and questioning the true purpose of the Supervisory Committee as an institution.
Following that, there was the execution incident of Ryomen Sukuna's vessel.
However, what was most explosive was that the execution succeeded, but only the vessel Itadori Yuji died, while the King of Curses broke free from his restraints and reappeared in the world.
In the chaos, the head of the Kamo family was killed. This plunged the Kamo family, one of the Big Three Families, into brief turmoil, though this chaos was quickly quelled.
However, it wasn't Kamo Noritoshi, the family head candidate still studying at Kyoto Jujutsu High, who quelled the chaos, but someone else. It was said to be a woman with suture lines on her forehead, jointly recommended by the Kamo family's elder council.
According to the Big Three Families' consistent feudal custom of favoring men over women, recommending a woman to assume power was truly surprising. What was even more surprising was that this woman was not a member of the Kamo family.
An outsider from outside the family could actually take over the family, and it was one of the famous Big Three Families, the Kamo family! This completely violated the family rules that had always existed.
However, after such an unexpected event occurred, the elder councils of the remaining two Big Three Families, who usually stood together in righteous indignation to protect feudal interests, surprisingly didn't stand up to express objections.
The higher-ups also chose to turn a blind eye, not mentioning the Kamo family's affairs at all.
Not long after this woman took over the Kamo family, she visited the Zenin family in the family's name.
What happened afterward was not something the general public could know. Moreover, the public's attention was quickly attracted by more noteworthy events in the jujutsu world.
Compared to gossiping about the Big Three Families, most people in the jujutsu world were more concerned about their own safety. Ever since the King of Curses Ryomen Sukuna broke free from his vessel and regained freedom, the jujutsu world had been in panic.
Although the King of Curses Ryomen Sukuna hadn't launched large-scale attacks so far, everyone was on edge. They worried that after sleeping one night, they might accidentally find themselves in Ryomen Sukuna's expanded domain and never wake up again.
This tense atmosphere reached its peak after an abrupt change occurred.
Barrier formations suddenly arose in major cities, connecting and linking to encircle all of Japan!
This was the beginning of Brain-kun's "human evolution" plan. It intended to use Japan as the experimental start, then after core charging, cover the entire world and ultimately realize the plan to explore all of humanity's potential.
An unknown massive cursed energy vibrated and spread within the encircled barrier. Whether they were jujutsu sorcerers or not, everyone could feel the air trembling.
Ordinary people unaware of the truth panicked, thinking an earthquake was imminent, while jujutsu sorcerers who could sense cursed energy fluctuations changed expressions dramatically. Regardless, everyone realized that some danger was about to arrive.
As society fell into noisy chaos, a semi-transparent barrier descended from the sky. Everyone within the barrier could see this barrier and hear the electronic voice's broadcast content.
[Welcome to the [New World] game. For fair conduct of this game, there will be jujutsu education for ordinary people before beginning. Congratulations, you are about to witness new concepts.]
The text on the transparent barrier flickered and disappeared, then clear images appeared on it.
The screen used a mere five minutes to completely expose the concepts of cursed spirits, techniques, and sorcerers that the jujutsu higher-ups had always kept secret from ordinary people!
Although this introduction was very general, it truly and thoroughly exposed the jujutsu world to the public.
Ordinary people on the ground couldn't immediately accept these concepts for a while. Some even thought everything happening now was a dream and wanted to try self-harm to escape the fantastical scene before them.
But facts were facts, and Brain-kun obviously didn't intend to give ordinary people time to react.
After briefly educating about jujutsu world matters, the barrier's image changed, returning to the previous text format and beginning to describe the rules.
[Next, the rules of this game will be presented. Please remember them well:
Jiang Lai and the others in the basement could also hear the electronic voice from outside. This electronic voice seemed to be endowed with special rules, unrestricted by distance and other conditions, equally and clearly reaching everyone's ears.
Jiang Lai listened carefully to the rules Brain-kun laid out, analyzing them calmly in his mind.
Brain-kun's layout in the new series had some similarities to the Culling Game from the original work, but more differences.
After all, this was the new series. This world's background and development differed from the original.
If viewed from the perspective of Detective Conan audiences, it would be "It's already a new release but the progress is the same as the original. Is this copy-paste money grabbing?"
Jiang Lai's thoughts diverged for a second, then refocused to ponder the rules Brain-kun had just announced.
First, before revealing the rules, Brain-kun directly exposed jujutsu world information to ordinary people. Such shocking news suddenly dropped would inevitably bring social upheaval.
And this precisely aligned with Brain-kun's intentions.
The subsequent rules revealed the cruelty of this so-called "game." Brain-kun planned to make all characters (humans and cursed spirits) slaughter each other, using this method to stimulate potential.
The prerequisite for the "game's" end was for the total number of cursed spirits and humans within the barrier to fall below one million. This number looked quite large but was actually very small.
Currently, Japan's population was 100 million, plus the number of cursed spirits. The total within the barrier was enormous. To reach one million would require eliminating many.
Moreover, Brain-kun's rules didn't mention not expanding the barrier range. According to Kenjaku's goal of "human evolution," there was a high probability of gradually extending the barrier to cover the entire world.
Then this one million total would seem even more minuscule.
How cruel would the competition need to be to end everything?
From the point acquisition, one could see that the rules seemingly balanced sorcerers and ordinary people on the surface, with different kill scores, but actually gave ordinary people very little chance of survival.
Brain-kun was forcing ordinary people to stimulate their own potential, squeezing out negative emotions to explode techniques. While letting those without potential march toward death.
The rules called for monthly clearance of the bottom 10,000 in points, which completely prohibited passive resistance and hiding for survival.
Moreover, besides the rules themselves, there were currently many unstable factors within the barrier: those sorcerers and cursed spirits from a thousand years ago who signed contracts with Brain-kun, represented by [Kuroi Misato], and the King of Curses and his subordinate Uraume who had regained freedom.
These unstable factors severely disrupted the original social order, plunging the entire barrier into chaos based on the rules.
Of course, Ryomen Sukuna had signed a binding vow with Jiang Lai, so he wouldn't kill too wantonly.
But Jiang Lai knew that such binding couldn't completely constrain the other party. Ryomen Sukuna would soon find loopholes and continue doing what he wanted.
That guy's compliance was temporary, his willfulness permanent.
Therefore, time was very precious.
The prerequisite for ending Brain-kun's "game" was too harsh. Jiang Lai certainly wouldn't go along with it.
Besides achieving the completion conditions, another way to end the game was to directly shatter the rules and break the barrier.
Apart from natural laws, no rules in the world couldn't be changed. What Jiang Lai and his team needed to do was quickly find the breakthrough point and directly break Brain-kun's rules!
Jiang Lai's thoughts flowed in his mind.
At the dining table, Itadori Yuji, having heard this news, stared with wide eyes in shock: "...Why?! Such a game is obviously an unfair competition of mutual slaughter..."
"Right, an unfair game." Choso was very calm as he said, "That guy with suture lines on his forehead is always like this. He pursues maximizing his own interests."
Little Sheep Jiang Lai propped his chin with one hand and slowly said: "It seems a bit troublesome... but not completely without clues. The key is finding the barrier's core and destroying the formation supporting the rules."
"Time is precious, because after one month, the rules will begin clearing the bottom-ranked people." Choso said.
Itadori Yuji showed worry and youthful righteous indignation: "Bottom clearance of 10,000 people... This is completely merciless slaughter of lives!"
Most ordinary people couldn't even see cursed spirits, let alone kill them. Even with free cursed tool distribution, the quantity was limited. Moreover, ordinary people would find it difficult to master cursed tool usage in a short time.
The other way to obtain points was killing people. Many people would find it difficult to quickly change their thinking and raise a blade against other humans. The kinder people were, the easier they'd be eliminated.
For example, Fushiguro Megumi's sister Fushiguro Tsumiki would very likely end up on the elimination list.
Additionally, some auxiliary-type jujutsu sorcerers might gradually end up on the elimination list in later stages.
Like Ieiri Shoko, who mastered Reverse Cursed Technique. She was auxiliary-type. If she truly participated in the game to obtain large amounts of points, it would be somewhat difficult.
So, Jiang Lai thought, this decisive battle actually set a time limit.
For their side, one month was the final deadline. They had to shatter Brain-kun's layout before the rules activated clearance.
Silver Snake little Akira slowly circled the table, climbing to Little Sheep Jiang Lai's side. Its cold body coiled around Jiang Lai's wrist, those gray-green eyes condensing attack power that had been stored for a long time, directed at Brain-kun who had caused this trouble.
Jiang Lai lifted his other hand and gently touched Silver Snake little Akira's pointed snout.
He lightly blinked the dark eyes of his current youthful shell, and more tacit understanding was conveyed through these eyes beyond this disguise.
The recent basement training was nearing its end and would soon achieve evolution conditions.
Regardless of the evolution results, jumping out of game thinking and following technique rules would be a progression in power.
After Little Sheep Jiang Lai's Electronic Spirits technique summoned shikigami, as long as he had enough cursed energy, the shikigami could still exist even if he switched back to his original body.
Then after completing evolution, he could rush to the battlefield in his original form while cooperating with the Detective Conan friends again.
Jiang Lai's eyelids drooped slightly, his lips curved in a slight smile.
Through the vicissitudes of space and time, although they'd changed dimensions, they were once again weathering storms together, facing decisive battle once more.