"That's a stupid fucking ritual circle." Satoru shook his head as he walked towards the sorcerer-girl and pushed her aside. The woman's eyes widened, yelping as she fell to the floor. Satoru stared at the horrendously inefficient, wholly self-destructive, and just generally stupid ritual circle; not even the worst Jujutsu Sorcerer would make use of something as blatantly devious as this one was. Honestly, anyone who actually understood the mechanics of rituals would take one look at this amateur work and spit right on it.
Well, the sorcerer-girl did her best. She'd already admitted to the fact that she didn't understand how it worked or what the metaphysical mechanics behind it actually was. So, Satoru didn't see the need to chastise her. Still, she needed to stop and sit in the corner if he was to salvage this thing. She looked hurt and offended, but he didn't care. "No offense to you, miss, but I suggest you sit this one out and let the expert do it. Because I have no intention of letting anyone die today, alright?"
Was he actually an expert on rituals? No, not really. But Six-Eyes gave him the ability to almost instantly understand just about everything he laid his eyes on. And he understood how this one worked and, more importantly, from that understanding came the knowledge of how to alter it to be more efficient and more user-friendly. True enough, as Satoru looked upon the three circles, he saw several ways to get rid of the sacrificial component altogether, though the blood thing couldn't be changed, since human vitae was an excellent conductor of Cursed Energy and there really wasn't a better equivalent – not even Cursed Ink had the same conductivity as blood.
"Alright... let's see." Satoru crouched down and laid a finger on the middle circle and, using a constant stream of Cursed Energy, began altering the form and function of the ritual circle. First of all, the need for a human sacrifice was just thrown right out; that part was just stupid. However, he could still use the blood; all he had to do was reprogram it to work differently. With Six-Eyes, Satoru knew the purpose of the symbols, but that didn't mean he understood their meaning; it was a common-enough conundrum among those who studied ancient Jujutsu. Still, he wasn't a dumbass and the process of extrapolating the whole thing wasn't particularly hard. It only took him ten seconds, after all. "Ah, I see. So, that's how it works."
Grinning, Satoru shifted the ritual circles. First of all, this 'Blue Daemon' was about to become both the battery and the sacrifice. Satory tweaked the symbols of its circle to ensure it couldn't escape as the last one had been so poorly constructed that it would've allowed the Blue Daemon to very easily break the supposed 'binds' that would've kept it in place; in fact, it almost seemed like a deliberate act of sabotage. There was also the fact that the ritual array that was meant to summon a Blue Daemon seemed more like it was meant to summon the Blue Daemon, a specific individual altogether, likely a very powerful Curse of some kind. These people were once part of an interplanetary civilization, were they not? That meant the Curses they'd be dealing with would be significantly stronger than the stuff he was used to. More to the point, it was entirely possible that the sorcerer-girl's original version of the ritual was, in fact, designed by the Blue Daemon himself as a way to traverse entire worlds or something.
But now, with Satoru's tweaking of the circle, the Blue Daemon – or whatever it actually was – would be in for a very interesting surprise.
After dealing with that particular problem, Satoru then altered the arrays of the circle that was meant for human sacrifice, turning it into a tuning beacon, instead, and binding it to a single destination that would be decided as soon as the Blue Daemon was actually summoned. Unfortunately, he couldn't change that part, which meant he'd have to beat the shit out of whatever Curse was coming to get it to agree to a destination that he wanted. That would be the fun part. Satory also tweaked the middle circle, which would be the portal site itself, to keep it from being tampered; once a destination was chosen, it wouldn't be altered or disrupted, unless the flow of Cursed Energy itself was stopped. He was more than capable of powering the whole Ritual Array by himself for maybe an hour or two, but they'd only need a minute at the most to transport everyone. The Blue Daemon would also act as the main battery, which meant Satoru wouldn't have to spend as much Cursed Energy in maintaining the overall integrity of the Ritual Array itself, while the Blue Daemon maintained the bridge between them and their destination.
The portal also opened up a bunch of other possibilities, one that did not involve sending children and the infirm elderly on what was very likely a suicide mission to take a ship that belonged to an army of super soldiers in super armor. It was too risky. Would it not be better to just run away and find another planet, instead of fighting to keep living in this one?
"You've ruined it!" The sorcerer girl ran up to him, eyes wide and frantic. She jumped right at him as Satoru raised a brow, though she didn't get anywhere near him as Limitless kept her at bay. There was something strange about her. Her Cursed Energy, he noted, was fluctuating wildly. Ah, she was suppressing her true power for some reason. "You've ruined everything!"
"Nah, I just fixed it. You're the one who would've ruined everything, dumbass." Satoru said, shrugging as he increased Infinity's output to send her flying towards a wall, where she hit her head and fell unconscious. Not dead, though. He still had plenty of questions for that one later. Her reaction, in particular, was quite suspicious. There were other forces at play here, Satoru was certain of that. Otherwise, the sorcerer-girl would not have had such a frantic look in her eyes. Did she, perhaps, actively want to sabotage the teleportation ritual? That was a possibility, but... for what?
That was the part that made the least sense. What did the sorcerer-girl possibly gain by sabotaging her own portal and giving the Blue Daemon almost full control. What did the Blue Daemon gain by sabotaging a portal? The question went on and on until Satoru decided he'd just ask the supposed Daemon for answers, instead. Because he wasn't getting any closer to an actual answer and searching for one seemed like a tedious task.
"Used to be," He began, pointing at the ritual circle by his feet. His voice, as it should, grabbed everyone's attention and all eyes turned to him. The people here were tired and a lot of them looked just about ready to drop unconscious at any moment. An assault on the vessel of the Corgis of Fenris would be a suicidal endeavor. Their only option, assuming they wanted to live, was to escape – preferably to another planet. "The circles would be activated as soon as the human sacrifice was made. Naturally, I've altered that. No one has to die to open the portal anymore. Hurray. Now, everyone, stay as far away from the ritual circle as you can; things are about to get a little hairy and I do not want anyone getting themselves caught in something potentially deadly, mmkay? Hug the wall if you have to. Also, someone keep an eye on little miss sorcerer over there to make sure she doesn't do anything funny."
A few of the older survivors immediately gathered around the unconscious girl, moving as though they've been wanting to do that for a while, which they probably did, considering their reaction to her when she declared... something something about Daemons or whatever. Satoru bent down, closed his eyes, and laid his left hand upon the center of the ritual array. All it needed now was a spark of power, the proverbial fuse that was going to set the bomb off. Grinning, Satoru unleashed a dark mass of pure Cursed Energy, enough to power at least five uses of Hollow Technique: Purple in rapid succession. The energies coursed into the symbols around the circle. Blue flames erupted from the circle, foreign Cursed Energies suddenly flooding the entire chamber.
"Everyone, close your eyes!"
Before the energies could affect anything, however, the various seals and symbols he'd tweaked and altered on the ritual circle activated and promptly muzzled the stream of Cursed Energy, containing it. Satoru shuddered as the alien energies actively fought back against the metaphysical chains he'd conjured to hold it down. Sheesh, it was actually really freaking strong. The blue flames around the third circle intensified, forming a large pillar of fire that streaked into the ceiling, vibrant, multi-colored hues spread outwards from the flames' edges. He felt and perceived it then, a gash upon reality itself; his Six-Eyes bled and pain embraced his whole body.
He did not scream or react.
Satoru grinned.
Something very wrong, very dangerous, and very powerful then clawed its way out of the gash, its form streaked by blue flames. It possessed two heads, both avian, covered in azure feathers and other strange adornments that almost made it resemble some sort of scholar. It carried with it a writhing staff with a large tome attached to the edge, held in place by a set of tendrils. Only half of its body emerged, however, as the third circle simply could not contain its essence. Satoru had never seen any Curse like this before – never felt this much Cursed Energy from a single being. It had so much of the stuff that it made Sukuna, the King of Curses, look freaking small in comparison. Inwardly, Satoru was willing to admit that maybe he was a little in over his head.
The amount of Cursed Energy needed to maintain this creature's presence was insane. What even was it? Satoru was pretty fucking sure this thing wasn't a Curse – or, it wasn't like any Curse he knew. The magnitude in power was too great. But that wasn't even the strangest thing about it. The strangest thing was what lay beyond the big, two-headed bird, where a constant scream of Cursed Energy poured. And, the most baffling part was it seemed to come from a realm that was made entirely of Cursed Energy – or, rather, something that Satoru might've been misunderstanding this whole time, due to its comparatively similar nature.
What the fuck was going on?
Was this how Nanami felt most of the time?
Sheesh, he was pretty out of his depth here.
"Who dares summon the Oracle of the Architect of Fate?" One of the heads spoke, but Satoru wasn't sure which one did it, since they had beaks instead of lips and- yeah, this wasn't making much sense. The two heads, all four eyes ablaze with white blue fires, turned and glanced around the chamber, stopping only as soon as they saw the downed sorcerer-girl. "Failure."
At that, the sorcerer-girl burst into flames, her body burning to ashes within less than half a second. Even her soul was gone. She didn't even have time to scream.
Holy shit.
Still, Satoru wasn't afraid or intimidated in the slightest. In fact, his grin couldn't get any wider. This... thing before him, was very likely a thousand, maybe even a hundred thousand, times more powerful than he was. Satoru was willing to admit that much; he wasn't... well... he wasn't exactly the strongest anymore, was he? But that only made things more exciting! Because that meant he was weak. It meant there were things out there that were powerful enough to make him look like an insect in comparison. Most importantly, however, was the realization that he hadn't hit his ceiling, the realization that he'd barely even scratched the surface of power; he could become even stronger than he ever was, create more techniques, improve his domain, and whatever else he could think of. The possibilities were endless.
After all, he bore the power of Limitless... and that name had to stand for something, did it not?
Right now, however, he needed to deal with this 'Daemon'.
Satoru raised his hand and jumped up. "I did!"