"Ah, hey guys!"

He didn't want to fight them – not when he wasn't protecting anyone or stalling for time. Fighting them, no matter how much fun that might be, would only serve to hinder him in the long run. First and foremost, Satoru was running out of Cursed Energy. He could pull the same trick he pulled against Sukuna and restore his Cursed Energy using Reverse Cursed Energy, but to what end? It was a desperate move that resulted in brain damage, something he didn't exactly want or need. At the moment, Satoru had about three-fifths of his total Cursed Energy left, which was still a lot, but he also had to factor in the fact that he had to survive for the next three days, until Kairos contacted him again, which meant he had to be extremely conservative in the usage of his Cursed Energy.

And that meant fighting these giants, who wore thicker armor and carried more powerful weapons than the normal range of giants, was a gigantic waste of his time and energy. Not to mention the effort it'd take just to kill a single one of them – Purple, not withstanding. Seriously, the cackling shields they carried was a pain in the ass.

And yet, he had to gain their attention and lead them away from the ritual array.

Hmm, in hindsight, this might just get difficult, even for him. These giants were not barbarians or brutes – not in the slightest. They were a highly trained and highly disciplined bunch and that showed in their teamwork and adaptability. Honestly, just ten of these Astartes could easily defeat a group of ten sorcerers, even if physical abilities were equalized. They moved as one, defended each other automatically, and attacked in tandem. It was why he couldn't kill a whole lot of them before – not without his Cursed Techniques, at least.

Satoru surged forward and, as soon as he entered the immediate range of the Astartes in heavy armor, briefly activated Red. The sudden blast of repulsive energy sent the giants hurling into the walls, breaking through stone and concrete, before any of them could properly react. None of them would've been injured or even hurt by that, however; the force he'd applied to Red wasn't enough to break anything more than brittle glass. However, considering how bulky their powered suits were, it'd likely take them a few seconds to pull themselves back onto their legs.

Satoru passed by them, grinning as the giants, as he'd expected, visibly struggled to regain their bearings, especially as the ground beneath them slowly cracked and collapsed under their immense weight. That was a serious trade off, honestly. Speed and maneuverability would serve them better, but Satoru had no real experience or knowledge in military matters and superhuman warriors so who was he to judge them?

Still, if they were any faster than they actually were, then he could easily see them becoming a lot more problematic for him to deal with. Unfortunately, not even the smaller variants, the Astartes who wore thinner and less bulky suits of powered armor, were fast enough to be actual threats, even if they were faster than most humans could ever hope to be.

"Sorry about that!" Satoru waved over his shoulder, grinning as he briefly glanced back at the downed giants. Gunfire echoed behind him, balls of super heated gas and rocket-propelled bullets stopping as they entered the zone of Infinity. "It's nothing personal!"

Satoru ran ahead. The route he'd taken was not the same as the one he'd used before; so, he had no idea where exactly he was going, but he'd always had pretty good instincts and a somewhat reliable sense of direction. There had to be an exit somewhere if he just kept moving. Maybe. If not, then he'd have to resort to Hollow Technique: Purple to make an entirely new tunnel to the surface. Of course, he'd rather not do that, since that was a good way to reveal his position and get every single one of the Astartes, all thousand or so of them, right on his tail. That couldn't possibly end well for anyone.

There were numerous teams of Astartes all throughout the sewer system, traveling in groups of six or seven. In the narrow corridors of the sewers, fighting them was going to be problematic. However, Satoru was not, in fact, trying to fight them. He was trying to bait them into chasing him on a wild goose chase that would, hopefully, waste everyone's time for the next three days. Failing that, he'd just hide and... maybe meditate for a while – decompress, reflect, and process just about everything that happened since his apparent resurrection.

He made a turn because he felt like it and then followed a flight of stairs up to... somewhere. He didn't know. Honestly, he was making this all up as he went along. The steps took him into what looked to be a boiler room of some kind, massive tanks, filled with sloshing water, and a series of burners right beneath them. There was a door on the other end. Satoru grinned as the Cursed Energy signatures shifted, converging around him. "Ah, it seems like they're finally catching up to me."

There were about two hundred of them down in the sewers, but only around twenty of them would reach him within the next minute or so. The rest were scattered about in differing floors and tunnels. This place was huge, after all. However, the fact that all of them were suddenly moving in a different direction than they'd been before meant that he was now the target. As for why that was... well, it probably had to do with the fact that he might've gone overboard when he killed a bunch of them before. In his defense, Satoru wasn't counting on the Black Flash even happening. But, once it occurs, even just once, the chance of it happening again rise exponentially. His usage of Unlimited Void, however, had definitely been intentional.

He pushed the door open and walked right through. On the other side was more of the same stuff, only – this time – there were skeletons on the floor, covered in dust and cobwebs, which meant these people had been dead for a while. Huh, that was mildly interesting. Carved upon their skulls was an eight-pointed star. Weird. He could've sworn he'd seen that symbol on the portal array. Eh, whatever. Satoru continued moving forward. The Astartes were catching up to him now. Though, they'd probably have trouble fitting through the human-sized doorways, which would probably slow them down.

The echoing of a loud explosion behind him told him that it did not, in fact, slow them down in the slightest. It probably didn't hinder them at all.

The ground shook and the walls cracked. Satoru turned his gaze to the rapidly collapsing ceiling. He grinned as bits of rock and concrete began to fall. "Oh boy; that looks bad."

The earlier explosion, it seemed, had destabilized the whole ceiling and the floor right above it, leading to a cascade of cracks that was rapidly destroying and collapsing what must've been thousands of tons of rock and concrete. Rushing forward, Satoru opened another door and found another flight of stairs that led further upwards, the walls and the ceiling cracking apart around him as he ran as fast as his feet could carry him. Atop the stairs was an office space of some kind, filled with candles and rolls of paper. There were no doors anywhere, but there was a hatch right above him, about ten feet off the floor. Shrugging, Satoru held out his right pointed finger and blasted the hatch apart with a very low-output usage of Red, before jumping up into the next floor.

Everything was falling apart around him and, unfortunately, Satoru hadn't the time for sightseeing.

He ran into the nearest door, which – thankfully – led to another set of steps, this one, he figured, leading right to the surface, where about a thousand Astartes were milling about in tight squads, seemingly searching for something. It was easy enough to monitor their movements by their Cursed Energies. Tsk, the bastards really knew how to do their jobs, eh? Each squad was far enough away from each other as to have total flexibility with whatever it was they were doing, but still close enough that an attack on one would have two more squads joining in on the fun within a few seconds at most. That level of coordination definitely wasn't common among Sorcerers. And that, more than anything, was why these Astartes were dangerous. No wonder the whole planet fell to only a few of them.

That said, this was nothing if not a compliment; they adjusted their tactics to fight him, in an attempt to counter him.

He almost blushed. "Awww, isn't that absolutely heartwarming?"

Satoru chuckled. Whatever the case, he wasn't going to fight them anyway – not unless he had absolutely no choice in the matter. For now, however, his only objective was to find a hiding place and lie low for the next three days.

The buildings themselves were left relatively unharmed, which meant a lot of them still stood or still had the constitution to remain upright, at least. However, considering the advanced technology that these giants carried with them, it'd be idiotic of him to assume that they did not have some way of seeing through cover or through solid objects in general, which meant Satoru would have to create a lot of distance between himself and the Astartes. It was a shame, but hiding within the city itself, right under their nose inside one of the numerous buildings, would've been hilarious. But, he couldn't risk it.

However, he did need to do something flashy and loud, just to confuse the absolute heck out of them. Was itabsolutely necessary? Probably not. As it was now, only a few of them were probably even aware of his location – the guys in heavy armor who must be having the time of their lives underneath all the rubble. So, it definitely wasn't necessary. But it'd be hilarious. Plus, messing with them, even for just a little bit, would widen his window of escape.

After all, there's no way he was ever going to be able to lie low in this city, crawling with giants as it was. His only option was to physically exit the city... if there was an exit at all and the city didn't just span the breadth of the entire planet. Ah, actually might be an actual possibility, considering Satoru vividly remembered no seeing an end to the buildings the first time he stood atop a rooftop – not even with Six-Eyes.

Damn.

What conundrum it was, Satoru chuckled as he opened the door and stepped right through.

No one saw or greeted him as he scaled the side of a building and climbed all the way up to its roof, no one save for the countless corpses and the veritable sea of blood that'd the streets and the roads, soaking just about everything in crimson. For a moment, Satoru frowned, his eyes darkening as he glanced over the edge and looked over the ridiculous death toll. His hands shook. This... this was a thousand times worse than Shibuya. There were children down there – weak and defenseless, their faces forever screaming as they lay half-submerged in pools of their own blood. Was this slaughter necessary?

Satoru, of all people, would never claim to be a hero. He'd never claim to be selfless. He had plenty of faults, despite what everyone seemed to think of him. But he'd never gone out of his way to kill innocent people, which was what led to his imprisonment in the first place.

This wasn't necessary, he concluded.

This was just... cruelty.

Sighing, he glanced up. There were a few aircrafts speeding out in the distant horizon, far above the clouds in the sky. Would they spot him from up there? Eh, probably not. He didn't stand out too much, honestly. No one would notice him up here – not until after it was too late.

Cursed Energies permeated the air, the dying fears of every single corpse, released as they died and breathed their last. For a moment, a taboo thought crossed his mind. Satoru reached out, eyes closed in concentration, and attempted to grasp and absorb the Cursed Energies in the air. It was like trying to grab a hold of a very oily eel, he found – damn near impossible without practice. After another moment of trying, Satoru let go; he wasn't getting anywhere with that just yet. The building shook. The Astartes who'd been chasing him from the sewer must've found a way up.

No matter.

Gritting his teeth, Satoru knelt and pressed his hands close together and brought forth the convergence of infinity, the impossible merging of Repulsion and Attraction, Hollow Technique: Purple; it was about the size of an apple. Afterwards, came the hard part, which was, subsequently, the whole reason why he'd never really used it in combat before. The preparation was too damn slow.

Here and now, however, was no problem.

It took him a total of fifteen seconds to apply an outer layer of Blue right over Purple, a whirling vortex that would suck in all mass into a zone of absolute annihilation. It took him another fifteen seconds to coat both layers in a dense gathering of Red. It cackled and fought for control, straining against him. And it was only through his mastery of both Six-Eyes and Limitless that it didn't blow up in his face. Smiling, Satoru held out his right hand. "Maximum: White."

The moment the technique flew from his fingertips, the imaginary mass took on a much-much darker hue; so dark it was indistinguishable from black. It traveled forward briefly. Sweat trailing down Satoru's face from the ridiculous effort it took to keep it from immediately detonating. Once it'd traveled a suitable distance, Satoru whispered to the wind, "Release."

And then he turned and ran away, a great white sphere rapidly expanding behind him, obliterating everything in its path.

And that was just the first phase.