Hmm... strangely enough, Sukuna could only count, on one hand, how many times he'd been faced with a dilemma that made him somewhat... indecisive or, at least, not immediately decisive. And, even stranger, each of those moments often involved people who were most definitely not afraid of him. Huh, that was pretty weird to think about, actually. About ninety percent of the time, whenever he waltzed into a human settlement, drenched in blood and gore, he was met with fear and dread and panic. Many would scream and beg for their lives, others tried running away, and there were a few who tried to fight him, knowing they'd just die if they did; all of them met the same fate – devoured, down to the bone. Or, if Uraume was there, turned into a rich and hearty broth, alongside radishes, scallions, a ton of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, tofu, and maybe some saffron if he was feeling fancy.
That was the reason why he enjoyed killing and feasting on humans, the essence of fear, pain, and suffering, transmuted into pure Cursed Energy in his belly – cooked or otherwise.
The dilemmas, few though they were, happened when he was not met by fear, but was welcomed with open arms, instead, even celebrated. See, there were villages, back when he walked the Earth, that worshiped him as some kind of god made flesh. Sukuna didn't exactly keep track of them, but they did exist, even if they were few. So, imagine his shock when he walks into a village, full of delicious-looking humans, only to be welcomed and celebrated. And the weirdest part was that these people, if he asked, willingly killed themselves and offered up their bodies for him to feast on.
But that was just the thing, feasting on willing food wasn't fun, lacking the essential seasoning that made it taste good, that made it worth eating; without fear, suffering, and dread, human meat just tasted like pork, but with far less fat and a lot more bone, which didn't taste good. So, in a hilarious turn of events, whenever he was welcomed, Sukuna found himself... relaxing. His worshipers gave him pretty much whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. They kissed the ground he walked on and felt absolutely no fear, only adoration.
Because of that, there were, at least, six villages that survived his presence, each of them having thrown festivals and feasts in his name. They became rather famous, actually, because everyone thought the King of Curses was little more than a cannibal brute. Well, they were correct about the cannibal part, but Sukuna had never been a brute. And, if nothing else, being worshiped felt quite nice, actually.
Without fear, humans just didn't taste good. So, if a human wasn't afraid of him, chances were that Sukuna would just let them be – no point in killing them otherwise and there wasn't much of a point in tormenting someone who actively worshiped him.
Hence, the dilemma. Because, for some odd reason, the humans of this planet seemed to worship the very ground he walked on, bowing to his presence, even as the battle against the machines continued and fire and death raged around them; if that wasn't faith, then Sukuna didn't know what was. And now, he didn't want to eat them anymore. It wouldn't be fun if he did. "Praise the One!"
"Hail!"
"Hail the Promised King!"
"Hail!"
Yeah, more and more of those were getting thrown right at him. He ignored them. And, as before, Sukuna felt no fear from these people – at least, none of it was directed towards him. No, he felt only reverence and faith, very very strong faith, actually, enough to create a very subtle manifestation of Cursed Energy. It was much weaker when he compared it to what he'd receive from outright eating people, but the difference was insane, because, unlike eating, worship and reverence provided him with a steady influx of Cursed Energy, without any input from himself. As long as they believed in him and worshiped him, it seemed, his Cursed Energy Output would just get bigger and bigger.
Which was far more efficient than walking around, terrifying villagers and then devouring their meat, even if it was less fun. So, now that the humans annoyingly turned themselves into very valuable resources, Sukuna had no choice but to not eat them. In fact, he had to preserve them, because having a constant regenerative effect on his Cursed Energy Output was simply incredibly, especially given the fact that it required no effort or concentration on his part.
With Skarbrand utterly defeated and gone, perhaps it was time to defeat the machines once and for all. The idea of fighting alongside... humans was... novel. Because it just never happened before. But, these people worshiped him and, as much as it irked him to even think about it, they needed his intervention if they were going to survive the next few hours, because, although they first push had been devastating for the machines, the Iron Soldiers quickly adapted to their tactics and strategies, or lack thereof, and were steadily pushing them back through the sheer disparity in power.
After all, the Iron Soldiers felt neither pain nor fear; they simply did as they were meant to do and nothing more. And what they were meant to do was destroy and kill. The humans barely stood a chance. They were going to lose quite easily and quite badly; that was, if he didn't help.
"Huh, this feels weird." Sukuna muttered to himself as he soared above his worshipers, idly using Dismantle to cut down thousands of machines, allowing his... err... what did he call them? Ah... allowing his people to push back against the coming tide. They roared and chanted things Sukuna couldn't bother listening to, but every word was directed towards him, a prayer, and all they did was done in his name, an act of worship, fueling his power, his might. Again and again, Sukuna unleashed his Cursed Technique, cutting down more and more of the Iron Soldiers, even the few titans that still remained. "But, I suppose these guys could use a hand."
Well, life eventually grew dull if he didn't try new things, Sukuna thought. But, not once, did he imagine he'd ever be fighting to defend a bunch of humans.
Unleashing his Cursed Technique, Sukuna noted, was far easier and more efficient now than when he first awakened. It must've been another function of his new body, he realized. At the very least, the nature of Dismantle and, by extension, Cleave, hadn't been altered just yet. In a year, perhaps, they'd become something else entirely; but, for now, the King of Curses still retained his signature powers. Actually, Sukuna would much rather prefer that they remained as they were and, instead, his new body merely granted him new abilities.
But, no matter how powerful, no Sorcerer was able to choose their innate abilities, hence the name, not even the King of Curses himself.
There. Sukuna's eyes narrowed as he spotted, in the distance, a massive opening in the ground, several miles wide, where thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Iron Soldiers crawled from, like ants marching off to war from their little hill. Was that their home? Was that where they were created? It didn't matter, he figured. There were a lot of them there and he was going to blow it up.
"Fuga." Sukuna willed forth the Flaming Arrow of Amaterasu and pumped it with as much Cursed Energy as he was willing to, without endangering himself, which a lot. The arrow swelled in size until it resembled a long yari. Sukuna shuddered. There was so much Cursed Energy in it now that just holding it in place was a struggle. The air around him screamed as Sukuna contained the heat and confined it to a small radius around himself; it was painful and uncomfortable, but fire was an old friend and it didn't burn as much as it otherwise would have. His natural regeneration, aided by Augmentation and Reverse Cursed Energy healing, also worked hard to save him from the flames. Once the arrow reached critical mass, Sukuna grinned. He'd never done this before. He never needed to. He never even thought that he'd be in a situation where he'd even consider doing it. But then, here he was, doing something that'd make Uraume fall unconscious on the spot, protecting humans and spending his precious Cursed Energies to save them from death.
Truly, this has been a very interesting day.
Breathing in, Sukuna unleashed the arrow. Briefly, he looked on as it soared across the open air, before then disappearing into the gaping hole, where the Iron Soldiers crawled out of. And then, not a moment later, the ground shook – violently. Distant and nearby mountains and mountain ranges collapsed into rubble or cracked apart, kicking up storms of dust and debris. The air and sky turned blood red for a moment as the flames of the arrow exploded and rapidly expanded, rising high and forming a pillar of Cursed Fire, melting just about everything within range. The pillar extended several miles into the sky, bathing the atmosphere in a great wave of heat. The poisoned clouds dissipated and disappeared. And all became crimson for hundreds of miles as the heat radiated outwards.
It was not beautiful – not like all the other times he used it. Weaker variants of the Flaming Arrow of Amaterasu often resulted in brilliant shows and patterns of a floral nature, of Cursed Fire coming to life in a dazzling and deadly combination of colors. Often times, the pillar of flame would cascade outwards, imitating the Red Spider Lily in its splendor. In rarer occasions, it would take on the shape of a brilliant Wisteria. Now, however, the pillar of fire took on no greater shape or any shape at all. It was just... destruction, still pretty to look at, Sukuna mused, but not beautiful or artistic in any way. All the power, all the Cursed Energy he'd infused into the arrow, translated into annihilation in its purest form, a miniature sun, the seat of Amaterasu herself, forming and flashing briefly before collapsing into a ball of fire and dust and melted rock.
Breathing in, Sukuna erected a bubble of his Cursed Energy to keep, at least, most of his worshipers safe. He couldn't save them all. Unfortunate, but he honestly didn't care all that much for those who died. What mattered was that most of them lived through the storm of fire that soon engulfed the very land around them, burning, scorching, and melting everything. He craved their worship, craved the steady stream of Cursed Energy he got out of it. Resources, he mused; at the end of the day, these humans were little more than resources to be used and exploited as he saw fit. It just so happened that, at the moment, keeping them alive was in his best interest.
Maintaining the bubble proved challenging, especially after creating a Flaming Arrow of Amaterasu of that size. But the stream of Cursed Energy he'd derived from his worshipers was more than worth it. It seemed, in fact, that seeing such wanton display of destruction bolstered their faith as, ironically, the stream became stronger, rather than weaker, even when he took the dead into account. It was fascinating.
The path forward, it seemed, was in acquiring more followers and worshipers, essentially spreading the religion with him at its center, its god.
That didn't sound fun at all, honestly. So, maybe he'd just let his followers do their own thing. Or, maybe not. It'd be very unfortunate if he went through all this trouble and they all died. He actually liked having a constant, if slow, stream of Cursed Energy constantly bolstering what he already had. It meant that, if he paced himself properly and did not overextend, he could keep throwing Cleaves and Dismantles and never run out of Cursed Energy. And it seemed like, in theory, at least, that the stream grew stronger off of two variables: the number of believers and the strength of their faith.
Sukuna... did not arrive at a decision on what he wanted to do when his feet met the ground and the people around him all fell to their hands and knees and planted their foreheads on the ground, no matter how hard or how violently it shook and cracked.
"Mighty God-King..." One of them spoke. Sukuna turned and raised a brow at an old man, who seemed... different from the rest. This one, he mused, had some potential to be a Sorcerer, though not a particularly powerful one. "Oh great one... oh Promised King... deliver us... oh deliver us to the Promised Kingdom."
The others soon followed his chanting. Huh, actually, how come they already had a prayer composed about him, before they even met? Weird. But, Sukuna smiled. They called him a King. Well, to be entirely fair, he was known as the King of Curses to many. But, there was one tiny problem with that title in that he was a King with nothing and no one to rule over, no subjects to govern or lord. And it wasn't like Curses actively obeyed him or anything. No, the title merely acknowledged his power and nothing more. To be a King meant something else entirely. Perhaps, it was time to simply think of himself as the Cursed King, because, now, unlike before, he had actual subjects to rule.
Wasn't that just a novel thing to consider?