The snow crunched beneath Gojo’s feet as he walked, Dark Sister sheathed across his back like a shadow from a bloodied past. The blizzard had died down, revealing a cold, silent world of white plains and black trees. It was beautiful—still and untouched. But Gojo knew better.

  This land was deadly. Beyond the Wall, everything felt cursed.

  He approached the weirwood tree again. Its face still twisted in agony, the slits of red sap beneath its eyes like old tears. This was the one. The tree that had imprisoned a soul.

  He could still sense it. Faint and flickering—an echo, perhaps. Or a scream too distant to hear.

  The prisoner was still inside.

  Gojo narrowed his eyes, remembering the glass candle impaled through the prisoner’s chest. It had glowed faintly, pulsing with a cursed energy so foul it reminded him of old Jujutsu relics—twisted objects that bound the soul and devoured the will.

  This glass candle wasn’t just a cursed tool. It was an anchor.

  Its light wasn’t fire, but a binding flame. It locked the soul in place, trapping it inside the weirwood’s underground root system—an unseen prison that stretched for miles, connecting tree to tree, root to root. If the candle remained lit, the prisoner’s soul would never pass on. Just endless wandering through that hellish network.

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  Gojo clenched his jaw. “No more.”

  He stepped up to the bound prisoner. The body didn’t move. Not even a flinch.

  The flame flickered from the embedded candle, casting eerie shadows across the bark.

  Gojo raised a fist and slammed it into the candle. The flame stuttered, sputtered—but didn’t go out.

  He gritted his teeth, yanked the cursed candle free, and—against all his instincts—shoved it into his mouth and swallowed.

  Pain seared down his throat. His stomach turned.

  “Disgusting,” he hissed, face contorted.

  It wasn’t just physical. Something inside his soul twisted—recoiling at the foreign cursed energy now inside him. A heavy weight, like sorrow and suffering made solid. He understood now—why Geto had spiraled. Why swallowing cursed objects could corrode even the strongest.

  With a deep breath, Gojo activated his cursed energy.

  The energy clashed within him—his own versus the glass candle’s. The light flickered inside him, dimming, weakening—until, at last, it went out.

  Gojo gagged and spat the candle back out. The glass was cracked. The light was gone.

  He turned to the prisoner, eyes sharp.

  The man’s body remained limp. Unmoving. Hollow. Whatever had been left of his mind had broken long ago.

  “A mercy,” Gojo muttered.

  He raised his hand, cursed energy gathering.

  “Red.”

  The blast struck the weirwood and the corpse together, shattering bark, bones, and sorrow alike. The tree exploded in a burst of cursed force, splinters flying like shrapnel across the snow.

  Gojo stepped forward, checking the remains. No regeneration. No cursed recoil. Nothing.

  Just silence.

  He crushed the glass candle beneath his heel.

  Far away, beyond even Gojo’s senses, something responded.

  Somewhere along the ancient Wall, deep within its cursed foundations…

  A crack formed.

  Jagged. Silent. Ominous.