The Moon Shard stirred.

  A cursed tool that had absorbed too much blood, too many sacrifices, too much resentment. It had grown sentient—aware of its own existence.

  Gojo had never seen anything like it.

  Even in his past life, not a single cursed tool had awakened a will of its own. This… was something entirely different.

  Then it began to bleed.

  Thick, crimson droplets slid down its pale surface and landed upon the snow, hissing as they froze. Roots of ice erupted from the ground, twisting and coiling like tendrils until they shaped a vessel—an icy simulacrum of a man.

  Of Bran the Builder.

  Only, it wasn’t truly him. The soul was missing. Empty.

  The Moon Shard’s blood became the third eye embedded in the puppet’s forehead—its gaze cold, empty, and watching.

  Gojo tensed. “A puppet?”

  The Ice Puppet charged, sword in hand, movements swift as wind over ice.

  Gojo sidestepped, barely dodging a sword swing that sliced through frozen stone like butter. He countered with a punch laced in cursed energy—cracking the puppet’s chest, sending frost and shards flying. But it didn’t fall.

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  Gojo narrowed his eyes.

  “Durable bastard.”

  The Ice Puppet tilted its head, almost confused. As if it couldn’t comprehend being hurt. Then it opened its mouth—and exhaled a frigid breath that shattered the ground into frozen dust, a mist that could flash-freeze even cursed energy for a moment.

  Gojo leapt back, holding up his hand. “Clever.”

  While he reset his stance, the puppet retreated—only to summon.

  The land around Gojo began to groan. Cursed energy surged.

  Out from the icy ground crawled wights, eyeless and snarling. White walker shikigami, twisted mockeries born from the weirwood network. Ice spiders, large as wolves, dripping venomous frost. And worst of all—a frost dragon, its wings a canvas of shattered glass and howling storms.

  They all charged Gojo at once.

  He sighed.

  “Always a damn parade.”

  Gojo’s aura pulsed. His fingers twitched. And then—

  Red.

  A brilliant wave of repulsion cursed energy exploded from him, flattening the battlefield. The blast shattered mountainsides, vaporized monsters, and even tore the frost dragon apart mid-air, scattering its wings like snowflakes.

  Silence returned.

  The blizzard paused, stunned.

  But it wasn’t over.

  The Ice Puppet looked up, its third eye blazing. Then the Moon Shard pulsed—and a thick mist fell across the land.

  And Gojo felt it.

  A cursed domain, ancient and vast, unfolding.

  The Domain Expansion engulfed everything—the entire Lands of Always Winter. The sky cracked. The stars vanished. A winter moon eclipsed the real one, casting a blue glow over an endless world of frost and blood.

  Gojo clenched his fists, his breath visible in the cursed air.

  “So this is your game…”

  The eye in the sky stared down.

  And the duel truly began.