CG

The Culling Game (死し滅めつ回かい遊ゆう, Shimetsu Kaiyū?) is the most unprecedented act of jujutsu terrorism ever enacted. The conflict immediately follows the Shibuya Incident and is orchestrated by Kenjaku with the goal of evolving humanity by optimizing cursed energy. The game functions as a lethal battle royale where players kill one another with jujutsu. Players must adhere to the strict rules of the game and fight across ten barrier colonies that form a line down Japan. At the very end of the Shibuya Incident, Yuki Tsukumo confronts Kenjaku. They have conflicting ideologies on how to take humanity's relationship with cursed energy to the next stage. Kenjaku believes there must be more potential to cursed energy in the form of human beings than jujutsu sorcerers and cursed spirits. His first attempt to achieve something greater was the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings. However, this only taught Kenjaku that something of his own creation cannot exceed his own potential. Therefore, he must create uncontrollable chaos in order to reach an answer that's shrouded in darkness. By extracting Mahito's cursed technique using Cursed Spirit Manipulation, Kenjaku was able to remotely cast Idle Transfiguration and activate two types of non-sorcerers he marked. The first type are people who ingested cursed objects, similar to Yuji Itadori. The second type are people who gained cursed techniques despite having brains that were meant to be non-sorcerers, like Junpei Yoshino. Both had their brains adjusted for jujutsu. The former gained strength as vessels for sorcerers from past eras. The latter gained the capacity to use cursed techniques as new sorcerers for the modern era. Kenjaku also breaks the seal on all the cursed objects he had the vessels ingest. Some of the marked ones have been in a deep slumber since being exposed to his cursed energy, but they will now awaken. The cursed objects were the remains of sorcerers Kenjaku made contracts with over a thousand years ago. However, each of those Binding Vows became null when Kenjaku obtained Suguru Geto's body. In order to deepen their understanding of cursed energy, Kenjaku plans on having hundreds of sorcerers fight one another. He's confident the upcoming conflict will reflect the Heian Era, the golden age of jujutsu. While escaping from Shibuya, Kenjaku released countless cursed spirits into Tokyo, creating a chain reaction from the Shibuya Incident that spread over ten million curses that compromised the twenty-three wards. Megumi Fushiguro learns of his sister's involvement and tells Yuji Itadori that she's been ensnared in Kenjaku's battle royal between jujutsu users called the Culling Game. Megumi recruits his allies and contacts Master Tengen in order to learn more about the Culling Game and Kenjaku's objectives. Master Tengen reveals Kenjaku couldn't use their barrier to turn everyone in Japan into sorcerers with Idle Transfiguration because he lacks the cursed energy. That method would be wildly inefficient, so Kenjaku has chosen to evolve humanity by merging them with Master Tengen. According to Master Tengen, the Culling Game uses the players' cursed energy and the barriers for a ritual that prepares the humans of Japan for the merger. Through this custom, Master Tengen can be forced to merge with the humans of Japan and "convey them to the other side". In order to perform such a ritual, Kenjaku has undertaken specific binding vows, one of them being that he is not the game master. This works against Megumi's group because killing Kenjaku will not end the game. The Culling will continue until all the players are dead and its rules ensure that nothing can interrupt the ritual. There are ten colonies around Japan that are connected by boundary-binding barriers that form a line down the archipelago. This does not include Hokkaido because of the Jujutsu Society barrier and its status as a sacred area. Every human in Japan has been cursed in preparation for the merging ritual. There is no rule about entering or exiting the colonies and from the start of the game, players receive the objective of exiting the barriers as a way of stimulating competition. In order for the barriers to confine all the players, they're strengthened by the premise that the players entered of their own free will. Little is known about the game master, but shikigami known as Kogane serve as the game interface. All players are subject to strict rules, but Kenjaku will receive no bias.