Chapter 161 (Patreon)

Was Satoru Gojo strong?

Of course he was.

The Six Eyes and the Limitless alone were enough to leave nearly every jujutsu sorcerer without an answer. After mastering Blue and Red, Gojo possessed both flawless control and overwhelming destructive power.

Add Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void, and throughout the entire history of jujutsu, fewer than five people had ever possessed the strength to face him.

It had been years since Gojo last encountered an enemy capable of truly pushing him in battle.

Ragnar Kagenou did not count. Ragnar was an ally, and neither of them could fight with the intent to kill. Even when they sparred, they always stopped before things went too far.

Sukuna, however, was different.

He was exactly the kind of opponent Gojo had been waiting for.

Their strength was evenly matched, and they stood on opposing sides. An opportunity like this might never appear again.

Sukuna had initially thought little of Gojo. After exchanging several attacks with him, however, he realized that Ragnar Kagenou might not be the only person of this era capable of giving him a real fight.

For a thousand years, Sukuna had stood alone at the summit.

No matter how many sorcerers challenged him, none had been able to relieve that endless boredom.

Sukuna had once been human, but even after death, he endured through his twenty fingers, each transformed into a special-grade cursed object. Across the long centuries, the King of Curses had waited for someone capable of standing against him.

Now, for the first time in a thousand years, heat surged through his veins.

His desire for battle reached heights even he had never experienced before.

A thousand years.

The King of Curses had waited an entire millennium for this feeling.

An invisible slash severed the towering pillar of crimson cursed energy in an instant. Sukuna spread his arms and grinned as another slash, powerful enough to split the earth apart, tore through the sky.

Gojo knew better than to take Sukuna’s slashes head-on.

The open sky had become their battlefield. There was no one capable of interfering with them here.

Anyone below special grade had no right to approach a battle like this. The instant they crossed that boundary, they would be cut apart ten thousand times over before their minds could even register what had happened.

“My Simple Domain won’t last much longer.”

Cracks were already spreading across the barrier surrounding Gojo.

If he failed to deal with Malevolent Shrine before the Simple Domain collapsed, Sukuna’s endless sure-hit slashes would wear him down until they finally killed him.

“Domain Expansion... Unlimited Void.”

Boundless light erupted from Gojo and spread in every direction. Above his head, darkness gathered into a sphere resembling a black hole as the limitless expanse of his innate domain descended upon the battlefield.

“Let’s settle this again.”

“Come.”

From that moment onward, neither of them held anything back.

Invisible slashes and blasts of Red crossed the sky one after another, both men unleashing techniques as though their cursed energy were inexhaustible.

Boom!

Another deafening explosion shook the heavens.

The clash between their domains tested the depth and refinement of their cursed energy, while the techniques they hurled at one another tested the limits of their output.

“Sukuna! Is that all you’ve got?! Can’t you make this more... more exciting?!”

Red formed in Gojo’s palm.

He surged forward and slammed it directly into Sukuna’s face.

Boom!

Crimson cursed energy engulfed Sukuna’s head. Before Red could fully erupt, an invisible slash tore through its core and split the technique apart.

“I could ask you the same thing!”

With a casual sweep of his hand, Sukuna unleashed hundreds of slashes.

Gojo compressed Blue into a broad plane before him, using its immense attraction to intercept the incoming barrage.

Then scorching flames appeared within Sukuna’s hands.

The fire took the shape of a bow as he drew back the burning string. A blazing arrow formed, its tip aimed directly at Gojo.

“Furnace—Open.”

The flames roared.

“Come on!”

Gojo made no attempt to evade.

He hurled Blue straight at the approaching arrow.

The arrow was caught within Blue’s immense attraction. It began circling faster and faster until its flames completely enveloped the azure sphere.

“Looks like that didn’t do much, Sukuna.”

The words had barely left Gojo’s mouth when Blue suddenly began to tremble.

A wave of scorching fire erupted from within it.

“What about now, brat?”

Sukuna knew that the flames of Furnace alone would never be enough to kill Satoru Gojo.

Hidden within the blaze, one of his invisible slashes tore through the flames and struck Blue directly at its core.

Boom!

The azure sphere was severed in half.

“That barely stung. Did you forget to put any power into it?”

“Dismantle.”

At Sukuna’s command, another invisible slash shot forward.

Crimson light appeared in Gojo’s palm and erupted the instant Dismantle reached him. Red’s repulsive force struck the slash head-on and sent it hurtling away.

Bang!

With Domain Amplification enveloping his body, Sukuna forced his way straight through Red.

“You’re kidding.”

Gojo immediately increased Red’s cursed energy output, but even its growing repulsive force could not stop Sukuna’s advance.

Sizzle!

Sukuna’s palm pushed deeper into the center of Red. He forced his way through the repulsive force until his fingers finally closed around Gojo.

“Caught you.”

Boom!

Sukuna hurled Gojo straight into the ground.

The earth shook violently beneath the impact, and countless invisible slashes rained down after him.

The ground was carved apart in an instant.

Just before the barrage reached him, Gojo used Blue to warp himself out of its path.

“That was close...”

He reappeared behind Sukuna a moment later.

“Too obvious.”

Sukuna did not even turn around before sending a slash behind him.

Realizing that his surprise attack had failed, Gojo immediately widened the distance between them.

“In that case...”

Sukuna watched Gojo’s cursed energy surge higher and higher, his interest deepening with every passing second.

“So you’re finally ready to settle this!”

A slash compressed into a single point erupted from Sukuna and shot toward him.

“Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.”

Blue’s attraction swallowed the slash whole.

Gojo then launched the sphere beneath Sukuna. Its pull multiplied severalfold, dragging Sukuna downward and locking him in place.

The azure sphere struck the ground and spread across it in the shape of a vast circular plane.

Within a radius of one hundred meters, gravity increased several times over.

Even while restrained, Sukuna unleashed another lattice of slashes.

They struck Gojo from every direction, but only shallow lines of blood appeared across his body.

“The wounds are shallow...”

Gojo maintained the stance needed to keep Blue active.

“I learned this when I was a kid. I haven’t used it once since I mastered Domain Expansion.”

A confident smile appeared on his face.

“Still pretty good, right?”

Falling Blossom Emotion.

It was an anti-domain technique secretly passed down through the Three Great Sorcerer Families. Rather than forming another barrier, it enveloped the user in cursed energy and automatically countered a domain’s sure-hit attack the instant it made contact.

A deep hum rolled across the battlefield.

Gojo formed another Blue and sent it above Sukuna.

An overwhelming upward pull seized Sukuna from overhead, while the Blue beneath him continued dragging him downward.

“Another Blue?”

Caught between the two opposing forces, Sukuna could no longer move.

“Phase. Twilight. Eyes of Wisdom.”

A third sphere of Blue appeared.

“I’m the one who’s going to win, Sukuna.”

Gojo raised his other hand.

“Phase. Pāramitā. Pillars of Light.”

A sphere of Red emerged beside him.

Red and Blue slowly began to revolve around one another, their opposing forces twisting together.

“Nine Ropes. Polarized Light. Crow and Declaration. The Gap Between Within and Without.”

Thrum!

Attraction and repulsion collided.

A mysterious purple radiance blossomed before Gojo.

It was beautiful and incomprehensible—the color of emptiness and absolute destruction.

“Hollow Technique: Purple.”

For a single instant, the entire world fell silent.

Sukuna stared at Gojo, realizing that he intended to detonate Purple at point-blank range.

A raging torrent of purple light swallowed Sukuna and erupted from the center of the city.

The imaginary mass consumed everything in its path. Buildings, earth, and even the sky itself vanished as the dazzling radiance raced toward the horizon.

The explosion followed a heartbeat later.

Purple light engulfed the heavens, and its mysterious radiance devastated the entirety of Kobe.

Then...

Satoru Gojo emerged from the explosion.