At this stage of the fight, not only had both sides exhausted their trump cards, but they were also continuously evolving. It was no longer an exaggeration to say that victory wouldn't be decided by raw strength or experience, but by whoever could evolve faster!
The reason Mahito took the initiative to trigger a Domain battle was simple: his evolution had hit a wall. He had squeezed almost every drop of potential out of Idle Transfiguration. All that remained was the slow accumulation of knowledge, combat intuition, and real-world experience. In other words, Mahito had entered a plateau phase. He couldn't evolve any further in the short term.
Satoru Gojo was the exact opposite. He had been stagnating for nearly a decade. Ever since defeating Toji Fushiguro in high school, his strength had only grown at a steady, unhurried pace. From that day forward, he was invincible. Nothing in the world could threaten him, so his time was spent merely accumulating power, never truly exploding past his limits.
In this fight, it seemed their rate of evolution was matched, perhaps with Mahito holding a slight edge. But the reality was that Mahito, having only existed for a few months, had hit a hard bottleneck. He had fully realized every theory he could conceive; he was as strong as he could possibly be right now. Gojo, however, had accumulated so much latent potential over the years that his explosive growth was entirely uninterrupted. His current strength was already far beyond imagination.
More terrifyingly, Gojo's evolutionary strides hadn't stopped. He could still climb higher. In a war of attrition, Mahito was at an overwhelming disadvantage.
Mahito felt it acutely. He wasn't losing the physical fight. He had been born in the sewers less than half a year ago. The bulk of his knowledge came from the teachings of Kenjaku, Ashiya Sadatsuna, and Tsumiki Fushiguro. Kenjaku harbored his own dark motives; Ashiya was sincere but hadn't been around long enough; and Tsumiki had joined even later.
As for the sliver of knowledge he retained from reading manga before his reincarnation—that had long since been exhausted!
He was losing in foundation. He was losing in time! Mahito was confident that if he just had ten more years, he could beat Satoru Gojo with one hand tied behind his back!
But that wasn't an option. He had unleashed everything he had accumulated. Even the Hollow Technique: Soul Creation Dragon Spirit Body he was using right now was only conceived thanks to Gojo's inspiration.
Therefore, only one path to victory remained. A Domain clash!
He would bet it all on a Domain clash!
Endless grains of white sand surged from beneath their feet. In the sky above, a blurry, indistinct void radiated light. A divine dragon soared through the heavens, curling its body into a perfect ring, endlessly orbiting the void.
—Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm!
A smear of pure, meaningless white void flooded the world, erasing all tangible and intangible existence. It was the ultimate esoteric technique of absolute nothingness, where all information was simultaneously omnipotent and meaningless. The blurred boundary between existence and non-existence descended upon them both.
—Infinite Void!
The Domain battle officially commenced!
Limitless and Idle Transfiguration collided head-on! Within a Domain Expansion, even the Limitless, which normally required a trajectory to cast, would strike its target instantly. And even Idle Transfiguration, which mandated physical touch, could hack into its target remotely.
In this invisible crucible of forces, the torrential barrage of Infinite Void warred savagely against the Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm. The world in the eyes of Gojo and the Dragon God shattered into a kaleidoscope of blinding colors. Every single second, the Limitless and Idle Transfiguration traded devastating offensive and defensive blows.
This was a true Domain battle. Anyone who opened a Domain had to endure the onslaught of the opponent's Domain. They weren't simply canceling each other out; they were actively suppressing each other. The moment one side made even the slightest mistake, they would be instantly struck by the enemy's innate technique.
What made it infinitely more terrifying was that both Infinite Void and Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm were 'mechanism-based' Domains. If they were mere 'stat-based' Domains, a sorcerer could rely on cursed energy reinforcement to tank a hit or two—as long as you didn't die, there was hope. But against mechanism-based Domains, the exact millisecond you were hit, the battle was over!
In the original manga's final battle, the Domain clash between Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna followed this exact logic. No matter how much of an advantage Sukuna's Domain had in the early stages, Gojo wouldn't hesitate to open his Domain again, and again. Why?
Because it didn't matter if Sukuna won the Domain clash multiple times. Gojo only needed to win *once* to secure total victory. In a pure Domain battle, Gojo was superior!
Infinite Void lacked direct offensive damage, but it was far more horrifying than any lethal Domain! Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm was even more extreme. Any soul engulfed by the soulless transmigration realm was immediately treated as having been thoroughly touched by Idle Transfiguration. Both mind and body would instantly fall into Mahito's absolute control, transforming the victim into his loyal puppet.
With both sides wielding mechanism-based Domains, their objectives and thoughts aligned perfectly: Break the opponent's defenses, even for a microsecond!
The Dragon God matched Gojo's Limitless mobility with sheer leg strength, the tip of his blade aimed straight at Gojo's forehead. Gojo flawlessly utilized the Limitless to execute a barrel roll, the blade shaving mere millimeters from his skin. As he spun, he unleashed an out-boxing flicker jab—a boxing technique renowned for its unpredictable, instantaneous strikes.
But the dragon eyes caught the flicker jab instantly. With a twist of his wrist, the Dragon God arrested the momentum of Kirigiri's swing, stepping into Gojo's flank to slash again. New Shadow Style: Sarumawashi focused heavily on agile footwork and fluid blade work, and the Dragon God was wielding its essence to perfection.
In the same moment of close-quarters combat, the glow of cursed energy attacks flared ceaselessly across their bodies. It was the sure-hit effects of both Domains raining down upon them like a torrential downpour. The endless suppression from both sides made it look as though they were engulfed in roaring flames, trading blows inside a fiery inferno where every strike birthed a massive shockwave.
Both the Dragon God and Satoru Gojo possessed god-tier mobility, yet they tacitly chose to throw punches and swing blades within a space of less than three square meters. This was because maintaining maximum pressure on the opponent was the only way to optimize their Domain's effects. Outside, their aerial combat could span the entire night sky, but here, they butchered each other inside a microscopic gladiator pit.
And then, at the exact same moment—
—Both attacks landed!
Kirigiri shattered through the Limitless and cleaved into Gojo's chest, right where his heart lay! Gojo's fist obliterated the Dragon God's armor, smashing violently into his abdomen, right where the Cursed Energy Core was located.
They triggered their respective Domain techniques simultaneously, delivering what was truly meant to be the final blow:
"Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm!"
"Infinite Void!"
In an instant, the Dragon God froze. A ceaseless cascade of redundant information flooded into his brain. Even though the Dragon God had surpassed the absolute limits of the world, his brain struggled immensely to process the omnipotent data.
The human brain has limits, but methods of calculation do not. When calculating the number 5, a human simply uses '1 x 5'. But that method is merely a shortcut. In the true fabric of the world, such shortcuts do not exist; they are human constructs.
The world's true method of calculation is: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5.
The Domain of Infinite Void forces you to calculate every single '1'. Jogo once described the sheer terror of Infinite Void in the original story. He monologued:
*"I can't see anything. I can't feel anything. No. I can see everything! I can feel everything! The information never ends! Therefore, I can't do anything!!"*
To which Gojo had replied: *"Ironic, isn't it? When granted everything, you can't do anything at all. You can only die slowly."*
For humans, this volume of information transcends mere terror. Imagine feeling the flow of your blood every millisecond, sensing every microscopic twitch of your muscles, hearing every internal hum of your organs, and seeing every ripple in the atmosphere. This entirely unnecessary information—data that humans are completely unequipped to perceive intuitively—is violently crammed into the brain. Any living creature would be bloated and ruptured by the sheer redundancy of it.
Even the most advanced supercomputer on earth would spectacularly crash under such a load. Who in this world could possibly withstand it?
Someone could.
A God could.
And the current Dragon God was a deity that had transcended the world's limits!
The Dragon God gripped Kirigiri's hilt with both hands and pushed down savagely! Gojo knew perfectly well that if Infinite Void hit, absolutely no one should be spared. But every time Mahito took a hit, he proved he was doing it on purpose, and his counterattacks were always lethal and horrifying. So, even though the Domain had definitively connected, Gojo hadn't let his guard down for a second. The exact millisecond the Dragon God moved, Gojo grabbed the blade of Kirigiri with his free hand.
SQUELCH—!
Gojo's fingers were cleanly severed. They dropped to the ground, where countless grains of white sand devoured them like living parasites, leaving not a single drop of blood behind.
But simultaneously, the blade stopped descending!
Gojo laughed wildly. "It worked! Even if you can barely stomach the information bombardment of Infinite Void, this is your absolute limit! You can't use your innate technique anymore! Otherwise, whether you used Star Rage or Tool Manipulation just now, I'd already be dead!"
The Dragon God shot back fiercely, "Look who's talking! I can adapt to your Infinite Void, but you've been struck by my Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm! Your soul is being completely rewritten by my hands! How much longer can you hold out?!"
Though he had expected it, Gojo was no ordinary sorcerer. Since Ryomen Sukuna wasn't afraid of soul modification, Gojo logically had immense resistance as well. But Mahito truly hadn't expected that, after pushing Idle Transfiguration's potential to this absolute peak, Gojo could still forcefully hold his ground!
No, 'hold his ground' was inaccurate. Mahito could visibly see Gojo's soul and had already begun reading its data, but the reading speed was moving at a snail's pace. He instantly diagnosed the problem:
This bastard had wrapped his own soul in the Limitless technique, slowing down the reading process by tens of millions of times, ensuring Mahito could never truly 'touch' Gojo's core.
It made sense. Sukuna did the exact same thing. Anyone who dared to touch Sukuna's soul would be instantly cleaved in two. These absolute monsters had embedded their techniques directly into their own souls! Even though no one had ever directly attacked their souls before Mahito came along, they had all unconsciously prepared for it anyway.
But even slowed down by tens of millions of times, it was still tens of millions of times faster than a God's processing speed! The Dragon God could clearly feel that Gojo's soul was indeed being read. The calculation speed of a God was worlds apart from mortal creatures!
"I can hold out until your brain bursts from the information overload!" Gojo roared.
"Arrogant!" the Dragon God bellowed back.
Suddenly, the Dragon God looked up. The Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm was... being peeled away?! Above the soulless transmigration realm, pieces of the void began to flake off, revealing the empty sky beyond. The divine dragon orbiting the void didn't hesitate; it unleashed its breath, firing a massive, hyper-concentrated blast of cursed energy straight at the breach.
When Mahito designed his Domain Expansion, he accounted for the possibility of external intrusion. The Dragon Shikigami was meant specifically to prevent that! This dragon was a Special Grade Imaginary Vengeful Spirit formed by Mahito's Idle Transfiguration. By using a Binding Vow to relinquish direct control, Mahito granted the dragon an automatic counter-attack function.
He had planned for exactly this scenario!
Even the blurry void in the sky was a trap. Any external attack would find that, no matter where they struck the barrier, the damage would be redirected to that central void. Having the dragon patrol the void was equivalent to patrolling the entire outer shell of the Domain.
But the dragon's breath hit nothing. Because the force peeling away the Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm wasn't a jujutsu sorcerer. There was no one physically outside the void—
—It was a barrier even more colossal than a Domain Expansion!
Gojo's face lit up in realization. "Tengen! I totally forgot Tengen was trailing behind me!"
At the same moment, Infinite Void violently imploded. A chain shot out from the epicenter, instantly wrapping around Gojo's ankle. Gojo felt his cursed energy surge uncontrollably. The immense precision required to maintain his Domain Expansion plummeted, and Infinite Void was forcefully dispelled.
The Dragon God also had an epiphany. "Toji Fushiguro! Right, I told him to follow me!"
Gojo frowned deeply, his voice laced with disbelief. "You actually chose to resurrect Toji Fushiguro instead of Suguru?! Did you really think the current me would be scared of that guy? And even if Suguru is a curse-eradication extremist like Yuki Tsukumo, his ultimate goal was to stop ordinary people from being killed by Curses. As long as you promised to manage the Cursed Spirits, he probably would have listened to you. Because deep down, Suguru hates ordinary people far more than he hates Curses!"
The Dragon God fired back with equal incredulity. "The Japanese Barrier is sustained entirely by Tengen's Immortality technique. It's fundamentally impossible for Tengen to leave the Star Religious Group's Tombs! If she did, the barriers would collapse! But the barriers are fine, and Tengen has definitely left the Tombs. Who the hell is back there anchoring the Japanese Barrier right now?!"
Then, both men shouted at each other simultaneously:
"Despicable! Where's your pride as the modern era's strongest?!"
"Shameless! Where's your honor as a warrior?!"
Both Domain Expansions shattered simultaneously!
A tear in space ripped open behind Gojo. From the depths of the tear emerged a bizarre entity that looked like a thumb wrapped in cloth. Tengen had actually stepped out of her fortress and followed Gojo onto the battlefield! Nobody could have predicted this.
She formed a single hand sign, and Gojo was forcefully yanked back, extricated from his current state. The Dragon God tried to exploit the opening to swing his blade, but his movements hitched at the crucial moment.
Gojo couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Hahaha, isn't this useful?! How did my Infinite Void taste, Mahito?!"
The Dragon God looked up. In his heterochromatic eyes, the blue pupil suddenly shifted, expanding into the deep, terrifying color of the infinite sky. That color, as if swallowing the entire atmosphere, wiped the smile right off Gojo's face.
The Dragon God smiled. "Infinite Void tastes fine, but it doesn't compare to the flavor of your Six Eyes, Satoru!"
Gojo took a deep breath. "Are you telling me... next time, I'm going to have to fight my own Limitless and the Six Eyes?"
"I'll need some time to adapt," the Dragon God chuckled, his voice echoing from deep within his visor. "Look forward to it, Satoru."
Gojo took one last look at the Dragon God, stomped his foot to break the chain, and turned to leave. But just then, the Dragon God spoke.
"Hey, Satoru."
Gojo paused, glancing back.
"See you next time," Mahito said.
Gojo blinked, then a grin spread across his face. "Yeah. See you next time."
The spatial tear healed, and Gojo vanished. Yet the Dragon God remained frozen in his sword-swinging posture, entirely motionless.
He stayed like that for half an hour. Then, a massive tree burst from the underground, its canopy blooming like a flower bud. Hanami and Toji Fushiguro stepped out.
The reason a fully-focused Satoru Gojo failed to detect Toji Fushiguro was simple: Hanami. Hanami's concealment abilities were so absolute that even Gojo couldn't pierce them. As a Special Grade Cursed Spirit born of nature, Hanami was closer to an elemental spirit than a Curse, allowing seamless blending into the natural ecosystem.
Couple that with the fact that Toji Fushiguro possessed exactly zero cursed energy—meaning Gojo's Six Eyes couldn't track him without directly looking at him, a fact proven back in high school—and it was the ultimate double-insurance. Right until the very end, Gojo never noticed the ambush waiting beneath his feet.
Toji, carefully concealed by Hanami, looked at the Dragon God. He scratched his spiky hair and sighed. "That guy has gotten pretty terrifying, huh? I was hoping to try and sneak attack him... Heh. In the end, I didn't even have the capability to launch an ambush."
Hanami explained: *[Miss Utahime was picked up immediately. We suspected a highly capable barrier sorcerer was trailing them, so we tried to find them first. When we couldn't track them no matter what, I knew we were in serious trouble.]*
If Hanami's sensory abilities had a chance of missing something, Toji Fushiguro's superhuman instincts absolutely did not. The fact that their carpet search couldn't deduce how Utahime was extracted, nor locate her destination, meant the mystery sorcerer was undeniably Special Grade.
With those two searching, even Yuki Tsukumo wouldn't have been able to escape their notice.
Toji added, "We did find the car Gojo arrived in, and the driver. The guy was smart; he parked five kilometers away. But we figured it was a decoy, so we decided to just wait here."
It was the only logical move. Knowing a Special Grade sorcerer was lurking out there, leaving a car out in the open was obviously a trap to lure them in.
If they had been lower-grade sorcerers, neither Hanami nor Toji would have cared. But knowing the opponent was at least on Yuki Tsukumo's level, they weren't going to blindly walk into a snare.
The Dragon God seemed unfazed. "Say no more. I trust your judgment. Remember our pre-battle strategy? Even if I'm dying, if you assess that saving me isn't worth the risk, then don't save me."
Toji's heart twinged slightly. He fell silent.
After a pause, the Dragon God asked, "How is Jogo?"
Hanami's voice was heavy with grief. *[Brain death. He was caught in the shockwave of your battle with Gojo. He was blown to nothingness.]*
"Tragic," the Dragon God sighed. "Once I recover, I'll fish him out of the river of souls."
Toji frowned, studying the Dragon God. "They probably aren't coming back for round two. How long are you going to stay like this? We still need to go pick up Dagon."
Dagon was currently waiting by the distant sea. According to the original plan, if Mahito couldn't defeat Gojo, he would retreat toward the ocean. He would use Jogo as a sacrificial rearguard, merge with Dagon, and continue his escape into the deep sea.
No matter how strong Gojo was, his combat effectiveness would be heavily restricted at the bottom of the ocean, maximizing their chances of survival. Who could have predicted the battle would escalate so violently that this fallback plan wouldn't even be needed?
The Dragon God remained perfectly still, not even lowering the arm holding Kirigiri. He spoke faintly, "Give me a minute. My brain is still a mess. I might sound fine, but I'm faking it. If I dare to drop this state right now, I will definitively suffer brain death... I've truly witnessed the horror of Infinite Void."
Toji stared blankly. "...Wait. So we were the ones who got let off the hook? I was wondering why you were holding that 'Zanshin' posture. Turns out, boss, you weren't keeping up your guard in case they came back—you literally couldn't put your arms down!"
Hanami immediately turned to glare furiously at Toji. *[Both sides were in a state of Black Flash awakening! Mahito is only struggling to process the information now because he finally relaxed! If the fight had continued, the outcome would be completely unpredictable. Mahito did not lose!]*
Hanami had no eyes; where pupils should be, branch-like antlers grew. This made her 'glare' particularly terrifying when she directed her anger at someone. Toji simply threw his hands up in surrender, too lazy to argue.
"No need to argue, Hanami," the Dragon God said, his tone loaded with meaning. "This time, I really couldn't keep up. If the Domain clash had lasted any longer, my brain would have been fried by Infinite Void before I could overwrite Gojo's soul. But it's only this one time... There won't be a next time."