The reason Ryomen Sukuna showed no fear despite knowing he was currently no match for Gojo Satoru was simple: He was indeed confident he could truly defeat Gojo, and he could even use Gojo to recover his strength faster, reaching an even higher level!
Near the end of his conversation with Tsumiki Fushiguro, Sukuna specifically asked her if the exchange was absolutely safe. In fact, prior to this, he had already vaguely sensed the true gameplay of this Dream Migration, but he needed confirmation from Tsumiki precisely because he was ready to [Ascend].
The logic was simple: Since this was a genuine [Apotheosis Ritual], and since the Lord of Cursed Spirits could become a god, why couldn't he himself use this [Apotheosis Ritual] to become a god? In this game where everyone had a chance, the Lord of Cursed Spirits wasn't the only player.
This was his thought, and this was his action.
He intended to use this game to restore his own strength at maximum speed. This strength would not be obtained by eating his fingers, but by directly exchanging points! This was not impossible. If he had revived via a [Vessel], he would indeed need to eat all the fingers because each finger contained part of his soul. Only by gathering all fingers could he return to his true prime.
But this time was different. This resurrection was a complete revival. His soul was fully resurrected within the Lord of Cursed Spirits' Domain Expansion. Upon revival, he was flawless; his soul and power had no defects. He was, in the truest sense, in his prime.
After that, he fought the Lord of Cursed Spirits, and his soul was torn apart piece by piece until he fell to the power level of only one finger, at which point he was thrown into the Sakurajima Colony.
What did this imply?
His entire soul information—was right in the hands of the Lord of Cursed Spirits!
Just as in the original work, even without the final finger, Kenjaku found his [Mummy] to supplement the power of the last finger. Why could the [Mummy] make up for the power of the last finger? Because that [Mummy] contained his soul and body information, perfectly compensating for the missing soul information.
The situation now was the same. His fingers scattered elsewhere totaled 20. Because his complete soul and body information was recorded by the Lord of Cursed Spirits, it could be exchanged for on the menu. His total power now—
—Totaled the power of 40 fingers!
This was why, despite having the power of only one finger when thrown down and not having eaten any fingers, Gojo asserted upon seeing him that he had the power of 2 or 3 fingers. He had gained power by exchanging points. This power was no different from the power of the fingers. He could continue to exchange until he redeemed his complete soul and body information.
Of course, if it were purely about gathering full power, 20 fingers would suffice. The other 20 were not useless, but would only serve as icing on the cake. Sukuna did not intend to waste the power of the extra 20 fingers.
He planned to rely on a [Binding Vow] to consume the power of the extra fingers to digest additional Innate Techniques at maximum speed.
Yes, specifically *Ten Shadows Technique* and *Copy Technique*. Could it succeed?
For other sorcerers, even if that sorcerer was Kenjaku or Gojo Satoru, it would be impossible. The time and energy required to push a technique to its limit was staggering. In the original work, when Yuta Okkotsu used the brain-swap to fight in Gojo's corpse, he lamented inwardly: *[How much effort did Gojo-sensei put into this?]*
Even Gojo Satoru needed immense effort to train the Six Eyes and Limitless to their current level. Other sorcerers didn't have a ten-thousandth of Gojo's talent; how could they reach that level in such a short time?
But if it was Ryomen Sukuna, he had done this exact thing in the original work!
Having possessed Megumi Fushiguro's *Ten Shadows* for less than a month, he could use the *Ten Shadows* at a level Megumi himself couldn't achieve.
The only difference was that in the original work, there was no convenient barrier like the Dream Migration, nor extra finger power for him to burn. He had simply used his knowledge and skill to raise the *Ten Shadows* capability. Now, after raising it to the limit, Sukuna had a new ambition...
To use the *Ten Shadows Technique* beyond common sense!
Sukuna was extraordinarily confident. Not just with *Ten Shadows*, but with *Copy Technique* as well. After using his extra fingers to push these two techniques to their limits, he would use his knowledge and skill to break through that limit directly, arriving at an unprecedented realm.
In that way, Ryomen Sukuna would become truly flawless.
[Perfect Body] + [Own Technique] + [Ten Shadows Technique] + [Copy Technique]. With this, who under the heavens could withstand him?!
Even the final Apotheosis Ritual of this Dream Migration would likely be in the bag!
To start all this, he first needed to collect a massive amount of points. In this Dream Migration, was there a faster way to collect points than a death match? No, there wasn't. And now, a sorcerer named Gojo Satoru was here to fight him to the death. How could Sukuna not accept the challenge? How could he not use this to acquire massive points?
No, there wasn't. There was no better situation than this.
Ryomen Sukuna roared loudly: "Come... Gojo Satoru, let's fight!"
*Crunch, crunch.* Mahito ate potato chips, nodding happily. "That's right, that's right! Sukuna, your future holds the power of 40 fingers. Grow well, grow until you surprise even me!"
Mahito currently had a screen open in front of him, playing the earth-shattering battle between Ryomen Sukuna and Gojo Satoru. He watched this fight with high spirits and a smile, carefully sensing the operation of the Dream Migration Barrier, feeling as refreshed physically and mentally as if soaking in an open-air hot spring in winter.
Ryomen Sukuna's guesses were correct. In fact, they were accurate at every conjecture node: Mahito indeed held all of Sukuna's soul and body information.
Mahito had indeed placed all this information on the exchange menu without hiding anything.
Within the entire Dream Migration, Sukuna could indeed collect the power of 40 fingers.
Finally, with Sukuna's ability, he could indeed consume the extra finger power to acquire the limit capabilities of *Ten Shadows* and *Copy*. And with Sukuna's knowledge, technique, and talent, he could indeed break through the limits of these two techniques within these two months, reaching an unprecedented strongest state, enough to rival the current [Dragon God] Mahito.
And due to the massive Binding Vow of the Dream Migration, Mahito couldn't even stop Sukuna from doing this. He could only watch him get stronger, eventually participating in the final Apotheosis Ritual to compete for the qualification of [Godhood] with his own power.
Ryomen Sukuna—had calculated everything perfectly. save for one point he got wrong.
—These thoughts, action trajectories, and even his resolve, were all imprinted with a [Thought Imprint] by Mahito personally.
"After all, you probably can't imagine what specific Binding Vow I made. If you knew, you wouldn't have fallen into the trap so simply," Mahito sighed, eating chips and smiling. "'Jujutsu battles are information battles'—that sentence truly pierces through the core of the entire original work. Gojo died to Sukuna's carefully designed World Slash, and Sukuna died to his own last finger, to Megumi Fushiguro's final awakening. Unexpected attacks are the deadliest [Gungnir]."
Ryomen Sukuna had judged that Mahito's Domain Expansion [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm] was the *hub* of this [Dream Migration Barrier], and that all Cursed Energy residuals would ultimately be swallowed by this hub and spat back out via the [Nirvana Realm]. In fact, Sukuna had indeed seen that spewing hub location, which made him even more certain of his judgment.
Not just Sukuna—even Gojo Satoru with his Six Eyes would likely reach the same conclusion if he looked.
But this was wrong. In fact—
—The entire [Dream Migration] was built *inside* the [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm]!
So, it wasn't that the [Nirvana Realm] was the hub of the [Dream Migration]. On the contrary, the [Dream Migration] was the hub of the [Nirvana Realm]! Cursed Energy residuals were never swallowed and spat in a cycle by a hub. From the very beginning, they were circulating inside the larger Domain Expansion, [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm]!
Was this possible?
Actually, this situation existed in the original work:
During the final battle between Gojo and Sukuna, both manipulated the range of their Domain Expansions during combat. So as long as one had sufficient control and Cursed Energy, any exaggerated range could be realized. Mahito possessed the [Six Eyes] and [Infinite Cursed Energy]. If he had the patience, he could even encompass the entire Earth within his Domain Expansion single-handedly.
Besides that, another reason he could do such an exaggerated thing was: This was the [Dream Migration]. All their actions were entirely within a [Dream].
"Oh oh, here it comes, here it comes!" Mahito suddenly perked up. He sat up straight, looking at the screen. "Even I couldn't replicate this behavior from the original work no matter how hard I tried, and now it finally appears."
On the screen, after being killed by Gojo about 5 times, Sukuna finally couldn't bear it anymore and used the technique from the original work—
Behind his head, a [Dharma Wheel] suddenly appeared.
This [Wheel] represented Mahoraga's adaptation ability. Every time the wheel turned, Mahoraga's adaptation progress bar would grow. Once the wheel finished turning, it meant Mahoraga had fully adapted to the current attack.
However, usually, this [Wheel] only appeared on Mahoraga after it was summoned. But in the original work, Sukuna used some unknown method to make himself part of the adaptation process. Although Mahoraga could adapt to all attacks, it had a fatal weakness: it wasn't very [Tough] in the eyes of true powerhouses. Methods to one-shot it existed. For this reason, Sukuna specifically shifted the pre-adaptation process to himself.
The effect was that the sorcerer used their own body to pre-adapt to attacks. Once adaptation was complete, Mahoraga would emerge from the shadows with full resistance to the countered ability. Sukuna had once used this move to break the ancient sorcerers' Domain Expansions and Perfect Sphere, a technique worthy of being called an insidious ultimate move.
Mahito had been researching this ability ever since he obtained the *Ten Shadows*, but while reading the manga made it look simple, the actual principles weren't revealed at all. He only knew it *could* be done, but not *how* or *why*. Mahito instantly became convinced that for things requiring a combination of theory and knowledge, one really couldn't do without a teacher.
But he couldn't do it. Isn't there a capable [Teacher] right here [Teaching] him?
Remember the ability of [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm]?
Aside from resurrection, its ability was to unconditionally touch the souls of all living beings within the barrier! In the Domain battle with Gojo, even though Gojo imprinted his *Limitless* onto his own soul, the [Nirvana Realm]'s soul touch could still forcibly read it!
Sukuna misjudged. If Mahito's Domain Expansion were merely the hub, then as long as Sukuna appropriately withheld his information, that withheld part could never truly flow into Mahito's hands. But the [Nirvana Realm] wasn't an internal hub, but the external barrier! This was equivalent to everyone in the [Dream Migration] actually being inside Mahito's Domain Expansion, having their soul information read every moment of every day!
The true [Binding Vow] Mahito placed on the [Dream Migration] was:
—Never use the direct or indirect offensive capabilities of [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm], in exchange for the ability to read the soul information of everyone inside the barrier at all times. This Binding Vow would last until the final moment of the Apotheosis Ritual.
The price of this extremely harsh Binding Vow bought Mahito the ability he needed most.
Mahito formed a seal with his hands, watching Sukuna's movements on the screen.
—Reverse Cursed Technique.
—Soul Creation: Megumi Fushiguro.
—Technique Release. —Ten Shadows Technique!
Behind Mahito's head, a Dharma Wheel emerged.
At this very moment, the Cursed Energy residuals of all attacks and defenses within the [Dream Migration] surged endlessly into Mahito. These residuals were too weak to affect Mahito at all, but they undeniably touched his body.
And so, the wheel suddenly turned a notch.
Mahoraga's adaptation ability was achieved through changes in Cursed Energy, determining the time required for adaptation based on the frequency of attacks received. Such minute Cursed Energy residuals meant that in a normal state, even years or decades of combat might not result in true adaptation.
But—this was the [Dream Migration]!
At all times, every minute and every second, Cursed Energy residuals accumulated in astonishing quantities. True, normal accumulation might take years or decades, but what if it accumulated every second of every moment like this? How long would it take then?
Mahito watched the screen. Naturally, Sukuna died yet again. He smiled and thanked the Sukuna on the screen:
"Thanks a bunch, [Professor] Sukuna."