The conceptual foundation of the Dragon Spirit Body originally derived from the technique Mahito used right before his death in the original timeline: [Idle Transfiguration: Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing]. Its description was: *'A transformed state achieved when Mahito realized the true essence and shape of his own soul. After transforming, Mahito loses the ability to alter his shape, but his physical durability and muscular strength are exponentially amplified, essentially evolving him into a higher-dimensional entity vastly superior to his previous form.'*
Building upon that foundation, Mahito had analyzed Gojo's method of stockpiling Positive Energy within his organs, taking it a step further to manifest the Dragon Spirit Body.
Mahito achieved this through his absolute dominion over the flesh. Theoretically, unless one possessed a similar ability to fundamentally alter their own biology starting from the soul, it was utterly impossible to replicate Mahito's transformation. Even in the original narrative, this remained Mahito's exclusive ultimate technique; neither Sukuna nor Gojo could ever hope to replicate it.
But the current Satoru Gojo had carved out an entirely different path to achieve the exact same result.
To a normal sorcerer, the soul was an esoteric mystery. But Gojo had unraveled it. Since Sukuna could subconsciously engrave his technique into his soul, logic dictated that Gojo could do the same. Gojo had forcefully engraved his own technique into the very fabric of his soul.
As for the requirement of 'absolute dominion over the flesh', he bypassed it entirely using the Six Eyes.
It was exponentially more difficult than it sounded. As Gojo had confessed to Tengen, he couldn't directly manipulate flesh with his technique. He could only manipulate it *indirectly* through the hyper-precise circulation of Cursed Energy and the atomic spatial domination of the Limitless. In terms of flexibility and ease of use, it was vastly inferior to Idle Transfiguration.
But as long as the theoretical possibility existed, Satoru Gojo could achieve it.
From the soul down to the flesh, he achieved total biological domination. The final step—establishing the continuous circulation of positive and negative energy like Mahoraga—was actually the easiest part, thanks to the processing power of the Six Eyes.
And the exact moment that positive-negative energy cycle stabilized, Satoru Gojo truly [Evolved].
His physical specs, his energy circulation, the restructuring of his technique, the ascension of his soul—it was as if he had been fundamentally accepted and branded by Heaven itself the moment he was born. In that instant, Gojo truly comprehended the essence of divinity.
This was a genuine [Divine Body].
[Divine Body: Shakyamuni]!
The Six Eyes were inherently the 'Eyes of Gods and Buddhas'. And now, possessing the [Divine Body: Kurikara], with his positive-negative energy cycle fully active, Satoru Gojo had elevated himself to an existential tier perfectly equal to the [Dragon Spirit Body].
—A God and a Buddha.
*THUD.*
The foreheads of [God] and [Buddha] slammed together. Gojo and Mahito locked eyes at point-blank range. A harsh, grating screech echoed as their metallic faceplates ground against each other. Despite radiating the sacred, divine aura of a God and a Buddha, they were violently clashing like two starving, rabid beasts.
"You truly bring me joy, Satoru!" The Dragon God's voice boomed like a sudden clap of thunder tearing through a torrential downpour—a sound ancient humans would have worshipped as divine fury. "Yes! This is exactly it! This is the final battle I've been waiting for!"
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mahito." The Buddha's voice resonated with a deep, heavy timber, like an ancient temple bell struck by a massive wooden beam. "But calling this the 'final battle' is a bit presumptuous... Our real fight is only just beginning!"
*BOOM!*
The two of them violently launched themselves backward. A colossal, screeching sound of spatial distortion erupted between them—the visual manifestation of Black Flash. Both the Dragon God and the Buddha had simultaneously unleashed a Black Flash, crashing them against each other without a microsecond of hesitation. The spatial dislocation lasted for a mere fraction of a second, but as reality violently snapped back to heal the tear, the resulting spatial backflow triggered a massive detonation. Gale-force winds and shockwaves expanded outward in a perfect, colossal halo of divine light.
The Dragon God suddenly hurled Kirigiri straight at the Buddha. Kirigiri's blade had been snapped by the God-Slaying Sword, but even as a broken blade, it retained terrifying lethality. The moment it left the Dragon God's hand, the broken blade flared with dark Cursed Energy. A Black Flash!
Kirigiri possessed a genuine, independent consciousness. Since she was sentient and could manipulate Cursed Energy, she was naturally capable of unleashing a Black Flash on her own. The spatial distortion tore through the air, leaving a pitch-black contrail like a dark meteor.
The Buddha made no attempt to dodge. He simply pulled his fist back and threw a punch the moment Kirigiri reached his face. Even though Kirigiri was hurtling toward him at hypersonic speeds, through the Six Eyes, it looked as if she were crawling. At this exact moment, there was absolutely nothing in existence the Six Eyes couldn't perceive. Every single connection, every atomic factor in the universe, was laid bare before the Buddha, as clear as the lines on his own palm. The absolute secrets of reality were unfurled. He didn't need to learn them; he simply needed to acknowledge them.
*CRASH!*
It didn't sound like a fist striking a blade. It didn't even sound like metal striking metal. It sounded like a thunderbolt striking the earth! As the Buddha threw his punch, dark Cursed Energy naturally erupted from his knuckles. A Black Flash! Kirigiri's Black Flash and the Buddha's Black Flash violently collided. Space contorted agonizingly. Cursed Energy instantly vaporized under the sheer stress of the spatial distortion, culminating in a catastrophic explosion that echoed like a primordial roar from the dawn of time.
The Dragon God lowered his hand. From his shadow, a brand new Mirokuji Kirigiri slowly breached the surface, hilt first. He gripped the hilt firmly and smoothly drew the blade from the shadow, like unsheathing a katana from its scabbard.
Mirokuji Kirigiri was currently a vessel for three distinct souls. Aside from her own, the other two were the Ten Shadows' [Rabbit Escape] and [Mahoraga]. The God-Slaying Sword had undeniably severed the active Kirigiri, but thanks to the infinite replication of Rabbit Escape, her true 'original' form remained safely harbored within the Dragon God's shadow. If one blade broke, another was always ready to take its place.
The Buddha began to sprint.
With a casual flick of his wrist, the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] flew back into his grasp. The staff, capable of eradicating all Cursed Energy phenomena, now pulsed with a vibrant, unnatural golden halo. But this halo would absolutely never affect the Buddha himself. Possessing the body and eyes of a god granted the Buddha absolute, sovereign control over all energy within the world. He could freely dictate the exact radius of the Purifying Chime, allowing him to seamlessly toggle between utilizing Cursed Energy and Positive Energy on the fly.
Gojo had never experienced such uninhibited, absolute freedom in wielding Cursed Energy. He effortlessly flexed the Limitless's spatial domination. As he sprinted, a trail of lingering phantoms manifested behind him. He was setting spatial anchors with every single step, casually running along the very edges of spacetime. While in this state, absolutely no attack could touch his physical body. He was a phantom drifting through time.
The most fundamental application of the Limitless was the compression and expansion of space. By combining those two opposing forces simultaneously, he created Hollow Technique: Purple.
But now, the Buddha pushed that concept to an entirely new echelon. He was engraving the concept of the Hollow Technique directly into the fabric of spacetime itself.
Buddhism speaks of the 'Three Thousand Worlds'—the multiverse. And now, the Buddha was literally manifesting those Three Thousand Worlds onto reality. An endless array of Hollow Techniques bloomed outward, not as destructive forces, but as acts of pure creation. Within these freely expanding and contracting localized spacetimes, the Buddha stood at the center, overlooking the myriad phenomena of creation.
Suddenly, a blinding flash of light severed the Buddha!
The Dragon God casually swung Mirokuji Kirigiri. The Cleaving Line, like a streak of silver lightning, carved itself directly into the continuous spatial anchors. Even the ultimate domination of space couldn't defend against a blade that inherently severed space itself. The phantom of spacetime was caught and cut down by the blade that severed spacetime.
Prior to this, the Dragon God had no idea the Hollow Technique could be elevated to such a conceptual degree. But the moment he witnessed it, the Dragon God—who also possessed the Limitless and the Six Eyes via Mimicry—instantly replicated it. Just like the Buddha, he began arbitrarily forging new spatial dimensions, diving headfirst into the Buddha's Three Thousand Worlds, relentlessly hunting him down like a rabid bloodhound.
The Buddha brought the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] across his chest. A microsecond later, Kirigiri clashed against the staff.
The battle had completely transcended the boundaries of human comprehension. The two combatants had physically phased into the gaps between spacetime to clash. The impact of the staff and the sword produced absolutely no sound, because sound physically could not exist within the void of spacetime. To any outside observer, the entire world appeared to be filled with countless afterimages of their clash, frozen in every conceivable corner of the sky. An instant later, all the phantoms would vanish as the self-correcting nature of spacetime swallowed them up, making them look like fleeting flashes of lightning.
Suddenly, an apocalyptic series of explosions detonated. A distant, booming roar slowly expanded outward with terrifying, divine majesty. Fragments of spacetime began to visibly shatter from the epicenter of the roar. The barrier of [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm] violently shuddered. The gargantuan barrier, large enough to envelop the entirety of Japan, was slowly beginning to crack and crumble due to the localized shattering of spacetime. Their battle within the temporal void was bleeding into reality, and reality was collapsing under the strain.
This was a true War of Gods. Both fighters had entirely abandoned mundane physical combat, instead weaponizing their absolute authority over space itself. The Limitless had never been utilized in such a terrifying manner. It was no longer simple compression and expansion; it was the arbitrary molding and manipulation of space like clay.
Amidst the chaos, the explosive flashes of light were the visual byproduct of space being violently distorted past its breaking point. These massive spatial ruptures generated incomprehensible amounts of raw energy. This energy could only detonate within the real world. Shockwaves and superheated winds swept across the globe at terrifying speeds—covering hundreds of kilometers, thousands of kilometers, tens of thousands of kilometers!
The first to burst out of the spacetime void was the Dragon God!
Plummeting from the heavens, amidst an energy eruption spanning tens of thousands of kilometers, the Dragon God raised Mirokuji Kirigiri high and brought it down.
The apocalyptic roar of the explosion seemingly vanished. It was an explosion of pure energy, yet a distinct slash mark was cleanly engraved directly into the erupting energy itself. The Cleaving Line! At this stage, Kirigiri's Cleaving Line had ascended to the point where it could sever abstract concepts that couldn't be touched by physical phenomena. The Cleaving Line treated the colossal energy eruption as a conceptual canvas, acting as a razor blade tracing a dotted line. As the blade slid through, the entire phenomenon of the energy explosion was cleanly bisected.
A pitch-black, hair-thin line appeared in the sky. A massive spatial backflow immediately followed. The apocalyptic spacetime detonation that threatened to shatter the Nirvana Realm barrier was entirely sucked into an unknown void by the black line. Wild gales howled, and a colossal sandstorm engulfed the entire barrier. Visually, it was vastly larger than the previous energy explosion, but its actual destructive payload was infinitesimally smaller. The crisis had been averted.
A spacetime phantom flickered into existence directly above the Dragon God. The staff crashed down.
*CLANG!*
The staff and the blade collided, sending a brilliant shower of sparks skittering across the clashing metal. The Buddha rapidly toggled the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]'s Purifying Chime on and off, flickering the golden halo like a strobe light. Relying on the Six Eyes' terrifying processing speed, he constantly altered the Chime's parameters, seamlessly weaving Cursed Energy and Positive Energy together. The fastest supercomputer in the modern world operated at 1.1 exaflops per second; the Buddha was toggling the staff's abilities at a speed that vastly eclipsed that metric.
The Buddha roared with laughter. "What's wrong, Mahito?! Are you seriously telling me you still have the spare capacity to worry about your barrier right now?! Do you actually think you can sustain your ascension ritual while fighting me like this?!"
Their battlefield had completely transcended physical reality, operating entirely on high-dimensional concepts. They weren't even fighting in the real world anymore; their arena was the Three Thousand Worlds they had constructed using their absolute dominion over space. In terms of pure, unadulterated combat power, the Dragon God held an absolute advantage. However, the Buddha's mobility scaled exponentially alongside the expansion of the Three Thousand Worlds. Within that labyrinth of dimensions, the Dragon God was forced to prioritize fighting for spatial dominance, only occasionally finding openings to unleash a Space-Cleaving slash as a lethal deterrent.
The foundational building block of everything in the universe is space. And in the hands of a god, the Limitless—which granted absolute control over space—functioned as an omnipotent equation. Prior to this, Gojo never understood why the 'Eyes of Gods and Buddhas' discarded by Tengen had specifically bound themselves to the Gojo clan's Limitless. But now that he had truly achieved divinity, he finally understood.
All laws of reality are anchored in spacetime. And he was now the absolute master of spacetime. This was the true meaning of: *Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one.*
This was the true power of—
—[Shakyamuni]!
Suddenly, the exact microsecond the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] and Mirokuji Kirigiri clashed, a hand shot out and gripped the shaft of the staff.
The Dragon God had finally made direct physical contact with the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey].
"I am truly relieved," the Dragon God said softly, his voice unexpectedly gentle.
He murmured, "Satoru... If you had chosen to remain hidden within the Three Thousand Worlds, even I would have been forced to spend millennia hunting down your shadow. And even if I finally cornered you, you could have just detonated the spacetime around you to escape. I would have had no choice but to chase you into eternity, right up until the end of the world. But you didn't do that. The moment I stepped out of the Three Thousand Worlds, you chose to emerge and face me directly. Your heart is overflowing with the courage to confront me. You are facing me with absolute resolve to die."
Mahito wasn't lying. If Gojo had truly committed to playing hide-and-seek, Mahito genuinely wouldn't have been able to catch him.
Time is simply the other side of the spatial coin. As Gojo's ultimate domination over space continued to elevate, it would inevitably bleed into the manipulation of time. While the current Gojo hadn't yet grasped temporal manipulation, as the battle dragged on, it was only a matter of time.
Once the Limitless encompassed both space and time, its nature would fundamentally change. Gojo would be able to freely traverse the 4.6 billion years of the Earth's history. Against a temporal evasion ability of that magnitude, Mahito's only option to kill Gojo would be to escalate his own abilities to match.
The ultimate advantage of an 'Infinite' technique is the ability to constantly invent countermeasures. But against an opponent who could freely traverse time, even an infinite technique could only try to counter them one by one through sheer trial and error.
Gojo hadn't truly become a Buddha yet. His current state was identical to Mahito wearing the Dragon God armor. The Mahito wearing the armor was a God; the Mahito without it was just Mahito. He hadn't truly ascended yet; it was just his ultimate technique.
The same applied to Gojo. Clad in the Buddha armor, he was a Buddha. Strip it away, and he was just a human.
The human mind has a hard limit on the strain it can endure. At the end of the day, this was just an active technique. Gojo wasn't a literal, eternal Buddha; he couldn't maintain this state forever. Therefore, dragging the fight out was objectively the most advantageous strategy for Mahito. Gojo's Buddha armor was sustained indirectly through the Six Eyes and the Limitless, whereas Mahito's Dragon God armor was a fundamental biological restructuring via Idle Transfiguration. In terms of sheer endurance, the Dragon God armor vastly outlasted the Buddha armor.
If the fight dragged on, it could very well devolve into an eternal game of cat-and-mouse, a war spanning the past, present, and future, with the final clash taking place at the very end of time, during the final fifteen minutes before the universe collapsed.
Gojo's inevitable fate in that scenario was complete mental burnout. He would plummet from godhood back to humanity, forced to face the judgment of a god as a mere mortal. But until that inevitable end, Gojo could have kept running.
But Gojo didn't choose that path.
He chose to face Mahito head-on!
When the Dragon God stepped out of the Three Thousand Worlds to stabilize the Nirvana Realm barrier, the Buddha didn't just watch from the sidelines. He decisively descended to strike.
The Buddha intended to crush the Dragon God with his own absolute power, in a direct, head-on clash!
And in that exact moment, the Dragon God finally managed to grab the Buddha's physical weapon.
The Dragon God looked up, locking his gaze with the Buddha's eyes.
He sighed softly. "I win, Satoru."
"ARROGANT FOOL—!" the Buddha roared, instantly activating the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]. Purifying Chime!
Regardless of what ability the Dragon God attempted to use next, the Purifying Chime would completely nullify it. This was the exact reason Gojo had dared to step out of the Three Thousand Worlds. This Divine Artifact was a hard counter to Mahito's infinite techniques, forcefully restricting the battle to a purely physical brawl to decide the victor.
This was the absolute power of the Divine Artifact, [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]!
*Crack.*
The Buddha's pupils slowly dilated.
Starting from the exact point where the Dragon God gripped it, the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] began to violently fracture.
Because their battle had so thoroughly transcended human logic, and because the staff and Kirigiri had clashed tens of millions of times, the Buddha had completely forgotten one crucial detail. The origin of the Divine Artifact [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] was nothing more than an ordinary wooden staff wielded by the historical monk Jianzhen. It was only due to the sheer weight of its legend and antiquity that it could be cultivated into a Divine Artifact via Tool Manipulation. Normally, the staff was reinforced by its wielder's Cursed Energy, and its Purifying Chime rendered it immune to all cursed phenomena.
Mirokuji Kirigiri operated on the exact same logic. Her original form was merely an antique replica of the legendary [Futsu-no-Mitama].
Naturally, because both had been tempered by Tool Manipulation, their base material durability vastly exceeded ordinary matter. Even without Cursed Energy reinforcement, their sheer physical hardness defied logic. But no matter how much they transcended common sense, their fundamental nature remained unchanged. Base physical durability was completely different from Cursed Energy reinforcement. They were not indestructible.
It was the exact same principle as 'Sukuna's Fingers'. The reason the fingers were indestructible wasn't because the bone itself was infinitely dense; it was because they were protected by a profoundly powerful Curse.
Once the Curse was eradicated, the fingers could be destroyed like anything else.
And right now, to prevent the Dragon God from using Cursed Energy, the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] had actively deployed the Purifying Chime. The Cursed Energy reinforcement of *both* combatants was simultaneously erased.
Therefore, the only forces acting upon the weapons were not Cursed Energy, but pure, unadulterated physical mechanics.
And right now, the Dragon God's raw physical grip strength was completely uninhibited!
This was exactly why the Dragon God had been so determined to grab the staff during their clash. At this exact microsecond, whether the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] shattered or survived depended entirely on the Dragon God's whim. And without the staff... there was absolutely nothing left in this world capable of resisting Mirokuji Kirigiri's Cleaving Line.
The victor would be decided in this very instant!
—*SHIT!*
The Buddha instantly canceled the Purifying Chime. Operating at a processing speed far exceeding 1.1 exaflops, he could toggle the ability off just as fast. The microsecond the Chime dropped, Cursed Energy reinforcement and the Limitless instantly flooded back into the staff.
But in that exact same microsecond, the Dragon God spoke.
The Dragon God exhaled, "Domain Expansion—"
He declared:
"—Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm!"