This was the end! Both the Dragon God and the Buddha knew it with absolute certainty.
The Dragon God held the scabbard with his left hand, his right hand resting lightly on Kirigiri's hilt. He lowered his head, as if deep in thought. It was the absolute, textbook posture for an Iaijutsu draw. A shockwave of Cursed Energy rippled outward from him, blanketing the entire world in a localized sphere of power. New Shadow Style Secret Art: [Simple Domain].
The Buddha's response was a single-handed sign.
"Domain Expansion—"
His voice boomed with the solemn, inescapable resonance of a twilight bell: "—Nihility of the Six Realms: Infinite Void!"
Ever since Gojo realized his standard Infinite Void was useless against the Dragon God, he had been agonizing over how to engage him in a Domain clash. The result of that endless deliberation was what he was unleashing right now.
A space of absolute nothingness abruptly overwrote the world. This was a true, absolute void, devoid of all physical matter. In his previous Infinite Void, this empty space merely served as a backdrop while an endless, torrential flood of raw information forcefully lobotomized any sentient creature trapped within.
But now, this absolute void possessed genuine, lethal offensive power.
This offensive power wasn't generated directly by the barrier itself. It was fueled by the victim's own imagination.
There was a famous psychological thought experiment circulating on the internet: *If you strap a man to a chair, blindfold him, and lightly trail a dull piece of metal across his wrist while telling him you've just slit his radial artery... and then you let him hear the rhythmic dripping of water hitting the floor, mimicking the sound of his own blood draining away...*
*Even though he suffered no actual physical harm, his subconscious would construct an absolute reality where his artery had been severed and he was bleeding out. His brain would accept this false information as undeniable truth. And once his brain accepted it—his body would genuinely begin to display the physical symptoms of extreme blood loss.*
*And ultimately, that man would die of 'blood loss' without shedding a single drop.*
The experiment was, of course, a myth—a macabre urban legend. But Satoru Gojo's new Domain Expansion turned that myth into terrifying reality.
Subconscious illusions would forcefully invade the minds of everyone trapped inside the barrier. If the target 'felt' a blade slice them, they would instantly comprehend the lethal implications of that wound. This information would deceive their brain. And the moment their brain accepted it—*the target's physical body would spontaneously generate that exact, lethal wound.*
Because the damage was entirely self-inflicted via the target's own absolute conviction, no amount of physical durability or regenerative power could counter it. Take immortality, for instance. If an immortal target truly, genuinely believed they had just been bisected, even if the conceptual attack wasn't inherently lethal to their immortal biology, the injury would refuse to heal. Why? Because the target's own subconscious imagination would forcefully override their regenerative factor. Their immortality would be neutralized by their own mind.
If a person genuinely imagined their own death, regardless of how terrifying or omnipotent their abilities were, they would die by their own imagination.
This was Satoru Gojo's [Nihility of the Six Realms: Infinite Void].
An ultimate execution technique designed specifically to bypass Mahito's immortality.
It didn't matter if the target consciously thought about death. The moment they entered this Domain, an infinite barrage of 'death triggers' would forcefully invade their mind. If the original Infinite Void was an information bombardment designed to induce brain death, then the effect of Nihility of the Six Realms was to forcefully drag the target's consciousness into the abyss of absolute mortality.
The Buddha unleashed a war cry: "MAHITO—HERE I COME!"
An infinite deluge of lethal information began to violently bombard the Dragon God. Even though the Dragon God maintained the absolute sanctuary of his Simple Domain, it couldn't perfectly filter out the conceptual onslaught. And if even a single microscopic fragment of that lethal information breached his mind, the Dragon God would die instantly. Because the death was fueled by his own imagination, he wouldn't even be able to trigger his soul-based immortality.
This had nothing to do with whether his mind was calm. Even if he maintained the absolute, tranquil void of a martial arts grandmaster, it was useless. The sheer, overwhelming volume of information would effortlessly shatter the 'clear mirror, still water' state of mind.
In the afterlife space, Mahito had openly admitted that Gojo's evolved Domain Expansion could genuinely *threaten* his ascension. This was exactly why. As long as the concept of death invaded his mind, even a God would die by the power of his own imagination.
Therefore, there was only one possible countermeasure. He couldn't allow a single flaw in his defense. He had to crush it with absolute, overwhelming power!
His Simple Domain was rapidly degrading under the conceptual bombardment. The exact microsecond his Simple Domain shattered completely, the lethal information would flood his consciousness, and he would die. Thus, the Dragon God had only one option: kill Satoru Gojo before the Simple Domain collapsed!
Logically, the Buddha should be playing defensively right now, dragging the fight out until the Simple Domain collapsed, guaranteeing his victory.
—Normally, that would be the case.
But if he did that, he wouldn't be Satoru Gojo!
Mahito had explicitly chosen Simple Domain over Domain Expansion to secure a one-hit kill. Did anyone seriously think Gojo would just stand back and watch, relying on a war of attrition just because it was 'tactically advantageous'?
*Are you fucking kidding me?! Don't insult me!* Gojo roared in his heart.
The Buddha charged at the Dragon God, wielding the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]. As he sprinted, a massive trail of phantoms materialized behind him. These phantoms physically existed within the gaps of spacetime. Within the Buddha's Three Thousand Worlds, every single phantom was a true, physical manifestation of the Buddha. As he moved, the Buddha transformed into a continuous spacetime anomaly. He was simultaneously hidden within the fabric of reality and capable of striking from every conceivable angle across multiple dimensions. This was the true power of wearing the Three Thousand Worlds as a Kesa.
He was answering aggression with absolute aggression. He would shatter the Dragon God's defense through pure, hyper-kinetic violence and claim victory in the Domain clash.
The Buddha charged at the Dragon God. The [Strongest of the Modern Era] challenging the [Finite Omnipotent God]!
The Dragon God closed his eyes, completely extinguishing his own consciousness.
Idle Transfiguration could manipulate the soul. Ubermensch could manifest imagination into reality. The Manga technique could perfectly foresee the future. By synchronizing these three god-tier techniques, Mahito could force a living human to experience the absolute reality of their own afterlife, reversing causality to enforce death. This was the exact sequence he had just subjected the Buddha to.
Because the target was already conceptually 'dead', it didn't matter what abilities they possessed. The moment the target acknowledged their own death, reality would bend to make it true.
But ultimately, this was a 'heretical' path—a cheap trick designed for a guaranteed one-hit kill. The entire sequence relied entirely on the psychological mechanism of acceptance; the attack itself possessed zero inherent offensive power. If the target managed to reject death, the attack was utterly harmless.
So... what if he reversed the process?
What if he discarded the psychological mechanisms entirely and channeled the absolute totality of those three techniques purely into raw, unadulterated offensive power?
This would be a slash that transcended even Shinmyoken.
Shinmyoken was the sword that reached the gods—a god-slaying strike unleashed by mortal hands. But the current Dragon God was a genuine, literal deity. Shinmyoken could no longer channel the totality of the Dragon God's true power. At its core, Shinmyoken was a technique pushed to its absolute limits by the half-curse Mahito while under extreme pressure from Yuki Tsukumo.
The current Dragon God's existential weight vastly eclipsed the Mahito of the past.
The current Dragon God required a blade that truly embodied the apocalyptic wrath of heaven.
The Dragon God exhaled. "Piercing the Mortal Realm."
The Buddha's pupils shrank to pinpricks. Mahito had always executed Shinmyoken in absolute silence, as still as a windless lake. Yet now, locked in an Iaijutsu stance, he had begun chanting an incantation for the very first time. This was no longer pure swordsmanship; it was the absolute fusion of sword and jujutsu. It was a strike that had never before existed in history.
Primal, screaming terror seized Gojo's instincts. His mind violently flashed back to the absolute inevitability of the afterlife space he had just escaped. Every ounce of logic in his brain screamed at him to stop advancing, to instantly drop his Domain Expansion, and to use the Three Thousand Worlds to hide in the furthest reaches of spacetime.
Fear gripped the Buddha's heart. His heart pounded with a deafening roar, faster and louder than any moment in his entire life. It was pure, unadulterated terror.
So, what was Satoru Gojo's choice?
The Buddha's lips curled into a manic grin.
—*ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?!*
A Jujutsu Sorcerer is a creature that dances on the razor's edge of death. The greater the terror, the greater the power. They weaponize fear, refining it into tangible, catastrophic Cursed Energy, surpassing all previous limits.
That is what it means to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. That is what it means to be... Satoru Gojo!
This unprecedented terror birthed an unprecedented surge of Cursed Energy. Having unleashed over a hundred Black Flashes during this apocalyptic battle, the Buddha's Cursed Energy was already circulating at a velocity that defied human comprehension. Fueled by the primal terror etched into his very DNA, that circulation erupted with a ferocity that shattered all previous boundaries.
Gojo had never felt such absolute, fanatical euphoria. In the space of a single breath, he completed his martial preparations, funneling the entirety of the Three Thousand Worlds directly into the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]. For the very first time, the technique [Tool Manipulation] truly synchronized with the voice of the Divine Artifact. The fractured, ancient weapon, having remained silent for millennia, finally answered its master's call. A brilliant halo ignited around the staff, but it wasn't the golden light of the Purifying Chime.
It was black.
The pitch-black distortion of a Black Flash!
This wasn't Satoru Gojo unleashing a Black Flash. This was the Divine Artifact, [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey], independently unleashing its own Black Flash to answer Gojo's will. And building upon that foundation, Gojo's hand gripping the staff also erupted with dark radiance. Another Black Flash.
The staff's Black Flash and Gojo's Black Flash merged seamlessly for the very first time. This was—
—A Fusion Black Flash.
The Buddha descended from the heavens... diving straight into the Dragon God's blade!
The absolute zenith of jujutsu is the art of subtraction. Incantations, hand signs, physical posturing—the true measure of a sorcerer's mastery is their ability to omit these necessary steps while still manifesting the technique.
But in this final moment, neither the Dragon God nor the Buddha omitted a single step. In perfect, terrifying synchronization, they both began to chant.
"Piercing the Mortal Realm," the Dragon God exhaled.
"Nine Ropes," the Buddha chanted simultaneously.
"Looking down upon Nihility."
The Dragon God gently gripped Kirigiri's hilt. The Ubermensch technique and Idle Transfiguration activated in perfect unison. Within the Dragon God's eyes, the manga panels of the absolute future rendered themselves.
"Polarized Light."
The dark radiance in the Buddha's hand merged flawlessly with the dark radiance of the staff. Accompanied by the infinite deluge of lethal information, terrifying visions of Buddhist hells materialized beneath the Buddha's golden halo, forming his divine throne.
"The Chasm of the Azure Void."
The Dragon God's voice was heavy and deliberate.
"Crow and Declaration."
The Buddha's voice echoed like the abyssal depths of the ocean.
"Infinite. Unhindered. Boundless." The Dragon God stomped his foot violently.
"Between Front and Back." The Buddha threw his Kesa wide.
And finally—
Satoru Gojo's Six Eyes dilated to their absolute limit. In his vision, every single connection, every fundamental building block of the world, was within arm's reach. The Six Eyes were originally designed to perceive the flow of Cursed Energy. But now, anchored by the Divine Body, they could perceive the very architectural code of reality itself. Infinite streams of information cascaded into Gojo's consciousness like a waterfall. He perfectly assimilated every drop of knowledge, every technique. His eyes completely saw through every single micro-movement the Dragon God was about to make.
Right now, he was a true, living Buddha. The Three Thousand Worlds unfolded, collapsing infinite possibilities into a single, absolute truth. That truth was the decree set by the Buddha. Every physical law expanded from the foundation of the Limitless would carry the absolute will of the Buddha.
And now, the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] perfectly harmonized with his will.
All concepts of death were forcefully dragged into the Domain Expansion [Nihility of the Six Realms: Infinite Void], transcending logic to be absorbed entirely by the Fusion Black Flash. And within that ultimate culmination of lethal imagination lay the Buddha's own ultimate comprehension of death.
The enlightened state of the Buddha—to transcend death by fully comprehending it.
That was—
[Fusion Black Flash: Purification of the Six Roots].
The Buddha swung down, delivering the final blow.
—Or did he?
The [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey] froze in mid-air. The Three Thousand Worlds draped across the Buddha's shoulders halted completely, as if time itself had been paused. The infinite spacetime phantoms trailing behind the Buddha, each supposedly executing different actions from the deepest recesses of created space, all abruptly froze in the exact same posture.
The Dragon God and the Buddha brushed past each other.
Piercing the Mortal Realm, Looking down upon Nihility, The Chasm of the Azure Void, Infinite, Unhindered, Boundless. This was the logic that validated divine authority. A karmic retribution that completely shattered common sense. A single, imperceptible flash of light focused not on severing gods, but on severing the karmic weight of existence itself. Its true meaning was Divine Authority.
"Infinite Void-Consciousness."
"Divine Authority Single Slash."
Before the Buddha could even swing his final blow, time itself was reversed. The Divine Authority Single Slash had *already* cleaved through the Buddha's body. This world-piercing slash enveloped the entirety of the Buddha's Three Thousand Worlds. But it wasn't a catastrophic, explosive destruction. It was as gentle as a soft breeze brushing past autumn leaves. The invisible, ethereal light simply drifted through the totality of the Buddha's spacetime continuum.
Using Shinmyoken as the foundation. Idle Transfiguration perfectly mapped Satoru Gojo's soul. Resonance exploited the spiritual connection to simultaneously inflict the lethal damage across every single spacetime phantom in existence. Finally, the reality-warping imagination of Ubermensch enforced a complete reversal of causality—the lethal damage was applied *before* the blade was even swung. Mirokuji Kirigiri's Cleaving Line was permanently engraved onto every single possible attack trajectory. And to guarantee Gojo couldn't pull a miracle Binding Vow at the last millisecond, the Divine Authority Eyes permanently locked down the Buddha's positive-negative energy cycle.
This single slash reversed time, shattered spacetime, and inverted causality.
Shinmyoken, Idle Transfiguration, Cleaving Line, Resonance, Ubermensch, Divine Authority Eyes.
This was—
—[Infinite Void-Consciousness: Divine Authority Single Slash].
The Buddha's armor slowly fractured. [Domain Expansion: Nihility of the Six Realms: Infinite Void] shattered and peeled away like broken glass. But the sky revealed above wasn't the pitch-black void of the afterlife; it was the familiar, endless expanse of the white desert. They had returned to the most fundamental layer of the [Dharmadhatu Transmigration: Nirvana Realm]. A pristine white dragon soared through the sky, curling like an Ouroboros to cradle a brilliant white sun.
He was human once more.
Satoru Gojo gently let go of the [Six Perfections' Eastward Journey]. The shattered Divine Artifact fell onto the white sand with a soft clink, kicking up a small puff of dust.
The Dragon God armor was also slowly dissolving, revealing Mahito's pale, unblemished face beneath. The legendary King of Cursed Spirits was dressed in his haori and kimono, looking exactly like a master swordsman stepping out of a period drama.
There wasn't a single physical wound on Satoru Gojo's body. The Divine Authority Single Slash didn't sever physical matter; it severed the intangible karmic weight of a person's existence. Satoru Gojo had technically died *before* the slash even occurred. The man standing here now was nothing more than the lingering echo of his death.
In this final moment, Gojo had exactly enough time to speak one last sentence. The only reason he hadn't collapsed yet was because the causality-reversing nature of the slash afforded him this brief, terminal lucidity.
*I need to say something cool,* Gojo thought. A final message for his students, for his teachers, for his best friend. Or perhaps a final, ominous warning for the victor standing before him. He wanted his final words to be a sobering wake-up call for everyone listening.
So... should he give them instructions for the future?
Should he tell them to surrender the world to Mahito?
Should he warn them of the inevitable crises to come?
Thinking about it, there were far too many things he needed to say. But distilling all of it into a single, perfect sentence... that was his final, absolute duty as Satoru Gojo.
As the Strongest of the Modern Era. As the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer. As an instructor at Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Satoru Gojo spoke his final words.
He said:
"...That was incredibly fun!"
Mahito blinked, genuinely stunned.
"The one who killed me wasn't time or disease. It was someone overwhelmingly stronger than me." Gojo smiled warmly. "I think that's absolutely wonderful."
*Thud.*
Satoru Gojo fell to his knees, his head dropping heavily onto the white sand.
Mahito looked down at him, a soft, uncontrollable smile spreading across his face. "You transcended death. You transcended yourself. You grew to your absolute peak, just to meet me here..."
"What an absolute joy you were, Satoru."
Satoru Gojo, dead.