The Strongest's Defeat; The New Clone's Idea / Gojo Satoru Awakens; The Conditions for Joining the Jujutsu World

Two figures darted across the battlefield at incredible speed, the gusts they kicked up sending dust and rubble flying and turning the entire area into a complete mess.

After a while, the two finally separated. Seele remained completely unharmed, not even a speck of dust staining her blue-and-white dress. Gojo Satoru, however, had gained quite a few wounds, and several tears had appeared in his once-neat clothes.

In close combat alone, Seele's fighting skills could be called highly proficient. The massive scythe moved through the girl's hands as naturally as an extension of her arm, without seeming cumbersome in the slightest.

Even so, during their recent exchange, Seele's close-combat ability had still been outmatched by Gojo Satoru.

At the very least, in terms of successful hits landed, Gojo Satoru had struck Seele far more times than she had struck him. Although Seele had landed plenty of attacks as well, there was still a gap between them.

After all, Seele's combat ability in the original work was far from top-tier. Before becoming a Herrscher, over eighty percent of her experience and fighting techniques had basically belonged to Black Seele.

Of course, that was without taking Seele's Quantization into account.

In reality, throughout the battle just now, Seele had avoided every one of Gojo Satoru's attacks through Quantization. Gojo Satoru, on the other hand, had sustained real and considerable injuries despite his superior combat skills.

Taking advantage of the brief distance between them, Gojo Satoru instantly healed his wounds with Reverse Cursed Technique.

Looking at Seele standing opposite him, immaculate and untouched by dust, with the cursed energy around her showing no signs of depletion whatsoever, even Gojo Satoru, who had not felt the joy of battle in a long time, could not help twitching his lips.

"Whether it's a technique attack or an ordinary physical attack, she can evade it effortlessly. On the offensive, she can practically ignore cursed energy defenses. And her consumption is this low too?"

From the start of the battle until now, under the observation of Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes, Seele had been using Quantization almost the entire time, yet her cursed energy had barely been consumed at all.

That meant the idea of forcing her to repeatedly use her technique through attacks and exhausting her cursed energy had completely fallen through.

Even if every attack hit, it simply passed through her body as though it had struck an illusion, unable to produce any effect. Her attacks, meanwhile, could easily injure him. Neither technique-based defenses nor simple reinforcement with cursed energy could stop them.

On top of that, she possessed mobility that let her keep up with his speed as easily as if she were teleporting.

Even someone with Gojo Satoru's temperament felt somewhat helpless at that moment.

He had never seen such an unfair technique. It had no weaknesses at all, and every effect it possessed was absurdly overpowered.

What should he do next? Try Domain Expansion? Use the domain's guaranteed-hit effect and see if he could catch her?

No. Judging from the battle just now, even Domain Expansion might not work. He should use another move first and see whether he could probe the limits of her technique.

Meanwhile, Seele had no idea what Gojo Satoru was thinking.

In truth, Quantization was not as unsolvable as Gojo Satoru believed. As long as the scale was sufficient, a Quantized state could be broken.

After all, focusing only on effects while ignoring output and scale was just cheating. Any ability that seemed unsolvable ultimately had only one issue: the opponent's scale was insufficient, which was why the ability appeared unbeatable.

Just like in the Honkai World, as long as one's scale was high enough, space, time, quantum, imaginary space, consciousness—everything could be interfered with. If one could not interfere with them, it only meant the scale was not high enough. Just keep increasing the power until a miracle happened.

And that was precisely the biggest problem Gojo Satoru faced.

Possessing the authority of the Herrscher of Life and Death, along with the enormous cursed energy derived from that authority, Seele's scale in this world was unmatched. Compared to everyone else, even Gojo Satoru, the strongest jujutsu sorcerer, stood at a completely different level from Seele.

Under such circumstances, Quantization naturally seemed utterly unsolvable to the people of this world.

Now, in order to try breaking through Seele's Quantization, after ruling out Domain Expansion, Gojo Satoru had no choice but to use another ability.

Blue and red cursed energy gathered and compressed at Gojo Satoru's sides, eventually forming two spheres.

"Cursed Technique: Lapse: Blue. Cursed Technique: Reversal: Red."

Watching the two techniques take shape beside him, Gojo Satoru brought his hands together and controlled the two utterly opposing forces as they fused.

Blue's attraction and Red's repulsion intertwined and collided, eventually transforming into a mass of purple cursed energy that radiated an incomparably dangerous aura.

"Hollow Technique: Purple!"

Born from the collision of Blue and Red's cursed energy, creating imaginary mass through their conflict, it possessed unparalleled destructive power and was a move Gojo Satoru rarely used.

"This move is pretty brutal. If you can't withstand it, make sure you dodge in time."

As Gojo Satoru spoke, Hollow Technique: Purple before him was ready to be unleashed.

Although they had chosen to fight, Gojo Satoru had never held any hostility toward An Xiu or Seele. Nor did he want the girl before him to suffer any irreparable harm from his attack, so he had deliberately warned her before making his move.

The next second, the purple energy gathered to its limit erupted instantly, becoming a torrent that blasted toward the girl before him.

In response, Seele tightened her grip on her scythe slightly.

She had many ways to deal with this move. She could evade it directly with Quantization, dodge aside, or meet it head-on.

However, since she wanted to intimidate the Jujutsu World's higher-ups by defeating him, it would be best to respond in the way that displayed her strength most clearly.

That was... meeting it head-on!

A life-filled power gathered in her hands. The Power of Creation from the Herrscher of Life and Death's authority could not merely be used for support; it could display immense power in battle as well.

However, just as Seele gathered cursed energy containing the Power of Creation, another wave of black-red cursed energy suddenly surged within her body.

"Leave the final blow to me."

Hearing the voice of her other self, Seele nodded.

The next instant, black-red cursed energy filled with deathly stillness, so dangerous that one could feel its terror with a single glance, erupted violently.

Seele, whose eyes had somehow changed into an entirely different color, raised her scythe. With a slight swing, the massive cursed energy containing the Power of Withering instantly engulfed and dissolved the purple torrent of energy before her.

The Strongest's Defeat, Thoughts of a New Clone

The purple torrent formed by Hollow Technique: Purple was instantly engulfed and dissolved by the black-red cursed energy.

At the same time, sensing that incomparably dense aura that seemed to point directly toward death itself, Gojo Satoru's pupils contracted.

Hollow Technique: Purple had been neutralized head-on? No, it should be said that it had been dissolved by some even more terrifying power.

The attack formed from imaginary mass, which should have been filled with destructive force, seemed to have encountered its natural enemy before the black-red cursed energy. It had produced no effect at all, vanishing beneath the other party's cursed energy without even stirring a ripple.

Was that the effect of her technique?

Noticing that the power and expression Seele displayed in the distance were entirely different from before, Gojo Satoru realized that the curse residing within the girl named Seele had likely taken over her body during their fight. His heart immediately sank.

Seele's Quantization technique alone was already troublesome enough. Now there was also the curse's unknown technique...

Realizing he could no longer continue fighting so casually, Gojo Satoru immediately raised his right hand.

He had to take down the curse before him as quickly as possible!

"Domain Expansion: Infinite..."

Splat!

A scythe blade burst out through his chest. Black Seele, who had somehow used Quantization to travel behind Gojo Satoru, attacked at a speed he had been utterly unable to react to.

Ordinarily, such an attack would have been nothing to Gojo Satoru, who possessed Reverse Cursed Technique. Under normal circumstances, he only needed to put some distance between them, and the injury from a mere impalement could be healed instantly.

However, as the black-red cursed energy clinging to the scythe poured into his body, Gojo Satoru felt his limbs gradually turn cold and his consciousness slowly blur.

He tried to activate his cursed energy and use his technique to force her back or help himself escape, but the vast cursed energy that usually gathered within his body vanished at an alarming speed the moment it touched her cursed energy.

Without cursed energy, a jujutsu sorcerer's strength was immediately crippled by more than half. As his body came into contact with the black-red cursed energy, its functions completely failed as well.

At that moment, Gojo Satoru realized in shock that he had run out of options.

"Was I... careless?"

He used the last of his strength to try to turn and look at the enemy behind him. Before he could complete that movement, however, his consciousness gave out and sank into darkness.

At the outskirts of the Abandoned Construction Site... no, it should be said, the construction site that had already become ruins, there was an open space that Gojo Satoru and Seele had deliberately avoided earlier. An Xiu watched Black Seele carry Gojo Satoru back as though she were holding a dead dog, and he was not surprised in the slightest.

In terms of strength, Seele alone had already been enough to defeat Gojo Satoru, let alone with the even stronger Black Seele stepping in.

It had been mentioned before that abilities purchased from the system store were improved and could automatically adapt to different systems.

After the Herrscher of Life and Death's authority adapted to the cursed energy system, setting aside Creation for the moment, the Power of Withering gained the ability to break down cursed energy in addition to decomposing life and matter.

Just as it had instantly broken down Hollow Technique: Purple and the cursed energy within Gojo Satoru's body earlier, after adapting to the cursed energy system, the Power of Withering possessed terrifying suppression over jujutsu sorcerers and Cursed Spirits.

There was no need to mention jujutsu sorcerers. After all, every technique operated on cursed energy as its foundation. Being able to break down cursed energy meant that no matter what effect a technique had, it would collapse at the first touch of the Power of Withering.

Whether it was Hollow Technique: Purple or the Infinity technique, neither could display any effect before the Power of Withering. They automatically fell apart the moment they came into contact.

It was only because An Xiu did not intend to kill Gojo Satoru that Black Seele had deliberately limited the Power of Withering's effect during the final blow.

Otherwise, the moment the scythe covered in the Power of Withering touched his body, Gojo Satoru would have literally been gone. Both his body and cursed energy would have been completely broken down in an instant.

For jujutsu sorcerers, Black Seele's Power of Withering could not only not be blocked by techniques—it was practically instant death upon contact.

As for Cursed Spirits? Their situation was even worse. After all, Cursed Spirits were special lifeforms born from cursed energy produced by humanity's negative emotions. Though they possessed bodies, most of them were made of cursed energy.

That meant when facing the Power of Withering, Cursed Spirits suffered double the special damage, and the Power of Withering that touched them spread much faster than it did across ordinary matter.

Either way, they were dead.

Thud!

Black Seele tossed the unconscious Gojo Satoru onto the ground and returned to An Xiu's side.

"What should we do with this person next?"

"Have Seele heal his injuries, then leave him here."

"Alright."

Black Seele nodded at that, then returned control of the body.

A moment later, Seele returned and extended one hand toward Gojo Satoru on the ground.

As the Power of Creation enveloped him, several white flowers quietly grew from the ground, while Gojo Satoru's injuries healed at an extremely rapid rate.

"That should do it. Let's go back. Once he wakes up, he'll naturally come looking for us."

Leaving Gojo Satoru at the construction site, An Xiu and Seele returned to the apartment.

Although they had just fought the strongest person in the Jujutsu World, neither Seele nor An Xiu seemed to have been affected in any way.

Seele continued handling the housework while looking for ingredients for their next meal.

An Xiu, meanwhile, sat nearby and began considering his plans for making further contact with the Jujutsu World.

First, he definitely needed to make contact with the Jujutsu World. As long as An Xiu was present, Seele could fulfill the condition of protecting him by killing Cursed Spirits, allowing An Xiu to gain system points. Once they connected with the Jujutsu World, An Xiu and Seele could use its intelligence resources to learn where Cursed Spirits gathered and farm large amounts of points.

However, the Jujutsu World's higher-ups also needed to be dealt with carefully. In terms of threat level, those people posed no danger to An Xiu and Seele, but they were simply too disgusting to ignore.

Even if Seele defeated Gojo Satoru and the information spread through the Jujutsu World, intimidating plenty of people, there was no guarantee some brain-damaged idiots would not decide that since they could not act openly, they could act in secret.

So it would be best to find a way to solve those higher-ups once and for all, perhaps even directly take control of the Jujutsu World instead.

It would not be very suitable for Seele to do that. Her combat strength was certainly enough, but there would be some issues with the follow-up handling.

He could consider Materializing a new Clone and specifically arranging some targeted abilities for them.

With that thought, An Xiu opened the system and checked his points balance.

The initial gift pack had given him 10,000 points. The Herrscher of Life and Death's authority plus Quantization had cost 7,400 points. Materializing Seele had cost 1,500 points—500 base points for Materialize Clone, while the Stigmata and Black Seele counted as special talents and cost an additional 1,000 points—for a total expenditure of 8,900 points, leaving 1,100 points.

Awakening cursed energy with Seele's help had earned him 500 points. Clearing the Cursed Spirits at the Abandoned Construction Site had earned him 1,700 points. Lazing around for two consecutive days had earned him 100 points, for a total income of 2,300 points.

Adding the earned points to his remaining points, An Xiu's current balance was 3,400 points.

Those points definitely could not buy any particularly good abilities. Moreover, the store's discount section had not refreshed yet, so An Xiu planned to wait a month first. On one hand, he could accumulate points; on the other, he could see whether the discount section might refresh with some useful ability to assign to the next Clone.

PS: Everyone can probably guess who the new Clone is. It was already made clear in the synopsis.

Also, please recommend, bookmark, and vote monthly tickets. If nothing else, dear readers, please leave a few more paragraph comments to liven up the atmosphere. Much appreciated~

Gojo Satoru Awakens, Conditions for Joining the Jujutsu World

The sun set in the west, and dusk arrived.

A knock sounded inside the apartment.

When the apartment door opened, Gojo Satoru, who had somehow already awakened, stood outside wearing his blindfold again.

"Ah, Mr. Gojo Satoru? Please come in."

Seele, who had come to open the door, smiled and nodded at Gojo Satoru. Then she spoke apologetically.

"Sorry, but it seems we don't have any spare indoor slippers."

"It doesn't matter."

Gojo Satoru did not mind. He merely faced Seele and observed her carefully for a moment before taking off his shoes and following her inside.

When they reached the living room, An Xiu was sitting in a chair. Seeing Gojo Satoru arrive, he gestured toward the chair opposite him.