Changing the Domain's Conditions

Feng, who had been standing motionless ten paces away, dissolved into a puddle without warning.

Immediately afterward, a shrill metallic snap rang out from the sinks at the edge of the field.

A blade that appeared out of thin air sliced cleanly through a thick galvanized water pipe.

Pressurized tap water erupted like a fountain, but instead of flowing into the drain, it was drawn into an invisible vortex of cursed energy in midair and devoured.

The nearly depleted cursed residue began replenishing itself at a speed that defied reason.

Feng had a heavenly restriction. During his very first battle against Mahito, he had already noticed what made him different.

He could absorb the cursed energy contained in naturally occurring water to rapidly replenish his own reserves.

Of course, this did not apply to rainwater he created himself.

The roar of the downpour vanished eerily at that moment.

Tens of millions of raindrops froze in midair. An invisible law stretched and sharpened their edges, instantly turning the once-soft droplets into hovering water blades.

In the blink of an eye, the entire field became a three-dimensional killing zone without a single blind spot.

Yet the sword-wielding clones formed from water remained entirely unaffected by this law of stillness.

In their element, they darted between the densely suspended blades and closed their encirclement around the center once more without the slightest hesitation.

Sky-blue eyes shifted slightly. The Six Eyes pierced through layer after layer of water blades, pinpointing the fluctuation in energy at the edge of the field.

"Using naturally flowing water to make up for the cursed energy shortfall caused by your heavenly restriction?"

The dark red light at Satoru Gojo's fingertip did not stop expanding. Instead, it pulsed even more violently.

As he surveyed the motionless water blades filling the air around him, undisguised admiration crept into his grin.

"After realizing you were at a disadvantage in a battle of attrition, you immediately changed the domain's operating conditions.

You abandoned the rain's momentum and fixed it in place as environmental traps to restrict movement, letting only the products of your own cursed technique move freely inside."

He raised his eyes, the fervor on his face undiminished.

"Very clever. You took away my room to dodge and found a way to keep going that practically amounts to cheating.

Anyone else without Limitless protecting them would absolutely be worn down and killed by this endless killing zone."

The violent repulsive force compressed at his fingertip reached its critical point.

Satoru Gojo swept his arm through a casual arc before his chest, aiming his fingertip straight ahead, where the hovering water blades were densest and the clones attacked most fiercely.

"But cleaning a room cluttered with obstacles only takes a strong enough gust of wind.

Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."

Blinding red light swallowed the dim field completely.

Pure repulsive force erupted with overwhelming destructive power. The deafening roar of air being torn apart filled the field.

Every hovering water blade in the fan-shaped area ahead was pulverized and vaporized the instant it touched the red light.

The water clones weaving through the gaps did not even have time to swing their tachi before the violent shock wave vaporized them outright.

The dark red column of light plowed through the firm turf, leaving an enormous, seemingly bottomless trench in the ground.

The lingering repulsive force, mixed with scalding steam, swept all the way to the edge of the field, blasting both the still-gushing pipe and the half-height red brick wall around it into dust.

Huge clouds of white steam billowed under the intense heat, completely obscuring the view ahead.

Satoru Gojo slowly lowered his right hand, his leather shoes planted on scorched, cracked earth as he waited for the steam to clear and reveal the aftermath.

Before the scalding white steam above the field had fully dispersed, the air pressure around him plunged into an icy chill once again.

The dark clouds that the terrifying repulsive force had just shredded gathered again and pressed downward with a brute force that defied nature.

The vaporized water rapidly condensed overhead. Without even a second's breathing room, torrential rain laden with heavy cursed energy poured down again, turning the scorched crater back into a muddy swamp.

Satoru Gojo stood at the center of the rain, water falling onto his hair and shoulders.

He lifted his chin slightly. Through the gap above his lenses, his sky-blue Six Eyes fixed on the laws of space reconstructing themselves around him, a flicker of undisguised surprise passing through his pupils.

"A second expansion without any interruption? You don't even need a cooldown for cursed technique burnout?"

Rather than attack immediately, he let his brain race as he analyzed the scene that defied everything he knew.

Ordinary jujutsu sorcerers inevitably faced a period of burnout from overloading their engraved cursed technique after Domain Expansion, yet the environment before him remained stable, without a single disturbance.

"I see. Cursed energy itself forms your body. This vessel, completely remade by heavenly restriction, is a continuously active law simply by existing.

So a weakness like 'overloading the brain's cursed technique' doesn't exist in the first place. What an exceptional specimen, breaking all the rules."

Satoru Gojo had known from the start that Feng was immune to burnout. That had been Shoko's conclusion after her initial examination.

Still, seeing it in action inevitably caught him somewhat by surprise.

Before he finished speaking, the seething rain around him had already answered.

Dozens of dark figures rose from the muddy puddles.

The instant these clones formed from high-density water, they all lowered their centers of gravity in unison.

It was an intensely aggressive opening stance.

Dozens of coldly gleaming [Replica Mikazuki Munechika] wove a deadly net in the dim light. With splashing footsteps, the clones lunged at the center from every direction at once.

Satoru Gojo's smile deepened. He sharply twisted at the waist, ripping through the curtain of rain with a vicious side kick.

His long leg, wrapped in thick cursed energy, cleaved down like a battle-axe onto the foremost clone's blade.

With a thunderous clang, water and sparks of cursed energy burst outward together. The tremendous momentum of the kick reduced the clone and its tachi to a splash of scattered water.

But the wave of attacks had only just begun.

Two icy blades slid silently along the muddy ground from either side, cutting toward his ankles.

Satoru Gojo bent his knees slightly and sprang backward as though gravity had lost its hold on him.

A third clone had already leaped high into the air, unnoticed. Gripping its sword with both hands, it used its downward momentum to cleave at the crown of his head.

His Limitless defense remained neutralized.

Satoru Gojo's gaze turned utterly cold. He forcibly twisted his spine in midair, coated his right fist in dense, deep-blue cursed energy, and punched straight into the falling blade.

Fist and blade slammed together in midair. The compressed air let out a piercing crack.

The sharp edge sliced through the skin over Satoru Gojo's knuckles, sending a few drops of blood flying.

But in the next instant, the pure white light of Reverse Cursed Technique flared over his knuckles, crushing the crescent-shaped cursed residue trying to spread inward through the wound and sealing his flesh instantly.

At the same time, the cursed energy on his fist erupted, blasting the airborne clone and its tachi into a cloud of mist.

Satoru Gojo landed steadily, his leather shoes sliding half a meter through the mud. He shook the water from his right hand, his breathing a little heavier than before.

Within the Six Eyes' field of vision, the shattered clones began writhing and reconstructing themselves after falling into the puddles.

"Not only are your physical combat combinations getting more lethal, even the intent behind your close-range attacks is becoming more oppressive.

Did you pick up experience from our last exchange, or are you working out how to counter my Cursed Technique Reversal?"

He loosened the rain-soaked tie clinging tightly to his neck and casually tossed it into the mud. Without any flashy jujutsu windup, Satoru Gojo shifted his fists into the purest of unarmed fighting stances.

The lofty, untouchable ease surrounding him was gone, replaced by an apex predator's feverish hunger for combat.

"If you want to settle this with hand-to-hand combat in this mud pit, then let me see just how long that burnout-proof body of yours can withstand this kind of high-intensity, close-range slaughter!"

Boom!

Muddy water exploded.

Satoru Gojo blurred into motion, charging straight into the densest thicket of blades ahead.

His fists and feet, imbued with miniature applications of "Blue," unleashed a destructive storm among the water clones. Every clash of flesh and blade brought a teeth-grating scrape of cursed energy and the dazzling light of Reverse Cursed Technique.

At that instant, the muddy battlefield came to an eerie standstill.

Every water clone lunging at him with vicious attacks froze midstep without warning.

Then, as though someone had pressed rewind on the curtain of rain, dozens of watery bodies violently converged and overlapped at the center with a speed the naked eye could barely follow.

The sky-blue eyes behind his lenses narrowed sharply. Within the Six Eyes' vision, the once-steady flow of cursed energy underwent a earthshaking change.

"Positive energy?! Wait... those relentless physical combinations weren't just meant to suppress me. They were buying time?"

The rapidly swelling energy reaction reflected in Satoru Gojo's pupils as his brain analyzed the phenomenon at a terrifying speed.

"Keeping the burden on the main body to a minimum, using dozens of clones inside the domain as independent vessels to refine tiny amounts of positive energy simultaneously between attacks.

Then combining every amount at the instant of fusion to force past the total one person could refine... that's an utterly insane distributed-computation tactic!"

But the time he had left to react had already shrunk to zero.

The water at his feet reflected Feng's figure. With a ripple across its surface, that figure rose unhindered from the depths of the mud, right before him.

A small orb of light, compressed to the utmost limit, was thrust directly into the center of Satoru Gojo's vision.

"Cursed Technique Reversal: Haven't Named It Yet!"

It was a destructive power diametrically opposed to "Rainfall."

When the orb burst, there was no deafening explosion, only suffocating heat.

It was as though a miniature sun had been forcibly detonated on the field.

This was no mere drought, but an absolute law of "clear skies."

Violent waves of scorching light swept outward with unstoppable force. Before this power, the heavy clouds and water blades filling the sky were like lingering snow beneath a blazing sun, instantly evaporating into nothing.

One tenth of a second before the explosion, Satoru Gojo crossed his arms over his chest and encased his entire body in a dense barrier of cursed energy.

Even so, the terrifying energy hurled him backward.

His leather shoes plowed two deep furrows through the scorched ground.

Satoru Gojo slid backward more than ten meters before he barely managed to steady himself.

The upper half of his Jujutsu High Uniform had almost entirely burned away, exposing his lean, powerful muscles.

Large areas of his forearms, neck, and the side of his face were severely burned, his flesh giving off a faint scorched smell.

He instinctively mobilized the positive energy inside him to heal the burns, but his brow suddenly tightened.

"Cough... you didn't just blast the domain apart by force. You branded the laws of this space with the shackles of 'clear skies,' too..."

Satoru Gojo felt the positive energy inside him flow as though it were mired in a swamp.

An invisible force tightly suppressed his Reverse Cursed Technique. The light that could ordinarily seal wounds instantly now only flickered intermittently like a firefly.

Even when he tried to form "Blue" again, he felt a distinct sluggishness and suppression.

The steam and dust gradually cleared.

The center of the explosion had become a crystallized, glassy crater.

Feng fell heavily at its edge. Under the violent energy overload, the body he had kept liquefied was forced to reform into solid flesh.

The scorching air had curled his black hair, and conspicuous red burns marked several places on his pale skin.

He braced one hand against the scorched ground, his back heaving amid uncontrollable coughing. Clearly, being caught in his own point-blank blast had exacted a terrible price from him as well.

"Not bad, right?"

Satoru Gojo lowered his smoking arms and wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with his long fingers.

He stared at Feng, battered and no longer in his water form, on the ground. He froze for half a second, then uncontrollable, feverish laughter burst from his chest.

"Ha... hahahahaha! That was far beyond a passing grade! This is a masterpiece beyond anything I imagined!"

Ignoring the slowly healing burns that kept sending stabs of pain through him, he strode toward the crater's edge and looked down at Feng.

There was no anger in those sky-blue eyes, only the excitement of someone beholding a perfect work of art, and a hunger for battle.

"Using clones to share the computational load, then forcing through my defenses with a point-blank, self-destructive attack.

You didn't just shatter your own domain. Even your heavenly restriction body nearly fell apart because it couldn't withstand that power... a thoroughly self-destructive assault."

Satoru Gojo slowly crouched until his eyes were level with the coughing Feng's, his mouth spreading into a dangerous, delighted grin.

"But you really did land a solid hit.

A law that suppresses an enemy's Reverse Cursed Technique and normal cursed technique output is practically a poison tailor-made to turn the tables on those monsters.

You've won a round in this training match."