After experiencing the terrifying shock waves of Hollow Purple firsthand, all the spectators had reached a remarkable unspoken agreement.
They retreated a full kilometer before daring to follow the battle with their eyes-a clash like two natural disasters colliding, far beyond the understanding of ordinary sorcerers.
Yet even with many of them reinforcing their vision with cursed energy, the two figures still left a sizable portion of the crowd dizzy. They crossed at ghostly speeds, switching between attack and defense so quickly that afterimages filled the air, making the ever-changing details nearly impossible to follow.
As one of the few Special Grade Sorcerers present who could just barely keep pace, Suguru Geto offered some timely commentary, his voice reaching everyone clearly:
"Against Satoru, who uses Limitless and its Inviolability defense, Dio has chosen to copy his technique and counter him with a special approach similar to Neutralization.
After several exchanges of ranged firepower to test each other, the battle has, predictably, returned to the close-quarters combat they excel at."
"Neutralization... is he using Domain Amplification?" Kento Nanami asked, puzzled.
"It doesn't look like it," Atsuya Kusakabe explained around a freshly unwrapped lollipop.
"Domain Amplification is basically a more refined, enhanced version of the Simple Domain our school uses.
The principle is to wrap yourself in an empty domain imbued with no specific cursed technique, allowing your opponent's technique to flow into that reserved 'empty capacity' and thereby achieve Neutralization."
Then he pointed toward the distant heart of the battle. "But look. Neither of them has a barrier covering his body right now.
That means Mr. Dio is achieving a kind of Neutralization directly through the properties of his own technique, rather than relying on domain techniques."
"You sure make it sound convincing... can you do it, Mr. Kusakabe? That Amplification thing?" Kinji Hakari asked curiously.
"Don't underestimate me-" Kusakabe crunched the candy in his mouth, his face expressionless. "Of course I can't. That's an incredibly advanced technique."
"What about you, Mr. Geto? You're a Special Grade too, so you should be able to do it, right?" Kinji Hakari turned his gaze toward Suguru Geto.
Suguru Geto considered it for a moment, the corners of his mouth lifting. "I think I understand the principle... more or less. This should be how it works."
Rather than explain further, he demonstrated it before everyone.
The flow of cursed energy around Suguru Geto abruptly changed. A faintly glowing barrier, flowing as lightly as rippling water, quietly covered his body-he had successfully performed Domain Amplification by borrowing a special grade cursed spirit's domain!
"Ohhh!" Kinji Hakari slapped his thigh, his eyes blazing with undisguised excitement and admiration. "That's what I'm talking about, Mr. Geto!"
Though he also possessed a domain, he had yet to master such an advanced application. Now he felt like a gambler in a desperate situation catching sight of the trump card that could turn everything around-or watching a sexy dealer sit on his lap and deal cards with fluid grace in a luxurious Las Vegas casino!
While Kinji Hakari pestered Suguru Geto about the technique, Yuta Okkotsu suddenly cried out, his voice filled with disbelief:
"Whoa! Look! Mr. Gojo's right arm has been cut off!"
"W-wait, seriously?!" Shoko Ieiri exclaimed as well. Her eyesight was nowhere near as sharp as that of the Special Grade Sorcerers, and she could barely make out the flickering light and shadows.
She stared fixedly at the spiraling sonic-boom cloud expanding and twisting in the distant sky, her voice tight:
"That speed... I can't follow their movements at all! How many times the speed of sound is that? Ten-no... a hundred?!"
"I suspect... they've already exceeded a thousand times the speed of sound!" Suguru Geto said gravely.
Only his deep understanding of his best friend's technique allowed him to make even a rough estimate.
"That's certainly possible."
Atsuya Kusakabe spoke again, his voice dry and his gaze fixed on the streaks of movement so fast they belonged in science fiction.
"For Satoru Gojo, the word 'impossible' has long since become routine-"
Before he could finish, the "meteor" that Satoru Gojo had become completed its collision.
Like a falling sun, an ultimate flash of fully unleashed energy exploded before their eyes!
Every spectator, regardless of strength, instinctively raised their hands to shield their eyes or jerked their head away.
The light was so fierce that it could penetrate their eyelids and scorch their retinas, washing everything around them in a dazzling, pure white.
Nearly three full seconds passed before that destructive radiance began to fade, leaving lingering afterimages and stunned, dead silence.
"Come to think of it..." Toshihisa Negi stroked his chin, looking at the mushroom cloud rising from the boundless sea of fire, and raised a crucial question. "Why haven't either of them expanded their domains yet? Isn't that the decisive killing move?"
"Yeah, why haven't they?" Panda echoed amiably, curiosity written across his round face.
"Sure, we were just talking about something as advanced as domains like it was everyday small talk..."
Takuma Ino scratched his head and offered his opinion.
"But doesn't that burn through a crazy amount of cursed energy? They probably can't just use it whenever they want, so they're saving it as their trump card, right?"
"Bonito flakes." Toge Inumaki tugged at his collar, expressing his disagreement succinctly.
"Inumaki is right," Yuta Okkotsu gently picked up the explanation. "Mr. Gojo never runs out of cursed energy.
His Six Eyes make his cursed energy efficiency almost unimaginably high."
"Right, that's because his efficiency is ridiculously good, and he constantly keeps his expenditure within what he can replenish himself. That's accurate, isn't it?"
Ino acknowledged Yuta's explanation, then raised another question.
"But that assumes he's using it normally, within reasonable limits, right?
If he kept repeatedly unleashing a big move like Domain Expansion, surely that wouldn't hold up?"
"Then... what about Mr. Dio?" Maki Zenin, who could barely follow the battle through her cursed tool glasses and couldn't directly perceive the subtle changes in cursed energy, was now more curious about the other combatant.
"He's on another level," Suguru Geto said succinctly, his eyes still locked on the two distant figures wreathed in the vapor of regeneration.
Seeing both his friends pull themselves back from the brink of death with Reverse Cursed Technique, he privately breathed a sigh of relief before continuing his explanation.
"Look at that effortless touch of Reversal Technique when he activates Reverse Cursed Technique...
He's clearly found some way to temporarily copy the Six Eyes.
In terms of cursed energy efficiency and precision alone, there's no fundamental difference between Dio and Satoru now."
"And then there's his total cursed energy..." Yuta Okkotsu added thoughtfully, his expression a little odd. "He has more than me, too. Going by a rough impression, at least... twice as much."
The crowd fell silent again for a moment.
Twice as much as Yuta Okkotsu, the acknowledged "cursed energy monster"? What did that even mean?
"Could it be..." Mei Mei rested her chin elegantly on her hand, a thoughtful glint in her eyes as she spoke slowly. "I'm only suggesting a possibility.
No one, including the two fighters themselves, actually knows... how a Domain Clash would ultimately turn out?"
The reason was not especially complicated.
Satoru Gojo possessed only one innate cursed technique, Limitless, with no second technique or shikigami to fall back on.
If he recklessly initiated a clash of domains and something unexpected left him vulnerable to technique burnout, he would lose his greatest advantage.
Besides, with his craving for a worthy opponent, he was utterly absorbed in this peak-level contest, facing an equal and answering every move in kind.
Expand his domain the moment they met and decide the outcome in one blow?
That would be far too boring, and a waste of such a rare opponent.
Dio, however, clearly thought otherwise.
"Hey-it's starting!" Larue, who had been observing in silence, suddenly shouted, interrupting everyone's discussion!
At the center of the battlefield, Dio had already finished regenerating and was stepping within twenty meters of Satoru Gojo, his movements seemingly slow but actually swift.
He handed the Soul Liberation Blade to The World as it materialized beside him, then swiftly formed the Brahma Mudra before his chest with both hands. His cursed energy surged and boiled like a long-suppressed tsunami finally finding a breach in the levee!
"Well, now-" Dio wore a bold smile, his booming voice carrying clearly across the space between them.
"If I keep putting off expanding my domain, it'll look like I'm admitting I have no confidence in a contest of domains! Domain Expansion: Boundary of Emptiness!"
As he shouted the domain's true name, an indescribable wave of cursed energy erupted from him!
Almost at the exact moment Dio formed his hand sign, Satoru Gojo raised his right hand to the left side of his jaw like a phantom, his fingers flashing into the Indra Mudra!
His reaction lagged by just one-tenth of a second!
"Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void!"
Two domain barriers, utterly different in nature yet equally terrifying, swept out from their casters like awakened primordial beasts. They collided head-on without fanfare, enveloping all the space within a fifty-meter radius!
Given their personalities, and the Six Eyes' ability to see through the flow of cursed energy and the essence of cursed techniques, either should have noticed beforehand if one domain held a clear advantage or countered the other, allowing them to predict the outcome.
Yet when these two extraordinarily unusual domains, both touching the realm of rules themselves, violently collided, not even their casters could accurately predict where the result would lead.
They were evenly matched.
At least in the first instant, as the barriers eroded each other and fought fiercely for dominance, what emerged was... a suffocating deadlock!
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