If Satoru Gojo could trigger even a single Black Flash now, that miraculous burst of cursed energy might well turn the collapsing battle around once more, plunging it back into the suffocating abyss of a stalemate.
Dio still had ample reserves of cursed energy, but his continuous, high-intensity conceptual enhancements and maximum output had left his brain like an overloaded precision instrument, frantically sounding alarms amid searing phantom pain and encroaching dizziness.
He had to put an end to this duel before he crashed completely and became helpless!
"Ascend to the pinnacle-The World!"
With Dio's cry, which rang out like a proclamation of a new era, an invisible, overwhelming force severed the ceaseless torrent of time, bringing everything to an absolute standstill!
After the Black Flash he had just landed, the activity of cursed energy throughout his body had surged to unprecedented heights, and his adaptation to and control over the concept of the Six Eyes had risen dramatically as well.
To fully savor the ultimate power of this state, he refused even to use the Soul Liberation Blade. Instead, together with the towering humanoid shikigami beside him, he unleashed a torrential barrage of iron fists upon Satoru Gojo, who remained frozen in shock on the ground.
"Useless, useless, useless, useless, useless-!!!"
The dense blur of fists moved so fast that they merged into a fiercely blazing curtain of golden light. Each strike tore through the air like a meteor across the night sky, trailing afterimages and piercing shrieks.
Endless blows piled up furiously within frozen space and time, their force exceeding all limits and shaking the overlapping domain shells until they groaned on the verge of shattering.
But Dio held back.
He controlled his attacks with precision, bringing Satoru Gojo to the brink of death while preserving the bare minimum needed for regeneration through Reverse Cursed Technique.
In theory, even ten more punches like these would not truly kill Satoru Gojo, but the outcome was already beyond doubt.
After all, this was not a fight to the death, but a meeting of friends through combat.
Otherwise, the Soul Liberation Blade, enhanced by Concept Bestowal until its edge could cleave even a soul in two, would have easily executed him by beheading or bisecting him in this frozen world.
The instant the flow of time resumed, as Satoru Gojo's consciousness and senses reconnected, he finally suffered the barrage of damage stacked upon him in frozen space and time-enough to destroy a small-fry sorcerer millions of times over.
Like a character being endlessly battered in a frenetic remix video, his body convulsed uncontrollably inside the deep crater. Every bone cracked under the unbearable strain, and flesh and blood burst from his body in fountains.
Time stop surpassed all perception and reaction, a divine speed that even light could not catch, so naturally the Six Eyes could not perceive it.
Before Satoru Gojo could make out a single trajectory, it was already over!
With both fighters maintaining their domains, whichever one suffered a devastating blow severe enough to shake his foundations would have his domain collapse first.
The other's sure-hit effect would then descend without obstruction.
Thus, when Satoru Gojo suffered those grievous injuries, he could no longer sustain Unlimited Void. It dissolved into countless drifting fragments of cursed energy that slowly vanished into the absolute darkness.
At the same time, Boundary of Emptiness took effect upon him, instantly casting him into a state of deprivation where nothing more could be stripped away!
The Limitless that had allowed Satoru Gojo to dominate the world temporarily vanished. His endless supply of cursed energy abruptly ceased, and the torrent of information that constantly poured in through the Six Eyes fell into a deathly silent void.
He was like a god dragged from his throne, plummeting from the clouds into the mud. For the first time in many long years, he truly experienced:
The fragility of a powerless mortal, surviving on flesh and blood alone.
It was not as simple as losing his power. His very state of existence had undergone a drastic change.
Once every supernatural shell and support was stripped away, the buffer and filter that power had built between him and the world disappeared.
Laid bare before the world as never before, Satoru Gojo confronted its texture, the pain of battle, and the limits of his own existence. He lay stunned and motionless, as though struck by Unlimited Void.
Only now, after confirming that victory was truly in his grasp, did Dio will the pitch-black domain enveloping the battlefield to dissolve.
He covered his face with one hand. The laughter spilling between his fingers rose from a low chuckle to unrestrained mirth, finally becoming wild laughter that swept across the battlefield!
"I won! I, Dio, am the strongest in the world!
This is the ultimate high!"
His domineering conviction grew wildly, fueled by an unquestionable victory and rapidly swelling confidence.
The 120% potential temporarily unlocked by the miracle of Black Flash was now firmly branded into the depths of his soul, becoming new power he had truly made his own!
At the instant he reached the summit, Dio clearly "saw" it-the flood of cause and effect between humans and cursed spirits, intertwined and cycling for a thousand years, surging and converging around him!
The old limits of individual strength had been shattered. With his own hands, he had set a new cycle in motion!
Meanwhile, Satoru Gojo gazed up at Boundary of Emptiness as it gradually faded after Dio willingly dissolved it.
Sunlight pierced the dust and fell upon his eyelashes, bringing a faint warmth almost drowned out by pain.
Yet a deeper realization, like another ray of sunlight piercing thick clouds, suddenly illuminated the depths of his consciousness.
Every life moving toward death was growing with fervor.
Lying in the slowly spreading pool of blood, Satoru Gojo's consciousness drifted along the edge of agony and weakness.
Everything that had long occupied his heart seemed to be lifted away by an invisible hand. Schemes and intrigue, hesitation over costs and benefits, endless deliberations over right and wrong-all were brushed away like dust.
What remained was a thought purer than any he had ever known:
Get stronger, become even stronger, then fight someone stronger still!
If possible, never let time or illness kill me. Keep training with everything I have, and climb toward heights I have never known!
Even among curses, there were those that could sustain life and spur people onward.
Such was the curse Satoru Gojo placed upon his future self at that moment.
The transformation of his will triggered a qualitative change in the core of his cursed energy.
The desperate brink of death instead became a catalyst for a breakthrough.
The sensation of cursed technique burnout caused by expanding his domain was entirely different from physical injury. It was not a malfunction, but more like a machine overheating after running at its limits.
Normally, all Satoru Gojo could do was wait for it to cool down. But now, for the first time, he successfully repaired his brain with Reverse Cursed Technique.
Of course, what was happening to him went far beyond a technical breakthrough.
Dio's existence was like a meteor suddenly crashing into a placid lake.
With absolute power, he had shattered the vicious cycle of fate in which the strength of humans and cursed spirits had remained locked together through countless years.
The heights and possibilities he revealed pushed open a door that none of those standing at the summit had ever imagined.
The instant that door opened, Satoru Gojo's cursed energy output, which had stagnated for so long, began to climb as though freed from some invisible shackle.
At the same time, his abyssal reserves of cursed energy felt the pulse of growth for the first time in ages.
It was not merely an accumulation of quantity, but a simultaneous evolution in quality and quantity brought about by a breakthrough in understanding.
He was like a climber who had always believed he had reached the ceiling, only to discover that what lay overhead was not solid rock, but a sky through which he could soar!
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