"Since Domain, defense, technique, hand-to-hand combat... all conventional means look like a joke before you."
"Then the only thing I can do..."
Satoru's hands began to slowly close in front of him, with an extremely deliberate yet exceptionally steady posture, as if utilizing the precision and strength of a lifetime's learning.
"...is just one thing."
"Everything I have left..."
"Cursed Energy, soul, life, everything the Six Eyes see..."
"ALL OF IT!!!"
"SMASH IT OUT!!!"
Following his final roar, an indescribable light, as if intending to completely incinerate his own existence, erupted from Satoru's battered body. That was not the Cursed Energy burst from previous battles, but the burning of a soul—the final, most brilliant light emitted by existence itself.
In his Six Eyes, a supernova seemed to explode deep within the pupils, the light so radiant it nearly pierced the dark red canopy of Sukuna's Domain.
The burden of overclocked operation caused blood to seep from the corners of his eyes, nostrils, and ears, but he didn't care at all. His entire mind and all his processing power were poured into this next strike.
Red: Maximum Output! Multiple Deployment!
Amidst a piercing vibration that sounded like space itself was wailing, eight red energy spheres, suddenly lit up in front of, behind, and beside Satoru. Each was several times larger than those used in previous battles, their internal energy extremely unstable, as if they would explode at any moment and tear Satoru himself to pieces first.
And that wasn't all.
Almost simultaneously, the sixteen Blues that had been floating throughout the battlefield forming a gravitational network, now flickering uncertainly, seemed to receive an invisible summons. Together they emitted a low hum as the dark gravitational points spun and compressed frantically, rapidly closing in and circling around those eight massive Reds.
Blue and Red, the ultimate attraction and the ultimate repulsion—two extreme manifestations of the same Cursed Technique with completely opposite, conflicting natures—were now being forcibly pulled together under Satoru's control.
Sukuna's four crimson eyes narrowed slightly. He could clearly "see" that between those sixteen Blues and eight Reds, space was beginning to undergo terrifying distortion.
The two extremely opposite forces did not directly collide and annihilate. Instead, under an extremely exquisite yet precarious balance, they formed a dynamic, destructive field.
"Oh?"
Sukuna dropped his playful expression, and his four arms slowly lowered from his chest. He could feel that within that violent energy structure lay something beyond the scope of ordinary Cursed Techniques—something that made even his newly born body instinctively feel a hint of threat.
"Instead of neutralizing the attraction of Blue and the repulsion of Red, you're forcibly maintaining them in an unstable superposition state..."
Sukuna analyzed in a low voice, his eyes flashing with the light of someone delighted by a worthy challenge.
"And then, you'll release this contradiction... all at once?"
"That's right."
Satoru said, the veins under his skin bulging due to Cursed Energy overload as if they would burst at any second. Yet, the movements of his hands forming seals were terrifyingly steady, his Six Eyes fixed on the forming energy core that radiated an ominous purple-black light.
"When Blue and Red overlap..."
"Ultimate attraction and ultimate repulsion acting simultaneously..."
"Imaginary mass... will be born..."
As he spoke, at the center of the energy field formed by the sixteen Blues and eight Reds, an unstable purple singularity slowly emerged, rotated, and expanded. Around the singularity, light distorted and vanished, sound was swallowed, and even the slashing rules of the Malevolent Shrine were silently annihilated and sucked in as they drew near.
Sukuna's pupils suddenly contracted. It wasn't just a sense of threat, but a sense of familiarity.
A thousand years ago, he seemed to have witnessed a power of a similar nature that touched the underlying rules of the world?
"This move..."
Satoru's voice was nearly a howl, every word carrying blood-flecked foam, "I originally... saved it for monsters like you... or something even more troublesome..."
The seals in his hands finally locked into place. All Cursed Energy, all spirit, and all will, were poured into that purple singularity.
The singularity jerked, stopped rotating, and then—
Collapsed inward!
It wasn't an explosion, but a contraction. It frantically sucked all surrounding light, sound, Cursed Energy, and even space itself into that single "point".
Then, at the instant the contraction reached a certain limit—
"Hollow Technique—"
Satoru used his last ounce of strength to roar out that forbidden name.
"Purple!!!"
Facing this unavoidable, ultimate strike that seemed to even erase existence itself, the look of surprise in Sukuna's four crimson eyes had long been replaced by an unprecedented blazing fighting spirit and absolute focus in the face of a true threat.
"Hollow Technique... Purple... Hahahaha!" Sukuna laughed instead of fearing, his laughter filled with ecstasy.
"That's more like it! That's what deserves to make me get a little serious!"
He no longer held back, his four arms moving simultaneously.
Facing that purple attack that had already extended before him and was about to touch his body, Sukuna's four arms did not choose to confront it head-on, nor did they have time to completely evade.
Instead, he made a move that caused the distant, nearly unconscious Satoru's pupils to constrict sharply.
His four hands simultaneously made a grasping motion toward the direction from which Purple was coming.
In front of the palm of each hand, an extremely miniaturized, yet structurally incredibly complex and dense, dark red 'circle' with black cursed script flowing along its edges instantly condensed and unfolded.
That was the embodiment of Malevolent Shrine's rules, compressed and concentrated in his palm. It was an absolute, small-scale cutting and defense field targeting 'existence' and 'concepts', formed from the highly concentrated rules of 'Dismantle' and 'Cleave'.
A shocking light erupted from Sukuna's four crimson eyes as all his palms 'grasped' fiercely at Purple.
"Stop!!!"
Screeeech——
Purple and the dark red extremely shrunk domain collided violently less than a meter in front of Sukuna.
Purple tried to advance but Sukuna's technique frantically disintegrated and offset the concepts of that 'singularity mass' and 'nothingness'.
Space in that small area shattered, turning into a chaotic paste constantly being born and annihilated.
Crack... Crackle...
A faint, yet heart-stopping sound of shattering came from the dark red 'circles' in front of Sukuna's palms. Those extremely shrunk domains were actually starting to develop cracks under the terrifying power of Purple.
Although Purple itself was also visibly fading and dissipating, it was clear that Sukuna's hastily condensed defense was not enough to completely and unscathedly offset this ultimate strike.
"Hmph!" Sukuna grunted, a fierce glint flashing in his four crimson eyes.
He could feel the bizarre power contained within Purple, as if trying to erase his very existence, penetrating the defense and eroding his Cursed Energy and flesh.
He could hold back no longer!
"Raaaaaaagh!!!"
Sukuna let out a roar.
The wheel, which had been suspended above his head and slowly rotating, suddenly blazed with intense light, its rotation speed skyrocketing. A wave of power, carrying the properties of 'adaptation' and 'analysis', flowed down from the wheel and merged into the extremely shrunk domains.
Bolstered by this new surge of power, the dark red domains' light flared, the spread of cracks abruptly slowed, and they even began to counter-erode, analyze, and assimilate the 'singularity mass' concept contained within Purple.
Finally, under this layered obstruction and the sudden interference of the 'adaptation' property, Purple exhausted its last vestiges of power. When it was only half a foot away from Sukuna's body, it flickered one last time, transforming into countless fragmented purple points of light and dissipating silently.
Meanwhile, the dark red domains before Sukuna's palms also shattered simultaneously as Purple vanished, as if having depleted their energy, turning into a sky full of dark red luminous dust.
"Huff... Huff..."
Sukuna panted slightly.
This was the first time since his revival that he showed the slightest sign of exhaustion and depletion in a direct confrontation. The skin on his four arms, which had just performed that ultimate defense, was covered in large areas of charred, cracked marks, some places even deep enough to reveal bone. The wheel above his head had also dimmed considerably, its rotation sluggish.
He had blocked it.
At the cost of paying a certain price—even utilizing the residual 'adaptation' power of Mahoraga's wheel—he had blocked Satoru's all-or-nothing strike.
In the distance, the moment Purple dissipated, Satoru, who had unleashed this ultimate strike, seemed to have the last trace of his life force drained away. The light of the Six Eyes extinguished, and his body fell stiffly backward, landing heavily on the cold, shattered surface, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
His face was extremely pale, his chest showed almost no rise and fall, and the Cursed Energy fluctuations throughout his body were extremely weak, like a candle flickering in the wind, ready to go out at any moment.
Malevolent Shrine also became somewhat unstable due to Sukuna's injuries and power fluctuations, the sky flickering between light and dark, but it had not been dispelled.
Above the ruins, a deathly silence fell.
Only Sukuna's slightly labored panting and the 'drip, drip' sound of his blood falling from the wounds on his arms could be heard.
Sukuna slowly lowered his head, looking at his injured four arms, then raised his gaze to look at the distant, fallen, unknown if dead or alive Satoru. Complex lights flickered in his four crimson eyes—there was lingering excitement, admiration, and even a sense of emptiness and satisfaction after meeting a worthy opponent and giving his all.
"Hollow Technique... Purple..." Sukuna murmured the name again, as if to etch it deep into his memory, "What a... Gojo Satoru."
"To force me to this point... in a thousand years, you are the first."
"As your reward, I will personally give you a swift end."
The instant his words fell, the wheel above Sukuna's head, which had been slowly rotating counterclockwise all along, stopped without any warning.
Completely still.